Recommended Web Tools Archives

Email wasn’t meant to replace the telephone

Email is not always the best communication media. Email is not the only communication media. I think we have forgotten the other means of human communication: our voice.

The thoughts for this posts began to crystallize as I read Kawasaki’s advice about constructing emails. His advice is very sound. However, the larger question needs to be asked whether it is appropriate to email at all and whether one should instead use the phone.

This post is born out of a pet peeve. I am tired of being dealt with strictly via email. In the spirit of Problogger’s post dealing with the humanity of people, please deal with me as a person, not as a machine that reads text.

In partcular, here are some thoughts about the use of email at home and at work.

Home

Email helps us stay in touch with a larger number of people than would be possible via telephone. We can write one “update on my life newsletter” and send it to 100 of our closest friends. However, email is not the place to settle personal disagreements. Personal disagreements are best resolved face to face or on the phone. We need to be human and stop hiding behind email. Email has become the tool for cowards. This can be said as well for blogs and blog commenters.

Neither is email the best for inviting somebody to an early saturday basketball game when it is sent after 9 pm on the Friday before the event. I don’t check my personal email everyday. Nor do I always check it late at night. For items that require an immediate response or are VERY important I prefer someone pick up the phone and call me.

I have a relative that lives half way around the world from me. While I have emailed and kept in touch that way, I look forward to the opportunites we get to talk on the phone. I could email them everyday, but it is not until I hear their voice that I truly feel “in touch.”

Work

Email is great for tracking and documenting ongoing discussions and decisions. Work email is almost always up on my desktop and it can alert me when mail arrives. It works great for a large number of things. However, again, we forget about face to face communication. Somedays are filled with meetings and email is not regularly checked. Sometimes people say, “I’ve been trying to email you where have you been?” I tend to think “I have both a desk phone and a celluar phone, did you try to call? Did you try to talk to a co-worker to find out where I was?.” For important matters I almost always follow up with a phone call or hoof it up three floors to visit the person at their desk. The face to face (or voice to voice) communication strengthens the message sent in the email. The email serves as a document of the conversation. If, during the conversation, the topic/decision/discussion changes, I can later resend an email documenting the change. However, it was the personal face to face conversation which cements the deal.

So in the end, talk. Use your voice. Don’t be afraid. When I make the effort at work to call or go to someone’s desk, it speaks volumes. More times than not, people appreciate the more personal contact. There is balance in everything of course. Don’t bother your boss every five minutes.

[tags]email, telephone, voice[/tags]

Blog Reconstruction Dreams of Time

What if I had to do this blog all over again?

Rising up to the challenge of Problogger’s Group Writing Project, I decided to write up my own post on the topic.

Any project is potentially full of regrets and large learning curves. My advice to blogging beginners is to simply just do it. The more you do it, the more you learn. This blog/website was redesigned about four times before I felt somewhat satisfied. Below are four items I would have changed:

• Spellchecker – How many times would I post then reread it weeks later to find key spelling mistakes! I am still looking for a FAST and accurate spellchecker…any recommendations?
• Consistency – Doing this part time has meant for inconsistent posting. I let too much time go between posts last Fall and subsequently faced less traffic. Still trying to recover from that.
• Link Building Skills- I totally recognize the importance of link building, yet it is something I have not quite mastered. I wish I had a better handle on it from the start.
• The single most important thing I would change is time. Time to read. Time to write. Time to think. Time to create.

I will close this post quoting a portion of the lyrics from the Police song “No Time This Time”*

If I could
I’d slow the whole world down
I’d bring it to it’s knees
I’d stop it spinning round
But as it is
I’m climbing up an endless wall

No time at all
No time this time

*I would (and should) link to the official Police website or to A&M records. Neither seems to exist. Universal Music Group which now owns the A&M catalog does not even list the Police on their website.

Blog updates now available via email

For those readers that are not quite sure about using RSS feeds, the RWT site now has blog updates available via email. In the left navigation column on any page, there is a text box to sign up. Currently it will email daily as long as there is an update to the blog. In the future I hope to make it a little less frequent (or give readers the choice).

This replaces any monthly newsletter that readers may have signed up for previously. If you had signed up for that, please re-subscribe to these new email updates.

Thanks!

RWT Website reorganization

The RWT website has undergone a small reorganization.

First, adjustments were made to the colors in order to provide better readability. Not sure it is perfect. But would love to hear any feedback.

Second, the Recommended Web Tools page is now divided into sections. Dividing the articles into sections will allow for more content to be added in the futture.

Currently the categories are:

Internet Service Providers
Domain Names
Web Development and Design
Website Optimization
Ecommerce

Future categories to be added:
Graphic Tools
RSS Resources
PC Utilities
Internet Marketing

The Domain Names category will probably be included under Web Hosting sometime in the near future. Haven’t made up my mind on that one yet. Made up my mind. Domain name info is now under the Web Hosting category.

Top Ten Outgoing Clicks January 2006

1. How to Build Websites
2. W3Schools
3. Killersites.com
4. HTML-Kit
5. WordPress
6. Yahoo Search Marketing Keyword Selector
7. What! 90% the Internet is Invisible?!
8. Better Feed WordPress plugin
9. Absolute Color Picker 3.0
10. Nichebot

The first four items on the list have to do with HTML. While the #1 item is #1 for the second month in a row, other HTML topics have bubbled up next to it. Item 7 is funny to me. This item actually appeared on a syndicated feed on the home page. Let’s me know people are reading that feed! Plus it also lets me know about potential articles of interest for the future. The color picker continues to make the list. It is definitely a handy tool!

Top Ten Outgoing Clicks December 2005

1. How-To-Build-Websites   
2. NicheBOT 
3. Yahoo Search Marketing Keyword Selector
4. WordPress
5. Best Freeware Utilities
6. Wordtracker
7. W3Schools
8. Absolute Color Picker 3.0
9. Digital Point’s Keyword Suggestion Tool
10. Better Feed WordPress plugin

Upgrade to WordPress 2.0 Successful

Woohoo!

If you notice ANY problems on this site, please email me or leave a comment. As far as I have checked, all pages work correctly after the upgrade. I have noticed a tiny problem with the search results page and will be working on fixing that sometime soon.

About page updated

I updated the About page with a section concerning copyright and license. I wouldn’t bother mentioning this, but in a web world where issues of republishing content are often confused, I hope to encourage others to post a simple, yet clear statement about the use of their content on their sites.

Top Ten Outgoing Clicks November 2005

Readers made some interesting choices during the month of November. Wordtracker fell off the top ten list all together while HTML-KIT ascended to the number one spot. Take a look at the links readers felt were click worthy during the month of November:

1. HTML-Kit
2. WordPress
3. Yahoo Search Marketing Keyword Suggestion Tool
4. How-To-Build-Websites
5. Absolute Color Picker 3.0
6. Nichebot
7. Aplus
8. Killersites.com
9. Digital Point’s Keyword Suggestion Tool
10. mysitespace

Top Ten Outgoing Clicks October 2005

Below is a list of the top ten links on the Recommended Web Tools site that visitors clicked during the month of October. This provides a small window of what interests readers of this site:

1. Wordtracker
2. Overture Keyword Selector
3. Absolute Color Picker 3.0
4. Grey Wolf’s CSS Template Library
5. Neat-o Backlink Tool
6. WordPress
7. Blogarama
8. Nichebot
9. Why is SEO so hard?
10. MyBlogLog

I am able to provide you this list via the stats that are provided via the paid version of MyBlogLog.

Blogs You Should Read

I am creating a new ‘feature’ on this website. I have created a blog category named ‘Recommended Blogs’. Similar to my other reviews, I will review blogs that are worthy of your time. I will emphasize WHY a blog should be read and HOW it distinguishes itself from others.

I debated whether I should simply create a blogroll. Blogrolls simply indicate that a website owner generally recommends or likes a particular blog. There is no other information about the recommended blog.

I felt it would be far more helpful for users to get answers to the WHY and HOW questions so they could make a far more educated decision about whether a blog should be added to their personal RSS Reader.

I currently spurl websites that I find informative, helpful, etc. I have placed my most recent 15 spurls on my Web Resources page. Blogs that end up in my “Blogs You Should Read” category will also end up being spurled. This acts like a mini-blogroll. On my Other Resources page you will find a link to subscribe to my spurls. Subscribe both to my blog feed and my spurl feed to keep up-to-date with my recommendations. Othewise, visit the Recommended Blogs category to see the latest blog recommendations.

Happy Reading!

Sponsor This Site

Sponsored text link ads are offered through Linkworth. View the Linkworth stats for my site.

All text link ads will include a link AND a description on the home page. The link will appear naer the top of the left navigation bar. The current price is $25/month.

Text links are also available through Text Link Ads. These are links only. No description. They appear in the left navigation bar of the home page and cost $20/month.

What sites will I accept?

If you have a quality, well maintained site, then the chances of being accepted are high.

For links to be effective, they need to be relevant. I will accept links that have to do with Computers, Web Development, Internet, Software, Hardware, etc. Basically, anything technology oriented. If you want to place a text link selling dog food, I will not be accepting your site.

RWT Archives

Check out the revamped RWT archives. Go to the Blog page. Under the Previous Posts heading, click Archives.

The left Nav Bar contains the following:

Recent Posts
Blog Categories
Recent Commented Posts
Recent Comments

The Main Page contains a Monthly Archive Block (this was adapted from Justin Blanton’s Smart Archives WordPress Plugin) and a list of the last 100 posts.

The list of last 100 posts is offset by 25. The main page of the blog contains the 25 most current posts. This archive page shows the next 100. Technically speaking it is not THE last 100 posts. But how does one simply say, “The Last 100 Posts Offset By 25″ and have people understand exactly what is meant? The last 100 posts only display the headline to each post.

Check out the archives to see what you may have missed.

Link to Us

I hope that the content of this site warrants a link from your site to mine. It is my desire that this website provides value to all its visitors.

At the bottom of each article page there is a link box that contains the code for linking to that particular page. Use it to link to that page from your site.

To link to the Recommended Web Tools home page use any of the following:

• <a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/”>Recommended Web Tools</a>
• <a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/”>Recommended Web Design Tools</a>
• <a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/”>Recommended Web Development Tools</a>
• <a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/”>Recommended Web Site Design Tools</a>
• <a href=”http://www.recommendedwebtools.com/”>Recommended Web Site Tools</a>

Contact me if you want to discuss a review of your website or the placement of a link in the Recommended Web Tools Directory.

New Article on Discount Computer Books

I’ve posted a new article on discount computer books. Click here to read it and see my recommendation.

Other Resource Page Additions:

I’ve recently added a few links to my other resources page.

Selfpromotion.comis a great place to start for the beginner. The site is not fancy, but it is loaded with lots of information. I plan to try some of their paid resources and will post my thoughts.

To acheive offpage optimization, it is necessary to build inbound links to your website. Two places to purchase text link ads are Text Link Ads and Linkworth.

The handiest resource on buying text links is found on the Text Link Ads Site. Download this PDF and read it thru. Gives an excellent overview to what offpage optimization is all about.

Linkworth has a very well organized site (though they do need to change their color schema). It is very easy to sign up and become both an advertiser (placing ads on other sites) AND a partner (getting ads placed on your site).

I plan to write a more complete article on text link advertising in the near future.

Welcome!

We have added a new feature to the RWT website. This blog, powered by WordPress, will discuss web tools that are worth evaluating. We would appreciate your participation as this blog continues to grow!