Once and a while I mention things that fall outside the realms of web design and web programming; I only do so when I feel it is something important to point out.

The Giant Housing Scam

This time around, it is the giant fraud put forth by the US financial players … this whole housing bubble was a giant ponzi scheme and a new giant ponzi scheme is being engineered now. Check out this Rolling Stone article - it sums up what happened and what is gearing up to happen over the next several years.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/the_great_american_bubble_machine

Though Americans are going to get hosed the most (as they are now) the rest of the world will feel the pain of the scam as well .. as we are all now.

Stefan

Hi Stefan,

I found your article while doing a search about sitemaps, so I figured I’d see what your take on it is.

I work at an agency that does small business websites, some as small as 5 or 6 pages, like an online brochure. I know sitemaps are useful, and help with SEO, but it’s part of our standard design to put text links to each page in the footer of each page. I think a sitemap page with 5 links on it is kind of silly, and a waste of space. Should we continue with the sitemaps or do the footer links suffice in those cases?

Thanks a ton!

I agree. Sitemaps are really useful when there is a lot of content in a web site - if you have a really simple site, it is probably overkill.

That said, if you anticipate that the site might grow (in terms of content), I would create the sitemap and use it as the 404 page. Once the content builds and you deem it necessary, you can link to the sitemap that will already be ready to go.

When considering any aspect of a web site, keep this rule in mind:

Design for people and not for search engines.

… After all, search engines in the end, are trying to find the best websites for people!

Hope that helps,

Stefan Mischook
www.killersites.com

In the following video I answer this question and more importantly, I go into the broader issue of the importance of learning the code behind the web pages - HTML and CSS:

Trying to build websites without a good understanding of HTML and CSS is like petting your cat’s fur the wrong way … it’s a recipe for disaster!

LEARN HTML AND CSS THE EASY WAY

If you need help understanding HTML and CSS, then my Web Design 1 video course will do the trick.

BTW, Golive has been effectively dead since 2008 when Adobe replaced it with Dreamweaver.

Thanks for stopping by.

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

This is part 2 of my video tutorial on how to use Youtube to deploy videos in web pages. You can may want to also watch part 1 of my Youtube video embed tutorial.

Some final notes:

Video Processing Notes:

Dimensions: 1280 x 720
h.264 (MP4)
5000 kbits/sec

Dimensions: 640 x 480 / 640 x 360
h.264 (MP4)
3000 kbits/sec

Nerd’s Choice: I find 640 x 360 works well for live action videos.

As always, thanks for dropping by.

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

Hi Guys,

This is interesting news for web designers as it seems Safari is even getting traction in the Windows world:

Apple said Friday that more than 11 million copies of its new Safari 4 web browser have been downloaded in the first three days of its release, including more than six million downloads by users of Microsoft’s Windows operating systems.

Some interesting points about the new Safari 4:

- It uses the Nitro JavaScript engine that executes Javascript code several times faster than IE 8 or Firefox 3.

- Safari (according to Apple) renders HTML three times faster than Firefox 3 or IE 8.

And for Mac users, this is an interesting point:

With the release of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard this September, Safari will run as a 64-bit application, boosting the performance of the Nitro JavaScript engine by up to 50 percent, Apple claims.

Besides the speed improvements, Safari 4 has some really cool features like the Topsites feature that basically gives you a large thumbnail preview of recently viewed web pages.

You can read the full article here:

Apple 11 million downloads …

You can check out Safari’s 150 features here:

Safari’s cool features.

Thanks for reading,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

I just released a video where I go into step-by-step detail on how to use Youtube to embed videos in your web pages. This is part one of two.

The video:

Notes from the Video

I assume you have a Youtube account.

There are pro’s and con’s to using Youtube as your means of adding video to your web site:

Pro’s:

- Easy to do, since Youtube provides all the tools you need to embed the video.
- You don’t have to pay for the video bandwidth.

Con’s:

- Videos are public – if you want to embed.
- Youtube branding on your videos.

Video Formats

YouTube accepts videos uploaded in most formats, including .WMV, .AVI, .MKV, .MOV, MPEG, .MP4, DivX, .FLV, and .OGG. It also supports 3GP, allowing videos to be uploaded directly from a mobile phone.

Nerd’s Choice: You should go for MP4 with H.264 encoding.

Programs that output H.264 video

There are many programs that will produce or convert videos into H.264

QuickTime 7 Pro ($29.99)
iMovie (Mac only)

More expensive video software ($300+):

Adobe Flash
Adobe Premiere
Apple Final Cut Pro Express (Mac only)

Note: Windows Movie Maker at this time only outputs WMV.

Nerd’s Choice: I would get QuickTime 7 Pro if you don’t have a professional editing package like Final Cut. If you are on a Mac, you can use iMovie.

Video Dimensions for Youtube

You can with just about any dimensions but Youtube will crop most sizes. These two video sizes Youtube does not alter:

- 1280 x 720 (16×9 HD)
- 640 x 360 (16×9)
- 640 x 480 (4:3 SD)

-

Hope that helps.

Stefan Mischook

1. Using a site like Youtube.
2. Embedding the videos directly using a Flash video player.

I also get into the video formats you can use to embed video in a website:

1. Flash FLV
2. H.264
3. Quicktime video
4. Windows WMV

For details and pro’s and con’s, watch the video:

As you probably noticed, I am using Youtube to deliver this video as part of an ongoing experiment. If you can’t see the video, it is probably because your work place is blocking Youtube. Let me know and I will release another copy of the video on the killersites.com servers.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

This is just a quick warning that the trial download of Premiere CS4 is buggy .. at best.

Install Process Craps Out

I tried to install it on my Mac several times and I kept getting an error message that did not help. In the end, after rebooting several times and following all trouble shooting instructions that Adobe provides .. it would not install.

… Talk about lousy software!

Seriously, when a company can’t even make their install process work … you have to wonder! I should also point out that (after some digging with Google) that I am not the only one who has had this problem. That said, the trial worked fine on Windows XP.

Premiere’s Trial Version is Crippled!

The not so nice thing (due to licensing issues,) is that the trial version cannot work with several common video file types like h.264! That meant that I could not test how well Premiere would handle editing the file types I deal with daily. Sucks.

Oh well, I guess I will have to take a look at Final Cut.

Stefan Mischook

I recently put out a few new videos on Javascript event handlers:

Javascript Event Handlers Part 1

Javascript Event Handlers Part 2

Javascript Event Handlers Part 3

These are part of my new growing collection of Javascript video tutorials that aim to teach total beginners how to read and write practical Javascript.

I would like to point out that I’ve invested in making the sound for these videos as clear as possible … so let me know what you think.

Thanks,

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com

…. Hmmm this kinda reminds me of the Facebook and Twitter hoopla.

Geocities is closing its’ doors

After a decade of spuddering about, it seems that Yahoo has finally figured out that there is no money in having a bunch of lame web sites filled with lame content:

Yahoo Inc. said Thursday that it would shut down its GeoCities free Web-hosting service after paying about $3 billion for the unit in 1999.

GeoCities isn’t accepting new accounts and will close later this year, Yahoo said. GeoCities, Yahoo’s second-biggest acquisition behind Broadcast.com Inc., lets users design personal websites to show off photos, promote local clubs or publicize business services.

.. As reported by the LA Times.

So let’s see, Geocities was a place for people to: ” design personal websites to show off photos, promote local clubs or publicize business services.”

It’s a good thing that Myspace and Facebook came around; we didn’t have a place for people to post their photos etc …

The only real difference between Geocities and more modern social networking sites (Facebook, Twitter etc …) , is that now you have built-in tools to tell people about your crappy content - the ‘connecting’ that everyone is so excited about.

So, what’s the bottom line?

You can’t make a profitable business out of the blather of the masses. Let’s face it, 99.99999% of the content on social networking sites is not monetizable because it is:

1. Too crappy
2. Too personal

Add to that, that the social networking audience is at best fickle, ready to bolt to the next social networking site at a moments notice. I already see it with Facebook nerds I know, who are already moving over to Twitter.

My bottom line:

Only a fool of a company would invest any serious money to buy an audience that will eventually move on … like a heard of roaches, looking for their next free meal.

Stefan Mischook

www.killersites.com