Web Standards, Accessibility & More » web2.0

Dental Blog is Sign of the Times

Dennis — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:30:55 +0000

So I recently created a dental blog site for my brother’s business, General & Cosmetic Dentistry (I used WordPress, which is awesome). It’s part of a marketing effort to gain more patients, and in response to the poor economy and people just flat out leaving Michigan, where his dental practice is located. Using Web 2.0 in today’s economy is surely a sign of the times!

Anyway, my brother was very smart by initiating a web-based marketing plan. He asked me for help, so this was a perfect opportunity to exercise some of my Search Engine optimization (SEO) skills! Besides setting up a professional blog, I also suggested these things in order to help traffic to his dental office web site:

Tweak keywords in Meta data, page titles, etc.
Create a dental blog entry (consistently) once a week, and on the same day.
Publish press releases once in a while.
Submit his site to search engines once every 6 months.
Change his Twitter account name from personal to professional, and balance tweets about both sides of life.
Create LinkedIn and Yelp profiles (actually his great idea!).
Put Twitter, LinkedIn, Yelp, and Blog links on his office web site.
And of course, ensure accessible, semantic HTML markup with web standards!

So far in only a couple weeks, his position on Google search has risen considerably!

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Attended Web 2.0 Expo in SF

Dennis — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 06:26:24 +0000

Last week, I attended the Web 2.0 Expo conference at the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco. The sponsors included O’Reilly Media, Adobe, Microsoft, and eBay. Overall, it was a pretty good conference, with lots of discussion about mobile and geo-location, “Cloud Computing”, and of course, Twitter and Facebook. Here are some tidbits I picked up:

Mobile web usage doubled in 2008.
Nokia is the world’s largest digital camera producer (as they are the biggest mobile phone manufacturer).
App written by Google in HTML5 for iPhone and Android is sweet.
Mobilize Donâ€™t Miniaturize
Need to read up on the W3C Geolocation API
Since 2003, web page file size has tripled!
Only 1% of iPhone Apps are used long-term.
For usability testing, research only what is necessary.
Don’t put branding ahead of users.

The day before the conference, I took and vacation day and brought my wife and kids up from Cupertino to “the city” for a mini-vacation. We stayed at a very nice hotel for which we got a great rate through HotWire.com. Here’s a Flickr album of the family portion of the trip.

Computer nerd area

Exhibit Hall

Dennis at Golden Gate bridge

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Why You Should Twitter

Dennis — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 03:08:09 +0000

I was recently asked why Twitter is valuable, or why I do it. So I put together a list of reasons.

It’s a mini blog; can serve as a type of diary.
You can keep up with what your friends are doing.
Make new personal friends and professional contacts.
See another side of your current friends and family.
Follow your favorite bands, celebs, political figures, etc.
You can Twitter from many different applications and devices (such as your mobile phone).
Twitter can quickly become an impromptu info-sharing point (used during San Diego fires).
It can be used for news, marketing, and customer service.
Can connect with Facebook, blogs, etc.
It will make you a better writer.
Faster than texting numerous people at once.
Minimal effort to start (unlike a blog).
Itâ€™s fun and it’s a good source of entertainment!

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Twitter-Related Apps and Articles

Dennis — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:02:13 +0000

Here’s a list of some fun, interesting, and (sometimes) valuable web sites and applications that provide extra services for your Twitter acount.

Web Sites & Applications

Accessible Twitter (my app): “Web 2.0″ has created even further concern with web accessibility. Twitter web site that is accessible for individuals with any type of disability or limited technology.
Tweet Stats: Lots of statistical information on your account and Twitter ‘user agents’.
TweetValue: How much is your Twitter profile worth?
Tweet Burner: Shorten, track, and share links.
Twitter Grader: Get a ranking of your account.
WordPress to Twitter: The WP-to-Twitter plugin posts a Twitter status update from your blog using the Cli.gs URL shortening service to provide a link back to your post fromÂ Twitter.
Free Twitter Designer: Design your page.
My First Tweet: ‘Nuff said.
Twitterberry: Twitter application for the BlackBerry.
Twitter’s mobile site: ‘Nuff said.

Articles

Here’s a good list of article about Twitter and tips on how to use it.

Tips for a transformed twitter (Boagworld)
WordPress to Twitter (Joe Dolson)
15 Useful Twitter Hacks and Plug-Ins For WordPress (Smashing Magazine)
How to Use Twitter Without Twitter Owning You – 5 Tips
Welcome to the Hive Mind; Learn How to Search Twitter
Twitter & the Law of Reciprocity
Twitter API Driving Twitter Apps Out of Business?

Addendum (March 30 and May 20)

Found more interesting ones:

TwitPwr: Short URLs for Twitter with Analytics and user profile pages.
Twooting: Daily podcast about Twitter.
twt.fm: Share music.
twitvidio: The easiest way to share videos on Twitter.
e-Penis: Always wanted to know how big your Twitter e-Penis is?
TweetBrain: Applies Twitter’s immense collective intelligence for Questions and Answers

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Twitter and Web Accessibility

Dennis — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:08:27 +0000

Like many folks, I very much enjoy Twitter, the mini-blogging sensation. I recently went over 1,000 tweets! You can find me at @dennisl.

One issue with the site is that Twitter is not web accessible. I’ve recently been resolving this problem by writing a new web application Accessible Twitter. It’s currently in Alpha status, so some functionality still needs adding/improving, but it’s mostly complete. You can learn more about me and the project here: Five Questions With Dennis LembrÃ©e – Creator of Accessible Twitter.

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Online Offices

Dennis — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 15:48:55 +0000

The Office 2.0 Experiment article on Vitamin really got me thinking about how business and technology is changing, particularly open-source technology and web applications. It’s so cool how anyone can easily and very inexpensively create an online office with all the required services. The list of tools in the Vitamin article is good, but here’s some that I recommend, all of which are FREE:

OpenOffice – Open source office suite. Can open, edit, and save MS Office files.
Nvu – Web authoring application, XHTML editor. I feel the best of its kind.
CutePDF – Create PDFs online. Nuff said.
W3C Schools – Training on all aspects of web development. Very good tutorials, quizzes, etc.
GMail – Great email and calendar service.
Google Docs & Spreadsheets – Create office documents and collaborate with others online.
K7 – Fax and Voicemail.
Box – 1GB of free file storage. Pay small amount for 5GB.

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