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This is the second part to the article on Things that you need to stop adding to your blogs. Here I will discuss a few more things that you should not even consider doing to your blogs.

11. Splash pages
Or in other words, those welcoming pages where you need to click on certain image/word(s) before you actually see the content. Your visitors expect to land on your website and see the homepage straightaway but instead, they are presented with a page that tells them to make another click just to get to the main page. Worse, if there is no indication on the splash page as to where to click on to get to the main page. Impatient visitors will just leave and never come back. So do a favour to your visitors and get rid of the splash page.

12. Pop-up messages/windows
Now this is common in personal blogs. Normally the owners would have little pop-up boxes that display messages such as, "Welcome to my blog. Please enjoy your stay. No copying is allowed. Yadda yadda."
While it seems like this is a polite way of greeting your visitors, it is absolutely unnecessary. If you must, you can put your welcoming message somewhere in the sidebar. There's no point in irritating your visitors with that extra JavaScript snippets which would only bloat your website.

13. Stat(istic) counters or hit counters
Back in the early days of the internet this was a big thing to have on a website. For many bloggers, especially the new and budding ones, hit counter is a tool to inflate and feed the ego. The purpose is to show you how many visitors had come to the website before you and also with the hopes that the figure will impress you, thus giving the impression it is a popular page. However, with the increasing number of better website analytical tools, you don't actually need these hit counters anymore. It's better to use the tracking tools which you can monitor from your admin panel and that will actually give you more information about your visitors activities on your website.

14. Light text over bright backgrounds
Normally we will see people using dark or black text on light backgrounds because it makes it easy to read the text. However, when bloggers or website owners start putting light text over bright or high-contrasting backgrounds, that's when the problem comes in. Whenever I see this on any website, I tend to assume the owner simply does not care about the visitors. When designing or creating a blog/website, bear in mind that you are putting it on the internet, which means people will be reading it. Be aware that many people who use the internet have visual impairments, and even for those who have normal eyesights, sometimes we need to squint just to see the text (I certainly don't want to have to put on my sunglasses just to read those damn text). It should be within any website owner conscience to make the texts to be as comfortable to read as possible.

15. Centred text
Oh this a no-no. A lot of new bloggers/website owners make this mistake. Personally I cannot fathom why they want to do this. Not only it makes the website look messy, but having the text/content centred makes it looks a little unorganised because the length at the sides/edges are not the same. Thus visitors sill find it hard to look for the beginning of the line and this will tire their eyes more quickly.

There are loads more things that you shouldn't be doing to your blog/website and I simply touched the tip of it. Remember, just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should.

If you've missed the first part of this article, here's the link to it Things you should stop adding/doing to your blogs - Part 1

Labels: article, web design

Article: Importance of writing with proper grammar

Blogged by: Kitty on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 | Leave a comment

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I initially wanted to blog about the importance of using proper grammar in social media, forums, online newsletters including blogs. However I'm afraid the blog would somehow diverge into bashing people for using incorrect grammar. And that would make sound mean. Then again I was never a 100% amiable person, and I doubt if there's any body who can claim to be so. You'd have to be either a super innocent bum or a complete pillock. So I'll just carry on with this toned down rant and hopefully I'll survive the bashing later.

Just to make things clear, I'm not a grammar Nazi and I don't intend to be one. Nor am I infallible, I do make mistakes occasionally; you'll find some mistakes or missing words all over the website but I assure you, they are all unintentional. And I'm not going to kill people over some misplaced commas or incorrect spellings.

What I can't tolerate is people who intentionally write in incoherent and improper grammar and a splash of misuse of capitalised letters. An example would be "i reiLLy Like this" or "hahas dis is nOt FuNNY". I don't see why I should take anyone seriously if they communicate in this way. It's one thing to try to decipher whatever the person is trying to say (I can't imagine what dyslexic people have to face) but also I just cannot treat the person who writes to me in this proper manner as someone from the intellectual circle. As I said, I'm not a perfect grammarian and I do allow certain variation of words to be used but when it comes to conveying messages to other people, I want my readers to understand the things I say and hence I make the effort to use proper and correct grammar (even if it doesn't always work).

I understand sometimes there's a need of adding in personal touch or tone into the lines. But words written in correct spelling and grammar can achieve the same effect. I've seen a lot of personal blogs written in flawless grammar and spellings and yet, still have the personal touch in them. In fact, before there's such thing as the internet, people took the effort to write (and still do, I believe) lengthy letters to their loved ones in PROPER grammar.

What about using chatspeak in social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace (do people still use this?), etc? Chatspeak to me is also a variation of incorrect use of spelling, "Tlkn lyk dis Is nOt tolratd". Some says it's all right because it is in informal conversation and everybody is doing it anyway. I even received this response from my brother, "nobody bothers to use proper language in Facebook anymore". He's quite right; a lot of people don't bother to type words in full anymore, and I say, well they damn should bother. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean you should too.

This applies to all languages, not just English. I do understand that sometimes when it comes to text messaging on the phone, it is better to use the chatspeak because those extra letters cost money, *sniggers* but when communicating via other medium, do try to make an effort to write in full and in proper grammar because not everyone can understand your (shortened) texts.

Labels: article, proper grammar

Article: Things you need to stop adding/doing to your blogs

Blogged by: Kitty on Friday, January 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

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We all use HTML tags, CSS and sometimes Javascript to improve the presentation of our blog. And I say there's nothing wrong with that. However, when we tend to abuse, or in a more lighter term, overuse them. It makes your website/blog look cluttered and heavy. Moreover, those scripts/code snippets are not necessary so why use them?

Here's a list of tags/codes that you need to stop using:

1. Disable right-click script
I've written an article dedicated entirely on this topic. Basically, this script does nothing but to increase the page load time of your blog and annoy visitors.

2. Blinks and marquees
Blinking texts are not only hard to read, especially those who have visual problems. Please remember that your blog is not solely for your eyes, but also others who happen to drop by your site. Consider their needs as well.

<marquee> tag is another outdated code and should stay in the 90's. But perhaps you'd like to see it yourself?

4. Custom cursors
Custom cursors can be used to make the blog look somewhat aesthetically pleasing. However, I feel that custom cursors should only be used to convey useful functions. More often than not when people use custom cursors on their websites, the cursors do not change its appearance when the page is busy (the default cursor here is the hourglass) or when hovering over links (default cursor: a hand). Changing cursors in a web page can be disorienting and/or annoying to some users and is generally considered bad practice.

5. Comic Sans font
This font is only suitable if you are designing posters slideshow presentations for kids; but on semi-professional professional websites and even blogs, they look as if it's been constructed as a piece of joke.

6. Background music
Unless your blog is a music-related website, this option should not be used. Not all visitors share your taste in music and telling them to turn off their speakers will not please your visitors at all. Here's an article I wrote about background music.

7. Using animated gifs
Splashing your website with animated gifs is soooo outdated. Animated gifs are a type of graphics that have .gif extension and they can be animated by combining a series of images.

8. Misleading or tricking your visitors
Often I see blogs with a "Click here" link or button. With no explanation whatsover, the blog owner invites the visitors to click on the link. Visitors eventually find themselves clicking on a referral link that leads them to a different website. To be frank, this is extremely annoying. When visitors come to your blog, they would expect this 'surprise link' to be something useful for them. However it comes to be the opposite.

9. Giving the wrong credits
It is highly annoying when I see people crediting Google for the images/resources they get from the internet. Google is not the source where those resources come from. It is a search engine and it only displays the links as to where you can get the resources from. Imagine someone was to take something from your blog and credit Google for it instead. Wouldn't it piss you off too?

10. Putting warnings in source code.
Putting warning notes in source code is a childish act. Threatening visitors with words like "I'll gorge your eyes out if you steal my codes" do not scare off the "stealers" but instead, make you sound as if you have an inferiority complex.

If you are interested in this article, there a second part to it. Things you need to stop adding/doing to your blogs

Labels: article, web design

Article: Website reviews

Blogged by: Kitty on Saturday, October 01, 2011 | Leave a comment

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I've seen a lot of personal website owners offering services such as website reviews. Personally I feel this is a good approach by website owners to help other website owners to improve their web design skills. However, most of these website review sites only focus on general things like design, graphics/ layouts and content and tend to neglect other aspects.

Here is a general breakdown of what I think a website review site should include in their reviews:

First impressions

Navigation

Coding and validation

Content

Design

Browser compatibility

Errors

Overall opinion

Of course different people will have different ideas on how the reviews should be done and I'm positive not everyone will agree with what I have mentioned above. But just be reminded that a website review is not merely about reviewing what you can see from your browser, but also what's behind the layout and all the tangible things that come with it as well. And a reviewer must be professional and impartial enough. The reviewers should actually point out the errors or discrepancies in the website and not simply sugar-coating their words by saying things like, "Oh I love your layout" or "Your blends look great!" or "Your CSS is really unique". (Especially the last one, WTF is that supposed to mean?)

Previously I've been asked if I would do reviews on websites and I've politely declined on the basis of I didn't see myself as a qualified person to review other people's websites. And to this day I still feel that way. Back in 2009 I've posted a short blog on website reviews and the comments I received actually conveyed my points even more clearly than I did. I especially like the comments by Kersheys and Amber. Both of them mentioned that a reviewer should at least have sufficient knowledge in the subject before going into reviewing.

Of course, I don't mean to hold you back from doing reviews because if you've got what it takes to write good and constructive reviews, by all means do go ahead. :) And before you decide to bash me for saying all this, take a moment and ponder the words.

But if you still want me to review your website, by all means leave a message/email and I'll get back to you as soon as I can. I will try my best to give you a professional review.

Labels: article, review

Article: Alternative commenting system?

Blogged by: Kitty on Monday, September 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

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In my previous post I mentioned about the issue over comments not submitted/posted if a visitor is using Mozilla Firefox to view this website. The issue seems to come from third party cookies being blocked. However, I've enabled them in the browser but the error still persists. So far I haven't worked out any solution to that except those who wish to leave comments on Blogger sites have to make sure third party cookies have been enabled on their browsers or use other browsers other than Firefox.

In the meanwhile I've also experimented with other commenting system that can be used on Blogger. For the last few hours I've been toying with Intense Debate and Disqus. Both commenting systems have far more features than the default Blogger commenting system and so reputedly perform much better than Blogger's. Now these two systems have been said to be non-compatible with Blogger Classic template and for some time that seems to be true. But I've managed to work around it and I've successfully tested them on Blogger Classic templates. :)

On how I did it, I'll post the methods in the next post.

Labels: article, commenting system

Article: Earning money with your blog - Part 2

Blogged by: Kitty on Saturday, June 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

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This is the continuation to Earning money with your blog - Part 1. If you missed that one, you can click on the link to read the article.

As usual, just a little reminder, most of the links above are referral links so it would be great if you do not remove it. I would appreciate if you would put me as your referrer if you decide to join any of the websites. Thank you. :)
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Article: Earning money with your blog

Blogged by: Kitty on Tuesday, June 07, 2011 | Leave a comment

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In this particular post I'm going to share with you guys how I make money from the internet. I know I've posted a similar post some time ago but this one is rather an updated version of it. :D
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Article: Stupid background music

Blogged by: Kitty on Wednesday, May 04, 2011 | Leave a comment

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If there's anything else I hate aside from people abusing Javascripts, it's those who put bleeding music on their websites that are set to auto-play when a visitor comes in.

I hate going to sites that have background music. Mind you, I have nothing against the owner or the site, I just dislike having forced to listen to the music while reading the blog posts. Plus, I’m the kind of person who gets distracted easily. I cannot concentrate on what I’m reading with some cheesy music blaring from my laptop’s speakers. The worse kind is when the music is embedded in the background where there is NO stop/pause button for you to turn the music off. With music widgets, at least there’s a button for you to click. You might say, “For God sake, just leave the website”. I can, and I would do so, but what if I find the website have some interesting posts and I want to read them? Or you can say, “turn off the speakers then”, but what if I don’t want to because I want to listen to my own songs? Shouldn’t it be your responsibility to cater to your visitors’ needs, hmm? Sure it is your website, but the point of having it on the web is so that other people can enjoy looking at it too. This is not just about you, otherwise why bloody put it on the internet in the first place?

I think this is something that all bloggers/web owners must realise and take account; that not everyone likes to listen to sound/music when they are browsing through a website/blog. Even if they DO, they may not like listening to your music. Everybody have different taste for music, you know?

Labels: article, background music

Article: Disabling right-click, a waste of effort

Blogged by: Kitty on Monday, May 02, 2011 | Leave a comment

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It surprises me that a lot of website owners out there still practises no right-clicking on their websites. I honestly thought this practice have died out or at least, significantly reduced. Apparently not so.

So anyway, what is this argument about disabling right-click? Let's take the journey from the beginning.

A couple of years ago, many website owners embraced a Javascript script that allows a website owner to disable visitors who the visit the website from clicking the right-side button of the mouse (hence the term right-click). Majority the argument is to prevent visitors from stealing the content (source code, images, text, etc.) of the website by inserting the Javascript snippet into the page. And many thought this is a fail-safe protection. Wrong. While the method may frustrate and stop the non-web savvy people, it definitely does not stop those who are more technically adept.

To cut the story short, the disable right-click script can be defeated in a couple of ways.

Method 1
If you are using Google Chrome, the quickest way to defeat it is by pressing CTRL+U on your keyboard. A window will pop-up which displays the entire source code of your webpage. A similar method can be employed on other browsers. A visitor can click on the Tools on the browser toolbar menu and click on the View source link.

Method 2
Visitors can save your pages to view them later. So even they are not connected to the internet, they can still view your page source.

Method 3
By simply switching off Javascript in the browser will render your little Javascript codes useless. Tadaa!

In certain circumstances, a website owner may want to protect the contents of the website. After all, it is a concern to any website owners about the security of their work. However, resorting to disabling right-click is not a wise option. You could try watermarking your images, or submitting your work for copyright protections.

By disabling right-click you actually reduce the user experience of your visitors and definitely piss them off. It also shows the level of your maturity and there is no sense of trust between you and your visitors.

It is amusing that people thought they could protect the webpage source codes by scaring people with threats that sound like this:
"Don't steal or I'll rip out your eyes". Not only this sounds childish (and I'd like to see you come over to my place and rip my eyes off their sockets, for which you will commit a crime), you are making a fool of yourself.

Whenever I come across sites that employ no right-click, especially the ones that come with pop-up boxes that say things like "No stealing!" or "Right-click is prohibited", they actually tempt me to break into their source codes, take pictures of it and throw them into the owners' faces, "Take that, you silly git".

Some months ago, I replied to a thread on a message board. The first poster posted up a tutorial on how to disable right-click. I pointed out how useless it is. The response I got for saying this was interesting. Someone replied,"



hey, she's just trying to help. if you don't find this useful, then don't open it kay.

Stupid response.

Let me make this clear. First of all, a tutorial is supposed to help out by giving a solution that actually WORKS (without flaw preferably). So how is providing a tutorial that isn't going to accomplish the job going to help anybody?

Secondly, the reason why I open the page in the first place is to point out to people so they would be aware of the truth before jumping to conclusion that this script is going to solve their problem.

In short, if you're too paranoid about people stealing your stuff, don't put it on the internet.

After reading this article, ask yourself this question: Is it worth adding that extra snippet of codes that is not even useful?

Labels: article, disable right-click

Article: Replacing deprecated tags

Blogged by: Kitty on Thursday, January 06, 2011 | Leave a comment

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In this article, I will be listing out some HTML tags that are deprecated¹ along with its alternative.


<applet> replaced by <object>
<basefont> replaced by font style sheets
<center> replaced by inline styling or you can use CSS for this
<font>         replaced by CSS for fonts
<s>, <strike> replaced by <del>
<u>             replaced by     <ins>

Along with the deprecated tags, there are also certain tags that you should not use to stylise your text such as and . The reason why I include them in this article is because many website owners make the mistake of abusing them when coding their web pages. You might say that you need them to stylise certain text/words in your web pages but you must remember that tags do not necessarily imply a strong emphasis and do not necessarily imply lighter emphasis. Rather, you should use and instead.

¹Tags that have been superseded by more flexible alternatives, in other words, tags that have been phased out.

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Article: On copyright infringement

Blogged by: Kitty on Wednesday, January 05, 2011 | Leave a comment

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This article is a short reproduction of OMG, I infringed the copyright!

Many times over this issue has been debated but still there are lots of people who choose to ignore. While many people think that resources that are available on the internet are for public use, the truth is, most of them are not. Just because there is no copyright notice, people incorrectly assume that those works are part of the public domain and free to use.

Again, the argument stands on people claiming that it is OKAY to copy and redistribute the works as long as they're not used commercially. There is some truth to this statement, however, it is only applicable if the work has been labelled so, or you have a written permission from the original author. It is worth to note that even if the authorities are not chasing after you, it is still (morally) wrong to condone this act of infringement.

It is understandable that in some cases, changes are necessary to be made upon the designs so I suggest, find out works that are labelled under Creative Common Licenses that allow you to copy, display or even distribute it (for commercial/non-commercial purposes). Most of these licenses would require a credit back to the original author. And if you can't find any licenses attached to the works, it is a safe bet to directly contact the author if possible. If it isn't, then put a credit/disclaimer somewhere near the image. This small act can save you from big trouble later on.

If you feel you need to more about this, I recommend Jem's article on copyright violation.

Labels: article, copyright

Article: Stop abusing JavaScripts

Blogged by: Kitty on Tuesday, January 04, 2011 | Leave a comment

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Have you ever wondered that some web pages are incredibly slow to load up and you know that it is not your internet connection going wonky? You waited for a minute, then three, you left your computer to grab some snacks and when you come back fifteen minutes later the page is still loading and in frustration you decide to left the website altogether. There could be multitude of reasons of why the loading up is slow but one of them is probably the web page contains too much of JavaScript.

Yes, you heard me right. Too much JavaScript.

I know that many website owners like to spiff up their web pages by adding in JavaScript in the hope that they have killer websites. While this may be true to some extent but too much of it can kill your website instead. This is because, the more scripts used on the web page, it slower the page load time because the visitors' browsers will need to load up those scripts before they can render the web page contents.

What you can do?
Remove unnecessary scripts like pop-up messages (yes I know lots of people this script), disable right-click script (an even more popular one) because you really don't need them.
However, there are a couple of JavaScripts that you do need (for tracking purposes, for example) so in order to prevent them from getting in the way of faster load up time is by placing them at the end of the web page.

Labels: article, JavaScript

Guide: Buying from Yahoo Auctions Japan with Buyee.jp

Blogged by: Kitty on Thursday, April 10, 2014 | Leave a comment

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This guide is copied and pasted from my Tumblr account.

Labels: article, Buyee, guide, online shopping, Yahoo Auctions Japan

Guide: Useful web hosting guide!

Blogged by: Kitty on Thursday, December 05, 2013 | Leave a comment

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Image courtesy of Entersys.lk

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Article: Things you should not put in your personal blog

Blogged by: Kitty on Saturday, July 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

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1. Your full name

2. Where you live

3. Your family members', friends', acquaintances' full names

4. Where you work/study

5. Where you will be and when

6. Your personal contact details (phone numbers, mailing addresses)

7. Pictures that can identify where you live/work/study

8. Your car's plate license

9. Travel itinerary

10. Bank account details

Labels: article

Artikel: Kenapa nak berbahasa Inggeris?

Blogged by: Kitty on Monday, July 09, 2012 | Leave a comment

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Labels: article, language

Article: Things you need to stop adding/doing to your blogs - Part 2

Blogged by: Kitty on Monday, June 04, 2012 | Leave a comment

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Article: Importance of writing with proper grammar

Blogged by: Kitty on Wednesday, April 04, 2012 | Leave a comment

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Labels: article, proper grammar

Article: Things you need to stop adding/doing to your blogs

Blogged by: Kitty on Friday, January 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

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Article: Website reviews

Blogged by: Kitty on Saturday, October 01, 2011 | Leave a comment

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First impressions

Navigation

Coding and validation

Content

Design

Browser compatibility

Errors

Overall opinion

Labels: article, review

Article: Alternative commenting system?

Blogged by: Kitty on Monday, September 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

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Article: Earning money with your blog - Part 2

Blogged by: Kitty on Saturday, June 11, 2011 | Leave a comment

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Article: Earning money with your blog

Blogged by: Kitty on Tuesday, June 07, 2011 | Leave a comment

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Article: Stupid background music

Blogged by: Kitty on Wednesday, May 04, 2011 | Leave a comment

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