I love Windows Live Writer, but my love for posting with Windows Live Writer has a side effect.  In a little over a year of posting to a variety of blogs I have managed to accumulate 770 posts on my hard drive and consequently, Windows Live Writer performance finally reached the state where I had to find a workaround...

We're into the second year of research related to Member Crossing, a community product we are researching and building which is designed to help organizations use technology to create engaging communities where members are able to share highly discoverable information.  Connect and Share.  Those are the two core aspects of our product. 

Amazing, or Xobni...you decide.  I would recommend downloading and trying this new Outlook organizer that was just released in beta a day or so ago, is available for free and which Bill Gates has called "the next generation of social networking."  I was just reading a blog post the other day where the author was describing how depressed they were when they installed Outlook 2007 to see that there really wasn't any paradigm shift in productivity.  Well, it took a small startup to create it, but here it is.

If your organization has an online store, you'll want to keep an eye on the deadlines Visa has set for compliance with Payment Application Best Practices (PABP) certification.  Here's the timetable for certification requirements:

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Should they be separate or the same?  It used to be that this question related only to blogs, but now you'll find both of these metaphors used in online stores, in forums, in comments related to products or related to news articles.  An interesting approach was suggested for blending the two ideas into one last week by one of the members of the DotNetNuke¹ community.

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¹ DotNetNuke is one of the largest open source portal frameworks available.  We have used this portal framework to develop solutions for sites of all sizes and we highly recommend this platform for the development of web based applications because of both its maturity and its extensibility.  While DotNetNuke provides a full-featured portal framework, it's also a great platform for developing web applications, especially applications which will require community features.  The size of the community is one of the greatest advantages of this platform.  Solutions built using the DotNetNuke infrastructure can be maintained by any of the thousands of DotNetNuke developers who are actively contributing to the platform.  Contact Us today if you're interested in knowing more about how DotNetNuke can help save your organization thousands of dollars and provide you with a rich feature set that will rival even the best commercial CMS solutions available.  Our clients, including national associations, have told us after several years of managing their entire web presence using the DotNetNuke infrastructure that they're still very happy with the product.

"Meh."  That was my reaction to Live Mesh, and that's probably just because I've been using Groove for the past 5 years and have enjoyed the wonderful benefits of file synchronization over multiple PCs through seamless integration with Windows Explorer.  If you haven't used Groove for project collaboration, you need to spend a few minutes checking into this product.  As I watched the video (see image on the right for directions), I had to ask myself...

OK, while the pictures are copying, I have to tell you a little story.  One of the byproducts of our ice storm was a plate full of candles that we let burn too long that had melted and spilled over the edge of the plate and down the mantle of our fireplace.  

Fast forward to last Sunday evening.  I see the plate of wax full of half burned candles and large pieces of wax that actually broke away from the stone and brick and I realize...

They say that time files when you're having fun, so I must have had a blast during February.  Somebody please let me know. 

Actually, it has been fun.  I've spent the better part of the month creating the foundation for some exciting features with metaPost (A module IT Crossing has created for use with DotNetNuke, an open source enterprise class CMS I've used with clients now for a couple of years.).  Yes, I laid down all of my books on leadership and hunkered down in my little cave (it's actually a nice office with a great view!) to work on increasing the fun and the ease of use one more notch for metaPost.

Here's a sample of my favorite new feature which synthesizes a small JavaScript library with metaPost to automatically add stunning visual effects to your images.  I just dragged and dropped these images from my digital camera into the page.  Well, OK, I did set the alt attribute to a nice short description of the image.  Go ahead!  Try it out!  Click on the first image and use your arrow keys to move around.  Then try to open more than one at a time!  Very fun, and this is all handled automatically by metaPost Professional Edition. 

Well, it's late here in the US, so I'll have to sign off for now.  For those of you who have used metaPost, notice that there is no footer in this post!  I can customize my footer with metaPost Professional Edition!  Don't worry, it will be released soon.

As Search Engine Optimization (SEO) becomes more and more important, web professionals are looking at ways to increase their Google juice, the much sought after increase in page rank that is achieved through a variety of means most of which are very simple to implement.  One such optimization, which many web developers have overlooked, is the importance of the format of the URL.

And one of the standards which strives to make excellent use of the conceptual meaning behind the URL is referred to as Representation State Transfer, or REST for short.  Basically with REST, which has morphed in meaning over the years, has grown to mean among web professionals the attempt to address resources on the web and deal with them as nouns rather than verbs.  Verbs are actions that can be performed on the nouns, and the two should be distinct.  It turns out that the World Wide Web provides a great foundation for this if only people would write their URLs in a RESTful format.  Most of what we do on the web makes use of the HTTP GET command, so many are not aware that there are actually other commands such as PUT, DELETE and POST.  Well, we use POST a lot too, come to think of it.  That's what we use behind the scenes when we fill out online forms or when we upload a picture.

So, what would a RESTful URL look like and what what a non-RESTful URL look like?  Great question.

Non-RESTful URL:

http://www.yourdomain.com/onlinestore/default.aspx?category=new_rel&get_mem_price=true&...

RESTful URL:

http://www.yourdomain.com/online-store/members/products/new-releases

The main idea behind REST is the focus on using URLs to identify resources, or nouns, basically things that we might want to see or perform some action on. 

Do you buy this?

No, not really.  In an ideal world, yes, but I'll still be using the QueryString in development, especially in situations where there is an integration between two parts of a system.  Yes, you could use cookies, but then your users can't just copy and paste URLs into an email that they send to their colleagues.  When I've worked with online stores for customers, this is always a concern.

So, no, my URLs won't please the REST purists.

But, I do want my URLs to help my clients drink deep of some fine fresh squeezed Google juice, so I will be paying attention to ways I can make my URLs more attractive to search engines and it turns out the RESTful URLs tend to lend themselves well to SEO.  So much so, that I would recommend adding this to the list of considerations when looking into a Content Management System (CMS) for your organization.  If your proposed CMS has stuff like this (WizardKey=f5da82f6-2140-4dea-8d9d-be112b16c3fd&WizardStep=93d4ee5a-70eb-4570-ae5d-fdbc6e3f43c2) in the QueryString, I would hazard a guess that this is not very meaningful information for search engines.

This was one of the things I liked about DotNetNuke (An ASP.NET-based, open source CMS) the first time I investigated it for use with a client about 3 years ago.  The DNN architects were early in realizing that QueryStrings were not helpful when trying to increase page rank.  However, one of the drawbacks to DotNetNuke (it's actaully a drawback to ASP.NET running on IIS 6 or lower and I've heard it's fixed in IIS 7) is that you can't have a URL without a file and a known file extension such as .aspx.  This means that the closest thing I can get to a RESTful URL is something like this:  http;//www.mydomain.com/products/chrome-bumpers.aspx.  That's closer, but still not quite to the completely RESTful form of http;//www.mydomain.com/products/chrome-bumpers. 

DotNetNuke Resources for SEO and Human Friend URLs

I stumbled upon this resource from Scott McCulluch last night.  I haven't used it yet, but it looks really helpful.

Also, here's a video I created showing an attempt I made to implement a RESTful URL in DNN using an ISAPI filter and some changes to the core.

OK, so I've started this conversation.  What do you think?  What technologies are you using to keep the Google juices flowing?

PS This is my first post to the blog using our new metaPost DotNetNuke module.  More on that to come.

I had a flash of inspiration this morning which forced me out of bed and to the computer where I routinely fire up my browser and head on over to netsol.com (Network Solutions) to perform a quick test.  I like their interface and figured that since they are the second largest domain registrar (After GoDaddy), my domain searches would be safe.  Just as I was about ready to hit enter to perform my search, I noticed a new section on the page.

Fascinated by the need for protective measures for my search through their interface, I decided to check this out.  It turns out that as of this past December (2007), Network Solutions implemented a new policy whereby each domain searched through their online domain lookup tool is purchased immediately.

Now, if you're still a Network Solutions customer this may not be a problem for you.  However, there are many who have found Network Solutions to be overpriced and have switched to other registrars who offer more value for almost one fourth of the price.  Those in this camp will be surprised to find that they are unable to purchase a domain with another registrar after performing a quick lookup using the intuitive NetSol domain lookup tool.  This process of front running will most likely create an even greater loss of business for Network Solutions, and it's dangerous, especially for anyone using their search, even if you're still a Network Solutions customer.

NetSol is touting this as a protective measure, but it's opened up a can of worms for the company.  As I did research this morning, I found that the fears I've had for years that my domain searches were available for others to see were closer to the mark than I realized.  Every time you perform a domain search, almost of any kind, your domain name is available for a variety of people to see.  In fact, your ISP and many of the domain registrars are selling this data to domain scalpers who are then able to abuse the 5 day domain tasting period by kiting the domain for indefinite periods of time.

Where do I stand on this?  Well, I won't be using NetSol to search for domains any more and I'm already 80% through with the process of moving from Network Solutions to GoDaddy.  Yes, I do realize that GoDaddy lacks the professional ring of Network Solutions.  But, at the end of the day, it's more about what the company does and how they treat their customers--and, of course, spam filters.  In fact, spam filtering was the biggest challenge for me moving away from Network Solutions.  But I've been pleasantly surprised to find that the spam filtering services offered through GoDaddy are just as strong as those available through Network Solutions.  Oh yeah, the registration process for a domain with GoDaddy seems to be more complicated than needed and full of up-selling gimmicks that you may not appreciate, but then that has become the norm with most registrars.  I've found the administrative interface for managing domains to be intuitive and easy to use.

The problem you need to consider, even if you are a Network Solutions customer, is that you're searches, especially if they are the brainstorming kind where you sit in front of the computer and try every combination of terms you can think of, could be very dangerous.  It's not uncommon for me to search for 40 or 50 different domain names during one of these sessions, and my search process might span days or weeks.  On one level, it may seem safe to you that Network Solutions is buying your domain and parking it for 5 days, but after the 5 day tasting period, the domain is now on the radar of the 100's of domain scalpers who may register the domain and kite it for years.  And if you don't realize that Network Solutions has purchased the domain, you'll never know that in 5 days the domains for which you searched are most likely gone. 

So How Do I Search Safely?

At this point, I would wait for the dust to settle a little before doing domain brainstorming with any type of domain search tool.  Any type of search is tracked by someone.  Using the address bar in your browser is tracked by your ISP.  Performing whois lookups directly using command line is tracked by the companies that manage the whois databases.  And, of course, now we know that searching for domains using the web interface, even at large, established registrars, isn't safe.

So, if you think you've got an idea for a domain for some new service or product at your organization, search for and register the domain at one registrar, and register it immediately.  Hopefully registrars will realize the need for trust with their customers regarding the domain search process and begin to implement measures to regain our trust.