Props to Grill’d Surry Hills
December 2nd, 2011Just wanted to give a quick thanks to Grill’d @ Surry Hills for the awesome service. Asked if I bought something would they give me access to the wifi, and he said it isn’t the policy to stop all the uni students mooching free Internet.
However it is currently Friday @ 6pm.
And I am very charming…
So he gave me VIP access to the Wi-Fi! #winning
So now I will be a customer for life at this particular Grill’d and just going that extra mile for a customer made my awesome day even more awesome!
Thanks guys!
Taking Your Website MultiNational & MultiLingual
November 28th, 2011Recently I sat down with long time friend Mike Casey who has been running a graduate jobs website in Australia for a number of years and is now expanding into international markets. He as after some advice expanding his websites into multiple countries, but the condition that each country would be able to handle multiple languages. Some countries also needed the ability to serve multiple language inside the same website. So what is a guy to do in this situation?
Well we both did some research and found some really interesting links and information on how to run multinational, multilingual websites. We will share our thoughts here for all so others can learn from what we discovered because finding good information was harder than we first thought.
Taking a Website Multinational
We won’t go into the required technologies and code required to replicate a website across countries, because that is beyond the scope of this post. We assume you have your platform sorted in this case and just want to know about how you need to modify templates and URL structures.
Get the Right Top Level Domain(TLD)
The first thing you need to do is to make sure you have bought all the country specific domain names for your organisation. In a perfect case scenario you would go for a URL that was character for character identical. For example, Mike had made sure he bought www.gradconnection.co.uk and not www.grad-connection.co.uk (the character change is a notable difference in the eyes of search engines).
Pick a Default Language to Display
Even if your new market speaks multiple languages in the same country, your website needs to default to one in particular. This becomes a business decision and should be done on what is best for the users in the region. For example, in Hong Kong, the vast majority of websites default to English and not Cantonese.
Meta Geo-Location Data Tags Mean Nothing
In the footer I have referenced links from Google’s Webmaster Blog that state that meta geo-location tags do not help identify a website with a particular country. So don’t waste your time.
Setting up a MultiLingual Website
This is where things get really tricky, so take notes, there is a lot of work to do here.
The HTML lang Attribute
One thing that was discovered during our research is that the HTML attribute is fairly important in multilanguage website. So for example:
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en">
means that this page is being served in the English language.
So when it comes to serving the same website in multiple languages, each and every page needs to have the correct attribute value in place so search engines and search readers know what to do with the words on the page. HTML lang attribute – remember it!.
How do you know what the right value for the attribute is? After searching high and low, we found this link that provides all the language identifies (RFC 3006). Have a search through that page and find the relevant code to serve in the markup of your page.
How you flip the attribute value in your template files is completely up to you, talk to your developers and explain the importance of having it there.
Language Context & Grammar Need to be Correct
Running your website through Google Translate is not an effective or sensible multilingual strategy. If you do not want your website being tripped as being spam, your only option is to get it hand translated. Period.
On a different Google Webmaster Blog post (referenced in the footer), they even recommend all boilerplate text, template buttons, navigation, etc be translated. Not only will this benefit your users, but it will also add to the authenticity and trust-factor of your web site.
Always use UTF-8 Encoding
This is simple fix, make sure the following piece of HTML appears in all your templates (note: there is different markup for HTML5 and the previous HTML standards):
HTML5
<meta charset="UTF-8" />
Previous Versions of HTML
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
Every Page in Every Language Needs a Unique URL
The 2 options available to the development team are:
- Sub domains: So en.gradconnection.hk, zh.gradconnection.hk, etc
- Sub directories: So gradconnection.hk/en/, gradconnection.hk/zh/, etc
Once again this becomes a business decision, along with a chat with your developers. Sub domains might cause problems with mobile websites and other network setups. Whatever option you choose to go with, stick to it and implement the required URL routes.
Use Sessions to Set User Language Choice
Once a user arrives at your website and makes a conscience decision to switch the language, the best place to store that is in a session for the duration of the visit. If you want to remember that preference, store it in a cookie. Do not do server-side redirects based on IP location, browser settings, etc – Google doesn’t recommend it.
Also interesting fun fact we discovered: GoogleBot does not send any language data in its server request calls. So don’t try to get tricky with that either.
Same Language Linking
For maximum SEO impact, common sense as well as a couple of blog posts have mentioned that links that are pointing to a specific language page have the most impact when the link in marked up in the same language. So links coming from a Spanish website should have spanish words in the anchor text and point to the Spanish version of the page on the website, not the English version or the homepage.
Conclusion & References
So after implementing all of the above points, you are well on track to having a fully effective multinational and multilingual website. And if your platform can’t handle any of the above changes, then you might have to reconsider before you go worldwide.
If anyone else has some good recommendations about going international, please leave a note in the comments!
References
- Using Language Identifiers (RFC 3066)
- Styling using language attributes
- Unifying Content Under MultiLingual Templates
- SEO for MultiLanguage International Projects
- Working With Multi Regional Websites
Hours 1-5
November 24th, 2011I know it has been more than a few days (or even weeks) since I said I was going to log all my events in reaching my 10,000hrs towards being an expert in development again. But with relocating back to Australia and taking care of some outstanding business, the time to post properly and catalog the information did not exist until today. However, I have my scrawlings in my notebook, and reference URLs stored in Evernote, which I will now present a nice, clean, aggregated format for your reference. Hopefully you can learn from me too!
Tasks I Needed to Dev
- Add custom theme settings to my WordPress Theme project – What I discovered here is that WordPress now has a WordPress Settings API over the last few versions and most themes/plugins are ridiculously out of date and not applying these new standards.
- Setting up GIT repos – Something I have never religiously done is use a version control system, and I thought this is a better time than ever to do it properly. Was reading up on setting up and using GIT properly.
- Stepping through and fully understanding how the ZURB foundation framework operates and how to migrate some of my existing client templates to that framework. Result: 2 massive thumbs up!
- Using the FatFree PHP framework for new projects, starting with my internal project management system. Loving it more than CodeIgniter at the moment, and spending time on the IRC channel to get help from the (small) community. Thanks for the help so far guys!
- Setting up the WordPress Debugging/Testing plugins on my local development instance. I cannot believe I did not do this sooner! Great feedback on all the work.
That is about it for now. Whether or not that is 5hrs exactly I am not too sure, but it’s a rough guess.
If there is anything I missed out or you have better resources, share them in the comments and I will add them to my list (and give you props).
I’m Starting My 10000 Hours
November 3rd, 2011I can’t even remember how I came across this web series, but I am thoroughly engrossed in Made by Hand, a collection of short films about people running businesses where the entire premise revolves around making products by hand.
The latest film that I just watched was about Joel Bukiewicz of Cut Brooklyn, a writer come knife maker. He alluded to Malcom Gladwell’s premise stated in his book Outliers that success can be attributed to 10,000hrs on a particular skill.
And to see Joel working towards that and then go on to produce an amazing product before even completing the 10,000hrs has inspired me to do so with my programming. I have not focused on pure programming for a year or so, being focused on other areas.
But starting from tomorrow I will be documenting every hour of my coding experience until I get to 10,000. If anything else, it will provide a great story to my family and friends in the future.
So get ready for the first hour starting from tomorrow.
Respect to Matt Mullenweg
August 30th, 2011Even though I have been a WordPress user, themer, and developer for about 5years, I had actually spent little time being active in the community or finding out more about the people and the company behind one of the greatest success stories in open source CMS platforms.
The fact that the software controls so much of the Internet’s content and distribution after 5 years is a massive credit to him and his team. I have a new found respect for the software.
But more importantly it is the decisions he has made toward the community and that is what I have think has caused the uptake in the installations and support for the software. He found his market, got the people behind the product, and let things progress from there.
And that brings us to his State of the Word 2011 presentation. I had not previously seen any of the other keynotes, but I was thoroughly impressed by this one. Definitely worth 40min of your time if you are a WordPress user or developer. I have embedded it here:
What Matt has motivated me to do
After watching this video I was definitely inspired to create something more than ever. To see someone create a piece of work he is so proud of and to have gained respect from a community and have it reflected in installations is something I would definitely love to be a part of.
I know it won’t happen over night, but I do know it will take hard work and the right idea to get off the ground. And starting later this year, hopefully I will be finishing a piece of web based software to be distributed, forked and improved by developers over the globe.
I have the vision and the ability, if only I could find the time…
Clean Out Your Referrer Traffic
August 10th, 2011If you have a collection of websites that you manage, it is really just a matter of time before you get spammed by bots, scrapers, and dodgy URL shortners. Most of these poorly built spam bots will make some badly coded requests that will trigger your Google Analytics code. This then fills your referral traffic reports with redundant numbers if you do not take one of 2 options:
- Block the requests from the domain/IP address via the htaccess file
- Filter them out of your Google Analytics reports
This morning I spent the last 40min blocking domains and IPs because I feel it is the best way to tackle it. Reasons being:
- Filtering dud traffic out of reports is the server request equivalent of out-of-sight-out-of-mind
- If you block it at domain level, you are covered if they change their IP address regularly or the domain changes hands and moves to another server.
- I like just serving 403 status codes to people – makes me feel tough
Sure it was time consuming and I will never win the war, but at least now both my server and my Google Analytics reports love me that little bit more.
If anyone knows of a tool where you feed it a list of referring URLs and grabs the IP and can tell if it is part of a spam/traffic-faking network can you please, please, please let me know in the comments!
Happy 403ing!
Migrated to StaceyApp
July 24th, 2011It has been a long and sometimes confusing process to decide what CMS to use for my company website. I have installed and tried countless amounts and always got excited only to realize I spent more time hacking it up then actually maintaining it.
There was always one feature missing or basic things became nightmares to implement or install. And so I just settled on Drupal for a while.
Then I got to thinking what exactly was the purpose of the website. And for me and my company it was basically a sales tool and a showcase of what I have done. All the blogging and day to day stuff I figured could be covered here permanently, since I have been doing it here until my company website got up and running.
And then just by accident the other day I found StaceyApp, a simple 600 odd line CMS.
It looked easy to implement (no database), came with a simple template and allowed mixing plain text, HTML, and php code with little to no fuss.
You can even sync it up to DropBox and get it to update as you update your DropBox.
The best bit for me is the way it handles media and documents. You just all through it into a folder and it takes care of the rest.
Too easy!
However there are some downsides, especially from an architecture point of view. It doesn’t really seem to be designed for large websites, and not ideal for blogging. So if your website plans on being over 100 odd pages, definitely look at implementing a larger system like Drupal.
And I have had some issues with redirects and other server side stuff in moving across all my old URLs. But when I figure out a good solution, I will post it and probably create a fork on Github with some of my work arounds.
For me though this whole experience over the last couple of days made me realize how important it is to determine what is the reason for having a website and determining it’s purpose. And once you have that clear in mind, there is an appropriate CMS for you – don’t just automatically go to WordPress.
So after I play around some more, expect a fork coming soon. I’m seriously thinking about calling it Stacey’s Mum 
Keeping an eye on the Dollars
July 11th, 2011This month more than ever is all about watching exactly where the money is coming and going from. I think it is something scary that I have avoided to do for far too long and now it’s really time to buckle down and note every single transaction I am making each and every day.
The iPad app called “Expenses” is working the best for me so far. Simple and clean interface, broad categories to record quickly and easily. It’s not by any means a full blown budgeting program for business, but for me it’s perfect just to monitor my personal expenses during the day as well as some business related fix costs.
And you know what the biggest culprit so far that eats all my money? Eating out.
I had no idea how much money I spend every week on food and coffee! Only after I started tracking this did I realize it accounted for 50% of my personal expenses, and about 20% of business related (meaning the days I am too lazy to bring food from home).
That is just unacceptable.
So now this week I am going to try to cut it down by half. I think a pretty reasonable goal. And I haven’t decided if that will go back into my personal savings or back into the business.
Lesson for everyone: keep track of how much you spend on food. It will blow your mind.
If anyone can beat 50% let me know, because that is scary and I want to know why you let it go so high!
Watched Inside Job the Movie
July 8th, 2011
After a busy day at work, many people wouldn’t have picked a documentary on the GFC to unwind to on a Friday night. However tonight, I did. Joined by my Dad, for the next 2hours of our life we were shocked and appalled at what we learnt. We both thought we had a fairly good understanding of the issues around the crisis, but what we failed to release is how far back the corruption started.
To think that a first world country could so be completely blind to what was occurring around them; to be so cocky and arrogant to think it wouldn’t catch up to them; and the audacity to pay performance bonuses to these criminals year after year proves to me that this world is a truly disgusting place to live.
Whilst other nations prevented with regulations what America allowed to happen since what appears to pre-date the Clinton administration tells me that money doesn’t not only buy taste but brains as well.
The smugness of these men’s faces repulsed me as well, especially when the questions were tricky and the evidence was stacked against them. Their suits must be made from material that cuts all emotion from reaching the heart, if one ever existed in the first place.
But it gets worse because do you want to know the most shocking thing you discover in this documentary? The fact that Obama selected the same men that caused this global recession in the first place, the very men that destroyed the entire globe’s economy, back into positions of authority in the government – or at the very least in advisory roles!
Someone needs to please explain to me how on earth this is possible, and what words or strategies could vommit out of the mouths of those men that could improve the situation of the world.
Business Vibes Are Amazing
June 16th, 2011Not until today (and last night’s haze of inspiration) did I fully realise how important it is to be surrounded by like minded individuals. Since I have been pretty much been a one-man-band, I have managed to focus much better than I ever did a team environment. My high school teachers would agree, every report that I received throughout my entire school life came through with “Ben has very done well, but could do even better if he didn’t distract others and stayed focused.”
But last night I caught up with some people that I really respect, in particular relating to what they have done in the startup scene here in Sydney. The whole time my mind was running at a million miles an hour, and I came back so charged and buzzed to do all these crazy things with my business.
By the time I came down off that high I actually had some time to stop and think about what actually occurred in that room. The only difference between the last few months and the couple of hours last night is that I had someone to vibe off. Someone to look at me and tell me exactly what they thought about my ideas, my approach to business, and what it takes to actually solve problems people and businesses face.
I suppose it’s the same when rappers have cyphers and musicians have jam sessions – business and music both thrive off vibes (I honestly can’t think of a better term) and together the sounds and ideas create amazing pieces of work – work that would have never existed unless there was an idea, a catalyst, mixed in with the excitement and everyone feeding off the same wavelength.
So I am planning on locating my business to that environment.
I want to thrive.
I want to create.
And I want to give something back to how people have helped me.
And the best bit of all? Is then once I leave that environment, I can spend the time with friends and family that matter to most and not bore them with all my crazy business ideas.