I recently reviewed a blog that was focused on the movie industry, only it had replaced humans in each movie with cats. For this week’s review I will look at another movie site that provides movie reviews and previews without the cats.
The author of this week’s blog has provided a blog that includes links to some upcoming movies as well as short and sweet reviews
I recently experienced a problem that looked like a DNS error. The error appeared in the web browser after trying to load a Web page. I have never seen the error message before, but after reading the message it was easy to determine it had to do with domain name servers.
After doing some testing, and then research, I was able to find a solution to the problem.
I remember when I first connected to the Internet I used a 56Kbps modem over the phone line. Back then, that was considered fast as many users were using 14.4Kbps or 288Kbps modems. Since then, however, the Internet has evolved and so has the connection methods.
In this post I explain broadband, and the various types of options available to a home user. This post will not touch on all options, but it will explain the types of connections currently common today.
After taking a short vacation during the holiday season, I have returned to publishing posts, and reviews to Technically Easy. This week I have reviewed a blog that is focused mainly on a subject that I have very limited knowledge about: anime.
Anime is very popular among some people, however, I have never gotten into that type of animation. The authors’, yes there are two, of the blog Poopsies are indeed fans of anime, as well as toys, manga, and video games. They have created the blog Poopsies to share their interests in the topics, but does it flow nicely together and stay focused on their topics?
I enjoy reading blogs and Web sites that are humorous, mainly because life can be serious at times, so reading something funny is a change of pace. Many of the funny Web sites, however, can have recycled content, or content that I have seen many times before.
This week, I review a blog that, if you are a cat person, can be seen as amusing. I, myself, am more of a dog person, but I still found this week’s site rather impressive. I review the blog Moviecat (no longer exists) this week.
There is much debate about using the traffic ranking data from Alexa. Some sites, such as the paid review sites, use it to determine the amount of traffic your site receives. Many individual webmasters don’t care much for the data as it doesn’t present an accurate picture of traffic.
I don’t put too much stock into the actual ranking on Alexa, as it may not provide a complete traffic picture. I do, however, know that many sites and individuals use it as sort of a gauge as to the amount of traffic your site gets. In this post I’ll explain what Alexa is, and provide a simple, yet controversial method of increasing your traffic rank.
Recently I received an e-mail from someone who was having trouble getting Internet Explorer to connect to the Internet. Various other programs, such as e-mail, were able to connect, however, the browser was having difficulty.
As I always like to do, I decided to see if I can help. It is more difficult via e-mail to solve computer problems, but a few checks and some investigation I was able to determine the issue behind the browser. I provide my findings in this post.
The person having issues explained that Messenger and Outlook were connecting no problem, but Internet Explorer was display a message indicated the Web page could not be displayed. Seeing as Messenger and Outlook were both connecting, I immediately eliminated any connection issues to the Internet Service Provider. I decided to concentrate on the browser itself.
At first, I thought it may me a DNS cache issue. I had the user run ipconfig /flushdns from the command prompt to attempt to clear any local DNS cache. Unfortunately, it didn’t work as the user indicated that the response back was Could not flush the DNS resolver cache: Function failed during execution. This could possibly mean that the DNS Client service has not been started, so I next had the user attempt to start the service.
The user did as I asked, and then replied back to me that the software firewall on the machine displayed a message regarding a program change. The little light bulb went on in my head when I read this. For those who have seen these messages from software firewalls, but don’t know what they mean, allow me to explain it to you.
When a new program attempts to connect to the Internet, the software firewall detects this and stops it from connecting without permission. To get permission, the firewall displays a message on the screen for the user to either allow or deny the program to connect. When you allow a program, such as a Web browser, to connect to the Internet, the firewall allows any requests made from the application to be sent to the Internet.
In the issue discussed here, Outlook and Messenger were given permission, but Internet Explorer was denied permission to connect to the Internet. This was the reason Internet Explorer could not display any Web pages. Once the user granted permission for Internet Explorer to connect, they were able to display Web pages again.
The image above shows ZoneAlarm asking permission for Internet Explorer to access the Internet. Other software firewalls will have a similar message. To grant permission in ZoneAlarm, do the following:
Repeat the above steps for any application you want to access the Internet. Click the Deny button if you don’t want an application to connect.
I recently received an e-mail from an individual who had trouble getting Internet Explorer to access the Internet, even though other applications could access the Internet. After a few e-mails, it was determined that the software firewall installed on the computer prevented Internet Explorer from connecting to the Internet. Once permission was granted to Internet Explorer to access the Internet, the user was able to display Web pages in the browser again.
All the previous blogs that I reviewed had a set focus that was easy to determine once you read the blog. This week’s review is a little bit of a change. There are probably millions of blogs on the Internet, and a great many of them are personal blogs where the author just rights about anything. I review a blog that falls into this category this week.
Suburbian Queen is written by a mother of 2 who obviously enjoys writing on her blog. Although the focus may be a little hard to determine, her posts are far from boring.
The design of Suburbian Queen is a simple design with the main content on the left, and a navigation bar on the right. The provides an easy to read layout for the blog.
There are a few flaws that I can see in the current design of the blog. The first is the background image. I found it too distracting, and think a solid grey colour, or a faded image in the background would be better. Another issue I found with the design in the fact that all text is bolded. This seems to be a common trait for many blogs, but I feel bold should be used for emphasis only.
The last issue I had with the design is the order of the items in the navigation bar. I would move some of the post navigation links, such as the categories and archive links to the top of the navigation bar. This will allow visitors to easily navigate around the blog.
Besides the simple layout, I did like the size of the font, which made it very easy to read the posts. The menu at the top of the page stands out as the font is large, capitalized and is fairly dark compared to the white background.
Overall the design of the blog makes reading and navigating the blog easy.
The focus of the blog can be confusing to a visitor who has not heard of Suburbian Queen in the past. There is no brief description of the blog in the header, which would have been nice.
The description of the blog sent to me by the author is as follows: “Suburbian Queen is a blog about everything in general. Sometimes funny and often times thought-provoking. This blog has something for everyone”, which after reading a few posts becomes quite obvious. This brief description would be nice in the header of the blog to prevent visitors from being confused.
Unlike my posts, the posts on Suburbian Queen are short and sweet. Many posts can easily fit on a single page without causing the page to become too large. This is a big plus, since many visitors probably won’t want to read large posts.
Another thing I also like about the posts are the little images the author has inserted at the beginning of each one. Each image the acommpanies each post is simple, yet appropriate, to the subject of the post. Images are always a nice touch to any blog.
This is the first blog to receive a perfect 5 star rating in any category. It is hard to find a Web site, or blog for that matter, which has near perfect spelling and grammar. Suburbian Queen has well written posts that are very easy to read. The author has definitely spent some time to ensure to correct any spelling and grammar mistakes, and it shows in the posts.
Suburbian Queen is an interesting blog that is fun to read. The design of the blog doesn’t distract or make it difficult to read the blog. The focus may be a little confusing to a new visitor, but after reading several posts you have an idea of what the author is trying to achieve. The posts are nice and short, and include simple and appropriate images. The spelling and grammar is top notch and achieved a perfect 5 star rating, a first in any category.