Blog Title

This title more accurately describes my position. Firstly 'webmaster' doesn't need to have strong programming skills. Secondly, although I'm more a web developer (more coding) than a web designer (more designing) but people don't use the term web developer as often as web designer.

Another point to be noticed is that I practice more SEO design than Graphic design. That's why now I choose SEO Web Designer.

Blog Description

I change the blog description from 'Website homepage & blog of Binh Nguyen. Web design/development, web tools, computer maintenance help.' to some more natural speaking sentence 'Freelance web developer Binh Nguyen provides free advices for SEO, website design, computers, blogging & web related issues'.

Meta Titles

Previously I suffix every web page on my blog with a suffix such as "Binh dot Name" or "Binh.name" or "Binh". But due to some Simple Blogging SEO Tweaks done by Collin on MixedMarketArts.com I decide to also test out the meta titles without any suffix. According to Collin, removing the suffix helps him gain more traffic from Google. Let's test if it's real or only a special case results.

I also went ahead and modify the meta title of the Pages to be more unique in the whole World Wide Web.

What's Next?

These decisions I made are not permanent. I will need to adapt to the majority of web users and what Google wants. That's why, I really need your opinions. Do you have some "best of breed" options for those 3 SEO considerations on a blog/website? Then please feel free to speak it out here. Your opinions (critics) are appreciated.

In Australia I spent most of my time working as a computer service technician. My job was to fix broken computer and maintain a network of around 20 computers for Internet cafe. It cost people up to $80 for a repair I done in few hours. Even when not at work, tweaking and maintaining a Windows PC is just my daily life.

I've been too busy with learning to blog. If the same amount of time that I read, I spend to write, now I would have few hundred articles up and running. Unfortunately, life is like that, learning make you slow down, but after that it give you much more benefit than not learning at all.

Recently I stumbled upon this blog called Web Tools and Tips because of some link bait. At first, I thought it's just some commercial blog up for nothing. But slowly when I repeatedly visit it I found it really match my taste.

If you have a blog, you should link to me now, whisper me and I will put a back link to your page too. My linking strategy is much more generous than many other bloggers. For instant you can check this article Top 65 Ping Sites for WordPress Blogs, see how many inbound links I get from there, and compare how many outbound links from this post.

Silky the author behind Web Tools and Tips is writing a lot about computers tips and tricks. This really turn me on because it's my expertise. I always wanted to write tips and tweaks for Windows. At the time I write this article, the latest tips from Web Tools and Tips is: Make your Windows XP Computer run faster. Since this is what I know well and what I do, I would like to have a quick look at the advices. Here are the main point from this article.

1. Remove unwanted software from your PC
2. Remove unwanted programs from Start up
3. Turn off the fancy Windows XP graphics
4. Clear Browsing History and Temporary files

Well, allow me to give some humble opinions here, even though it's a little off-topic. I strongly agree with the first 3 points. By following those 3 advices you will greater improve the performance of any computer. However, I disagree on number 4. The author said:

If you are a consistent user of your web browser, then over a period, many unwanted Temporary Internet files, cookies, browsing history, your passwords etc. get accumulated in the memory, and is a drain on the PC resources. You can selectively delete them, specially the Temporary Internet files.

Source: http://webtoolsandtips.com/uncategorized/make-computer-fast/

No! If you delete the temporary Internet files you are loosing performance. The purpose of caching is to speed up the online browsing speed. The longer the history and temporary files the faster you will browse the Internet.

Just a simple example, imagine when you get hit a 10MB flash file. If you delete it from the cache, it will have to be downloaded the next time you view it... do you like that 2 minutes wait? If you leave it there, the next hit may take only 1 or 2 seconds.

The temporary files you need to clean up often, are not Temporary Interent Files, but the Temporary System files reside in C:\Temp, C:\Windows\Temp, and %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Temp.

Oh, that's just a quick look at something I'm good at. There are more to say, but not at this time and not in this article. Silky might not like my honest opinion but that's how I work. I always will give honest opinions even it is negative. I know it hurts because the person (even myself) would feel a little embarrassed, even angry sometimes. However, if that person (including myself) can take that as a positive criticism than they can improve very quickly and become more successful.

Overall, I found Web Tools and Tips very interesting blog and I will definitely be a loyal reader. I particularly like Tips 'n' Tricks category from this blog. It remind me to put something into my Windows category.

Enable Commonly used Desktop Items

Procedure:

Display Properties > Desktop > Customize Desktop… > General > Desktop icons

Optionally select:

1. My Documents
2. My Computer
3. My Network Places
4. Internet Explorer

Reason:

Most people frustrate when first experience XP because it hides those items by default. We need those items because:

1. My Documents allows us quickly jump to our documents
2. My Computer allows us quickly access our disks
3. MY Network Places allows us quickly access network folders
4. Internet Explorer allows us quickly surf the Internet.

Arrange Desktop Items by Name

Procedure:

1. Right Click on Desktop > Arrange Icons By > Name
2. Right Click on Desktop > Arrange Icons By > Auto Arrange

Reason:

Don't mess up the desktop. If we choose to arrange them by manually drag and drop, we made a big mistake. As the number of items on Desktop increase we will have trouble arranging by ourselves, and waste time looking for the icon we want to open.

With Auto Arrange by Name, we will be able to quickly access our wanted item by doing the following:

1. Click on the Desktop
2. Press a letter on the keyboard matching the first letter of the icon name.
3. For most occasions, we already selected the item we wanted. Otherwise it will take only 1 second look and we can find it.

This tweak apply to other folders too. The biggest mistake one could make is putting number prefix to their files/folders. They loose the first letter clue and hence take much more time to locate the item they want. Especially in case they have dozens of objects in the same folder.

Turn on Advanced Search

Procedure:

Windows Explorer > Search > Change preferences > "Advanced - includes options to manually enter search criteria. Recommended for advanced users only"

Reason:

The Advanced option allow us to start typing the search query straight away, while the Standard make we loose sometimes for selecting "What do you want to search for?"

"Standard - includes step-by-step options that help you refine your search"

Enable Status Bar

Procedure:

Windows Explorer > View > Status Bar

Reason:

Well, most of the time we want to know what the file size is, how many files/folders (objects) in the current folder. Not showing the Status Bar make us do more clicks.

What's next?

There are more basic tweaks I would like to share with you. Due to time limit, my current DSL Slow Speed problem, and too many ideas, so I stop here for now. This list is not complete, yet. So please check back later for update, or possibly new posts related to this one. Please also consider leave a comment to let me know what you would like to hear from me.