I spent some time searching the web for definitive answers on web page length and scrolling versus paging content and clicking. As I figured there weren’t any, but I did learn there is no definitive answer; content and users dictate best practices. Here are a few excerpts of “rules” I read:

1. Don’t split up related content un-logically. Related content should be kept together on the same page for uninterrupted flow. Arbitrary division of related content disorients people more than the act of clicking or scrolling.

2. File size and page load times should dictate how much stuff gets put on one page. Page content should facilitate quick load times. Recommended maximum page file size seems to be 50k.

3. If a web is well designed with visual clues, prudent use of space, subheads and good typography, and is structured into logical parts with not too much content, a page can be quit long and usable. Design plays an important role.

4. The hard and fast, old-school rules of lengths and click amounts have been proven inaccurate as usability data has been compiled over the past five years.

5. The key to getting users to scroll is how content is presented “above the fold”, in the visible part of the page, when it loads. Once they understand content lies below, they will follow.

6. If one is looking for a recommended web page length, 3-4 screen lengths was commonly cited as a maximum length.

7. Anchor tags (links jumping to a position on the same page), however useful, are often confusing to users since they can’t see the jump and loose all visual clues. If used, these should be denoted as such.

8. Horizontal scrolling is bad.

9. Proportional scrollbars, like a browser’s, help users determine how long the page is and should be used whenever possible.

I just read the essay by Edward R. Tufte, “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint: Pitching Out Corrupts Within.”

As an example of why not to use PowerPoint for technical reporting and presentations, he details its use by NASA in the analysis of the causes of the space shuttle Columbia disaster. His conclusion, and that of others, is NASA’s use of PowerPoint with its presentation limitations to communicate the data on the takeoff damage, while the spacecraft was still safe in space, grossly affected how it was interpreted by NASA management and thus resulted in the deaths of the Columbia astronauts. Powerful stuff.

Other examples of PPT’s inadequacies include showing statistical data in table format displayed as PPT slides (they are completely incomprehensible), the Gettysburg Address as a PPT presentation (pretty funny) and several references to business presentations of various purposes.

Several factors contribute to the skewing of information when using PowerPoint: limited space for meaningful test, segmentation of the message with slides, bulleted lists, hierarchical display of text, and useless phluff. Mr. Tufte continues to make the case that PowerPoint has a high signal to noise ratio, an extremely low transfer of information rate, dilution of information, and absurd style sheets, templates and effects. I can’t agree more. I hate PPT presentations and don’t use them myself. He favors text documents with paragraphs, sentences, diagrams and space to completely tell the story. I agree and by distributing handouts for meetings, people have something tangible to take away.

Put some creativity and effectiveness in your next presentation. Don’t use PowerPoint. I recommend this booklet for anyone needing some good reasons not to use the ubiquitous and dubious software – ever.

As technology presents us with more options for creating web sites, there seems to be two very different and contradictory directions site design is going. One is rich media driven, with Flash at its core, and the other is web standards stressing usability, accessibility and compatibility.

Well done, highly interactive, rich media sites are incredibly engaging, and the direction big money is pushing the web, but they are rarely standards compliant and often are bashed for poor usability and accessibility. These sites communicate their messages effectively to their intended audiences. Mission accomplished.

Web standards are based on are undeniably sound basic principles: separation of content, structure and presentation; and accessibility, usability and compatibility. For sites whose audience requires these benefits, web standards makes total sense. My problem with most compliant sites I see today is they are visually similar and boring. I read somewhere, someone describing them as decorated not designed. It’s true.

Enter stage left, common sense.

The reason all the standards compliant sites look similar is because it is very difficult to mark-up a web page that has an intricate design with many images and requires pixel level accuracy. This can be done in a fraction of the time using tables and spacer gifs, and render properly in all browsers. And besides, there are just as many hacks and workarounds in standards development as old school HTML.

Why use Flash in a self-gratuitous intro sequence, or fancy navigation menu that creates a technological obstacle to a site that doesn’t need the benefits of Flash anywhere else? Many a site has been built using Flash that can be just as good without it. This misuse is what has given Flash such a bad rap with the user centered design people.

Let’s not let the tail wag the dog. Making a site using web standards just for the sake of doing so, or using Flash where it is not needed are both equally inappropriate, especially at the expense of your client.

Surely there’s common ground and a practical approach. Sites should be developed based on their purpose and intended audience. If that demographic can use and enjoy the site, fine. Others outside of that group are not important. Writers write books to a certain audience. Movie directors make movies that are not for everyone. Web producers should have that right too and not be criticized.

Choose the technology or methodology carefully based on the benefits of its use and the cost of using it. Each project has specific requirements and they should dictate the most suitable way to go, not personal preference, or trends.

Forms on the web are vulnerable and subject to malicious behavior. With the explosion of forums, wikis and blog comments, programs having been created to spam these useful communication mechanisms. Often these forms do not require any authentication. Users can simply complete the form and submit it to post their comments.

A newly popular technique for prohibiting malicious applications from submitting forms are CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) Security Images. These are images created at runtime that have a random sequence of numbers and letters that are distorted so only humans can interpret them.

CAPTCHA image

There are several code examples and small libraries online that illustrate how to implement this feature, just Google. Here are a few:

ASP
http://www.tipstricks.org/

PHP
http://phpsec.org/articles/2005/text-captcha.html
http://www.evolt.org/securing_forms_random_image

ASP.NET
http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/43986.html
http://www.lanapsoft.com/products.html

While this is great for forms exposed to the public, many developers are also using them on login forms. I don’t understand this practice. One would think a properly implemented password would be sufficient. The image just complicates matters and some are barely legible by humans. I know Yahoo! displays them for subsequent attempts to submit an authorization form, but not on the first try. I guess that’s a compromise for usability’s sake.

When I first got into web development I didn’t realize the difference between Interactive and IT disciplines. Perhaps it was naiveté, or perhaps they weren’t so well defined at that time. I thought building web sites was technical; anyway, it was the first time ad agencies employed programmers.

The Internet was born out of IT. So I guess hardcore ITers have a sense of ownership over it. But IT blew it. They could have kept the Internet for themselves and dominated the web market, but IT didn’t have what it takes to create web sites that effectively communicate and still doesn’t.

Along came Interactive born from ad agencies and communications firms. Interactive’s initial job was to convert traditional messages to the web, the new medium. Since that meager start, Interactive has grown into a full fledged discipline, pushing the web farther and faster than it ever would have gotten with IT alone.

My experience in an Interactive environment is much different than mine with an IT one. Interactive folks usually love the increased capability to do something cool technologically. Interactive designers are always fighting technology’s boundaries and good IT people help enlarge their sandbox. They like that, but they don’t like it when their work relies on an IT person to implement it and can’t execute it properly. In an Interactive environment, an IT person quickly learns about details. IT folks don’t seem to have any respect for Interactive. Graphics are not important when compared to functionality and a lowly script monkey can’t have a better approach than a “real” programmer that knows C++.

Interactive has grown up and there are very talented, intelligent programmers that do not have the IT mindset. The tools used in Interactive work have become powerful and complex. Interactive is encroaching on IT’s space, but IT hasn’t countered. They still can’t communicate well and can’t create good interfaces.

However, these two strange bed fellows need each other: art oriented Interactive and science based IT. A few companies have successfully merged the two, but that is a rare find. What strikes me as odd, today, at a time when the two disciplines are closer than ever before when it comes to level of skill; the two are no closer in how they are perceived in the corporate world. An example of this is how Human Resources Departments treat the two disciplines. A web developer from an Interactive shop does not compare well to a web developer from IT department of a large corporation even if they have the same skills. Job title and pay scales are often different. Another instance is many companies’ web departments are part of the marketing department. Why not the IT department? It seems IT is trying to keep Interactive people from crossing over into their world - competition I guess.

Good work is both technical and creative and a web site cannot succeed without either. It is information technology AND interactive. The sooner these two disciplines learn to play nicely the better off the industry is. After all, we’re all working for clients and share similar experiences.

I attended the St. Louis Web Developers monthly meeting last night. The topic was Ruby On Rails. As I’ve written before, I’m interested in RoR, for the huge productivity agains (5X-20X) and its simplicity. The complexity of ASP.NET, my primary programming technology, does not sit well with me for small projects and RoR may be the alternative I’m looking for.

The presenter compared the excitement over RoR to the Java revolution a decade ago, but as of yet this fledgling language and framework hasn’t eked out any enterprise market share. My biggest concern is resource availability. It’s difficult for me to justify building a site with this for a client. Then they can’t find anyone to work on it other than me. I advocate using technologies that are widely accepted for that reason. Another reason to be tentative is hosting options. It’s also easy to be seduced by how quickly one can generate a simple app performing CRUD operations, but what happens when requirements demand a piece of complex functionality and being new to the technology hinders one’s ability to predict difficulties ahead.

I guess I need to get a book and learn more. If I start using this language perhaps my comfort level will increase, and as demand rises, I may be ahead of the curve – not a bad place to be.

Microsoft has launched a suite of new products geared towards the interface design and development market - ala Photoshop, Flash, Dreamweaver, After Effects and the like. I don’t think Adobe is too worried at this point. Microsoft’s reputation on developing good graphics software is far from exemplary and FrontPage and the Visual Studio IDE editor are barely usable.

The three Expression products are Graphic Designer, Interactive Designer and Web Designer. Each has its own specialty, but they are made to work together and work with Visual Studio rounding out a full design-build environment.

Hopefully the usability and general attractiveness of Microsoft built software will improve because of the increased exposure and access to this type of software in PC-land. Not that design products are Mac only, but there is a huge rift between developers that are visually sensitive and those that live on function alone.

A new underlying technology that is integrated into these products is XAML. Similar to how SVG works, XAML is going to allow graphics to be applied and transported in new ways not really possible today. Another new technology is WPF a direct competitor to Flash's format.

Maybe stodgy Microsoft can give cool Adobe a little competition, but I won’t hold my breath. However, they are bringing new technologies to market; making a big effort towards web standards, interoperability, compatibility and open source initiatives; and bridging the gap between them and everyone else.

Before the ActiveX patch came out that changed how IE displays Flash and other objects, Microsoft wrote how the browser would behave differently. When I installed the fix, my browser does not display the prompt.

Instead it outlines the object when moused over and displays a tool tip that states "Click to activate control." This is far less annoying and, as far as I'm concerned, acceptable. I'm glad it's not the other way, but why wouldn't they describe the effect correctly?

ADDED 5/18/2006:
I experienced this pop-up today for the first time on a page with a Shockwave object and a page with QuickTime.

It seems search engine optimization (SEO) is on the forefront of every web site owners mind -- the holy grail of getting visitors to their sites, or so they think. SEO companies are in high demand. Here's a site with a wealth of current, useful information on the topic.

Internet Search Engine Database

It seems data security is becoming a big part of the projects I work on. Identity theft has demanded increased security measures for the storage and transportation of personally identifiable information (PII). PII can include name, country, street address, e-mail address, credit card number, Social Security number, government ID number, IP address, or any unique identifier. The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AIPCA) and Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (CICA) have created an extensive privacy framework that a lot of companies are adopting. The Payment Card Industry has also created a Data Security Standard based of requirements developed by VISA, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and JCB. These standards and requirements affect e-commerce, travel, authentication, human resources, medical, and other similar applications on web sites, intranets, extranets, other client server and legacy systems.

If your current, or next project collects and processes PII data, do yourself a favor and find out the requirements and necessary steps to meet them. Many of these requirements are fairly new and changing. Clients may not event know them, but if something happens and losses occur, as creator, or administrator of the application you could be liable.

A question I sometimes hear when first talking with prospective clients is, “Which technology platform and programming language is best for my site? Then, in the same breath they’ll say, “I heard Footron Version 3.0 is the best.”

We’ll examine some factors to consider when making this important decision, but first a few truths to think about.

• You can do almost anything you want to with ASP, ASP.NET, PHP, RUBY, PEARL, JSP, PYTHON, CGI, Cold Fusion, or any other popular web programming language.
• Microsoft Internet Information Services and Apache are both good web servers.
• Microsoft and SUN are good platforms.
• Most web languages have similarities since they have been derived from lower level languages like C, C++.
• Some are more prevalent than others.
• Some are more robust in features than others.
• Some lend themselves to rapid application development (RAD) better than others.
• Some are more robust in features than others.
• There is no best. It depends on the project.

Site Requirements

A site’s requirements are derived from its purpose, the resulting functionality and audience demands. If the site contains all static content that simply acts as an online brochure, the platform is not very important. HTML, which is what creates web pages, is platform independent. The web server does not need to do much work to display the site. If your site has any dynamic content, a content management system, or e-commerce, then more importance is placed on the platform and web server’s role.

Functionality for such features is provided by programming from scratch, purchasing pre-built applications, or leasing services. While making these choices is beyond the scope of the article, the platform to choose is tied directly to which of these alternatives are used. If you’re programming from scratch, there is flexibility to use any reasonable web platform. Leased services are also somewhat independent of the platform of the web server because of APIs and web services that allow for interoperability. If you buy a content management system or shopping cart the platform is largely determined by that application. Any other applications used on the site should be of the same platform. It can create a lot of problems to mix technologies. Don’t to it if you don’t have to.

The amount of traffic to the site also influences platform decisions. Sites with few visitors (5-2000/day) can usually handle the load with one web server and single tier architecture. Sites with a lot of traffic (2000-1,000,000+/day) may need several servers to distribute the load and processing. Some technologies scale better than others.

Where’s the site going to live?

A site resides on a web server. How it's developed is determined by the type of server, or the type of server is determined by how it's developed. Companies can host their own sites, lease dedicated servers, or lease space on shared servers. These options come in all platforms and are closely priced.

There are basically two factions of web platforms: Microsoft and everyone else. Apache is the most popular web server. It is most often found on non-Windows computers (Linux, Unix, Macintosh, Sun). Second, is Microsoft’s Internet Information Services, IIS, it follows Apache in market share across the web, but leads in business use because of Microsoft’s focus on business computing and development.

Who’s going to work on it?

Vendors are usually specialized and have a platform and programming language of choice. They sell what they know and can usually justify their preference. It is important to make sure there are other resources available to work on the site than just the vendor that built it. Choose a technology that has an abundance of development resources available in your area.

Common Choices

Microsoft Internet Information Services, IIS (Windows) Languages
Active Server Pages, ASP – Microsoft’s core web scripting platform can be developed using VB Script, a language derived from Visual Basic, or JScript, JavaScript. ASP has essentially been replaced by ASP.NET, but there are a lot of sites still on the web using this technology.

ASP.NET – Microsoft’s pride and joy. A true paradigm shift in how web sites are developed. The .NET framework provides a huge arsenal of objects (namespaces) with robust functionality and the speed of compiled assemblies versus interpreted script. ASP.NET can be programmed in C#, VB, and JavaScript.

PHP – This is the most popular and arguably the best open source scripting language on the web today. It's mostly used on non-MS web servers, but there is a version for IIS too. It is also made to go with MySQL database server the most popular open source database server. The language has nice syntax and structure with quite a few built in objects, but nothing compared to ASP.NET.

Pearl – Pearl was very popular in the open source world, but it has been surpassed by PHP.
 
Ruby - Ruby is the new kid on the block. It is gaining popularity because it’s easy to learn and Ruby On Rails, a RAD framework, created by 37 Signals. Purists love its simplicity.

Cold Fusion – Cold Fusion is part of Adobe’s suit of development products. It is a super easy to learn, RAD system that uses a tag structure, like HTML, to provide functionality. Before Macromedia (now Adobe) purchased it, Cold Fusion’s future was uncertain. They kept it alive and Adobe plans to make improvements and reestablish it as a major web development alternative.

Common Gateway Interface, CGI – This was the first technology to provide server functionality on the web. CGI apps are programmed in C, C++, Java and other primary development languages. This technology is still out there, but outdated.

Apache Web Server Languages
ASP – There is a version of ASP created for Apache, but why? It’s kind of like trespassing.
PHP – This is PHP’s true home.
Pearl – ditto.
Ruby – ditto.
Cold Fusion
CGI

Enterprise Systems

Large businesses today are using software systems that manage information and provide collaborative tools for a wide degree of business services that include web publishing. It gets really complicated on projects of this scale. IMB’s Web Sphere, Oracle’s JD Edwards, Sun’s J2EE, and Microsoft’s Family of Servers all have web publishing components. There are hundreds of smaller development firms that have their own systems built with several of the languages listed above.

Most Importantly

Whatever platform is used the application can be developed well using best practices, or end up being a mess.  When choosing a vendor and subsequent development technology look for a team that can deliver a well designed and executed application while keeping things simple.

Forms are always a pain. They are difficult to design and difficult to make user-friendly. Here are a few rarely used tags that can be incorporated into page XHTML mark-up that will improve the usability and accessibility of forms.

Label

<label for="firstName">First Name</label><br />
<input type="text" name="firstName" id="firstName" />

The label tag used in the code sample above relates the descriptive text to the form control. This is important for screen readers.

<input class="input" type="checkbox" title="Select Color" name="color" id="color1" value="red"><label for="color"> Purple</label>

When used with checkboxes it allows users to click on the text to check the checkbox, similar to desktop applications.

Fieldset & Legend

<fieldset>
<legend>Pick a Color</legend>
<input type="radio" id="color1" name="color" />
<label for="color1">Red</label>
<input type="radio" id="color2" name="color" />
<label for="color2">Blue</label>
<input type="radio" id="color3" name="color" />
<label for="color3">Green</label>
</fieldset>

The fieldset tag is used to group form fields. With a little CSS it works well for humans and machine readers alike. The legend tag provides a way to give the grouping a title.

Optgroup

<select name="Colors">
<optgroup label="Reds">
<option>Crimson</option>
<option>Brick</option>
</optgroup>
<optgroup label="Blues">
<option>Azure</option>
<option>Sky</option>
<option>Navy</option>
</optgroup>
</select>

The optgroup tag groups options in drop down lists. They can have CSS styles applied to them.

Other Techniques

Tab Index

input type=”text” name=”field1” id=”field1” tabindex=”2” />
Adding the tabindex attribute to a form control sets the tab order. Make sure your form element tab in the correct order for those who do not use a mouse.

Access Key

<label for="field1" accesskey="f"><span class="access">F</span>ield 1:</label> <input type="text" name="field1" id="field1" accesskey=”1” />

CSS    .access {text-decoration:underline;}

Adding the accesskey attribute to a form’s label control allows users to press a key to focus the form element – again useful for those who don’t use a mouse. To indicate what the accesskey is for a form, underline the corresponding character in the field’s label.

Nice article on common sense SEO and site content published on the Internet Search Engine database site.

http://www.isedb.com/db/articles/1401/1/SEO-versus-Marketing:-The-Fine-Art-of-Copywriting

Back in 2003 Microsoft was sued by Eolas Technologies for a patent infringement. The technology in question is how Internet Explorer handles the inclusion of objects (ActiveX controls) such as Flash, video and Java applets in web pages.

On April 11, 2006 Microsoft is scheduled to release an update that makes the browser compliant with the lawsuit’s requirements. All IE browsers shipped after that date will also have the update installed. This change will affect thousands of sites with embedded content. This content will no longer automatically display in web pages. Users will have to click a prompt to view the content. This will greatly affect the user experience.

The Fix

Sites will have to change how objects are included in the HTML mark-up to prevent this rude disruption. Click here for a Google search on the topic. Here are some resources with more information:

MSDN Instructions on How to Activate ActiveX Controls

MS Knowledge Base Article

Adobe Developer Center

What about other browsers?

They are also in violation of Eola’s copyright, but they haven’t been sued yet. Netscape, Firefox, Opera and Safari have not done anything. Time will tell what will happen to them.

I ran across this excellent resource for building standards compliant web sites using ASP.NET 2.0. The information presented here is useful for any platform. It covers doctypes, mime types, broswer issues, accessiblity and some good tips for forms.

I read so much Microsoft bashing online it was refreshing to read how they have addressed a lot of problems with server control rendering in the new version of ASP.NET.

http://www.shauninman.com/ -  Shaun Inman is the designer/developer responsible for Designologue, Mint and IFR. Originally from the Boston, Massachusetts area, he now resides in Baltimore, Maryland.

The IFR technique is very cool. Limited font selection on the web is always the bain of the designer and this is a slick way around it.

ASP.NET offers an easy way using GDI+, the .NET Framework wrapper assembly for Microsoft's GDI (Graphics Device Interface) technology, to generate dynamic jpgs to use for dynamic text if that's your platform of choice, but the Flash method is completely client-side and platform independent. It's probably a bit faster too.

Older versions of Dreamweaver put positioning styles for <div> tags as attributes. Dreamweaver 8 has improved this by putting the styles between <style> tags in the head section of HTML. The cool thing is, you can move these styles to a linked style sheet and Dreamweaver will work. Nice.

While I was searching the Web for inexpensive ways to build sites for small clients I can across Ruby On Rails. ROR is a framework built with the Ruby programming language by 37 Signals. Not being familiar with Ruby or Rails, I was immediately curious about it.

Ruby is a relatively new language that was created to be clean and simple code. Rails is a framework created for rapid application development. It has a robust set of classes that provide common functionality with a minimum of effort. Cool.

I am a Microsoft developer, but ever since ASP.NET came out I always though it was a bit much for small sites that do not require all the “horsepower” that .NET can provide. This might be a great way to efficiently build sites for small clients. Although I have not had a chance for much hands-on work with Ruby to evaluate it.

My biggest concern with building a site, with a somewhat obscure technology like this, for a client is when they need to make changes they will not be able to find resources that know the language and framework. Market-share does have its advantages. Hopefully Ruby will continue to grow.

I’ve been researching ways to provide less expensive solutions to clients with very limited resources. Since I’m a Microsoft developer I looked for products built with ASP.NET.  Content management systems and shopping carts are the two primary applications I was focusing on.

I found two applications that could be used for content management, DotNetNuke and Rainbow portals. Both are open source portal systems that have evolved from the MS IBuySpy portal. Since I was a team leader a few years ago that worked with that app, I was familiar with it. Of the two, it seems DotNetNuke has more users, more modules (functionality components) and better documentation.

I installed DotNetNuke and have been playing around with the admin for a couples weeks. Seems like a pretty good FREE solution for CMS, except it lacks some workflow features like preview, an approval system and rollback, but if you can live without that, it’s hard to beat free. Besides you can always build on top of it. It’s ASP.NET and well built.

There is a lot of buzz about search engine optimization (SEO). A cottage industry has grown just to address this need. It is certainly important for some companies' web sites to rank high on search engines, but SEO is not as mysterious as some claim.

A fundamental truth is search engines rank sites on content and traffic. Think about it. The logical way to rank search results is to have the most popular site with the most relevant content be first. Over the past several years various techniques have been devised to take advantage of search engine algorithms, but as soon as a pattern becomes prevalent the search engines change their algorithms. Tricking search engines is like timing the stock market -- a gamble, or at best a short term win. I am a proponent of a long-term strategy.

Common Sense SEO

• The title of the page (text displayed in the top of the browser frame) should be descriptive and contain keywords.
  
  
• Use "keyword" and "description" metatags.
  
  
• Have good content on your homepage; content is copy contained in HTML mark-up. Copy displayed in images and Flash is not read by search engines. If you use images that contain important text such as navigation hyperlinks, page titles, and callouts, include the text in "alt" or "title" attributes for that tag. Having a Flashing into/splash page will have no readable content.
  
  
• Good, clean mark-up helps search engine spiders find the content. Using CSS and standards compliant techniques makes for good SEO.
  
  
• Use hyperlinks in the copy to other pages in your site. The easier it is for a human to find information the easier it is for search engines to do so too.
  
  
• Have well written copy that thoroughly describes the services or products. Make sure the copy contains keywords and avoid pronouns or references to terms in informal ways. If a term has an acronym, use that in addition to the full term.
  
  
• If you have copy in Flash, repeat the copy in div tags in the page mark-up and set the "visible" attribute to "hidden". This gets the copy accessible to search engines.
  
  
• Create a site map.
  
  
• Add a glossary of technical terms and general facts pages if applicable.
  
  
• Drive traffic to your site by marketing your site via traditional means: advertising, brochures, direct mail, press releases and e-mails.
  
  
• Link to industry sites and other sites that are managed by clients, vendors, affiliates and divisions.
  
  
• Time is on your side. The longer your site is on the web with the same domain name, pages and content, the more of a chance it has to be found and indexed by search engines.
  

These unsophisticated guidelines will go a long way to improve the search engine friendliness of your site.

 I recently became a member of the Project Management Institute, PMI, and certified as a Project Management Professional, PMP. It was a difficult test, but well worth it. Many employers and clients are requiring this designation or at least seriously favoring it. The information on the exam is very useful and can be applied to all kinds of business situations. It has surely made me a better PM and business person.

I used online training at PMCampus.com to get the required 35 hours of education. The price wasn't too bad and they had the information covered. My only complaint is the poor graphic design and usability if their site and printable materials. Ugly!

 This blog is running DasBlog V1.8.5223.2. I thought about building my own, but it seems a lot of ASP.NET folks are using this and it has more features than I would have included. It was easy to implement. I modified an existing theme to match my site's look. It's not exact, but close. A redesign is not far off anyway. So far I'm pleased with the app. It's a good starting point that I can modify as needed.

I also felt it was important to have my blog on the same server as my site rather than using a service such as Blogger. After all, generating traffic and exposure to promote my services as a web project manager is part of my reason for doing this. And it's free.