Ok, forgive me for going all female on you all, gentle reader, but sometimes life is not about competition its about participation. Completely off the topic of websites today, I'm going to share a little something of me - what drives me, what motivates me to get out of bed in the morning, a small glimpse into my psyche - hopefully its not too scary for you.

Now I am not an athletic type, far from it. As a kid in school I was last to be picked for a team, sports day was a misery for me as I couldn't run, and I loathed everything sporty and energetic. I'm a geek, thinking is my thing - my brain is my best friend, and I spend most of my time on my computer. So what on earth could have prompted me to do what I did today and participate in a duathlon? Insanity? Well yes, that too.

About 4 years ago I had been struggling with my weight (again) and had managed to lose about 10kg when disaster struck. I fell down three steps and broke both my feet, one of them very seriously with a Lisfranc fracture/dislocation. (Look it up on Google). I was in hospital for 9 days, had 2 operations over the period of 10 months and was in a wheelchair for 3 months or more. My weight of course ballooned, and today I am left with a foot injury that still gives me some pain. I must confess I did get a little depressed about all this, depressed and pretty mad.

But you see this is the thing about me, I will not let anything beat me. No matter how often I get knocked down I will always get up again and keep on going. I have had set-backs, quite a few I guess, but it always makes me more determined to press on. Who was it said "Don't let the bastards get you down"? Its almost a motto for me, so thank you whoever you are.

So back to the duathlon. I entered the first one last year. The 'REAL' duathlon series is for women of all shapes and sizes, ages, and levels of fitness. There is no competition, no winners are announced, the prize is in participation. I love it. My times aren't fantastic in fact I place close to last, but I get such a kick out of being able to do it. To have the use of my legs - even though they are somewhat feeble. The taking part and just being able to get to the finish line is a massive feeling of satisfaction.
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I'll post a pic - I'm no beauty queen that's for sure, but my face says it all.

I know what its like to learn something new, I do it all the time. I am totally addicted to learning new things, actually. One of the hardest parts for me is getting those basic (and I mean really basic) bits of information on which the rest of the knowledge builds. Those snippets of information are often missed in tutorials. Its like, "well everyone knows that!" And I feel stupid for even asking. I find that once I can get a toehold with these foundation facts I am well on my way.

So I am starting with a series of articles on Google Analytics, as this is a great resource which is also free. I set my clients up with GA and I know that some (not all) struggle with getting their head around it and some (not all) give up.

I am publishing the articles through www.ezinearticles.com and have been given the heady status of "expert author". One among hundreds of thousands it seems, the most prolific has written 22,001 articles. Goodness me!

Here is the link to article number 1 in the series "Google Analytics - Too Much Information?", to be followed shortly be "Google Analytics - Delving a Little Deeper".

Worst. Gift. Ever.

Is there such a thing as a bad gift? What’s the worst thing you have ever been given as a Christmas present?

Not just those boring socks and underpants - although unexciting they can be put to good use at some point.

When I think of bad gifts my mother comes to mind. she has a knack, (ahem) gift. The earliest bad gifting was back in her girlhood. There was a pparently a girl in her class that she didn’t like, and my mother being an imaginative if somewhat vindictive 9 year old gave her two dead bees. Carefully wrapped in gift paper. The girl, surprised and pleased unwrapped the present - her expression changing from joyous anticipation to mortified horror, and thence to outraged sobbing. Which got my mother into a whole bunch of trouble.

Another fairly average gift was given to my ex-husband (the psycho - and another story), the gift of a rather old worn black petticoat. Funnily enough the giver was again my mother. He was very upset as he thought his cross-dressing was a secret.

My brother one year wrapped his entire grocery shop in Christmas paper and so the family ritual of gift giving was marred by what at first was amusing, then tedious (it was a big shop), and finally extremely annoying as yet again he unwrapped a can of beans, or some eyewash.

I’m wondering if this is just my family - or do others have bad gift experiences too?

Send your bad gift experiences to me. I will list the best ones next week.

Have a great Christmas everyone!
Alirat

I've heard of a couple of instances of sites being hacked in the last month, its a troubling trend. I have been doing a fair bit of reading on the subject, an excellent article here is very technical but takes you through the steps from 'How to know if your site has been hacked' to cleaning up and preventing future attacks.

Hacking is not just the senseless defacement of a website, it has turned into organised crime where robots (programmed by the criminals) crawl the web looking for vulnerabilities, take over websites and create zombie like bot-nets that keep infecting other vulnerable sites. Why? To get credit card details, user names, passwords, etc and ultimately steal money. Lots of money. Yours and mine hard earned cash.

If you think your site has been compromised, for example your visitors complain that your links take them to a different website, or Google puts a warning message on your sites search results, take your site down immediately. Your customers will not thank you if they get infected with some key-logging virus, in fact they will probably not forgive you at all. But if they find your site down, they will most likely try again later or give you a call. Second, get an expert to clean it up, and I mean an expert, not your cousins whizz kid brother who is doing an IT course. A lot of hacks are very subtle and hard to spot. Try and find out how it happened - so it doesn't happen again. One way that hackers can gain access is through your webmasters own PC where they have their ftp passwords stored. Sad but true.

About passwords. I have always said that it is more secure to have a strong password (not a dictionary word or what they call leet speak - p@$$w0rD for example) written down on paper and stored on your desk! A hacker cannot see what you have on your desk. Even use a simple code to write the passwords - for example if you have an 8 character password, write a list of 8 words with the last charaacter making up the password. That sort of thing. Too many of us (me included) take the easy way out and use the one word password for more than one account. If a hacker finds one they will apply that password to several others. If you use this method you can change your passwords frequently, just don't lose the piece of paper.

Take care out there.w

It's been a hectic two weeks with a big site going live - www.suremount.co.nz and an e-commerce site very close to popping out onto the web. In betwixt all this activity my feverish brain has devised a cunning plan. Well its actually these two big projects that prompted me to think about the other type of customer I cater for - the ones who want it fast and easy. So with the help of some brilliant associates the cunning plan bore fruit - www.easywebsite.co.nz. This is a simple way for someone to get up and running quickly.

I have also put together a gallery of nearly 80 templates - so all the client needs to do is choose one, give me the stuff and I can have them up and running within a couple of days. This also will help differentiate the clients who want a customised site, logo, animated banners, all the trimmings.

I want to be able to provide the best service, and with each job I try and give a clear picture of what I believe that job entails. I like to set out in my quotes the details of what is it my client is wanting, so its important when choosing a website to be really clear on what it is you want. I can help you with this by sitting with you and running over some questions. I have a look at websites you like, and try and look at what you need from your own customer's perspective.

It's not an overnight process and I want to give my very best attention to that. On the other hand, the new Easy Website product is for someone who doesn't want to mess about and just wants to get their website up - and Fast.

Whats all this about? Do I have to wear a costume? Will it hurt?

Basically this is a referral rewards programme. If you want to sign up as a "Friend of the Rat" just email us and let us know. We record you in our register and sign you up for the newletter. Then if you know someone who might need a new website, or see a website on the web that could really do with a makeover drop us an email with the name and phone number. We record that lead against your name and follow it up. If the lead turns into a sale - we send you a Westfield Voucher to say thank you! Simple.

Give it a try and email us today!

Its been a month since I launched Alirat Website Design officially and what a full and exciting month its been! It struck me the other day that, personality or socially-wise I am and have always been a bit of a loner. Being an accountant gave me the opportunity to hide away and count beans by myself all day, and I was comfortable with that. Now the world is turned upside down (in a good way) and I have to make contact with people all the time in order to promote my business.

Its not enough to sit behind a computer screen with an Adwords campaign and expect business to come flooding in. There is a lot of hard work involved, making connections with people, establishing trust, and learning how to sell. Starting a small business takes a dogged focus and the willingness to work 18 hour days. I am loving it. I would never work these kind of hours in paid employment, but my new boss is a hard taskmistress!

Networking is the key for me. I have a lot of contacts from my previous career that I can now call upon, already established business relationships. I have also joined BNI, Business Networking International, an organisation I have been familiar with in the past and whose philosophies are closely aligned with mine. Like eating nice big cooked breakfasts.

In the course of meeting clients I am having a lot of discussion around what makes a small business successful, and how to market on a tiny budget, as a lot of my clients are small businesses themselves.(My prices appeal.) So the contact is stimulating and interesting and very positive.

So it is with amusement that I realise that this new challenge of meeting people, making contact, is in fact a very positive thing and not the dreaded drag that I thought it would be. As they say...Woot!

The purpose of a website is not be be found on search engines, but without being seen there isn't a lot of point is there? Paradoxically the more that people try and 'game' the search engine pot of gold the more they are at risk of being penalised by Google. I have been reading about the blacklisting that can happen to websites who's webmasters resort to 'dirty tricks' such as keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing is, just like it sounds, a method of stuffing lots of keywords into the code that don't form part of the content of the site. Affiliate adverting is another practice that Google dislikes strongly. (You may have seen the adverts - to get rich quick, work from home on your computer ...etc - don't go there!)

There are other 'tricks' that Google doesn't take kindly to, like link farms - sites which are just a huge list of links. It's not a good idea to get linked on one of those sites as you can be judged by the company you keep, as it were.

There are a lot of sensible things one can do to improve your websites visibility, however, without falling foul of the all seeing, all knowing 'eye in the sky'. Keeping your content clear and concise with the searchable keywords scattered prudently and infrequently through your text is one, and keeping it relevant to what your website is about. Putting 'Michael Jackson' in the text simply because it's a newsworthy topic that is likely to be searched is probably not going to do a lot of good. Not using pictures as links is another handy tip. The bots that crawl the web don't read the links in pictures, so put your link before the picture.

So the next philisophical question is: If a website has a video of a tree falling in the forest, and Google doesn't find it, does it still exist?

This week marks the launch of Alirat Limited - the company under which Alirat Website Designs will operate. Its been a long time in the planning, a lot of angst and scribbles on napkins. I decided to keep the name Alirat because it is unique and easy to remember. And quirky. Gotta have quirky!

My first week will be full on with appointments and drawing up documents and sales plans etc etc, not to mention working on the bookings I have. I feel very excited to be doing what I love, giving up the nine to five, the traffic jams and the drudgery of number crunching. Although I'm leaving behind the accountancy I bring with me the legacy of having worked with businesses for the last 25 years and an understanding what small businesses need to survive.

I was sad to say goodbye to my team (they bought me the coolest card with rats on it, LOL), but I have a new team now - my sales team - and they will post here to introduce themselves.

Hello future!