| LED Digest 1883: Mac, Linux, Windows? Plus Recommended SEO Firms |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ............................................... October 19, 2004 Issue #1883 ............................................... .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== <Moderator Comment> ~ Just in case you missed them once... --== Mac or PC? [was: Anti-Virus Software] ==-- ~ Nancy Cardinali ~ Tom Aman ~ Charles Oertel ==== CONTINUING ================= --== SEO Recommendations? ==-- ~ Lee Roberts ~ Martha Retallick --== Atomz Search - Now with Ads ==-- ~ John Smart ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Who's Crawling My Site? ==-- ~ Mark Medlicott ~ Robert Bedard ======= NEW ===================================== <Moderator Comment> Greetings LEDer, ... must be some kind of honeymoon hangover lingering. The post that I ran in our last issue from Sarah Hayes was already published in issue 1862. Sorry for the duplicate. There are quite a few responses so I'll go ahead and publish them anyway. Maybe we have more to learn on this subject, maybe not. Also, it was pointed out to me that Beth Durkee's post had already been published back in issue 1866. So I'm two for two! Gheez, maybe I need a vacation? Oh yeah -- I just had one :-) -adam ---------------------- From: Nancy Cardinali Subject: Mac or PC? [was: Anti-virus] > I know a lot of people disregard this comment right out > of hand but maybe consider buying a Macintosh. Think > of the value of this peace of mind... [I've] never had one > single virus. - John Barrick, LED 1881 Hi All, I wasn't going to comment on this, but Gordon is right. I work with both platforms, out of necessity, I thought. I have since learned I can do most things on my Mac, as more and more programs are being made in Mac platforms. AND, Macs are so danged versatile, they can read most program files... the PC just can't translate them. But I see that is nearly fixed too (Macs will translate back to PC versions). You really don't know what you are missing til you spend some time on a Mac. How many times does your PC do 'something weird' in ONE day? Macs rarely have ANY problems, and if they do, it's probably 'cause you need more memory. Now, that said, if everyone flocked to Mac, would hackers / worms / virusi (viruses!) start to concentrate on them? Who knows... Not a commercial, just a VERY satisified customer and proud owner of 2 Macs. Nancy Cardinali ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Tom Aman Subject: Mac or PC? Sounds like the start of another "discussion" on which is better, Mac or PC. Gordon, I could argue the other way. A few years ago I had to develop software on a Mac that duplicated the functionality of the same system that I had already developed for a PC. The PC development had taken about 2 months, on the Mac it took nearly 6 months because the development tools I had to use were relatively primitive and nothing better existed at that time. Made me wonder, at that time, why anyone would ever want to use a Mac. Fast forward a few years - my son, who had grown up in a PC household, took graphic arts at college and ended up working in the printing industry. The college used Macs, and while there he used to swear at the supposedly "uncrashable" Macs that he crashed two or three times a day (he was at A+ student who pushed the machines to their limits and beyond) and kept wishing they would get PCs. Forward a few more years - now he works at pre-press for a printing firm and uses a Mac - top of the line, dual processor, latest version of the operating system, and all the bells and whistles plus any additional hardware and software he wants. He has developed a new perspective on the Mac. This is a bit of over-simplification but, as he puts it, the PC is a general purpose computer while the Mac is a special purpose computer. It is not a case of which is better, it is a case of what you want to do. In my son's case, he does all of the file preparation for every print job on the Mac, but the final stage before creating printing plates requires the files be split (color separation, I believe), and for that job the files are passed to a PC station because it does that job better and faster than the Mac. The Mac is designed for graphics (including multimedia) and in this field will almost always be better than the PC. Graphics functions on a Mac are part of the operating system and the Mac can do some things that are essentially impossible on the PC. Yes, the PC will do graphics and do them well, but you have to plug in the appropriate graphics card to achieve that. Some cards are optimized for 2D graphics, some for 3D graphics, some programs work best with specific graphics cards and if you just want to do just word processing there is no need to spend a small fortune on a fancy card. There are many functions on a Mac where the buyer does not really have a lot of choices - monitors, network or modem communications, printers (treated by the Mac as just another graphics device), etc. and setting up to use any of these is relatively simple. It is simple because the choices are limited. They are limited because the machine is special purpose and Apple keep pretty close control over the architecture so these functions can be handled without having to make the machine handle everything (i.e. become general purpose). Yes, the Mac can be made to do other things well (like Word Processing and Spreadsheets), but its real strength is graphics. Basically, if you are heavily into graphics and just want to do a few other things, like word processing, and don't need to have a wide range of hardware and software choices, by all means go with a Mac. It is a good system and fairly easy to set up. On the other hand if you are planning on doing a lot of different things with your computer, then go with a PC so you have the widest range of choices in hardware and software. And regarding the virus comment, using that logic, since I had driven over 40 years and never had an accident, it would have made sense not to bother with car insurance. But I was sure glad it was in force when I was broadsided at an intersection and have over $10,000 damage done to my car. One call to my insurance agent and the whole matter was taken out of my hands - they took care of everything, including a rental car to use while mine was being repaired. Tom Aman Aman Software http://www.cyberspyder.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Charles Oertel Subject: Anti-virus In the last three years I have not used an anti-virus program - and have not had any virus problems at all (other than when the internet slows to a crawl because of MS Blaster, nimda et al). I have also not spent several hundred dollars more on an Apple, in fact I have spent several hundred dollars less. I bought a mid-range PC without MS Windows, and installed Linux. In Africa, several hundred dollars is more than the average per annum income. This solution is not for everyone (while installation is easier than installing Windows, you DO need to know some things). But if you are going to re-tool, why not pay somebody to set up your machine for you, instead of paying license fees for software that requires continuous attention? regards Charles Oertel FineBushPeople.co.za ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Lee Roberts Subject: SEO recommendo > I have a client who would like to ramp up their search > engine placement... Is there a product, strategy, or SEO > company out there that I could recommend for this client? - Beth M. Durkee, LED 1882 I would recommend you direct your client to the Apple Pie Shopping Cart (http://www.applepiecart.com). The solution is a search engine friendly shopping cart with a very good rating among some SEO companies. Sincerely, Lee Roberts -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Martha Retallick Subject: SEO recommendations Permit me to recommend my Search Engine Guy, William Johnson. After hearing years of gale-force hype from so many of his competitors, I find William's low-key, reality-based approach to be refreshingly different. That's why I do business with him and recommend him to others. Better yet, his search engine positioning work doesn't cost me money -- it makes me money. I give him my highest recommendation. Meet William at: http://www.netprofitnow.com Martha Retallick, "The Passionate Postcarder" ------- new post - new topic ------- From: John Smart Subject: Atomz search > The problem is that we have encountered competitor > ads appearing on our clients' site searches [using Atomz]. > Does anyone know of any other free site search that they > have been using...? - Helen Estlin, LED 1881 When it comes to searching your site, I think it is always a mistake to use an external provider. Companies such as Atomz are companies - they need to make money to survive. At some stage, bills will arrive, or services will change taking away from the desired results. If you are new to programming, setting up a search script can be very intimidating, but there are many out there - open source and freeware, in many languages (by that I mean PHP, Pearl, ASP, etc). With some tweaking these can be set to provide excellent search results for your site, plus, no one will ever add banners or start invoicing you. I don't use CGI anymore (there is nothing wrong with CGI - but my focus is PHP now), but I do remember using with great success a cgi script called ksearch. The URL is http://www.kscripts.com/scripts.shtml For other languages, just search - there are many out there, and being driven by your server and your site, you can customize them to completely blend in - giving a far more professional finish to your site. John Smart, Technical Director InternetDesign.com - "A Human Touch in a Digital World" ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Sarah Hayes Subject: Crawler load > I'm having a big problem with what I think is Microsoft > crawling my site continuously. The site uses osCommerce... - Sarah Hayes, LED 1882 Regarding the Microsoft bot continuously crawling your site, the first thing to check is in your oscommerce Admin panel. Go to Config, Sessions, and set 'Prevent Spider Sessions' to True. This will help to start with. Secondly, do you have a robots.txt file. If you haven't I suggest you get one, as you will at least be able to stop them accessing parts of your site that are both irrelevant to search and will help save some precious bandwidth. There is a sample robots.txt file for osCommerce here which is easily adaptable for most sites http://www.oscommerce.com/com... There is also more information in the osCommerce forums. I had a similar problem with a website I had designed, and although things are not perfect, they are a lot better now. Hope these suggestions help. Regards Mark Medlicott Medlicott Design www.medlicottdesign.orcon.net.nz ------- new post - same topic ------- From: Robert Bedard Subject: Crawler load Sarah: 65.54.188.n belongs to the Prototype MSNBot crawler. You can get more info from this FAQ (including an e-mail address to request them to stop crawling your site): http://search.msn.com/webmasters/msnbot.aspx There appears to be a bad reaction by your shopping cart to their spidering activities. You can control the spiders behavior with a robots.txt file, or with tags that you can add to your pages; (see the FAQ for instructions.) I get hit about twice a day from that subnet, all it ever looks for is robots.txt, according to the logs of the site I just checked. It is a well-behaved spider on the site I checked. Robert Bedard http://www.robert-bedard.com ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." - George Washington |
