website | Technology Bloggers

Gravatar – are you making use of it?

30th April 2012 20 Replies Christopher Roberts

I don’t think enough people know about Gravatar and the what it does, so as a result I have chosen to write an article about it, to help you get more out of the web.

What is Gravatar?

The best way to describe what Gravatar is is the same way that it is described on Gravatar.com: A Globally Recognized Avatar. But what does that mean?

“Your Gravatar is an image that follows you from site to site appearing beside your name when you do things like comment or post on a blog. Avatars help identify your posts on blogs and web forums, so why not on any site?” – Gravatar.com

How better can I explain that? A Gravatar is an image that you can be associated with across the web. Any Gravatar compatible site – like most WordPress blogs, and many other forums, blogs and websites across the net – that you put your email into will display your unique image, whenever you write a post or leave a comment.

When you finish reading this article, cast your eye at my avatar, you can see it on the left of the writer bio box.

Until recently I had been using the Technology Bloggers logo as my avatar, however I have chosen to change to using my own website logo – the iconic blue ‘C’.

When you sign up for Gravatar, you also get your very own profile page. Here you can link to your website and write a short bi-line for the world to see. Everyone has a custom URL, and until today I didn’t realise that mine was actually my name! Okay, by default it is, but I was the first person with my name to register with Gravatar, which means that I must have had one for a pretty long time!

To check out my profile, please go to https://en.gravatar.com/ChristopherRoberts.

How Can You Make the Most Out of Gravatar?

If you scroll down the ‘our writers‘ page you will see that some of our writers have chosen to add a Gravatar to their email address, so that when they post, their customised image comes up. I then take this image and post it next to their profile on the our writers page. Some people don’t send us an avatar, and don’t have one linked to their email, so they have a randomly generated image associated with them.

The default image if you do not have a Gravatar - the Gravatar logo

If you look down the list you will see some of each. Which do you think looks better? Personally I believe that having an image of your choosing that follows you everywhere on the web is a great idea.

How to Get a Gravatar Avatar

Linking your email(s) to your chosen image(s) really could not be easier.

Step 1: Go the the Gravatar website.

Step 2: Click ‘Sign Up’ – this can be found on the top bar

Step 3: Enter your email address

Step 4: Check your emails and click the confirm link

Step 5: Upload the image you want to follow you everywhere on the web

Step 6: Voila! Any time you comment on Technology Bloggers of any of the other ‘kajillion’ blogs, websites or services that support Gravatar, your image will be associated with you

You can add more email addresses if you use different ones for different sites, and can even add more pictures, so you can comment on one site with one picture and on another site you have a different one!

Once you have an account you can also set up your Gravatar profile page, where you can tell the world about yourself, and link to sites you love.

Gravatar makes you identifiable across the web as a unique individual, not just another faceless/anonymous name.

How important is the quality of hosting to online retailers?

16th April 2012 5 Replies Christopher Roberts

This is a sponsored post. To find out more about sponsored content on Technology Bloggers, please visit our Privacy Policy.

With many brick-and-mortar businesses adding an online version of their high-street store to their portfolio, it’s important that firms choose the right web hosting service. With myriad services offering cheap deals, firms ought to be wary regarding offers that appear to be too good to be true – because they usually are.

On the surface, purchasing web hosting that costs £20 a month seems like a steal. In fact, it is a steal. However the only thing that is being nicked is precious uptime for online retailers, as the vast majority of cheap hosts go hand-in-hand with downtime.

Downtime – a retailer’s worst nightmare

For online retailers, downtime is especially important; every second of downtime is potentially a lost sale. Would you rather pay a premium for quality web hosting that is reliable and constantly up, or pay a third of the price for web hosting that keeps going down? In the long-term, it may cost more for firms to pay for cheap, but less reliable hosting.

In addition, utilising the services of a web hosting service in your time zone could be important, especially for smaller firms. Imagine if your store goes down but your hosting service is half-way across the world. This is certainly not ideal for any stores looking to make sales. For example, let’s just say your UK-based store goes down at lunchtime. No amount of calls at 12pm is going to wake a firm located half-way across the world; tucked up in bed at 12am. It’s a nightmare scenario.

SEO

The importance of SEO over the last 10 years has changed the face of the internet. An increasing number of online retailers are producing fresh content in a bid to become a publishing authority in the eyes of search engines.

However, when a cheap hosting company offers dead links, 404 errors and other harmful downtime to a retailer, what are these search engines going to think? Bounced traffic isn’t going to look good in the eyes of Google or Bing.

Technology Bloggers 404 Page

Eventually, a retailer could slip down the rankings, and get flanked by its competition. It takes a lot of dedication to work up the search rankings, so don’t let a bogus hosting firm ruin your company and its prospects.

Security

In addition, security should be a top priority for online retailers. The amount of hackers roaming cyberspace is vast and make no mistake – they’re ready to capitalise on unprotected websites. By opting for secure web hosting which features STFP and SSL, a business and its clients can feel assured that all sensitive data is kept in safe hands.

As you can see, the quality of web hosting is an absolutely integral part of the foundations of success for online retailers. In an era of cost cutting and tight purse strings, it might be tempting to lump with a cheap web hosting service from the other side of the world, but in the long-term you may end up opening your wallet more often than you think.

Shopping online – tips and advice

12th March 2012 12 Replies Christopher Roberts

When shopping online, there are loads of things to look out for, and loads of ways to get a better deal. In this article I hope to share some of the experience I have got from shopping online, and some of my tech knowledge in order to help you get a better deal – what you want, at a reasonable price.

The first thing to say is that what you are shopping for, is crucial to how to go about buying it.

Virtual Goods

If you are buying an online or ‘virtual’ good/service, then the key thing to check is that you are buying from a reputable firm. Checking the firm is reputable and reliable is key for all online shopping, but especially so if you are buying something virtual – e.g. a website, anti-virus software, access to a game, music etc.

There are a few ways you can go about checking if online firms are reputable. The first is to see if the firm exists in reality, do they have shops in the real world, or are they totally online? Firms with physical property are less likely to be fraudulent, as they are easy to find and locate. Totally online firms can be just as reputable, look at the likes of Play.com and Amazon.

The second way to get an idea of whether a firm is reputable or not is to check their stats. Does the site have a good Alexa rank – top 500,000? If not, people may not be visiting the site for a reason: it has just been set up, and after a few quick cons will be gone. You can check the history of the site using the Way Back Machine for more info on its past.

The third way is a much less reliable way, but can be useful to back up your decision. Try looking at the websites PageRank. If they have say a PageRank 3+ homepage, they are more likely to be legitimate than a site with all PageRank 0’s. People link to shop websites when they buy things and then review them, so shops should acquire PageRank. If they have no PageRank, they may still be legitimate, but check, as that may mean they have not been trading for long, therefore have just set up to scam, and will be shut down soon.

Finally are they a big name. Say you are buying anti-virus direct from the supplier. Most people have heard of the likes of Kaspersky, Sophos and Norton, but if the company is called something like ‘SpywareBeGoneSolutions’ then they are a lot less likely to sell you a good product, if any product at all.

Finally, when checking that the firm you are going to buy from is going to give you the product(s) you want, watch the news, or research them on news sites! Is the firm about to go bust or being run by administrators? If so, buying from them may lead to you loosing your money!

Services

If you are buying a service, such as a holiday, insurance or a meal at a restaurant, then there are loads of really useful sites that can help you, by giving you an incite into what others thought of that service.

Say for example you are buying a holiday, you can use websites like TripAdvisor.com to see if the place you are looking at staying at has positive reviews. If not, you can maybe choose somewhere else. Be careful though, as sometimes these sites can be misleading, as Jonny recently wrote about.

There are other websites too like MoneySavingExpert.com and Yelp, which can offer similar services for other things like insurance, banking, restaurants, shopping etc. MoneySavingExpert.com is especially worth a look, as aside from reviews, they can give really good advice, to help you save money when buying all sorts of things.

Products

The key to ensuring you get value for money and what you want when buying products online is to make sure you read what other people think about it. Reviews are really useful, and can help you determine which product is right for you.

Don’t be afraid to venture out of the companies website itself, and look for more reviews elsewhere online. Some firms will only publish the positive reviews they receive on their own site, in order to try to persuade more people to buy that product, from them.

A really important bit of advice is not to discount the high street, it can still be a very good place to buy things. Often things are cheaper online, however you can usually see and sometimes try products when in a shop, whereas online, all you have is pictures and possibly video.

Once you know the product is for you, make sure that you shop around. Find the best deal using price comparison sites like MoneySupermarket.com and PriceRunner.com.

Once you have your product and the shop, don’t forget to go to coupon sites to see if you can get an even better deal. Sites like MyVoucherCodes usually have some great discount offers, you just need to look.

To conclude

In summary, when shopping online, make sure that you are buying from someone reputable. Make sure the product or service is what you want. Check out other peoples reviews. Look for the best deal, and then finally don’t forget to check if there are any vouchers that could further slash the cost.

Hopefully these tips have been useful, good luck shopping online!

Technology Bloggers

Championing responsible innovation in partnership with the Bassetti Foundation