Here’s how you do it!

Click on the little gear in the top right hand side of your browser, and choose “Labs”

Find the one called “Preview Pane”, and Enable it.

Now, when you get back to your Inbox, on the top right hand side, you should see a drop down near your message count and previous/next buttons.

Click on the down arrow, and you can then choose how you want your preview pane to appear, No Split, Horizontal Split, or Vertical Split. For larger screens, the Vertical Split is very nice!

Enjoy!

With 18 month old twins, and a 4 year old, our trips to the grocery store are filled with laughter, tears, tantrums, and arguments, and that’s just my wife and I.

So, suffice it to say, we need to be organized, and attack that store with a strategic approach.

Luckily, my wife is a bit of a gadget geek too, so we both use the Our Groceries application for our phones. You can set up multiple shopping lists, and even create recipes that will add all the ingredients to your list with one click. You can also categorize each item based on the location/aisle in the grocery store.

The greatest feature however is the ability to synchronize multiple devices. So, as I start at the dairy aisle, and my wife starts at the produce, we can see as the other person checks things off the list in real time!

It’s a very simple application to use, and helps us save time and money at the store, even though we do look a little geeky while we shop.

Easily search for: Movies, Restaurants, Events, Businesses, or People. And each of those categories breaks down into more specific searches. For example, click on Restaurants, then you can either see all restaurants nearby, or search by a specific cuisine if you’re in the mood for something in particular. The best part is that if the restaurant uses “OpenTable”, you can place a reservation directly from the app. Otherwise, you are given a one click option to call the business, view their website, see the location on a map, get directions, and more.

It’s an amazing way to discover new things whether you’re in your own neighbourhood, or visiting a new place. It’s also made in Canada, which is pretty cool.

Poynt is available for: iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and WP7. Visit your phone’s application store/market/place to download.

Find out more at www.poynt.com

So, what do you buy that special Geek/Gadget freak for Christmas?

1. A Smartphone – This one is a really bad gift unless you know they really want the commitment. Sure, you’re paying the up-front costs, but you’re also sticking them with a monthly bill of $60 or more. may be a good idea to offer to pay for a few months of usage. There are tons of models out there, and it will all depend on the person you’re shopping for. The safe bet is an iPhone, as it has mass appeal, is simple to use, and is also an iPod, so you can skip my next gift idea. I would buy my wife an iPhone if I was to get her a phone as a gift. For the geek out there, I think an Android phone is the way to go! If the person is all about work, and has no idea what the internet is, then go with a Blackberry.

2. MP3 Player – Yeah, I’m not even going to pretend that there are other options out there. Get them an iPod Touch.

3. GPS – This is a tough one. With most Smartphones having GPS, and some moving towards a turn-by-turn GPS function (Google Maps Navigation for Android!!!), it will eventually get to a point where it’s all in one device. Until then, a car GPS is pretty cool. Look for one with Bluetooth so they can pair it with that Smartphone and not break the hands-free law in Ontario.

4. Laptop – Depending on the need, you can go anywhere from an ultra-portable Netbook (I recommend the Asus EeePC) to a big screen workhorse. You can pay anywhere from $250 to $4000 for something like this.

5. Pretty much anything from ThinkGeek. This is the ultimate online store for everything Geek. They have a great selection of gadgets, t-shirts, and just fun stuff.

Have a great holiday season!

Brandon, the Geek

Some people like the good old “let’s throw it all on the wall and see what sticks” approach, including their life stories, complete history, and in-depth essays on why you should choose them. That may have worked 10 years ago, but the times they are a changin’.

Here is my personal list of things that I don’t think belong on a website. Keep in mind that this is a general list, and there is sometimes a specific need for some of these things.

1. Page Hit Counter – This was huge in the 90′s. You remember, the little ticker at the bottom of the page that bragged to the world that 47 people have been to your site. Not only is this unnecessary information, but it also can show your client something you may not want them to know.

2. Scrolling information or text – If you want someone to read something, maybe making it a moving target isn’t the best idea.

3. Too many words! There is always a shorter way of saying something, no matter how complicated. Try to keep your text down to 35 words. Yes, this is sometimes a difficult feat, but that’s where a professional copywriter may come in handy. They can take a step back, analyze what you are trying to convey, and do it in a way that someone outside of your organization can understand.

4. Don’t make them guess. Keep the navigation and page elements simple, well thought-out, and logical! If it’s a chore for a user to find something on your site, you can pretty much guarantee that they will give up and go somewhere else. Go the extra mile, and get some wireframes done before building a website. This way, it can be tested, proven, and then built from a solid user interface.

5. Flash Intros/Excessive Use of Flash – I don’t think I have to explain this one. Never make people wait to get into your site. Flash, if used tastefully can add a dynamic feel to a site, and draw the eye to a specific area. However, it’s been overused though, and sometimes to sickening, seizure inducing levels.

6. Outdated information – Keep it fresh. If your last news item is from 2004, then maybe it’s time to either update that, or get rid of it all together.

That’s just a small list of things, but as I mentioned in item number 3, keep the words to a minimum!

Personally, I think the free part is great, but also a necessity for Microsoft. If you are going to make a product with holes in it, then you should work at plugging those holes. Not to mention the giant target on the Operating System’s back due to the amount of market share it has. Why make a virus that infects only a small percent of the population when so many people can be hit by a Windows virus. Although, for you Mac users, there are viruses out there, and as more people move to a Mac, it will only get worse. The scary part of this is that most Mac users have that “There is no such thing as a virus for US, so I don’t even need internet security!”.

There is something to note though, that any antivirus program is not bulletproof. They are reactionary. As a new virus comes out, they have to then protect against it. So, it’s always good to use simple common sense:

1. Update your system! Make sure you update your Operating System, antivirus program, Adobe Acrobat, Flash, your web browsers, and more. All of them will have vulnerabilities over time.

2. Don’t download questionable files!

3. Don’t install something just because someone on Twitter, Facebook…tells you to! If it seems suspect, it most likely is.

This is where it gets tricky. It seems that most people who use a browser other than IE tend to actually update their browser more than once every 5 years. This helps keep up with the momentum and progression of web technologies and techniques. This would be kind of like renting a Blue-Ray, slapping it into your VCR, and wondering why things aren’t working properly.

I am very happy to say that more than half the visitors to the kitestring website are using something other than IE! Within the group of Firefox users, only 1.53% are using version 2, whereas for Internet Explorer, 40% are still using version 7, and a painful 12.81% are still using the extremely outdated IE6. Worldwide, IE6 still accounts for 20% of browser use.

How much of the online world has changed since 2001? A lot! And that is just from an end user’s perspective. There have been even more changes from a developer’s perspective, and an outdated (9 YEARS OLD!!!) browser, isn’t helping. The added fact that Microsoft chooses to forego standards within it’s browsers (even version 8 ) is only complicating matters further. The most frustrating thing in almost any developers day is creating a standards compliant website, then finally testing in IE, and the cursing begins.

The big question is, how far back do we go with cross-browser testing? Should a client have to pay for the extreme amount of work that goes into making a modern site work in something as archaic as Internet Explorer 6 and 7?

Web development is hardly just a copy and paste, drag and drop world, it combines the best of design and development, colours and mathematics to make a great, usable, universally accessible website.

So, please, update your browser. Please.

See http://www.bringdownie6.com/ for more information.

Check out Best Buy, Future Shop, or your software dealer of choice to pre-order!

One thing to note is that they do recommend a clean install, which means that you will be starting from scratch. Although, sometimes cleaning up like that is a good thing.

We’ve been getting a lot of questions about SEO lately, so I thought I would post something about the topic. SEO is a way to OPTIMIZE your site so that search engines can find it properly. Search engines send “robots” out, and if they actually like your site enough to list it where you want them to, they will. Now, the reason I highlighted the word optimize is because there are good and bad ways to do this.

When I think of optimize, I think of making improvements to a site, however, some people take it in a totally different direction and try to trick, or take advantage of the search engine robots that scour your site. This is what we call Black Hat SEO. The reason this is bad is that, let’s face it, none of us are as smart as the people at Google; they are constantly changing their algorithm to look for these types of things, and if they do spot any black hat techniques, your rank can drop dramatically.

So, my advice to you is to avoid anyone who claims that they will get you to the #1 spot on Google for a generic keyword or search. Unless that search is for your exact company name and location, there are no guarantees (and even that can be iffy!).

What you should look for:

1. Make sure your site is optimized on a basic level. There are certain things on a programming level that should be done in order to help your chances at getting ranked higher. Have someone take a look at your site, these things are very easy to spot. Most good web designers will automatically add these by habit.

2. Look for an honest firm to implement an SEO Plan. Again, there is no silver bullet here, and a good SEO plan will take time and tweaking in order to get any true, lasting results. The plan should be monitored, changed, and tested at regular intervals.

3. Pick a couple of terms to start with, and don’t shoot for the stars. A good SEO Plan will be able to help you raise your rank for your industry in your location, but may not be able to get too much traction as just a generic term. If I sold bikes, I highly doubt that I could rank #1 for a search for “Bikes” on Google. Not with all the bike manufacturers that take up the first three pages. However, if I was to focus on “Hamilton Bikes”, there is a much better chance.

4. Don’t rush. This will take time, and more importantly patience, but once you get there, it will all be worth it.

Hope that helped. If there are any questions, make them on this post, or email me at: brandon(at)kitestring(dot)ca.