CityBlogz Design Studio / Blog » Articles http://www.cityblogz.com/blog Insightful commentaries, articles, professional projects by Thomas Yung Sun, 09 May 2010 02:03:54 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 Web Search Optimization Tips http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2005/04/15/web-search-optimization-tips/ http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2005/04/15/web-search-optimization-tips/#comments Fri, 15 Apr 2005 15:02:58 +0000 admin http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/?p=64 Here are a few well known and some not so known pointers in getting better search engine rankings for your web site.
1.        The keywords meta tag is extremely important.
2.        Use plural keywords i.e. blogs instead of blog
3.        Secondly, the description meta tag is also important.
4.        Make sure the title tage is descriptive. Keywords in your title is very important with Yahoo! Search.
5.        Use your keywords in the HTML Heading tags.  
6.        Leave keywords in comment tags.
7.        Tell the search engine spider when to come back using the revisit-after meta tag.
8.        Tell the search engine spider to also index all pages linked on your page using the name=”robots” content=”index, follow” meta tag.
9.        To subtly boost the number of keywords on a page, set the text color to one similar to your background. Insert a sentence, containing your top 6 keywords, at the bottom of your main page.
10.        Know your audience.
11.        Get recommendations.
12.        Use promotions and cross-promotions to attract visitors.
13.        Easy submission to all major search engines using AddMe.com or DMOZ.org
14.        Use Google Adwords
15.        Use Google to find out how many websites are linking to yours. i.e. link:yoursite.com
16.        Finally check out the Search Engine Marketing Kit.

]]> http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2005/04/15/web-search-optimization-tips/feed/ 0 Toughest Interview Questions http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2005/04/12/toughest-interview-questions/ http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2005/04/12/toughest-interview-questions/#comments Tue, 12 Apr 2005 13:47:35 +0000 admin http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/?p=66 If some of you are about to go through this part of your job hunting phase, these are some of the toughest questions that you’ll need to answer.  
  1. Tell me about yourself.
  2. What makes you unique?  
  3. What interests you the most about this position? What interests you the least?  
  4. What did you like most about your last job? What did you like least?  
  5. Why did you leave (or are you leaving) your last job?  
  6. Why do you want this job? or Why do you want to work for us?  
  7. What would you do if your boss asked you to do something you felt was unethical?  
  8. What are your salary expectations?

Read more about the 8 toughest interview questions.

]]> http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2005/04/12/toughest-interview-questions/feed/ 0 12 Rules of Blogging http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2005/03/31/12-rules-of-blogging/ http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2005/03/31/12-rules-of-blogging/#comments Thu, 31 Mar 2005 19:39:49 +0000 admin http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/?p=67
  • Make it clear that the views expressed in the blog do not necessarily represent the views of the employer.  
  • Respect the company’s confidentiality and proprietary information.  
  • Ask your manager if you have any questions about what is appropriate to include in the blog.  
  • Be respectful to the company, employees, customers, partners, and competitors. Criticise but be balanced, give opportunity for feedback, and be justifiable.  
  • Observe company requests that topics not be discussed for confidentiality or legal compliance reasons.  
  • Ensure that your blogging activity does not interfere with your work commitments or employee relations.  
  • Tell the truth and write with balance and accuracy. Acknowledge and correct mistakes promptly. Acknowledge conflicts of interest.  
  • Keep records of original posts and indicate where a message has been edited or summarized.  
  • Be prepared to delete inappropriate posts and spam or off-topic material.  
  • Reply to e-mails and comments promptly and be prepared to explain how complaints are being dealt with.  
  • Don’t steal copyright material. Link to online references and original source materials directly.  
  • Keep private issues private and don’t jeopardise the company’s working relationships.
  • Source: Nick Lockett, DL Legal
    • ]]>     http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2005/03/31/12-rules-of-blogging/feed/ 0     Usability: Checkboxes vs. Radio buttons http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/12/23/usability-checkboxes-vs-radio-buttons/ http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/12/23/usability-checkboxes-vs-radio-buttons/#comments Thu, 23 Dec 2004 13:28:00 +0000 admin http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/?p=82 I have been doing some reading to educate myself in the realm of web design and I came across an interesting site called UseIt.com by Jakob Nielsen. It has some very good content on website usability. I have already bookmarked the site. One of the more interesting pieces that I came across was an article about form checkboxes and radio buttons. It was quite interesting to read that many of us web developers still make the mistakes that his article outlines. Hopefully, I can learn a lot more from Jakob Nielsen. I am looking forward to his next article.

    ]]>     http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/12/23/usability-checkboxes-vs-radio-buttons/feed/ 0     5 common problems in software development process http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/09/09/5-common-problems-in-software-development-process/ http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/09/09/5-common-problems-in-software-development-process/#comments Thu, 09 Sep 2004 13:19:12 +0000 admin http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/?p=100 Here’s a summary of what I believe are the most common problems in the software development process:
    • Miscommunication:  If developers don’t know what’s needed or customer’s have false expectations, problems are guaranteed.
    • Poor requirements:  If requirements are unclear, incomplete, too general, and not testable, there will be problems.
    • Unrealistic schedule:  If too much work is crammed in too little time, problems are inevitable.
    • Featuritis (Feature creep):  Requests to pile on new features after development is underway; extremely common.
    • Inadequate testing:  Applications may or may not work correctly until the customer complains or systems crash.
    ]]>     http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/09/09/5-common-problems-in-software-development-process/feed/ 0     Web design tip: fieldset tag http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/08/25/web-design-tip-fieldset-tag/ http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/08/25/web-design-tip-fieldset-tag/#comments Wed, 25 Aug 2004 18:04:00 +0000 admin http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/?p=103 The fieldset tag is a very useful tag to make a complex and lengthy form more organized and visually appealing. This technique draws a thin border around a group of form elements so the end user knows they are somehow related. This breaks up a large form into smaller sections that are easy to understand. The legend tag is used to define what text you want to appear in the upper left corner of the selected form elements. For example, if you had a form that collected information about the user, such as their name and address, you could wrap those form elements with a fieldset tag to convey to the user that those form elements are related.

    Fieldset code

    The result on your browser should look like:

    Fieldset

    Reference: http://www.lynda.com/newsletters/

    ]]>     http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/08/25/web-design-tip-fieldset-tag/feed/ 0     Sign and encrypt your email http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/07/28/sign-and-encrypt-your-email/ http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/07/28/sign-and-encrypt-your-email/#comments Wed, 28 Jul 2004 13:06:20 +0000 admin http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/?p=107 Email was designed and used at a time when the Internet was still a safe and friendly place. This is no longer the case, yet many email servers still allow anyone on the Internet to access their services to send spam email, and many of us still send our account passwords and email messages in clear text (think postcard versus envelope) over the wire.  

    Many email programs have the ability to sign and encrypt email messages. This allows us to verify the identity of the sender of a received email message, verify that the message has not been tampered with in transit, and, finally, send encrypted email messages. Simply put, it offers the ability to put our email messages in an envelope and seal them.  More.  

    ]]>     http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/07/28/sign-and-encrypt-your-email/feed/ 0     DB2 SQL date and time cheat sheet http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/06/29/db2-sql-date-and-time-cheat-sheet/ http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/06/29/db2-sql-date-and-time-cheat-sheet/#comments Tue, 29 Jun 2004 12:38:00 +0000 admin http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/?p=112 I haven’t had much time lately to write up any articles, but I’ve finally found something that may be useful for those of us who work quite a lot with SQL on the DB2 platform. We don’t need to write up a Java program everytime we want to query for information based on specific time intervals. We can just use the date/time functions built-in to DB2 SQL to manipulate and query the database. More.

    For the life of me, I can’t remember where I found this cheat sheet. I apologize in advance for not being able to give out the reference.  

    ]]>     http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/06/29/db2-sql-date-and-time-cheat-sheet/feed/ 0     Websphere vs. Domino http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/05/06/websphere-vs-domino/ http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/05/06/websphere-vs-domino/#comments Thu, 06 May 2004 22:18:00 +0000 admin http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/?p=131 I never got around to finishing up on the other WebSphere XML article, but here’s an interim article which I think is quite eye-opening. If you are an IT web applications architect making the decision between Domino and WebSphere or both, you need to know how well the product aligns with the task it is being asked to perform. For example, we all should know that Domino is an excellent choice for collaborative tasks and WebSphere is great at transactional based tasks. More.

    Domino vs Websphere

    ]]>     http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/05/06/websphere-vs-domino/feed/ 0     WebSphere XML Tutorials #2 Status http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/04/05/websphere-xml-tutorials-2-status/ http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/04/05/websphere-xml-tutorials-2-status/#comments Mon, 05 Apr 2004 12:54:00 +0000 admin http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/?p=154 I’ve had a quite a weekend. Still getting over a cold. I had planned on getting part 2 of the tutorials done, but it looks like it won’t happen till this weekend. I’m shooting for a publish date of April 11, 2004. I will be discussing the servlet that will parse the RSS feed and display the data to the web browser. You will need to setup Apache Tomcat before hand as I will only show the result of the servlet code.

    ]]>     http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/04/05/websphere-xml-tutorials-2-status/feed/ 0     WebSphere XML Tutorials Coming Soon http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/03/23/websphere-xml-tutorials-coming-soon/ http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/03/23/websphere-xml-tutorials-coming-soon/#comments Tue, 23 Mar 2004 22:29:22 +0000 admin http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/?p=162 I have been trying to come up with some upcoming article ideas.  I’ve decided to do one on how easy WebSphere Application Developer or Eclipse makes XML development in Java very easy.  In particular, I hope to discuss Java object data binding techniques using XSD beans API.  Stay tuned next week for the first part of my article series.

    ]]>     http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/03/23/websphere-xml-tutorials-coming-soon/feed/ 0     Domino Java APIs – Recycle Early, Recycle Often http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/03/21/domino-java-apis-recycle-early-recycle-often/ http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/03/21/domino-java-apis-recycle-early-recycle-often/#comments Sun, 21 Mar 2004 22:21:39 +0000 admin http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/?p=163 I present to you my first article
    describing the appropriate way to write Java code when using the Domino Java APIs.
    The excerpt is borrowed from an e-Pro Magazine article on Java Performance Techniques for Domino Development.

    ]]>     http://www.cityblogz.com/blog/2004/03/21/domino-java-apis-recycle-early-recycle-often/feed/ 0