Internet

Today is (un)officially Blogger Appreciation day, well Darren Rowse started the worthy cause and Chris Garrett developed it into appreciation of those that comment on your blog.

It's your comments that highlight points missed or subjects to cover so keep them coming.

So here are the great and good that have all so far commented on my blog, it's only a new born monkey creation so props (respect cause I'm hip, on the cutting edge ouch!) to my early adopters:

Ed Rouch
Barry Welford
Rachel Phillips
Rob Safuto
Mel
Patricia Skinner
SexySEO

Just started out? Opened a bank account, registered at Companies House and now want a website but not sure what you need?

Often I have new business owners come to me with wide eyes and bright ideas but soon become tongue tied when the word website is mentioned.

Technology can be a frightening thing for a number of people which is why I've written this post to help explain exactly what is required.

6 Actions To Get Your Website Off The Ground

#1 Domain Name: eg. www.example.com

First off you need a domain name which is the name given to your website and would normally be your company name. Some thought should be given to this and research done into availability.

PayPal, in an interview with Macworld, gave a stark warning about possible security breaches related to the Mac Safari browser and PayPal. Steer clear of Safari or you could become a victim of online fraud.

"Apple, unfortunately, is lagging behind what they need to do, to protect their customers," Michael Barrett, PayPal's chief information security officer said in an interview. "Our recommendation at this point, to our customers, is use Internet Explorer 7 or 8 when it comes out, or Firefox 2 or Firefox 3, or indeed Opera."

Seeing that Safari is the default browser for the Mac it's a big disappointment that it has no built-in phishing filter to warn users when visiting a fraudulent website. Security should be one of the main concerns for any browser software company but when someone recommends Internet Explorer as being safer then you need to think about changing browsers.

Good luck to my cousin in India who was recently married at a monkey wedding in Ghanteswara village in Orissa state India. As reported on the BBC News site Crowds flock to monkey 'wedding' over 3,000 people turned up for the occasion. I didn't realise he had that many family and friends!

Sadly I couldn't make it due to other commitments but I wish Jhumuri and Manu well for the future. Word from the jungle is that they're planning on a long honey moon before having a family which I think is right for such a young couple.

I'm also glad to hear they have been released into the wild as previously they were chained up. All the best Manu, she looks a feisty one!

Whilst the rest of the economy looks shaky online retailers are excited at the thought of grabbing a larger percentage of the retail market. Figures recently out show that during the period of October to December overall sales for 2007 were up by a staggering 54% on the same period in 2006.

The electronics market showed the best growth in December up 60% with the clothing market in second with a 28% increase.

Further proof that customers are becoming more confident about online security measures and are willing to spend their money over the internet. Online reductions and promotions have helped drive this increase which is a welcome boost for those with an online presence.

Rich Site Summary (RSS), also referred to as Really Simple Syndication, is an easy way to keep up-to-date with a blog, news headlines or podcasts.

You probably already spend time visiting your favorite bookmarked websites to see if content has been updated or a new blog posted. This is where RSS comes in and saves you time visiting these sites on a regular basis and does the work for you.

What Do I Need To Read RSS?

You need a Feed Reader or News Aggregator that allows you to display RSS content easily. When you click on an RSS icon (above) you are subscribing to that site's feed. This will then go into your feed reader or aggregator. Take a peek at mine below and the feeds I read:

The Feed Reader will display content for you and indicate when new content has been published. This Reader brings all your feed together in one place.