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Serious Podcasting For Business
It's been interesting reading some of the reactions by business bloggers to General Motors' first experiment with podcasting last week.
All About Podcasting
Podcasting, the practice of making downloadable broadcasts for the iPod (or other mp3 players), is growing in popularity. Pioneered by ex-MTV VJ Adam Curry, podcasting has a number of proponents, with Steve Rubel being one of the more vocal.
Blogs Mean Business
Blogs are becoming essential for business. Steve Rubel of MicroPersuasion.com is one of our publishing partners who is on the cutting edge of this marketing and communications revolution.
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Web Site Content Ideas for Webmasters
Many years ago I began creating web sites that began as photo albums for friends and family and then turned into travel guides for trips I took to Jamaica , Napa Valley and the Black Hills of South Dakota.
Test Your Website Marketing Knowledge
Here are 5 questions to flex your mental muscle to. The answers and explanations are at the end - no cheating now!
Podcasting Continues to Gather Momentum
FeedBurner today manages 1,750 podcasts via SmartCast. That is a significant increase from 750 at the end of 2004.
Build Your Home On The Web Today
Everyday hundreds of web sites are launched by people all over the world .There are millions of reasons which make us launch new websites. Let me mention three of them in here by supposing .
Laptop Use Increased While Watching TV
Well, I don't have a study to that proves my theory [more people are using their laptops while watching tv] but I know it's true in my house.
How To Submit Articles For Massive Traffic
As you perhaps already know, article submissions can drive a huge amount of traffic to your web site for months if not years. The first step is obviously to get a good article written...
Hewitt's Blog Book: A Helpful Resource For Business
While I was away at the New Communications Forum 2005 last week, a package arrived from Amazon with my copy of Hugh Hewitt's new book on blogging, published on 13 January.
Searching For Searches
Arik Hesseldahl of Forbes looks at recent developments in search, Jux2 and Firefox search add-ons. The other thing I've noticed about search is that there are so many new ways to search--all the majors are adding features all the time
Re: Firefox The IE Killer
I got the following email from someone that doesn't like FireFox. Honestly, I had to pick myself up off the floor because I was laughing so hard.
Debugging and Plumbing
As Murphy would have it, I had to visit the DMV today and try to figure out a plumbing problem.
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02.18.05
Accessibility... The Basics
 By Alan Cole
An accessible website is one that allows as many people as possible to access the infomation contained within it.
An inportant subset of accessibility is allowing people with visual, aural, or physical disabilities full access to the information and services available in the same way as able-bodied people. Ensuring that your website is not dependant on particular hardware or software is also an important consideration when building accessible websites.
Is it worth it?
At least 10% of the population in most countries has disabilities; visual, auditory, physical, speech, cognitive, and neurological disabilities can all affect access to the Web.
Average age of population in many countries is increasing; aging sometimes results in combinations of accessibility issues; vision & hearing changes, changes in dexterity & memory.
Many elderly and disabled people rely increasingly on the internet to obtain their goods and services.
Few organizations can afford to deliberately miss this market sector. On top of this, accessible web design contributes to advantages for able-bodies users too. Accessible websites:
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Allow access to users of mobile phones, small display scress, Web-TV and web-kiosks and other new web=enabled devices.
Increases usability in low bandwidth or slow connection situations.
Provide access across a wider range of computer hardware and software.
Other extremely important benefits that make accessible websites worthwhile are that:
Many governments now require certain websites to conform to accessibility guidellines.
Accessible websites are easier to index by search engines and therefore help drive traffic to your site.
 What does it entail?
Many techniques involved in making your website accessible will have no effect whatsoever on the final look and feel of your site for the majority of users. It will however allow users with disabilities to use assitive devices such as screen readers (to read text out aloud to them) and assistive input devices (for people with physical disabilities) to access and use your site. Some of the key concepts are:
To provide textual alternatives for all images and animations
To ensure that textual content can be resized to the users peronsal preference
To ensure sufficient contrast between text colour and background colour
To ensure that hyperlinks contain text that describes their purpose.
To ensure that hyperlinks are large enough to make them easy to select
To use a consistent and easy to navigate layout
Other benefits
The robots that search engines use to catalogue your website are essentially 'blind' visitors to your site. Accessible websites are therefore more search engine friendly and result in better search engine rankings and ultimately more visitors to your site. Other advantages include:
Better structure means easier and cheaper site maintenance
Accessible sites demonstrate that your organiation takes its social responsibilty seriously
Increased support for internationalisation
Reduces hosting costs
I believe accessibility is beneficial for all involved and should be a consideration of every website.
About the Author:
Alan Cole runs www.pixelwave.co.uk, a one-person web design studio. His aim is to provide cost effective website design production and maintenance by offering professional web solutions that stand out from the crowd.
http://www.pixelwave.co.uk
justal@lineone.net |
