I needed to spell check a web page today. A little looking led me to this neat on-line utility that checks spelling and much more. It output the errors in alphabetical order with line number references. Very handy. It did not know common terms like Blog, however and reported them as spelling errors.

Not long ago Google launched a beta service enabling web site owners / developers to create and submit a sitemap. The aim of this is to assist Google / Googlebot with the indexing of every page in your web site, using a standard XML format that lists every URL.

Popular reaction was undoubtedly to embrace this opportunity and start creating sitemaps straight away. Call me simple if you like, but when I started reading Google’s instructions I found it very confusing and very daunting. I consider myself to be highly competent in (x)HTML, JavaScript, and CSS, but like many have had no exposure to XML format. The link to the Sitemap Generator looked promising (I was hoping for “Sitemaps for Dummies”) only to find that you need to have / understand Python to use it. It all looked too hard when I first saw it, so I shelved the idea for another day.
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I am developing a new site for a client, and set him the task of finding his own web hosting. I gave him a list of requirements which included perl / cgi access, and therefore a Unix / Linux server operating system. He shopped around and decided GoDaddy.com had a package that would suit his needs. I agreed with the specs and he went ahead.

Several weeks have passed and last night I logged in to the server via FTP to start uploading files, and was a little surprised to see no cgi-bin. A bit of hunting around revealed that I was in the unfamiliar environment of a Windows NT server, meaning that a cgi-bin would be redundant as would the use of perl / cgi scripts for forms and a shopping cart.

Oops! Someone made a mistake that I would have to live with.

I pondered that the real problem here was not whether a Linux or Windows server would be ‘better’, but that under a Windows server environment I would need a crash course in ASP. That would slow my progress on the site significantly.

As I pouted to myself I asked my client to approach GoDaddy and see if the hosting could be moved from a Windows server to a Linux server without incurring a financial penalty. I expected no joy and prepared to research ASP, however the following happened:

• GoDaddy Tech Support sent an automated acknowledgement to my client;
• Tech Support then responded in detail on the same day;
• The advice was to log-in at their site and make the necessary changes at a “My Account” screen;
• A simple radio button and submit button enables a change in server operating systems (“ASP to CGI Hosting”) that is free, and takes 24 hours to update / complete.

I am still amazed at how flexible this approach is! I thought for sure that a host would have a list of hurdles and hoops such as payment of a change fee, cancellation of account / establishment of a new account, or some other bureaucratic approach to penalising you for being a nuisance. But the GoDaddy service proposition is a stand-out, and I think sets the standard for other hosts (and ISPs, come to think of it) in terms of putting customers first.

I’m impressed!

Sites like ours that take Paypal (see the donation link at the bottom of each of our pages) have long suffered from a misperception that we do not take credit cards. In fact, Paypal has for a long time permitted people without paypal accounts to complete there transaction using just a credit card — so go ahead and donate here if you wish :-). Anyway, a story on story on News.Com unveils a new plan by Paypal to offer a virtual merchants account that would allow buyers on a merchant site to complete a Paypal/Credit Card transaction without leaving the merchant’s site. The cost for the transaction is the same as the current cost, but there is apparently going to be a $20 per month charge for that. For any kind of volume at all, it just might be worth it.

Tired of guessing or using trial and error to see what font will work for a project?

Look no further. The STC Font Browser runs in your browser window, immediately shows the True Type fonts installed on your system, and lets you edit the text as well as size you’d like to preview. Happy fonting!