Ryan Doom

How to prevent duplicative content

Ryan Doom — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:58:00 GMT

Search engines do not care for duplicative content, if you make multiple pages that have the exact same content on your website it can negatively effect your search engine position. It probably...

Making a better 404 page

Ryan Doom — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:16:00 GMT

I just ran into a 404 page on a website, and realized that it should be a standard practice to customize your websites 404 page to make it more useful to users. The standard...

Getting rid of the admin area of your application

Ryan Doom — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 07:40:00 GMT

One difference that I have always liked about DotNetNuke versus Drupal and Joomla is that the admin interface is built into the website not a separate area. When Kevin and I researched all of the top Content Management Systems three years ago we decided ...

Don't forget about the empty screen

Ryan Doom — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 22:50:00 GMT

When creating web applications designers usually consider what the screen will look like when it is full of data, not empty. The first impression a user has with your application should not be a blank screen.

Increasing your business by speaking

Ryan Doom — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 23:22:00 GMT

2009 will most likely be as slow for many businesses as 2008. But you don’t have to participate, a good tip for 2009 is to work on a presentation that you can start giving to local associations and businesses. All you need to get started…

OS X Snow Leopard Features

Ryan Doom — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 22:46:00 GMT

I think it is brilliant that Apple is not advertising any new features in their next operating system installment for late 2009. It’s something other companies could not get away with, but it’s acceptable for them to do so. They will be focusing on performance, just increasing the speed and experience.
Of course there will be some new benefits....

My First week with a Macbook

Ryan Doom — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 19:43:00 GMT

Picked up a Macbook on Craigslist to start to get in touch with this hipster coffee shop, "I use a Mac I'm so cool" lifestyle. Well, and to rock out some Ruby on Rails development and have a good excuse to do so.

I have outlined 3 days of things I have loved and hated about the Macbook. I did this entire post, and photo editing on it, so I'm coming along.

Error indicates that IIS is not installed on this machine

Ryan Doom — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:48:00 GMT

“error indicates that IIS is not installed on this machine” when running “aspnet_regiis -i” but you do have IIS installed? This happened to me recently on my new laptop that is running Vista 64bit and IIS 7. The issue

Making Custom themes for Gmail

Ryan Doom — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 08:30:00 GMT

I wonder if Gmail will be allowing us to make custom themes for their web based email client? This week they launched a feature under the settings area to change the look and feel of your Gmail...

Presenting at ASTD

Ryan Doom — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 16:21:00 GMT

I presented at GreenStone Farm Credit Services today from 5:30 to 7:30 about Social Media.

Free Incoming Links

Ryan Doom — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 20:27:00 GMT

Incoming links to your website is a major factor in Google’s search engine algorithm. Originally called ‘back rub’ it is the main factor that differentiated Google’s search results from all the other players. Google essentially analyzes the incoming links to your website as well as the key words used in those links ...

How to Sell Agile Software Development

Ryan Doom — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:32:00 GMT

I have found that Selling Agile Development is easier than I would have initially expected it to be. The selling process is usually so complex. In the more complex cases it starts with a Request for Proposal. You will then wade through dozens of pages that may specify technologies, and how much load they are expecting, what type of hardware it will be on and usually only a ...

Roles a web company must play

Ryan Doom — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 20:27:00 GMT

What skills do you need to create an all-star website? It’s something I think about often, and I have had a ton of people come to us recently who have been burned. Burned because they had their friend who ‘did websites’ or a design / creative company start their projects and after in one case 10’s of thousands of dollars they had nothing to show for it. What skills do you need to look for to create a significant web project. I’m not talking...

Better services, not more services

Ryan Doom — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 21:49:00 GMT

As a business owner I am always paying attention to how other companies operate and market their businesses. Recently I have noticed that some companies tend to just offer more services to try to get more business. Why don’t companies just stick to ...

Top 5 3rd party DotNetNuke modules

Ryan Doom — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 21:11:00 GMT

After delivering over 100 DotNetNuke sites we have used dozens of 3rd party modules and have custom programmed even more. I was trying to assess what 5 3rd party modules would be the top on my list for delivering a solid website with DNN. In no particular order...

Liquid Web - Hosting and customer service

Ryan Doom — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 07:40:00 GMT

Web Ascender has always outsources our website hosting. They are essentially our machines, we have 100% access to them but our hosting company makes sure they are always up, always have internet connectivity and are in charge of the hardware if it ever bombs out. You would think website hosting and server hosting would be easy, but it is not, I assure you it is not. We started off...

Best Practices for changing DNS, A and MX records

Ryan Doom — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 00:31:00 GMT

Moving DNS, A records and MX records can be a real pain, and if not timed right can result in downtime which no one likes. I have just outlined some of the steps I take when launching a site. If you don't know what A or MX is no need to click continue reading, its a bit geeky.

Installing Python and Google App Engine on Windows

Ryan Doom — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 21:58:00 GMT

Getting Python and Google App Engine SDK Installed was much easier than expected, but I decided to document this in case anyone was having any trouble getting it running. Google App Engine is a new lab project by Google that will allow you to build and essentially host your application on their servers using their processing power and distributed database architecture. It’s a brilliant idea. Right now only Python is supported, although they claim that they will be working to support other languages in the future as well. I assume we will see PHP next. Good news is that it does support Python’s Django framework. Anyways onto the instructions:

Installing Python on Windows & Installing Google App Engine on Windows

These steps can help you Install Python on Windows as well as get Google App Engine Installed

Download Python 2.5.* from python.org http://www.python.org/download/
Run the downloaded MSI and install it, the default is C:\python25
Check to make sure Python works. Open up the command prompt by clicking on the Vista Icon, and in the Start Search area type cmd
Once the cmd prompt is open type “cd c:\python25” that will take you to the python directory

Rocking out with some new IPhone apps

Ryan Doom — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:46:00 GMT

I finally got around to really tricking out my IPhone yesterday. Over the last 4+ weeks I have only really been taking advantage of the: Texting, Camera, Exchange Integration & Safari. But now...

Lansing Day of .NET - LDODN - DODN

Ryan Doom — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 01:16:00 GMT

On Saturday June 21st the Greater Lansing User Group for Microsoft .NET (GLUGnet) organized its first major educational conference. GLUGnet was...

Why use Twitter?

Ryan Doom — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 01:00:00 GMT

I have only been on Twitter for about 6 months and have only updated my profile a handful of times but I think I finally ‘get it.’ I understand why...

A few usability items you may consider with your cart

Ryan Doom — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 21:22:00 GMT

Outlined are some things you might now have considered when building your last e-commerce system.

A fresh start feels good - formatted my tablet

Ryan Doom — Fri, 02 May 2008 02:15:00 GMT

I just reformatted my Fujitsu Lifebook T Series 4215 Tablet PC. I upgraded it from XP to Vista about 14 months ago and recently messed up some licensing files for some products I use daily and figured it wouldn’t hurt to just wipe it clean. I did the following...

Is the evolution of a web designer always the same?

Ryan Doom — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:37:00 GMT

I had the privilege of being a website design judge at the Capital Area Career Council web design showcase today. The students were Junior and Senior high school students who are taking classes at the career center to supplement their normal high school education. They are learning things like: Photoshop, Game design, Programming and web design. It is a great program and gives the students a taste for lots of different areas in the creative side of IT.

What was really odd to me is how much these websites looked like the websites from 1995. Did they have ...

Symfony PHP MVC Framework

Ryan Doom — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 16:48:00 GMT

Wow, I just finished reading The definitive Guide to Symfony, and it is definitely one of the better web development books I have read. They review everything you would need to build about 95% of web development applications. They review the model, view control concepts, the...