Aldebaran Web Design's Blog

How do you tell the difference between a domain, a sub-domain, and a sub-directory, and what is the difference between the three, and when developing a website which should you use, and for what.

This article is written for those of you who are in the process of looking for a website designer. One of the good things to do when you’re shopping, is to look through the web designer’s portfolio. Most folks looking through a portfolio of websites will notice the obvious, like what the websites look like. This article was written to hopefully help you notice something a big less obvious: whether the web designer is using “real” domains, creating “sub-domains”, or “directories” for his website clients.

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If you’re like me, you do quite of a bit online activities that utilize secure websites. Shopping on online stores, banking, and investing all require a secure connection between your browser and the website you are sending your private information to.

But how often do you notice whether the little padlock in the upper right hand corner of your browser is actually there? This article serves as a reminder to always, always, always check.

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A client of mine recently hired a bookkeeper to do her state and local taxes and was surprised to find out that she should be collecting sales tax on shipping and handling.

I wanted to write this article to provide help for other online retailers who may be asking the same question, because the answer was a bit hard to find.

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(Important: If you’re reading this, you’re NOT on DreamHost’s website, you’re reading my blog. This is AldebaranWebDesign.com, not DreamHost.com - DO NOT CONTACT ME FOR ASSISTANCE - Go To DreamHost.com)

Website hosting, like many other things in life, is not guaranteed to have 100% uptime. There may be times when your website is down, or loading slowly. If you are using DreamHost as your website hosting company, it’s a simple matter to submit a support ticket to find out what’s up and get whatever may be causing the issue resolved. This article assumes you are using DreamHost.com for your website hosting company. Note that I no longer recommend DreamHost to my clients and one of the many reasons is that it’s become too darn hard to contact them. They have no phone number to call, no live chat, and their support ticket turnaround time is too long.

This is an article about something that really bugs me. It’s known as “scraping” and it means that people out there who are too lazy or too dumb to write their own content for their websites, decide to steal it from your blog. From what I understand, it’s not a matter of if it will happen, but when it will happen.

I’ve been finding a few example of my own blog articles appearing in other people’s blogs, and thought I’d share them with you so you can see what this practice looks like.

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NOTE: I no longer recommend using DreamHost to my clients. One of the problems with using their feature is they create a blog.old file that stays there forever. It’s a bad system - I’ve tried to tell them it’s a security issue, they didn’t care. I’ve seen this blog.old file get hacked into over time. The best way to keep your WordPress up to date is to login and watch for updates and do them right from the WordPress Dashboard.

If you’re changing from one website designer to another, it’s important to know how to reset your FTP information in your website hosting account. This article assumes that you have DreamHost as your website hosting company. Note: I no longer recommend DreamHost as a hosting company.

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Ever read a blog article that’s complaining about a company an thought, “I’m sure glad they didn’t write that about me”.

How do you know whether other bloggers have written a blog article about you or your company?

It’s easier than you might think if you know how to use a RSS reader. (If you don’t, read my article on how to use an RSS Feed Reader).

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Many of my website clients, after watching their website traffic statistics, are dismayed to see many people coming to their website leaving after only visiting one page (this is called the “bounce rate“).

They also often see visitors who may look around at several pages and then decide to leave without purchasing anything.

They even see people who were very close to a purchase. Visitors who after adding items to a shopping cart and starting the check out process, left before completing the purchase ( this is called “shopping cart abandonment“). While all of these visitor activities are normal and expected, what’s often surprising to my client is how often they happen.

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If you’re a Washington state business and you ship/deliver goods within Washington state, you need to collect sales tax based on the destination starting in July 2008. This is very different from the current way we do it, which is based on whether the business is based in Washington. It’s quite confusing, and I don’t have it all sorted out, but will be updating this article as I learn more.

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