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Here is a pretty good article about the battle of browsers. Seems that Firefox following is cooling down as percentage of growth is decreasing.

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Many business owners need to accept payments online, but are confused by the many options and services available. Following is a glossary, and a brief summary of the issues involved:

Merchant Account. This is not a checking account, but an agreement with a Merchant Account Service Provider to process credit card payments and make deposits into your checking account. The MASP is not a bank, but their service is obtained through, and coordinated with, a brick-and-mortar bank. Online processors can’t set this up for you, and neither can your web developer.

Platform. One of several electronic data transfer protocols used for financial transactions. Your MASP and Gateway have to use the same Platform.

Gateway. The online processor who provides the mechanism through which credit cards are verified and processed in real-time. There are many, including Autorize.net, iTransact, eProcessingNetwork, 2Checkout, Linkpoint, and others.

API. Most gateways (but not all), offer this Application Programming Interface, a “toolbox” with which your eCommerce programmer can connect to the gateway and verify charges “behind the scenes”, without sending your customer to someone else’s website. Since each gateway’s API is different, but the costs of processing charges are very similar, it is often to your advantage to use a gateway with whose API your programmer is familiar.

AVS. Address Verification System, a mechanism for verifying that the cardholder knows the billing address on the account. If not, the charge is usually fradulent. People who have recently moved will sometimes be flagged by AVS, and will not be able to complete a purchase.

CVV. A 3-digit number on the back of the card that proves that the purchaser actually has the card in hand, not just the number. Currently, only Discover actually requires this data, but the others will soon.

SSL. Secure Socket Layer, a protocol by which all data transfer from the customer’s computer to your webserver is encrypted with military-grade encryption. This is referred to as a “secure link”, and is implemented by the programmer using a
digital certificate, which is either setup on the server for the use of multiple clients, or purchased specifically by the customer. Under no circumstances should credit card numbers be submitted except over a secure link.

The good news is, you don’t have to know all this. Your bank can set you up with a Merchant Account and the Service Provider, and will often provide the necessary configuration data to your selected gateway. Your web development team can do most of the rest. You, then, have to select which of the following levels of service you want to use, based on your business needs, and budget.
These are listed in increasing order of sophistication. In general, they are also listed in ease of use for the customer and positive image for your company. The options requiring programming may cost more to setup, but will also usually cost less per transaction.

1. Paypal (standard). Use a link, send the customer to Paypal. If they don’t get too aggravated, they may pay you for something, but there is no good way to track payments, provide instant downloads, capture their name or email, etc.
2. Paypal (with an API). Similar to below, but requires the customer to do more. Basically free
3. Gateway (without an API). Customer fills out a form, is sent to another website to enter credit card data, and perhaps sent back to you. Very clumsy and unprofessional looking, and requires multiple steps to capture their information.
4. Gateway (with an API). Customer fills out a form, the charge is verified in the background (also AVS, if used), data can be saved to a database, emails sent, and a confirmation screen displayed. The best choice.

http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/1800.html

For those of you who want Microsoft IE to go down flames fast, I have bad news. Apparently the initial enthusiasm at the release of Firefox in October of last year is waning.

As we all know, navigation is a very important factor in increasing click through rates by assisting the user in finding information quickly and easily. Let’s think of navigation in our everyday lives and apply it to websites. How difficult would it be to drive to Memphis, TN without signs. We would have a general direction, but would sooner or later need to take every exit off the Interstate then come back to the Interstate and continue until we find our way. ..Very time consuming!

It is the same with websites that have internal links on internal pages, but do not have those links on the homepage, in drop-down menus, or an easily findable sitemap. By showing all links, you are forcing dropdowns or page scrolling but it is still much faster than having to click on each option, search the internal page links, then click back to go to the next page and try it again until you find the correct information.

Any time you can take the burden off the users our site will be more valuable to your customers.

I read an interesting excerpt about Razorfish Germany that did a usability test of placing the main navigation on the right-hand side of websites instead of typical top and left sides. The study concluded that not only did the users not mind the change, but it provided easier access to the scrollbar for faster navigation and made it easier to concentrate on the content.

Take a look at Audi’s website located at www.audi.com and give your thoughts.

You will never look at a cup of coffee the same way again. A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose. Her mother took her to the kitchen.

She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans. She let them sit and boil, without saying a word. In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, “Tell me, what do you see?”

“Carrots, eggs, and coffee,” she replied. Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft. The mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg. Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled, as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter then asked, “What does it mean, mother?” Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity. Boiling water and each reacted differently.

The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak. The egg had been fragile. It’s thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened. The ground coffee beans were unique, however. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water. Which are you?” she asked her daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond?” ” Are you a carrot, an egg, or a coffee bean?”

Typical human scan patterns suggest upper left to right center then bottom left when scanning a website. Page layouts should incorporate logos, important information and calls to actions in these areas to increase ease of use and click through rates.

With this in mind, pages should load the same way. By using our current standards of loading header, then content, finally left menu and footer; we not only move relevant content for search engines up in our code (increasing SE friendliness), but also follow human scan patterns.

Very interesting - give your thoughts.

Dude .. Firefox has received 25 million downloads .. IE is going down … DOWNTOWN !!!

link to yahoo news

Paris Hilton’s phone book … hacked … none of the numbers work, I tried ..

Years ago when we got started in web design there were two web friendly image formats; GIF and JPEG (JPG). Each format works better for different types of images. GIFs are loss less and compress like a fax. JPEGs are lossy and compress using a sinusoidal algo. Basically, JPEG are good for images with gradually color changes such as photographs, GIF are better at displaying sharp contrast such as graphics with text. One major advantage of GIFs is they can have transparency. (Note: the emerging JPEG 2000 format also supports transparencies)

In 1995 there began to be hype about a new file format, PNG. PNG compression is very similar to GIF but it offers 8 bits of transparency verses GIFs binary or 1 bit transparency. PNG’s 8-bit transparency allows us to anti-alias transparencies giving us a much smother transition to transparent.

By 1999 PNG was still considered a new format that browsers were not yet supporting so we stuck to GIFs and JPGs. PNGs are very useful in Flash animation, allowing us to move an image over another and get a realistic transparency effect. However, in standard web page coding you don’t need to dynamically stack images. Typically all image manipulation is done in Photoshop to create static images that integrate with the site’s background colors.

Basically, inadequate browser support and very limited need for transparencies in web page design made PNG the forgotten format.

Today, as DHTML becomes more standard we will be using the z-layer or background/foreground options to stack images. Also if you have a site where the background colors can change, PNG allow you to have one set of graphics that work on all pages. (For an example check out the color change on the different sections of Intelinet Systems. The left-hand nav buttons were done in text since it would require different sets of nav buttons for each background color. PNG would allow us to do one set of graphical nav.)

I came across my own need for PNG recently. I was adding administration icons to the LevelTen Site Directory (a new L10 App). The Site Directory allows users to define custom templates that can have any background color. I tried to use GIF’s binary transparency to allow the icons to inherit the user defined page color. It works, but the binary transparency gave a very unappealing, jagged edge to the circular icons. So I tried PNG 24 (the 24 bit version of PNG).

I recompressed my icons using Photoshop for PNG 24, uploaded and wow they worked in the FireFox browser I was developing. Hmm, I thought, why in all my reading about web design best practices is there not more discussion about using PNG? Why don’t I see other websites using them? I thought browsers didn’t fully support PNG.

I started testing in other browsers. Sure enough, I opened IE and what was supposed to be transparent was a light gray. The PNG transparencies work in virtually every browser but IE using standard img tags. That’s why there is no current hype.

The good news is that there are work arounds to get PNG transparencies working in IE, the bad news is they tend to be code intensive and break W3C standards.

The processes

Using JavaScript, you have to load the PNGs using proprietary IE filters. These filters only work in IE, so you have to use a JavaScript browser detect function to write the alternative loading for IE and standard loading for all other browsers. (Note: we include the browser detect function in our standard web page setup code.)

A detailed write-up on the JavaScript process can be found here http://www.alistapart.com/articles/pngopacity/

An interesting article using server site PHP can be found here http://www.koivi.com/ie-png-transparency/

The Bottom Line

It is very disappointing that IE does not support the PNG transparency correctly. In general the work around is not worth it, so avoid it if you can. If you really need to anti-alias transparency use the methods described in the above articles.

P.S. I hope it doesn’t take more than ten years for browsers to support JPEG 2000.

A significant Google algo change and update happened over super bowl weekend. As with any update, many optimized sites dropped. However, this time it was a lot of sites, including many who have had top rankings for years. At the same time, many sites came out of the sandbox for the first time to rank well for competitive terms.

This update, for the most part, did not affect our SEO clients. Two of our clients came out of the sandbox to get fantastic rankings; both are now in second position for their main keyword.

What I find interesting, and has a lot of other SEO experts talking, is that this is the first mass exodus out of the sandbox. Many sites that came out have been waiting since March 2004. What happened to only having to wait six months? Do we really have to wait 11 months to get out? Is there a shortcut to get out sooner?

A very interesting article www.socengine.com explores that very topic. The article concludes with six popular theories about how to shortcut the sandbox.

Several SEO’s claim to have escaped the sandbox quickly. IMO, none have provided adequate proof of a new website ranking well for truly competitive terms. I have seen no evidence of a shortcut out of the sandbox from our client’s sites and other sites we are involved, which represent a wide range of link building and on page optimization levels.

To review the dozens of sites we have been involved with since March 2004:

• Virtually all are registered with 5 to 25 directories when launched.
• Most have some level of on page optimization that has them ranking well in Yahoo and MSN.
• All sites launched after July 2004 were W3C HTML compliant, although some clients have made non-W3C compliant changes. Those that aren’t 100% compliant still have relatively clean code (compared to a WYSIWYG site builders).
• None have black hat techniques (unless the someone else has done it to the site) such as stealthing, keyword stuffing, etc.
• Most sites are fairly static, yet some continuously have content being added or changed.
• Some are brand new domains; some have been around for many years.
• Some we host between four different IP blocks, some are hosted elsewere with completely independent IP blocks.
• A few have steady, continuous link building both from manual link finding and some from natural linking (e.g. people like the site so much they link to it. Note: nFluentMusic.com is a SEO dream, it has people constantly linking to it because they are promoting themselves or just like the tools).

Out of these the only sites that have ranked well in Google in 2004 are those that had long standing domain names with significant link popularity. Our sites cover a broad range of business sites and none experienced a shortcut out. Every time someone claims they have quickly escaped the sandbox, it has turned out to be an urban legend.

For now it looks like the new sites and existing sites with low link popularity may have to wait up to a year or longer before ranking well in Google. We should continue to recommend that clients who can benefit from search marketing do AdWords and Overture sponsored PPP ads, moderate link building and on-page optimization with an eye for Yahoo and MSN in the near term.