Black Out Your Site Like Wikipedia

This site and Wikipedia both used a pretty harmless method to block our content for the protest. The method we used involved simply covering up the normal content with a layer of HTML that hides it and shows something else in its place. To accomplish this in an elegant way, you will need an image and/or content to display, the HTML shown below, and a small change to your site’s CSS. Here’s how it’s done:

1. Create your image and content. In my case, I made a couple very simple changes to a large version of my logo image to make it more protest-y.

2. Add the overlay code. In your site’s template (or your theme’s footer.php in WordPress), copy the code below and paste it right above the /body tag. Modify it as indicated to include your own image or message.


<div style="position:absolute;left:0px;top:0px;
width:100%;height:100%;
background:url(/images/darken.png);text-align:center;">
<!-- Add your image and message below this line -->
<img src="/images/sopa.png" />
<!-- Add your image and message above this line -->
</div>


Here’s the background and content images I used.

3. Stop the scroll. Update your site’s CSS file to stop the original content from being larger than the new overlay content. This may not always be necessary, but will be pretty obvious when it is. Just add the following code anywhere to the bottom of the CSS:


body{overflow:hidden;}


That’s it! Follow the three steps above and you’ll have your protest/maintenance/special message up in no time on every page on the site.

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What’s The Catch

The first thing most people wonder about a site offering cheap mp3 music downloads is if it is legal. According to the site’s FAQ, it is. The reason they can offer these tracks for so cheap is because they’re outside the U.S. and have different licensing rules and agreements. Giving your credit card to a site outside the U.S. might make some people nervous, but I didn’t feel that way with iomoio.

Features, Selection, And Quality

Any time I visit a music site that I haven’t been to before, I look for three key components: site features/usability, music selection, and quality of the music being played. I give iomoio.com a 90/100 for features and usability. The site was very easy to sign up and navigate and finding tracks was easy with a comprehensive search that auto-completes for artist, album, and track. In my searches, I found most of what I searched for, and I have an interesting taste in music. Even though it didn’t find one of the tracks I was searching for, it did find a few artists I didn’t expect results for, like Faderhead and Stromkern. Of course, iomoio had plenty of the top artists like Rihanna and Lady Gaga too. I gave iomoio a 95/100 on selection. Out of the 10 tracks I searched for, it found nine, but the site had two out of three albums for the one it didn’t find.

When viewing a list of tracks, you are presented with a play button to preview the track, but the music preview plays about four different parts of the track rather than just the first 30 seconds, providing a better sample of what you’re buying. In addition, the preview lets you skip ahead by clicking the outer ring of the circle. When you purchase, you get to download mp3 songs without any DRM, so you can add them to any of your devices and listen wherever you want.

When a track or album is purchased, it’s placed in your Downloads page, where you can download a .ZIP archive including the song or album. Downloaded tracks included the important track information like album, artist, track number, etc. and are 256k, earning a 100/100 for quality. The tracks I listened to sounded perfect.

As a bonus, when you sign up, you get two free tracks. I give that 100/100.

Conclusions

Like a lot of people in the U.S., I’m a little sensitive about who I give my credit card information to. Being a site in a foreign land may turn people away, but the trade-off is really cheap tracks at great quality with fast downloads. Even if you’re not ready to make a purchase, just head over and pick up a couple free tracks.

Although the preceding was a sponsored review, as always I strive to provide an honest opinion of the product reviewed.

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There are a lot of online sources to help you find files online, but many of them are limited to only a few upload sites and don’t remove old links. Others put really annoying sponsored links up that look like regular results to get you to click on a paid link. This week, I was asked to review a file sharing search site called General-Files.com. It promises a cleaner search of more files with a bunch of features.

Finding and Downloading Files

There’s not really a lot to finding files to download online. Generally, you search and something will come up. The problem I’ve had in the past is that I’ll search Google and half of the results are other file search sites that generate a fake hit for sponsored links. In this case, however, I skip Google and head to General-Files.com and search for my file. The search is pretty quick and returns just what I’m looking for in most cases. Some people will use sites like this to download movies for free, which can be illegal in some cases. Others will visit hoping to download free music, which comes with the same legal concern. This is not the case all of the time, though. Many artists will share their music online for free and it’s perfectly legal. I often use a site like this to find fonts, clip art, a viral video or image, or any number of things. The possibilities are virtually endless as this site includes results not only from Uploading, MegaUpload, RapidShare and many others, but it also returns direct links to files from around the web.

In addition to searching for what you know you want, you can also choose from their lists of Most Downloaded, Most Commented and Most Rated, as well as Hot Files and the Latest uploads. Just use common sense when you download random files. Finally, when you’re ready to download a file you can click right out to the site that hosts the file and begin your download one file at a time, or you can queue them up to download all at once.

Additional Features

For those who want to be more involved in the social process, you can vote for files on a five-star scale, comment on files, and even report some of the less savory content out there. You can also send a Good Report to indicate that the file is generally good, virus free, or erotic in nature. Reporting bad content warns others against downloading it and comments and votes help guide the “Most” and “Hot” lists mentioned above. It’s the same concept as liking and commenting on Facebook posts. And speaking of liking on Facebook, each file’s details page includes a Like button so you can help others find it, too.

One of the features I nearly overlooked is the Alert option. Alerts are turning up everywhere these days. From Facebook push notifications on your iPhone to Google searches, alerts are a popular way to find out right away when something happens. On General-Files.com, you can set a search alert to let you know via email when someone uploads a file matching your search criteria. This feature will be invaluable when you’re searching for a hard-to-find file.

General Conclusions

With any file hosting site or search, you need be aware of what you’re downloading. General-Files is a little more helpful in this regard when the reporting features are used. The clean, ad-free and fast search along with compiled lists and alerts make this file search stand out heads above the others I’ve come across. It’s in my bookmarks and should have a place in yours if you find yourself searching for files often.

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One of the most complicated things to do for the first time is build a web site. Most people don’t even know what the HTML acronym stands for, much less how to turn hundreds or thousands of lines of HTML into a web site. And let’s be honest. Your first web site is usually hideous just like mine was. One way around this is to hire a website developer to create your site. An alternative for those without a huge web development budget is a site like the free website maker reviewed here.

(viewing a photo in my new site’s photo gallery)

How uCoz.com Works

The idea behind uCoz is pretty simple. They provide a web site that helps you create your own website online. From choosing a site name and design template to installing and configuring even the small details of what they call site modules, the whole process is done without the need for any real skill, an HTML book, Photoshop, or even a paid hosting account because uCoz hosts the site for free.

(one of the many configuration panels)

When you build a website, you’ll get a control panel, and this is where all the magic happens. From the control panel, you can change basic site settings, languages and wording, and add, edit, and remove pages as well as view stats on individual pages. Becoming familiar with how everything works in the control panel is the first order of business that you should attend to. This was pretty easy with help along the way, but there were a couple areas that took a little longer to comprehend. In general, most processes were easy to follow and accomplish, but there is a lot to play with.

The uCoz.com Web Top

The part that surprised me a little was the uCoz Web Top. The Web Top is a web interface that looks and acts remarkably like Windows. With everything from background configuration and even its own programs, the Web Top is your gateway to your websites. This is because they let you have more than just one free site. At first glance, the Web Top looked like a very over-done way of providing simple access to your multiple sites, but after playing, I realized that it offers a lot more than that. It has games, which I think is fun but counter-productive. More importantly, it has applications built right in. Beyond the simple Calculator and Task Manager are much more useful applications like the code development program and Pixlr, the image editor with lots of great features.

(creating images is easy with the Pixlr image editor)

I develop complex websites all day long in PHP and the tools I use the most are Photoshop for design and Zend for code editing. The offering of similar tools from within the Web Top makes this a much more viable web development and hosting platform for those with a little more skill and creativity.

Features and Modules

After you’ve created a basic web site you can add and configure a number of site sections or modules such as forums, photo galleries, a guest book, online games, a blog, polls, classified ads, and files. Each module is pretty configurable and most of them include user interaction like being able to give a photo anywhere from one to five stars. The sites also allow for user registration so that users can log in to interact. Behind the scenes, as an admin, you can block users, set up groups and permissions, and the list really does go on.

One of the cooler features I came across was the use of content tokens. A simple token I used was for an image. I uploaded an image to use with content and the system generated a token $IMAGE1$ for displaying the image. I copied that token to the spot in content where I wanted the image to appear and it showed up there. A more useful example was the widget token that was created when I generated a Twitter widget. I then just used the token in the same way I had used the image token and the Twitter feed widget appeared in the site.

Conclusions

uCoz.com looks great, but hides some really cool features behind your user login. I had no idea about Web Top until I was already using it. Other than the occasional broken image in the interface, everything was very intuitive and I had a basic site with some fun features up pretty quickly. The only area I felt needed some attention is the selection of templates. There’s a few nice templates to choose from (and you can modify any of them or make your own), but the selection is pretty slim. The non-commercial limitation is the only thing that should scare away those looking for a site on a shoe-string budget, but for a personal site, I don’t know of a better free solution. If you need a personal site, this should be your first stop.

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The new web site refresh is just one thing that resulted from their spending the past few months meeting with customers about what they do well and what could be done better. While I liked the old site, I’ve noticed that it’s just a little easier to shop for services and get information in general with the refresh. I’ve always liked the design, and that carries through to the latest incarnation as well. In the end, though, I’m just one person, and frankly, I already have services with Codero, so I’m curious what everyone else thinks. Here’s the questions Codero is asking on their blog.

1. What do you look for on a website when evaluating a hosting partner?

2. Do you have a checklist of things that you look for, or is it more about the overall experience?

Here’s my responses:
1. For me, I look for pricing and server stats first and foremost. In addition, I’ll look for things like customer testimonials or a client list. If I knew, for example, that a well-trafficked site was hosted on the base server plan, it builds my confidence in the product.

2. I generally have a checklist. It may just be in my head, but I know what I’m looking for and sometimes will even add to my checklist when on a site that offers information I hadn’t thought of. A great example of this is Codero’s Price Match Challenge. If you ask my wife, it’s all about the experience. She wants the information to be easy to find, and if the site doesn’t work, she’s on to the competition. The is especially true for any shopping cart experience.

What about you? What do you look for from a hosting provider’s web site?

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I don’t move much, but when I do, one of the important things I look at is what broadband solutions will be available to me. I need my high speed access. Just last weekend, my mom, who has lived in the same house for years, got new broadband internet access. She called me for help with figuring out what all this stuff meant and which provider to use, but what if I didn’t know?

This is where a site like Broadband Genie comes in. They offer comparisons of broadband (and other) services along with guides, news, tools, etc. Here’s what they have to say about why you might want to use their site:

* Save time and money. We spend loads of time gathering and checking all the price and package data from all the top providers, so you don’t have to.
* Be a sheep, make your life easy. If you don’t want to trawl through the comparison tables looking for that special deal, see what our experienced editors and users recommend.
* Get an education. If you want to learn all about broadband internet, how it works and how to compare it, then let us translate it all into plain-English for you. We’ve got help guides, blogs, daily news, and loads of places you can ask questions or just have a good moan.

For those in the U.S., the site won’t be much help in regards to comparing services. Non-UK readers still have plenty of reasons to visit, though, so keep reading.

Compare Broadband Providers

In the interest of the review, I pretended I was in Staffordshire and used Google to find an address where I could pretend to live. This yielded much better results from Broadband Genie, which returned a list of broadband providers in order of suggested use. The list displayed the initial setup cost, monthly cost, contract length, speed, and download caps as seen below.

I was able to sort by any of the columns I mentioned above and more information was a click away, taking me to a page loaded with information specific to the provider. The provider page included service highlights, an overview of different packages, a “road test” widget showing overall user ratings, and customer reviews. This page proved to be a pretty good snapshot of what the provider has to offer.

Compare Mobile Services and More

This site goes beyond just home/office broadband to also compare mobile phone services, pay as you go mobile broadband, and even deals that give you a laptop (with a contract for the mobile broadband). These work in the same way, providing a sortable ordered list and detail pages.

Tools and Guides

Before buying any services, it’s helpful to get educated. Broadband Genie starts with a broadband guide right on the home page to answer questions like “What is broadband?” and “What are modems, routers & dongles?”. Additional guides help you determine compatibility, understand broadband speeds, and even help guide you through setting it all up. Along with the guides, the newsletter, frequently updated News section, forums, and “Ask the Genie” form seem to make sure you’ll find the answers you’re looking for.

Once you’ve learned all about broadband speeds, you can test your own to get an idea of what your needs might be. The first time I ran the speed test, it actually crashed Firefox. When I loaded it up again, it worked great, so I can’t say if that’s a bug or my browser was just having one of its fits. I’ve since tried on another computer in Firefox, and Chrome with no crashing problems, but I’m not sure the results are reliable. They seemed much lower than I had expected, so I headed to another site that returned vastly different numbers which were very close to my expectations.

Conclusions

The speed test didn’t impress me at all, but it was a small bump in a very smooth and freshly paved road to broadband knowledge. Broadband Genie had what I expected. Then it had more and more and even more. I still feel like I left some stones unturned on this site and can only imagine other features I’ve missed. It really only needs two things to be perfect, a U.S. sister site and maybe a better speed test (assuming it’s actually inaccurate).

Also, for those in Australia, Broadband Genie has an Australian site too, which also compares mobile broadband and broadband deals.

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Their company, Genwi, recently launched iSites.us, a site that enables people to easily create an application for the iPhone and Android platforms with little effort, and little cash outlay. The whole process involves $25 (or $99 – see below), some image preparation, and about 10 to 15 minutes of your day. This is followed by a week or two of waiting, depending on demand.

Preparation and Planning

iSites offers a couple different pricing options. The more expensive option gives you full control over advertising, allowing you to have your own ads embedded in your app or none at all. The cheaper option (the one I chose) is $25 and includes their own ads in your application. The ads really aren’t in the way, so for me, this was not a problem. If you want your own ads, you’ll need to make sure you have an account with the ad network you choose, but either way, give it a little thought and determine what will work best for you and your budget.

Another thing you need to worry about is your brand management. Before starting, think about your application’s title and description as well as keywords. Additionally, there are a few images you have to have ahead of time. You need an icon, an iTunes display image, a banner and a splash screen image (see the iSites Learn More page to get a peek of the image size and file type requirements. It’s best to have these images all ready to go to streamline the creation process.

Finally, you should grab the category feeds for your blog or site so you can have categories in place when the app launches. The more frequent your content, the more categories you may want to have set up.

Creation and Approval

The creation process and completed application is better seen than described, so I’ve included a video showing the process. For the most part, it’s about 10 minutes of filling out web forms and uploading some images. After that, it’s just a game of waiting for an email announcing the completion of your application.

There may be the rare case in which your application is not approved. In this case, you’ll need to revise text, images, title, etc until it’s approved. When the whole process has been completed, you can just search for your app and download it.

Completed Application

Once completed, the application doesn’t have a lot of features, but it does have some of the important ones. When you start up the application, the first thing you see is the splash screen. I saw at least one other company creating iPhone apps while inserting their own brand here, so I really liked that iSites helps you insert your own branded spash screen here. The app then loads up to the Home screen which shows a listing of your recent posts with thumbnails where available. Each post can be selected to view and read. While reading a post, you can jump up or down a post, favorite it or share it via email, Facebook, or Twitter. The sharing options are a must for an application like this.

Over all, the application is really smooth and brings my blog to a whole new audience pretty seamlessly. Better still is the ability to manage it from the iSites web site control panel. From the control panel, I can change my images, description, etc. Additionally, I can add or change categories and other feeds. This really does feel like a pretty decent blend of control and simplicity.

Application Analytics

I love numbers. More than just any numbers, I love numbers that tell me people are reading what I write. Even before purchasing my app creation, I was a little excited about the prospect of seeing how many people downloaded my iJoeTech iPhone application. Once the app has hit the app store, you have analytics at your fingertips via the iSites web site control panel.

Amazingly, I had a nice bunch of downloads of my app before I even knew it was in the App Store. Pretty exciting. While it’s fun to watch, the numbers are important as a barometer for how your keywords and other criteria work to get someone to look at your app and then to download it.

What’s Missing?

I’m not sure if the analytics pages cover just the iPhone downloads or both iPhone and Android. I’d love to see analytics for both on the same graph. It would also be nice if the application had an option to open a post in Safari. Most of all, though, I’d love if there was some way for the application to hook into my WordPress and let the user submit a comment right from the app.

Conclusions

I’ve been wanting to create a JoeTech.com app for the iPhone for a while now and although I had seen other offerings, this one resonated with my mostly due to the ease of setup and the low cost. It truly is pretty amazing that I can give JoeTech.com readers a customized iPhone application so easily for only $25. I think every blog should have such an app and iSites.us is the place to get it done.

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