For many years, technology experts forecast that the future of computing is in thin client computing; a large powerful central computer running operating systems and applications while out desktop PC are reduced to mere terminals that only send requests to the central computer for everything we needs, similar to the IBM AS400 model. Alas, reality cannot be more different as Amazon and Google demonstrated with the success of their Internet based software using the so called cloud computing.

Microsoft is playing catch up, but they seem determined to catch up fast, when at Microsoft’s Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles, Microsoft’s chief software architect Ray Ozzie as announce their own cloud computing platform called Windows Azure. Azure platform will allows developers to create web applications using  Microsoft development tools and deploy them across Microsoft’s data centers. Some of the highlights of Windows Azure features follows:

• Add Web service capabilities to existing packaged applications.
• Build, modify, and distribute applications to the Web with minimal on-premises resources.
• Perform services (large-volume storage, batch processing, intense or large-volume computations, etc.) off premises.
• Create, test, debug, and distribute Web services quickly and inexpensively.
• Reduce costs of building and extending on-premises resources.
• Reduce the effort and costs of IT management
• Option to run Azure on your own computer or Microsoft data centres.

Amazon was credited with the development of the cloud computing platform, with huge data centres processing millions of  transactions from Amazon ecommerce sites around the world, Amazon basically sell off its spare capacity on it servers to a range of customers ranging from small application developers to huge organisations.

Most good web designers are brilliant at designing new website, they are even better when it comes to giving advise to website owner when reviewing sites created by other web designers, but when their own website is put under the spotlight, the proverb “physician heal thyself” comes to mind. “physician heal thyself”  was the prescription when the website of a team of web designers called Velnet Designs was reviewed.

Velnet Designs website was put under microscope to see what aspect of it is good and what aspect can be improved.  The website colour scheme is excellent, the overwhelming colour used on the site is blue, with a hint of red in the site logo and a dash of red here and there. The site has two navigation menu, a horizontal navigation menu takes you to the top level contents such as web deign, logo design portfolio, enquiry form, contact form and about us for. The horizontal navigation take visitors to deep sections of the site. The two navigation menu works pretty well to make the site very easy to navigate.

The most important contents were laid in columns on the homepage, with deep links that take you to detailed page for each product, this works very well on the site, withing two clicks of the mouse you arrive at any of the important pages on the site.
At the bottom of Velnet Designs, a site map contain links to all the pages on this site, this provide a secondary navigation which strictly speaking is not  necessary giving how well the two principal navigation menu on the site works.

Despite the aforementioned plus, there are areas the site can improve, starting with the site map, it was not well created, it can be improved with a brief description of what to find on the page a link points to.  Velnet Design lacks a search facility, though the site is not that large, however a search facility will be an additional was to find information quickly on the website.  The free web design quote page which is the principal enquiry page for all their product could be improve to make requesting information from Velnet Design easier. The site also does not have and easy way of bookmarking nor does it use any of the social bookmarking tools that could potentially help to make the site popular in social bookmarking sites.

A little bit of lateral thinking can help you get more traffic to you site, as a matter of fact, not just slight traffic but huge significant traffic.  As we all know there are hundreds if not thousands of websites competition for the same keywords, most of them chasing after the same premium keyword that is most popular for their niche, there is not thing wrong with this, its just that using the so called long tailed keywords, you can actually generate much more traffic because you face stiffer competition for this keywords.

An excellent article about long tailed keywords was posted on Boss Cart ecommerce shopping software website, excerpts and link to the article follows:

There might be 1000 web sites or more just like yours on the internet.  So how
do you compete? The “big guys” dominate the search engines, and you might
find it hard to get into the first 20 pages. Many internet users won’t look beyond
the first page of the internet search, almost none look beyond the second or third
Pages. Again, how  do you compete? By knowing something that the “big guys”
don’t.  Enter the long tail.

full long tailed keywords article can be found here

Proxy server can be a very useful service, however like most useful tools or services, in the wrong had it could be misused. Proxy server is used by oranisations to conserve IP, accelerate access to the Internet or other resources on the Internet, LAN and WAN, but it is also a useful tool for criminals, it helps make it very difficult if not impossible to trace criminals who hid behind proxies.

Someone who fell very strongly about this is Michael Swan who has petition the government to change the laws governing proxy server in UK, Michael summarises his argument as follows :

Over many years, we receive lot’s of spam, scams and other malicious emails.People use proxies to send them and this makes them hard to trace.

If you would like to lend your wight to Michael’s petition you can do so by signing this electronic petition.

Queen's visit to Google's headquarters

If the queen was to award royal seal of approval to Google UK, it could read something like this “By Appointment To Her Majesty the Queen, Google UK, purveyor or Internet information” this would have entitled Google UK to join royal warranty holders association, and use the queen’s seal on their website. As customary to Google, they commemorate special occasions with a discreet alteration to their logo, on the occasion of the Queen’s visit to Google’s UK premises, the Queen’s head replaces the ‘g’ in the logo on their website.

While at Google’s UK headquarters, the Queen and Prince Phillips were given a virtual tour of Big Ben and Windsor Castle using Google Earth. The Queen also uploaded a footage to her YouTube channel. Prince  Philip ask Google staff to show him their own office using Google Earth, they could not find it, it happen that the aerial phone that powers Google Earth is yet to be updated since Google’s head office on Buckingham Palace road was built.

The Queen, compared with other monarchs is at the cutting edge of technology, she is on record as the first monarch to send an email way back in 1976, her website went online  21 year later in 1997 and her own YouTube channel was launched in November 2007.