Irish Webmasters

I awoke this morning to find that Herself had left me out a fresh shirt and trousers, during the night.

I’m not quite sure why, as the ones I was wearing were clean.  At least, they were four weeks ago.

I am very fussy about my clothes. 

Shoes must be comfortable, and I hate leather soles, because they are slippery.  Runners tend to fit the bill here, but I draw the line at the one that have little flashy lights in them.

Socks must be above the ankles.  I don’t see the point in socks that don’t even reach the top of the shoe.  I also hate socks that have worn out at the toe, as it is very uncomfortable walking with a big toe sticking through a hole.  Sometimes, I even wear matching socks, but not often.

Trousers must have deep pockets.  I have a lot of things to keep in my pockets, so capacity is of prime importance.  They must also have zip flies.  I hate buttons.  They are fiddley and after a while I tend not to bother doing them up, which has led to some awkward moments in the village.

I am very fussy about shirts.  My shirt must have a breast pocket, for holding my drinking money.  For some reason, shirts with pockets are out of favour, and are not that easy to find.  I also will not wear a shirt that has writing on it.  I don’t see the point in paying good money for something, and then walking around like an advertising billboard.  The exception to this is when the writing is funny.

I was in a pub a while ago, and there was a girl there.  Frankly, the poor cow wasn’t much to look at facially, but she had a fantastic figure.  She was wearing tight jeans and a white t-shirt.  The t-shirt had two arrows on it pointing upwards and the text “my eyes are up here”.  This was written across her rather alluring chest.  I had a white shirt on at the time, so I nipped into the Gents, and customised it with a pen.  I then went out, found the girl and plonked myself in front of her, and had a good long look at her tits.  I had put two arrows on my shirt pointing downwards, with the text “My brain is down here”.  She wasn’t amused.

Where was I?  Oh yes.  Clothes.

The shirt Herself left out for me has no breast pocket.

I thought I had destroyed all the pocketless shirts, but apparently not.  I have just put a large hole in it by spilling some burning pipe tobacco.  I’ll dump it shortly, and find a decent shirt.

At least the trousers have a zip.

When I go down to the village later, I won’t be airing my differences.

Stephane mentioned the sales of auto.fr and voitures.fr, which are two premium names, being dictionary terms.

What's interesting about these sales is that both names were supposedly bought by the same buyer and that they have set a new record for .fr sales.

While porn.fr may have sold for €30k, auto.fr went for €100k via Sedo and voitures.fr fetched a very respectable €50k.

So cars are worth more in France than sex?

Possibly. Who knows?

The latest IE dispute decision has been published by WIPO and concerns the domain taxassist.ie

The complainant holds several trademarks and other prior rights in the name, but the panel did make it very clear that any of the pending trademark applications and other rights that were established by the complainant after the registration were not taken into account:

Many of the rights relied upon by the Complainant are either, pending applications or rights that accrued after the date of registration of the domain name in dispute on July 30, 2007 and as such merely serve to confuse the issues.

Another interesting element refers to the supposed 24/7 nature of online business:

The Registrant has argued that the Center has miscalculated the date for filing of the Response essentially arguing that because domain names can be registered on a 24/7/365 basis, every day is a working day. Having considered the arguments this Administrative Panel rejects these arguments. If the IEDR Policy had intended such an interpretation, it would not have been necessary to refer to "working days" as a reference merely to "days" would have been sufficient.

The problem with the registrants argument here is that the registry does not process domain registrations 24/7. While it is possible to request a domain at any time the actual registration of IE domains can only be concluded during business hours.

In any case the taxassist.ie case resulted in the domain being awarded to the complainant based on both their existing trademarks and extensive usage of the name.

While everyone should accept that hosting and domain registration is a business I've always felt that some companies employ quite questionable tactics to retain customers.

The charge that stands out is that some companies levy to "release" a domain name.

While the entire debate about locks and restrictions for inter-registrar transfers has been discussed at some length at the ICANN level it's barely been broached in Nominet (*.uk) circles.

Why is it that some Nominet registrars levy fees for releasing domains?

Why are the fees so high?

Why doesn't Nominet act in the registrant's interest?

If you know of a registrar that is levying high fees for releasing co.uk domains either let me know via the comments or email me directly, as I'd be interested in putting together a more comprehensive report of this activity.

There are people in this world who annoy me.  I know you will find that surprising, but it’s a fact.

These would include people who try to push me around or SUV drivers.

Then there are the people who I actively hate.

I’m talking now of the pond life who spend their time sending me pathetic emails about my manhood and how to make my woman roar like a tiger.

At the very bottom of the food chain, there is a species of low life.

This species sets out to damage things just for the fun of it.  I would include petty vandals and hackers in this category.

There is however a newly discovered life-form, which is actually so far down the food chain that they have dropped off the scale.  They make amoebas look like prime candidates for Mensa.

I came across one of these new life-forms today.

I got an email from the Jack and Jill Foundation to say that their web site had been hacked.

This is a charity web site, for fuck’s sake!  What kind of mentality hacks a charity site?

I restored the site to its pristine glory.  It wasn’t easy, as Low Life had deleted all users except himself and had inserted code all over the place.

I can insert code too.

I left his access in place.

But the next time he logs in, he will activate a script.

I don’t know when he will next log in. 

But I would advise the immediate evacuation of Turkey, just in case.

*heh*

A couple of nice freebies for your image library, courtesy of iStockphoto. Free High Quality Photograph Free Vector

Irish and international media's interest was sparked in recent months by the dispute over the domain narnia.mobi

Now unless you've been living in a very dark cave far away from the rest of civilised society for the last fifty years, then you'd know that Narnia is the literary invention of CS Lewis. You might also know that Disney has made two films based on the first two books in the Narnia series, with more due to be made.

So what was the dispute about?

According to the registrant:

The Respondent asserts that the sole reason for registering the disputed domain name was to provide his son with an email address containing "Narnia" as a gift. According to the Respondent, his son is an enthusiastic fan of "The Chronicles of Narnia" books. The Respondent registered the disputed domain name shortly after the release of the first "Narnia" movie, at which time his son was nine years old. The Respondent alleges he decided to present his son with this gift on the event of his eleventh birthday on May 20, 2008, corresponding to the release of the second "Narnia" film in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ("United Kingdom").

So the question I'd have to ask is why the respondent deemed it necessary to register someone else's trademark. If all they wanted was a domain "containing" Narnia surely they could have opted for something else?

You can read the full decision on the WIPO site.

While the decision was, in many respects, a forgone conclusion, there are some interesting points raised in the decision about what exactly constitutes "bad faith" and how the burden of proof might be distributed.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Family lose Narnia web name fight
• Estate of C.S. Lewis wages war over Narnia domain name
• Lewis estate takes on child in new battle for Narnia
• Lewis estate takes on 11-year-old in new battle of Narnia
• Scots family in Narnia.mobi domain spat
• Narnia.mobi Brings About Legal Action

Penguin are giving away books - the only catch being you have to write a review of the book you get within 6 weeks of receiving it.

More info on their special holiday reading site

I feel curiously ill at ease today.

This morning, I dropped the car down to Spanner for its two-yearly service.  I didn’t actually drop it, but you know what I mean.

So now I am stuck in the Manor for the day.

I had no intentions of going anywhere today, so why am I edgy?  If I want anything from the village, I can walk.  If I want to go any further, I can always phone our K8.  I know she will drive me anywhere I want [if she doesn't want me to publish her diaries from her teen years, that is].

I get the car serviced every couple of years.  It doesn’t really need it this time, but it’s better to be safe.  I also need a wing mirror replaced.  It was broken by a little bastard on a push-bike when he insisted on cycling too near my car.  I’m going to sue the little fucker once he gets out of hospital.

It is a curious feeling, that I can’t just hop into the car and drive to Cavan.  Why the hell I should want to drive to Cavan, I don’t know, but I can’t do it now, anyway.

I did ask Spanner if he had a Courtesy Car I could use.  After he finished laughing, he said he’d do me the courtesy of not repeating that down in the pub.

So I am stuck here for the day.  Maybe I’m stuck here longer, if Spanner can’t find a spare mirror off one of the wrecks in the sand pit.

If Brian ‘the Fucker’ Cowan wants my advice on urgent matters of state, he is going to have to come here for a change.

If you haven't come across the Vector Magic website before, and you're interested in creating vector graphics, then go and visit it now! You can upload your rasterised images to the site and they will be converted to a good quality vector. It's particularly useful if you have a logo ...

Although there are serious concerns about future productions, last year was a good year for British movies. According to figures released by the UK Film Council, British films raked in $3 billion last year, an increase of 50% over the previous year.

Film such as "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix", "The Golden Compass" and "The Bourne Supremacy" helped British take 29% of the domestic box office, 16% in Europe and 12% in the US.

These successes are of course driven by the major (US) studios. The Council also points to the success of "Control" and "This is England" as examples of more specifically British film-making (although Anton Corbijn is in fact a Dutchman). Films to look forward to include new Bond and Potter movies as well as "Brideshead Revisited".

What have we done to the Gormleys that they are inflicting the dimwits of their family on us?

First we have to contend with John ‘Gormless’ Gormley and his pathetic ‘Greening’ of the government.

Now we have to put up with another monstrosity, again inflicted on us by a Gormley.

Apparently the green [sic] light has been given for a hideous eyesore to be dumped in the Liffey.

I don’t mind statues.  I can take ‘em or leave ‘em.  But when the fucking thing is 46 meters, or 150 feet high there is no getting away from it.

I think it looks terrible.  It dominates the whole skyline and looks oppressive.  It says nothing to me.  It merely represents an ego trip for the artist who has modelled the form on himself.  If it were a water feature that ejected water from roughly half way up, I would say that it is representative of the modern Irish.

Could someone please tell me what it is for [apart from wasting €1.6 million of our money, of course]?

Unless, of course it is Irelands answer to The Wicker Man, and they are going to stuff it fill of all the drug dealers, crime barons and other politicians, and set fire to it?

I have spent the morning over on Bock’s site.

Andrew J Hanlon

I have been reading the full story of Andrew Hanlon, and his death on the 30th June last.  It makes for very disturbing reading.

The facts, as far as I can ascertain are:

• Andrew Hanlon [20] from Dundrum was shot down and killed in Oregon on Monday the 30th June.
• He was unarmed.
• He was shot seven times [twice in the arm, three times in the abdomen, once in his thigh and once in his back] by police officer Tony Gonzales.

Tony Gonzales

• Gonzales was suspended with full pay after the event.
• The medical examiner refused to give a copy of the autopsy report to the family, who will have to wait six weeks for information about the causes of his death.
• Gonzales has since been arrested on allegations of two charges of first-degree sexual abuse and three of third-degree sexual abuse.
• There is a disturbing lack of information from the authorities who are examining the case.

There are some very disturbing questions here.

• Why was an unarmed man shot seven times?
• Why was he shot in the back?
• Why are the authorities being obstructive?

I suggest you head over to Bock’s site and read for yourself.  It is disturbing reading.

Andrew was laid to rest on Monday.

But in the meantime, his family not only had the expense of bringing Andrew home, but have an ongoing battle ahead of them to uncover the truth.

Andrew’s family have set up a fund to help with their costs.  If you’d like to contribute, these are the details.

Account name: Kate Hanlon re Andrew Hanlon Home Fund

Account number: 08376045

Sort code: 93 13 30

Bank: AIB, Terenure, Dublin

I’m fascinated by human psychology, and in particular online human psychology. What makes a user complete one action while ignoring another. How changing some text can double the number of desired actions, or changing the layout of your page can increase your profits exponentially. And so I’m also fascinated by User Experience (”UX”) and trying to apply online behavioural study from the user perspective.

So this post will (almost) totally ignore SEO, and focus purely on some small changes I would make to the website of the Vhi, Ireland’s dominant private health insurance company, in order to improve UX by 100%.

Vhi - Voluntary Health Insurance (vhi.ie)

As a long-time Vhi customer I’m always delighted with the friendly customer-centric approach of their staff. Whenever I call their landlines the vibe and response of their call centre staff is quite inspirational. Seriously - I’ve never had a bad experience calling these guys.

But does that translate to a great online experience?

Replicating the Offline Experience to your Online Channel

Unfortunately for me the simple answer is no - I always find the UX on their website far less compelling. So I’ve put together 5 simple actions I would take to improve the online experience. My top tip is so simple, but incredibly the issue it fixes is quite likely losing Vhi sales. I’ll go in reverse order, keeping the best till last:

If it’s a button don’t tell me to ‘click here’…

I did say ‘if’. This is a pet hate of mine, but I think many people would agree. If you have to tell me to ‘click here’ so I know an element is a button then the element isn’t doing its job:

Click here.. oh it’s a button?

4. I’d love to talk…

These days there is real global push on business efficiency. And many companies are directing support and customer service to more effective communication channels. Judging by the Vhi site they must feel that email is more efficient than the phone line. How can I tell this? The phone number is buried 2 clicks from the homepage. Here’s what you see when you click the ‘Contact’ utility link in the header:

VHI Contact Page

Firstly - no phone number. Instead a form. Something that’s been borne out again and again through testing - users are put off by longer forms. I have a question about my policy and I’d like an answer now. Filling a (long) form doesn’t give me confidence that I’ll receive a timely and accurate answer. In fact, in my particular case I came to the site to find their phone number (as I’m sure many others do also). But I cant easily see any phone contacts. I’m certainly not being pushed into a phone session am I? (One thing I do like about this form is the ability to find my policy number - maybe I’m the exception to the rule, but my policy number is something I never have to hand.)

Without wanting to give away my next tip, there are in fact some further links to phone contacts. There not exactly screaming out however. Let me suggest a small change:

Using underline style helps links stand out

And again with some further styling changes:

Using conventional blue underlined links

And that leads me nicely to my next gripetip

3. Stick with convention - let the links be themselves

Over the past few years I’ve grown more and more convinced that convention is a good thing. When I land on a web page it’s great to easily and quickly identify either what I’m looking for, or how to get there. In the case of the latter using conventionally styled hyperlinks can be a real plus.

Here’s a page from Vhi’s Mutlitrip Insurance section:

Vhi Multitrip Insurance Homepage

And here’s another page one click deeper, the ‘How to Contact/Claim’ page:

Vhi Mutlitrip Insurance Contact and Claim Page

So can you tell where the hyperlinks are? OK - I did shrink the page to fit my blog, but even at that size you’d easily be able to see a blue underlined link. Here’s the last page, but this time using conventional styling on the links:

Example using conventional hyperlink styling

Did you notice that both original images used bulleted lists? But did you realise that one of those lists was actually live links while the other was not? That, in my opinion, confuses users. And confusion, or to be more correct, avoiding confusion, is one of the primary reasons I’m a convert when it comes to convention styling on links.

I know that occasionally blue links wont fit with the theme of your site, but I don’t think you should ever use purple non-underlined text hyperlinks. This is doubly confusing because, by convention, purple is the colour conventionally used to signify a visited link. It appears however that the styling used on Vhi.ie is purple non-underlined for links the user has already visited (did you notice that on the ‘Phone’ link in Point 4. above?). Not ideal in my view, and trivial to fix even for a large site like Vhi.ie (the joys of CSS!).

So there’s Tip #3 - within body content use conventional blue underlined text for hyperlinks, purple for visited links.

2. Show me where I am

Here’s the Vhi’s Multitrip Insurance page:

Multitrip Insurance Page - where I am within the site?

But if you landed on that page would you have any idea where you were on the site? Can you see any indication of your location within the hierarchy? There are some relatively simple ways to do this:

1. Use a current class on primary and secondary navigation - active class styling on the Products link in the main navigation, and similarly, on the ‘Multi Trip’ link in the secondary navigation.
2. Use a Breadcrumb to indicate current location - simple but effective tool that helps ‘ground’ users, and assist with internal navigation (and search engine optimisation)

Here’s what a breadcrumb device might look like on that page:

Use a breadcrumb to indicate current location

So my pen-ultimate tip - give adequate indication of current location. It helps ground the user, and facilitates vertical navigation.

1. Where are you vhi.ie?

Here’s the biggest flaw, and also the easiest to fix. It still stuns me when I find this flaw, even more so for a large corporate site which is a profit-center in its own right. I’ve written about this issue previously for nch.ie, and here it is again. (And just in case you don’t think this is widespread - for months http://iedr.ie showed the same behaviour. This has since been fixed though.)

Requesting http://vhi.ie (non-www) resolves to a blank page

Here’s the link - try it for yourself

Now generally I would advise serving content on either www or non-www, but not both. If you do serve on both then you should ensure that each is the same.

This case however is the worst possible schenario - consider the number of Internet users who do not know the technical difference between www and non-www. Many less-savvy web users will not know to re-try www.vhi.ie when they see that blank page, and it should be a simple configuration change to ensure that both URLs resolve properly.

Given that www.vhi.ie is a transactional site fixing this issue will increase sales for Vhi.ie. Absolutely no doubt in my mind.

So there’s my #1 tip - don’t serve a blank page on http://vhi.ie

So there you have it - how in 5 quite simple steps I think Vhi.ie could improve their UX (and perhaps their SEO also) by 100%.

[Postscript: I first started writing this post in December 2007. It has sat in my drafts since then collecting dust. Luckily (for me anyhow) the VHI have not changed any of the behaviour I discuss above. I hope that might change shortly however.]

View Comments (4)

---

Permalink | Add to del.icio.us | Digg this!

This is a quick tutorial to show you how to use a Layer Effect in Photoshop with a little bit of a spin. As you might know, the Layer Effects allow you to easily add things like drop shadows, glows, strokes and more. This method uses the ...

Whenever I go abroad I like to bring back some seeds.  This may sound like a strange thing to do, but surprisingly some varieties are illegal difficult to get here.

A few weeks ago, I was rooting around and I came across some we had missed out on in our planting frenzy two years ago.

Just for the laugh, I popped them in water for a couple of nights and then planted them in two seed trays.

They all died.

Except one.

Jean Claude popped his head into this world about six weeks ago [weighing in at a healthy .026 of an ounce].

For a long time he just sat there in the seed tray and didn’t do much.  So a week ago, I transplanted him into a huge pot.

He has me scared now,  He’s growing like the clappers.

Not only is he growing, but he is sussing out the lay of the land.  He would stand there looking out the window.  Half an hour later, he would be looking at me.  Another hour would pass and he’d be looking at Sandy.  Anyone would be nervous of that kind of carry-on.

I had visions of ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ and fed him some meat.  He didn’t like that, which was a relief.

Yesterday afternoon, I put a stick in the pot.  When I got up this morning, Jean Claude had wrapped himself around the stick for some reason.  I’m not sure if he is trying to digest it, or maybe he’s expecting a gale?

He doesn’t look anything like the normal plants we grow, so I checked the packet.  It was all in French so I had to do some research.  Jean Claude looks like  Convolvulus [that's Bindweed to you lot], but according to my research he is a Morning Glory.

This has me very confused.

I always though a Morning Glory is what most of us men wake up with?

 
Jean Claude

Since my blu ray player is a US import I have to be very very careful about which discs I buy.

I either choose US region or multi-region discs, since there is no easy way to make a blu ray player recognise all discs (yet!)

Unfortunately Amazon haven't updated their website to take into account the Blu Ray regions.

Any film released on blu ray will end up with a DVD region listed beside it, which is, of course, incorrect. The silly thing is that Amazon's site has all the information on regions for blu rays - it's just the item display that is showing the wrong data.

It's a shame, but at least Amazon actually show the disc region, whereas a lot of the other sites don't even do that much!

Dublin airport seems to be going from bad to worse.

First off they had serious issues with their radar which led to flight cancellations and general chaos.

Now they're having power outages!

Cork airport suffers from fog quite often, while Shannon doesn't have as many international destinations as the other two, so where does that leave us?

I don't like watching single episodes of TV shows, which is one of the reasons why a Sky+ box makes sense for me. The other problem I have is that I forget which evening or time a programme is showing!

During the week the Stargate Atlantis Season 4 boxset arrived from Amazon, so I spent most of yesterday watching it. Funnily enough Season 5 has started airing in the US already, so I was able to watch the first two episodes of Season 5 shortly after watching the grande finale of Season 4.

Herself: What did you write about today?

Me: Where?

Herself: On your site thing.

Me: Nothing.

Herself: You wrote about nothing?

Me: No. I didn’t write anything.

Herself: Why not?

Me: I had nothing to say.

Herself: That never stopped you before.

Me: That’s true.

The issue of homophobic reggae lyrics is back in the news yet again, with an announcement that the German government is considering blacklisting homophobic lyrics from Jamaican performers. Artists such as Elephant Man and TOK are under scrutiny.

Censorship is always a touchy issue - but no less touchy than the protection of minorities. So why do I think the idea will fail?

The blacklist is intended to include media that glorify war and violence and incite hate. I can already see the resistance being put up by the games industries, some of whose titles are very borderline in terms of violence. Is it very PC, for example, to be revelling in the realism of blowing a soldier’s brains out in the WWII game “Call of Duty” when Europe is littered with graveyards of poor slobs that suffered just that fate?

Concerning the homophobic lyrics, Volker Beck, the leader of the Green Party parliamentary group, called on large Internet music sellers to already begin removing the CDs in question from their sales inventory. “Those in Jamaica who invoke hatred should not earn money with their music in Germany,” he said on Thursday in Berlin according to a report on DW-World.

The danger with these schemes is the difficulty of fixing the line between valid artistic expression and incitement to hate or violence. Who is going to draw that line? Something tells me this initiative will not get very far.

I got an email the other day.

A company had been trying to collect the balance on an outstanding account, and they wrote an apologetic letter to say that there were insufficient funds in my Mastercard.

This didn’t surprise me.  What did surprise me was that that account lasted so long.  There must have been a lot of cash in it at the beginning.

So I gave them the details for Jeanette Pasquale of Bordeaux, which is an account I haven’t used before.

That worked very nicely, and they wrote to say they were mailing me the details, and that it was very important that I print off that mail for my records. 

The mail duly arrived, and then I went to print it.

I must explain my setup.  You see, I have a junk room an office where my broadband comes in the window.  That is where I have my printer.  I also have an old PC that I found in a skip, and the printer is connected to that.  So that PC has to be running, before I can print anything off my laptop.

I went in and gave the PC a kick, as that is the way to get it to work.  I then went back to my armchair and waited.

I heard the PC whirring away, and it gave the loud beep that means it is nearly ready.  I usually give it another minute or so before I try to print, so I waited.  It gave another loud beep.  That shouldn’t happen.  I waited and it beeped again.  This was getting annoying.

I hauled myself out of the armchair and went into the junk room office to see what was going on.

The PC was starting up nicely, but as soon as it got as far as showing something on the screen, it would switch itself off and on again and start the whole process from scratch.

Fuck.

I kicked it a couple of times, but that didn’t have any noticeable effect.  This was getting serious.

I rooted around, and found a CD in my candle collection [an upside-down CD is great for standing candles on, as it casts all sorts of pretty lights around the room].  I scraped the wax off and stuffed it in the PC.

That seemed to do something, as the next thing it asked me if I wanted to repair my PC.  I said yes, of course, so it churned for a bit and then printed ‘C:>’ on the screen.  That’s all.  Just ‘C:>’.  What the fuck use is that?

I tried typing in a few things, like ‘fix windows’ and ‘repair windows’ and ‘fuck you, you shit’ but none of it worked.  So I removed the CD and kicked the PC again.

The PC went back to launching itself again, but this time, it did something different.  It went into a routine where it claimed it was fixing things.  What the hell?  I left it to it.

A few minutes later, it started making those noises that sounded like programmes loading, so I went back in to see what was going on.  The little bollix was working perfectly!

I printed off the email.

I gave the PC a last kick for luck, and it switched off.

I will never understand these things.  Why does a PC work, and then not work?  Even more importantly, why does a PC not work, and then work?  It doesn’t make sense.

Nothing makes sense these days.

Nice flash site for Dublins The Design Surgery. Full of character.