Category Archives: tools
Caching external content for site performance
I recently had to re-install some twitter/tumblr syndication modules on a few small sites. Reason: sudden performance issues. The sites were medium-sized, and depended heavily on externally syndicated content. You’ve seen these busy sidebars before: a few recent twitter posts, a few more tumblr pics, another FeedBurner, maybe a dozen of Disqus/Echo comments, Amazon widget. This is all good, and wonderful, to spread your content/community around on multiple platforms, and syndicate them on your site. But keep in mind that all these services – while practical and very responsive – are relatively new technologies. Young start-up companies.
Project lifecycle, simplified
You’ve probably seen this cartoon before (if not, just google it), and if you have – it made you chuckle. Now how many will admit being involved with such challenging projects (web or otherwise)? How many will admit to managing (or rather, mis-managing) something that resembles the above? I hope a few hands are still raised in the air. It’s not fun to inherit such a project, and even less fun to do the clean-up afterwards. But I assume we’ve all done it.
Social sharing all-in-one tools
Social sharing has come a long way in so little time. Just a couple of years ago the concept of ‘viral’ or ‘widgets’ didn’t exist, and webmasters/publishers were happy just cross-linking to each other’s content, getting ‘contras’, asking to be listed in a directory, etc. But ever since the first ‘Digg’ icon showed up (or ‘tell a friend’, I forget what started it), the idea of letting people share and bookmark their favourite web destinations has grown into a separate web industry. Hundreds of widgets, thousands of chiclets (those little icons you see everywhere), and we’re all sharing, passing on, pushing the content further.
content management systems
Content management systems (CMS for short) have been around for a while now, but only now they are beginning to get the well-deserved attention. In simple terms, these are software applications that allow website publishers and editors put content online easier and faster. As these systems evolve, they require less and less HTML and coding knowledge to publish stories/files online. Sure, you can still use the traditional HTML taggin approach to putting your content online, but if there’s a tool that can speed up the process, and even improve the quality of your content while it’s being converted into web format – why not utilize it?
