Chiperoni ku Basel

Category: tech

  • Responsive web design and low and expensive bandwidth

    Some time ago, the Malawi daily newspaper, The Nation, released a new web design. More recently Nyasa Times updated their web design. In both cases, it’s an improvement. And from my current home base here in Switzerland, both sites load promptly.

    From family in Malawi I hear that the loading times for both sites have increased. It would be interesting to hear from others if they noticed the same.

    Many people in Malawi access the internet via mobile devices. Only few have access to flat rates and most Malawi internet users probably use prepaid data bundles, i.e. every MB of data costs $$$.

    In addition, some parts of Malawi and even parts of Blantyre don’t have a good connectivity.

    I think it’s important to find out how your target audience will access your site. And then optimize your site for low bandwidth. I’ve written about this topic before. (Click here and here).

    I’m not a web developer. But I do think we need to step in and ask questions about page speed. Page speed is an important part of the overall user experience.

    Responsive web designs are great. One content base serves web pages on different end devices from smartphone to large monitor screens.

    But what about optimising responsive sites for lower bandwidth?

    What kind of things should you adapt and change? Best practises for responsive sites?

    I switched off a WordPress mobile plugin called Mobilepress ‘cos it was creating a lot of broken links which showed up in Google Webmaster Tools.

    Should I reinstall a mobile plugin like Mobilepress on my WordPress site?

    This got me thinking about responsive web design and bandwidth. I’ve started doing some preliminary reading and googling on this. Here are some links I’ve found:

    Design your site for mobile devices first. The buzzword is mobile-first.

    (…) more than 12 percent of the world’s Web traffic comes from mobile devices. This fraction is significantly higher in nations with higher smartphone penetration and is expected to increase notably in the next few years as adoption picks up in Asia, Latin America and Africa.

    One important task is to optimise images. I found this Smashing Magazine article provided some helpful guidance on responsive image solutions. But minimizing the bandwidth impact of images isn’t easy.

    Test your site to see what is affecting page speed. There’s Google’s Site Speed within Google Analytics, Web Page Test and Yslow to help you identify issues.

    In my opinion, this list of web design guidelines for low bandwidth still holds true.

    Good background article:
    How and Why Responsive Design Can Go Wrong

    Conclusion: Building websites isn’t getting easier. Ask your developers to search for ways to improve your site’s performance.

    Tips? Ideas and suggestions? I appreciate your comments and suggestions to improve.

  • My wish list

    Inspired by various gift lists that are showing up in my timeline, I thought I need to write my own wish list.

    On my wish list:

    New takkies.
    new takkies
    I’ve started running again on a regular basis. And I noticed I need to replace my Asics with a fresh pair. Bought my current pair in 2010.

    “Es gibt kein schlechtes Wetter, nur schlechte Kleidung”
    I need to buy some clothes for winter.

    I’m very happy with my current line-up of gadgets. Favourite gadgets in use in 2013 are a good old 13″ MacBook, an iPad and a Lumix camera.

    Android smartphone.
    I don’t need a smartphone. But looking at current reviews, I’d probably get a Nexus 4 or an LG G2. I’d like to learn more about Android. My multi-operating system strategy is a good excuse, don’t you think?

    Apple TV.
    I remember a meeting with an online marketer who strongly recommended getting an Apple TV, when it first came out. Maybe he’s right. Or maybe Google Chromecast is a cheaper alternative?

    But these are all material wishes. Not essential.

    Happiness, health, peace, love, joy, wisdom, kindness, goodness, knowledge are worth much more. And much more difficult to gain.

    kraft

    One wish of mine is to improve my writing skills. There is more fun in creating.

    riding a bicycle

  • 10 Free Hack Guides http://bit.ly/1g7oePO

    for future reference:

    Link: 10 Free Hack Guides.

    I read the first entry on pdfs and immediately thought this is useful.

  • Google Hummingbird links

    The latest addition to the SEO zoo is a hummingbird.

    The algorithm change was announced in September 2013 but went live a month earlier.

    Searchengineland has some useful background information:

    FAQ: All About The New Google “Hummingbird” Algorithm

    Hummingbird’s Impact On B2B Sites

    Apparently this release will improve Google’s ability to predict a user’s search intent.
    Conversational search has been improved.

    Looks like Google+ might be another factor to add to the 200 items Google looks at? Search Engine Journal says:

    If you are joining Google Plus Communities and building an audience on Plus, answering questions, creating video content via Hangouts and Youtube, and using hashtags, you will be jumping on the Social Search bandwagon that Google is actively promoting.

    SEJ infographic

    Apparently the advice remains the same: develop original, high-quality content.

    See Searchengineland’s SEO success factors.

  • Growth Mindset

    Growth Mindset via Hiring for an Agile Team: Look for the Growth Mindset.

    Interesting use of the term “servant leadership”. I know the term more from its use in Biblical / Christian contexts.

  • Tracking conversion in single page web apps

    Last week I asked for help on using Google Analytics to track conversion in single page web apps:

    Tweet, tweet:

    The challenge is to track user behaviour in a Javascript frontend that doesn’t have “pages”. My question: What’s better? Should I use events or model the wizard steps as page views?

    Here’s what I found in a brief Google search:

    ***

    Via this Search Engine Land article:

    Are Virtual Pageviews Right For You?
    Pros:

    • Supports goal configuration ”“ cannot configure a goal with an event ( refuted by https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1383265?hl=en https://www.blastam.com/blog/index.php/2011/03/how-to-use-events-goals-google-analytics/ )
    • Doesn’t artificially inflate bounce rate

    Cons:

    • Artificially inflates pageviews for the site
    • Limited information available ”“ events are much more robust or correlating conversions and user behavior

    Source

    ***

    The cross-reference above, points to this article on benefits of using events:

    Top 4 Benefits of Using Events in Goals

    1. Track visitors who don’t convert with traditional transactional or lead generation goals
    2. More easily track Influencers/Advocates on your site
    3. Measure “interactions” that can lead to better understanding of site engagement
    4. My absolute favorite”¦Measure “interactions” in the early stages of the buying cycle that demonstrate the quality of the visits that increase the top of the funnel and ultimately lead to increased revenue producing goals.

    ***

    This background article is useful, especially the section on Virtual Page Views.

    ***

    And another reference:

    “I’m a big fan of virtual pageviews for form tracking simply because GA still doesn’t allow the use of events in a multi-step funnel.”

    ***

    Conclusion:
    This means I’ll use virtual page views to track sequential, wizard steps so that I can track the funnel. And events to track individual goals.

    Tips? Usage examples?
    Any further hints and experience are appreciated.

    Google Analytics

  • Storage for photographers http://bit.ly/17B3huL

    Interesting read: Storing GBs of photos

    How do you store your RAW files and originals?

  • Identity and culture

    Somewhere deep inside of me, I have this blog post bubbling up and forming about identity. It is influenced by my own state of being an eternal foreigner, an Auslandsdeutsche. But also influenced by other observations on organizational cultures and the changes within the internet.

    I started watching this talk by Anil Dash:

    He says being a blogger in the early years (a decade ago, from approximately 1999 to 2006) was an identity. Bloggers had a shared set of values. There was a culture and a common understanding.

    Nobody calls themselves a Facebooker.

    I recommend viewing this video and reflecting on the thoughts.

  • Moving from Google Reader to WordPress.com

    Even though Google Reader showed up prominently in yesterday’s SERPs for “best free RSS reader”, someone at Google has decided to end the product life of Google Reader.

    Heh Google Search! Google Reader is closing

    It’s time to move on to a new RSS reader.

    Several RSS readers managed to survive despite Google Reader’s dominance. And some new ones emerged. These tools are getting frequent mentions:

    • Feedly
    • NewsBlur
    • RSSOwl
    • Zite
    • The old reader

    Digg decided to build a new reader the day Google announced the end of its Reader. In some ways, that’s the silver lining. RSS readers are getting more attention than in the past years combined.

    WordPress.com

    This is how you can import your RSS subscriptions into WordPress.com.

    First, go to Google Takeout to download your Google Reader data:

    google-takeout

    The process is fairly straightforward.

    Google Takeout

    Click Download and save the zip file on your computer.

    Google Takeout

    Voilà. Saved the data for future use. Who knew! I’ve got 6.5 MB of shared Google Reader articles.

    WordPress.com offers an RSS reader. I don’t know if I’ll make WordPress.com my RSS Reader, but there’s one advantage. I already have a login for WordPress.com. And it’s easy to try out. This is what I did to add my RSS subscriptions (not my past shared articles!) to WordPress.com:

    Wordpress Reader

    Click Import your subscriptions.

    Wordpress Reader

    I used the special service: Import your Google Reader sunscriptions directly.

    I allowed WordPress.com to access Google Reader.

    That’s it. Done.

    Wordpress Reader

    The challenge: so far WordPress.com isn’t in my regular flow of news sites that I visit. I use it for special photo projects, Akismet and Jetpack.

  • Bufferapp stats for tweets and posts

    I am confused by the analytics view shown in Bufferapp. Consider the 2 tweets i posted this morning:

    bufferapp stats

    One has 0 (zero) clicks and one has close to 200. I am not questioning the 0. It’s a known fact Twitter engagement has gone down. Disappeared. But… I am fairly sure that nobody clicked on my other tweet either. The number shown must be the total number of clicks on this bit.ly link, right?

    Is this useful for me?

    Why show me the total number of clicks worldwide on this link? My educated guess is that Bufferapp (or any other Twitter stats tool for that matter) can only count clicks via the URL shortener service. I.e. close to 200 clicks where registered for http://bit.ly/P0Hjpe. Which is somewhat misleading. Or, in other words, it shows me which tweets are truly original vs entries which are just part of a larger echo chamber.

    I guess, it can be said in this day and age, we really need to closely at how stats are derived.

    For example, a tweet starting with @name will still generate up to 10 views on Flickr. While the tweet is public and can be viewed by others, I sincerely doubt that the views displayed on Flickr are *human* views.

    “Traue keiner Statistik, die du nicht selbst gefälscht hast”

  • Success theater is boring

    I recommended reading this article:

    Twitter : nchenga: "It's boring." http:::t.co:UXaVF5Pb

    Success theater is boring. Directly related to the increasing lack of privacy. All the world’s a stage.

    Social media featuritis is part of a never-ending cycle. Ironically the author mentions new tools (Snapchat, VidBurn and Facebook Poke) to replace the broadcast tools.

    Keep calm.

    Don’t join the rat race.

    Use social media in good measure and in a personable way.

    Create rather than consume.

    Consider your true motive. Cost and benefit.

    BTW, I’ve read some predictions about a blogging comeback in 2013. Experts predict that the author tag will get a higher Google rank.

    2013: The Year of the Online Writer

    Due to Google Panda and Penguin, everybody is talking about the need for high-quality content.

    The reality is it will be extremely difficult for middle-of-the-road online writers to gain any kind of traffic. Compared to 2003 and 2004, the ocean of data has increased exponentially. Gone are the days where a private blog entry google-bombed its way into the top SERPs. I am not saying it isn’t possible. But it takes strategy, resources, commitment, personal drive, writing skills and some SEO expertise. And most of us with a day job, hobbies, and a long to-do list will no longer be part of the top Google rankings. At least with the current setup.

    Here is an interesting slide deck on how social media will develop in 2013:

    I wonder where “social everything” and “mobile everything” will take us.

  • Ten twenty seven

    Sipping coffee. Reading tweets. Faving Flickr photos. And listening to “Klassik-Pop-et cetera” on dradio.de.

    Some music references to remember:

    Paul Gerhard “Ich steh an deiner Krippe hier”

    Mahalia Jackson “Go tell it on the mountain”

    Pete Seeger

    Johann Sebastian Bach “Ich lasse dich nicht denn du segnest mich denn”

    IMG_3869

    pasta

    blue

    Some ancient poetry that crossed my internetz path:

    whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable””if anything is excellent or praiseworthy””think about such things

    IMG_3654

    You know the year is nearly over when the first posts on “future trends” appear. I thought this slide deck quite intriguing:

    Heading out to take care of errands. And to take photos of bicycles. Yours truly, nchenga.

    Charly Gaul

  • Somebody forgot to tell the bots

    A couple of weeks ago i stumbled across this story:

    “Unfortunately, the digital restriction management (DRM) robots on UStream had not been programmed with these basic contours of copyright law.”

    Scary future.

  • Scrum and Design

    At the day job, I am part of a Scrum development project. Within this context, I was searching for practical experience / best practices on how to manage the web design part of a web application.

    Before the project started, I asked some people for their advice and googled around. Just like the discussion at Stackoverflow on “How do you apply Scrum to the design part of web development?”, there seemed to be 2 streams of thought:

    1. Design screens as part of a sprint
    2. Design screens early on, ideally in the sprint before a function is developed

    After a couple of sprints (still in the newbie category), I recommend following the advice given in option 2: Start as early as possible working on your web app design and UI vision. Things like what kind of grid, what basic layout do you want to follow, and what the header and footer, as well as the basic navigation should look like. Design some of the main screens. At the same time, expect that interaction and design changes will occur.

    @persillie sent me this useful article. IMHO this is a very good quote on this topic:

    Resist the temptation to create the entire design upfront. The design should evolve based on the feedback you receive, and the details are created incrementally as part of the canvas grooming work.

  • Multi-headed Drupal

    For future reference:

    Some background links on setting up large Drupal sites:

  • Building websites with Jekyll, Github Pages

    This post has made me very curious. They use a different stack:

    Jekyll for page templates and static file generation
    HTML, CSS, and JavaScript files
    GitHub Pages static HTTP server
    Supplemented with external APIs where necessary

    I guess, you can convert WordPress to static HTML. I found this description.

    Looking a little further, there’s this setup using Really Static.

    Why static HTML? HTML is secure and faster.

    Speed: Any web server, will serve html files a lot faster than PHP generated files.
    Security: If you are serving just static files, there is no way to hack your site.

    Here’s a thread on the same at Quora

    And using the WordPress static output plugin

    Nice to know I could offer a flat static HTML version of this site.

    I will have a longer look at Jekyll.

    BTW, one year ago I tweeted about something similar:

    Any experience? Opinions? Further resources to look at?

  • Barcamp Bodensee 2012

    I attended Barcamp Bodensee in Friedrichshafen yesterday. Very enjoyable.

    Big thank you to the organizers. It was worth getting up early.

    It started with breakfast and an emotional greeting by Oliver Gassner: “The internet is made of people.”

    And it was truly impressive to see so many people attending and participating.

    The location at Zeppelin University on the shore of Lake Constance was perfect.

    A few highlights:

    A talk on sleep by Jan Krämer
    “sleep is good for creativity”

    Facebook community management
    Romy showed us how she manages comments, spam on a large Facebook fan page. Her advice: never delete a comment or block the user. Rather mark the comment as spam and then explain why. She recommended having a page on policies and handling of comments in a “Netiquette” page. She showed the new content management features that went live recently for fan pages: you can now schedule posts and assign different admin roles. And her take: all the brands are spending $$$ to gain Facebook followers; very few followers are organic.

    I learnt a lot just by listening.

    And if I ever start a company, I would go to each and every barcamp in Europe and present my idea. Startup presenters get so much free and useful consulting and marketing ideas from attendees.

    Thank you.

    Links:
    allfacebook.com
    nutshellmail.com/
    http://unhosted.org/
    https://www.flinc.org/
    http://www.pixoona.com/

    BTW, the DB train along the German side of the Rhine river is very noisy and made me feel queasy and travel-sick. Buy some new trains and renew the tracks. Or maybe SBB should take over this route?

  • Uploaded my slides on Slideshare

    Chiperoni.ch on Social Media….

    Here are the slides:

    Social media

    View more presentations from nchenga.

    Based on this outline.

    I mentioned Fredrick Bvalani’s Fuel Watch group in my intro. Which I think is a powerful example.

    I had lots of fun presenting.

    There were a lot of questions about privacy and loss of control. My point was it’s difficult. You can try to minimize the information about you. But even if you’re not actively using social media tools, somebody else may still be writing and posting about you. In today’s online world, various data streams and apps are combining, processing and publishing. You need to adjust your privacy settings.

    Heh, Handmade2_0 how about getting together and presenting our information overload meme some day?

  • Sunny Sunday

    I just got back from a run around the Finnenbahn. The distance is nothing to write home about, but it was a pleasurable experience with temperatures around 18 degrees. Spring is here.

    With all the fresh air rushing thru my system, I was in mindblogging mode. Reflecting on all the data I have been consuming here and there.

    Yesterday afternoon I tried out new bicycles at a bicycle shop in downtown Basel. I am thinking of buying a new bicycle. My Univega will soon be 10 years old. And a lot has been happening in the bicycle space since then.

    mein velo

    I read Scoble’s post on reducing noise on Facebook. Useful! I don’t really have the a signal to noise problem on FB, but they are offering more and more control. Which is good.

    On Twitter: Did you see that you can now embed tweets?

    How to find the embed code:

    • Select a tweet.
    • Click on Details.
    • Click on Embed this Tweet.
    • Copy the code to your webpage.

    Although I am quite sure that I will keep my screenshot collection of fun tweets.

    The effort to tweak all these corporate social media channels is getting higher than high. Don’t let the social media corporations take over.

    Instead of just consuming content, I encourage you to create content. Write a blog, take photos, learn something new, write how-tos, write about your area of expertise, own your own data, participate, enter into dialog, have fun. Here are some ideas:

    I am planning to attend BarcampBodensee in June. Anybody else coming from the Basel area? It would be a great opportunity to present an updated version of my presentation on mobile internet usage in Malawi.

    The Potential of Mobile Technology in Africa

    View more PowerPoint from nchenga

    So much has happened in this space. And even in a downturn, TNM has managed to increase its subscriber base by 35% in 2011. Compare and contrast those kind of numbers with the saturated markets here in Europe.

    The number of Facebook users from southern Africa is increasing despite the high internet access costs. Socialbaker lists 95 820 users from Malawi.

    socialbaker stats for Malawi

    Leave a comment or contact me if you can provide further interesting data / anecdotes / user behaviour on internet usage patterns in the warm heart of Africa.

    Thank you for reading and supporting chiperoni.ch. Alles wird gut.

    colorful and calories

    P.S.: I missed a LOLCat photo opportunity today: a cat stretched out on the seat of Vespa. Unfortunately I didn’t have a cam with me.

  • Drupal 7: Wrapper for an HTML file

    I was looking for a wrapper for an HTML file, like Joomla offers.

    I found a way to load an existing HTML file into my Drupal 7 site using a module called insertFrame.

    insertFrame

    In /admin/config/content/formats/full_html select the box Include iFrame with auto-height feature.

    Then add
    [[[http://www.myurl.com/myapp.html]]]
    to a page or post.

    I still have a weird error message to fix:
    Notice: Undefined offset: 1 in _insertFrame_getHTML() (line 118 of /myurl.com/sites/all/modules/insertFrame/insertFrame.module

  • Top 500 ICT companies in Switzerland

    I finally found the top 500 list of top hardware, telecomm, networking and software companies in Switzerland.

    If you know where – it’s easy to find…

    Update 29 April 2019:

    The list is now behind a paywall

  • A Sunday evening in mid-November

    Instead of watching Tatort, I went for a short jog combined with lots of walking. I am still not back in my jogging routine. Yet.

    But I am enjoying being outside. It was so beautifully warm today.

    And. It is a good way to reflect.

    Time for mind blogging.

    I like being outdoors.

    I really like living in Switzerland. I think it is great that people take such meticulous care of their houses and gardens.

    This afternoon I went to see “Wien 1900 ”“ Klimt, Schiele und ihre Zeit” at the Beyeler Museum. I liked the architecture and poster designs. And Klimt’s landscapes.

    I didn’t like the additional shopping area they added for Wien 1900 merchandise. One shop is enough.

    A couple of Wikipedia links:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egon_Schiele
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Klimt

    You’ve probably heard of poetry slams. But there are also science slams: 10 mins to present your research project. There is one in Freiburg im Br. on 29th November and 17th January. I would love to go and see one.

    The incredibly influential a. of Handmade 2.0 invited me to a new web app called Pinterest. We have been blogging since January 2003. And it has been an incredible journey…. Thank you a. for the billions of emails, links and ideas. I am truly amazed at the amount of data we have collected.

    I am still trying to figure out how to use Facebook as can be seen occasionally in my tweets. I worry that a platform like Facebook could replace the web. That would be the end of HTML pages, simplicity, transparency and diversity.

    That’s why it’s important to support and use other platforms and tools. Try out WordPress and Drupal. Learn HTML. Write your own articles. Voice your opinion. Become involved. Think before you click re-tweet, like or comment.

    It is my belief that after the fragmentation of the media scene and citizen journalism and the removal of the gatekeepers, we will see consolidation and the rise of new media giants with new gatekeepers.

  • Trying out Open Atrium

    I started playing around with Open Atrium, a Drupal-based tool for open and closed groups.

    open atrium

    The install was smooth and easy.

    Setting up a closed group is easy as well.

    I would like to remove the introductory video on the dashboard but couldn’t find out where.

    Documentation:
    https://community.openatrium.com/documentation-en/

  • Installed WordPress 3.0

    Message from the Chiperoni admin:

    I just installed WordPress 3.0. Everything seems to be running smoothly.

    And I found a new minimal theme to try out: Carrington Text.

    Me and WP go back a long way.

  • On digital natives

    Using the term digital native to describe all netizens born after 1980 is way too general.  I found this interesting article discussing various findings:

    Only a minority of students actively created their own content or used emerging technologies such as blogs, social networking and podcasts. And a significant proportion of them had lower levels of technical competency than would be expected of ”˜digital natives’

    via Myths of age and digital capability.