Evaluation of the Website Manager's Handbook

This is my last post for the reading review so i decided to make it on the book we have had to read and work from all semester.

Chapter 1 - Website Management Model

This chapter didn't really contain and information that i found useful myself as it just looks at the website management model and the elements of website management.

Chapter 2 - Website Maintenance

This chapter had a few interesting pieces of information for example website scale, how to judge staffing and budget costs depending on your type of site i found to be rather interesting section. However the rest of the chapter was just descriptions of terms and lists of software to use to perform those terms.

For example the book explained what website content management systems are, why their important and then just listed software. There needs to be some form of practical in the lessons that goes with the book, for example site statistics could of been a pratical in using different site statistics tools, mixed in with the theory behind it. This way it would make the lesson more involving and enjoyable for both student and teacher.

Chapter 3 - Website Development

Most of this chapter was just descriptions again, there was no pratical or anything engaging in the lessons either
for example step 2 'Website content' is just a list of differnet technologies, it would of been far better to have tried using them. I understand all of them would of been impossible and most people already have experience with some of them, but just practical to go with it to get a better understanding of what the book is trying to say

Chapter 4 - Website Governance

This chapter was surprisingly informative, as it contained useful information about website standard documents, and the governance procedure involved in companies.

Well that was all i read up to, as i have rated most thing i will rate this book at 5/10

Thank you
Daniel Clarke

Helpful books

A series of books that i have found useful when trying to learn something new is Mike McGrath in easy steps books.

They contain the basics of what they are about, allowing you to get a detailed understanding of how it works.

However i would only recommend them to beginners as they don't go in to any real detail but there helpful hints and easy to follow examples make them a must have for trying to learn something new

I give them an 9/10 (if your a beginner to the subject the book is based on)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_ss_b/202-5164442-0822248?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Mike+McGrath+in+easy+steps+

Helpful sites

A site that has some helpful information about PHP and MySQL coding, although i would only recommend it for beginners as some of the code is a little bit basic.

http://www.php-mysql-tutorial.com/index.php

A guide that tells you how to create an RSS feed, really quite simple.
http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2175271

An RSS feed validator that checks your code for you. Very helpful
http://feedvalidator.org/

PHP and MySQL Web development

I book that i found quite useful during my course, but not necessarily internet application development. Was: PHP and MySQL Web Development by Luke Welling and Laura Thomson.

The book it self goes through explanations and examples of PHP and MySQL.

It's Chapter's are:
1 Using PHP
2 Using MySQL
3 E-commerce and Security
4 Advanced PHP techniques
5 Building Practical PHP and MySQL Projects
6 Appendixes

It is very in depth with surprisingly easy to understand explanations, I would recommend this book for people who are trying to get to grips with PHP and MySQL but also for those of you who already have a wide range of expericence with PHP and MySQL.

The book also comes with a handy software CD, containing the entire book on PDF format, software and all the source code found in the book. The only problem is that the book is now a little bit out of date as i have had it for a while.

I would rate the book 7/10 because some of it is now out of date.

The book costs £24.09 and qualifies for free delivery from Amazon
http://www.amazon.co.uk/PHP-MySQL-Web-Development-3rd/dp/0672326728/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/202-5164442-0822248?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1177000355&sr=8-1

Discussion on how to use feedback

Feedback is a vital back of website maintenance, it allows you judge site usage, identify problems with the site and the quality of content that the site contains. But feedback has many wide uses in the internet today. For example YouTube use user feedback to rate videos.

This is done by users leaving comments on videos, and also by users rating the video’s out of five stars. But how can you judge the quality of the feedback, on YouTube most comments are pointless and simply spam for example:

“WIOOTTOTOTOTTOTTOOT ITS FINALLY EHREHEHEHREHREH WOOTOWOTWTOWOGWAOSFOASGFdas
gfdasgfsADGS!!!”

And

“PLEASE DON'T READ THIS. You will get kissed on the nearest possible Friday
by the love of your life. Tomorrow will be the best day of your life. However,
if you don't post this comment to at least 3 videos, you will die within
2 days. Copy and paste this, to be saved”

These comments were found on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAUqo6LAy_Q

Also most videos seem to become little discussion boards that seem to constantly stem away from the point of the video that has been posted. So obviously this gives the users no insight in to the use of the video, the quality, or the actual content. Also people usually overrate most videos or underrate them instead of giving them a proper review.

However in a non commercial business like YouTube, user feedback is not as important as in the e-commerce market. And no other online retailer uses feedback and user information better then amazon (in my opinion)

Feedback in amazon helps customers give an informed opinion about the products that they are going to buy. Of course just like on YouTube useless or incorrect comments could be posted that led customers of amazon to incorrectly purchase an item. For example

“ = Fun = Overall
collectors edition, 11 Jan 2007
Reviewer: dark gran - See all my reviews

I’ve i think all i can see about supreme commander and i had total analation
which was good but fairly bad graphics this tho just is possable the best
game for a long long time i thinks this mit evern get to be more popular
than red alert 2 o yer does any one know what extras the collectors edition
gives”

Gives little or no information about the item, yet says it is the best. People may for some reason use this information seriously and purchase the item and be disappointed with it because of this review. However Amazon allows users to rate the feedback that over customers have given for an item, this of course gives you a more informed decision by you are guessing that the other people who are rating the review also know what they are talking about, so how do you rate feedback, and how do you act on feedback that you have received.

FYI that review was found useful by one out of forty eight. And was found at http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product//B000FNA2QY/026-3545075-5083602


Of course there are other types of feedback that are not just limited to commerce or website review, but also technical. These however are handled in a rather different way for example, Creative. With the launch of windows vista and all the new features that affect hardware especially in the games industry creative have had to launch new drivers.

So they created beta drivers, and also a discussion forum which also acts as a user feedback form in a way. Customers of creative, come with their problems or success stories and list stories on the forum. Other users reply with similar stories that they have had and how they fixed it in order to help the other person.

But this also acts as feedback for creative, this is because creative monitor the forum and read the threads. They then discover problems that customers are having with the driver, e.g. 5.1 surround sound doesn’t work with beta driver and X-Fi extreme audio sound card running under vista. This allows them to investigate the problem and release an updated driver that solves the problem. It also has another useful feature of it allows them to monitor which updates are more important by the topics that are generating the most post and/or threads on the forum.

As the forum is generally customer help customer, there is also the danger of people coming to the forum posting information and then another customer deliberating trying to damage the other persons PC, e.g. telling them to wipe their hard drives through a series of DOS commands. So how do you monitor a large forum for content to make sure your users stay safe?

Forum at http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board?board.id=Vista

Main Discussion points

· How do you effectively rate feedback?
· How do you use feedback that you are unsure of?
· How do you monitor feedback effectively?
· What is the best method of feedback?
· Could user forums be successfully implemented for feedback on an e-commerce
site like amazon?

Assignment

For my assignment i have chosen to do corporate. Therefore the two sites are going to be government of England website and the other one Government of the Isle of Man

The England one being the bigger of the two and the isle of man being the smaller. By the end of this week i hope to have my competitive analysis done on these two sites. so check back on this site on sunday.

Thank you
Daniel Clarke

Podcast Presentation

I have finished preparing for my podcast presentation.

To find the slides, handouts and downloads please visit
http://www.demonhunter.co.uk/pod/pod.html

Welcome

This is my Internet Application Development blog, where i will post news about my research, notes and materials. That i learn in the unit and in the course as a whole.

Thank you

Daniel Clarke