Web & PC stuff

Email Marketing Bounces

emailBeing a marketer today almost certainly means you must have more than a passing familiarity with the digital world; and one of the cornerstones of digital marketing, is the trusty email marketing mailshot. I’ll leave the process of managing your database, segmentation and targeting to other blogs and posts, because this post is going to focus on those things that every marketer hates – email marketing bounces. Effectively, a bounced marketing email is an unsuccessful email that is being returned to the send because it was undeliverable for one reason or another.

However, the story doesn’t stop there, because there are different types of bounced email and understanding what each one is will help future campaigns, as well as providing a more thorough understanding of the customer database and enabling a degree of data cleansing to take place – which will ultimately lead to more effective email marketing in the future.

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Fantastic time-lapse animation

I came across this time-lapse animation today, of an illustrator/artist creating the cover for a comic book.

It’s incredible watching the image being constructed and the detail that goes in to a piece of work like this.

I’m not sure I’d have the patience to work on something like this! In the video, the artist starts off creating a pencil sketch and them imports the image into Photoshop to flesh it out more.

Premium Press offers 50% off WordPress themes

Premium Press, the company behind the WordPress themes of DirectoryPress, ShopperPress and CouponPress are offering 50% off their themes as part of a Halloween special. Just click on the link below and then when you get to the purchase screen, use the code “halloween”. I’ve used DirectoryPress as the system upon which I’ve based Recruiter Network Directory (which you can see here: http://www.recruiternetwork.co.uk/directory/) and on Oil and Gas Recruiter Directory (which you can see here: http://www.oilandgasrecruiter.co.uk/directory/).

 

In terms of out of the box functionality, the themes can’t be faulted. They’re easy to install and include an abundance of payment gateways so that you can straight away begin to monetize your site. There’s lots of powerful features too, but once configured you can almost sit back and let the sites manage themselves. The only intervention required is for WordPress updates or responding to contact form enquiries. 

Free online pic resize tool

If you need to resize a photo, but you’re away from you main PC – ie on a tablet or netbook, and don’t have access to your regular imaging application, then this handy online pic resize tool is invaluable. It’s free too.

http://www.picresize.com/

Cheap UK web hosting

Cheap UK web hosting

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Fix for RSS Error: WP HTTP Error: name lookup timed out

wordpressI’ve just had a minor hassle trying to sort out the RSS Error on a different site that I maintain, but after searching for a solution online and not finding one, I had to figure out something myself – so I’ve posted my solution here. It’s actually really simple too… so that’s a bonus.

If you use sub-domains with the latest version of WordPress v3.x – and try to use RSS feeds to cross populate them, for some reason, all of a sudden you may start getting this WP HTTP Error. I followed all of the advice online, from consulting with my host, deactivating and re-activating plugins, and re-installing WordPress. Nothing worked.

So, the simple solution is pass to the feeds through an external feed generator/management provider, such as Feedburner. You can still use exactly the same feeds, but as they’re now routed through an external service, WordPress doesn’t seem to have a fit about the redirects any more… and, hey presto, you’re back up and running again.

Agree a date

I’ve been told about this web site – Agree a Date (http://www.agreeadate.com/) which sounds ideal for trying to coordinate friends and colleagues for various activities. I’m going to add it to my bookmarks and next time I need to organise an event, I’ll be giving it a go!

The difference between sub domains, parked domains and add-on domains

I still get confused about the differences between sub domains, parked domains and add-on domains… so here’s a handy reference definition: 

Sub domain 

  • Lets say your domain is mysite.co.uk
  • You install a Discusssion Forum and put in in a directory called mysite.co.uk/forum/
  • You can turn the forum into a sub-domain by adding it as a sub-domain from your Control Panel
  • Now you can access your forum as either mysite.co.uk/forum OR forum.mysite.co.uk
  • This generally costs you nothing and is free.

Parked Domain

  • You have two domains mysite.co.uk and my-other-site.co.uk
  • mysite.co.uk is the domain of your website and you want to add my-other-site.co.uk
  • You want them both to go to the same place. In other words, when someone types either www.mysite.co.uk or www.my-other-site.co.uk they will go to the same page(s) on your website.
  • In order to have additional parked domains you need to purchase them from a registry.

Add-On Domains

  • You have two domains mysite.co.uk and my-other-site.co.uk
  • You want the two domains to be totally separate/independent websites
  • In order to have additional add-on domains you need to purchase them from a registry.

 

Disable directory browsing

If, like me, you like to play around with your web site – occasionally you’ll accidentally break it, as I have. This latest time, I disabled the directory browsing on my site to increase security, but the way that I tried to do it through the cpanel index manager, left my whole site inaccessible.

So that I remember next time I do this… I’ve written the instructions down here.

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Interrupted plugin update solution

wordpressI’ve just had a mini heart attack after accidentally interrupting a plugin update in wordpress and being presented with “Briefly unavailable for scheduled maintenance. Check back in a minute” whenever I try and access the front or back end of my WordPress site. After much frantic searching online, I found a simple solution – just delete the .maintenance file from the root folder of your WordPress installation. You can do this easily with your FTP client, or if like me you’re just using the Cpanel file manager, then make sure that when you start up the file manager – you select to show the hidden files (it’s a tick box otpion), so that you can see the .maintenance file in the first place.