It started like just another day at one of our remote offices: email, follow-ups, meetings, calendar management, spreadsheets, a little pdf here and there, some programming, a last minute Photoshop tweak …

Normally, every time one of our workers finishes a task, he or she takes a 15 minute brain break or does some other Web 2.0 activity that benefits the organization. Some of us prefer Twitter, reading what new trends are out there. Others like to do a little Facebook to see what our friends – and foes – are up to. Reddit is also a definite favorite.

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Seriously folks, it’s been sixteen months of website building, tweaking and programming. Some of us here at WebsiteForensics need a break. Some of us here would love to go back down to New Mexico. Time to fire up our browsers for something else that usability testing or reading Reddit!

Before we hit the road let’s check out some vacation rental homes. We still have a few weeks of blogging before us, as well as a handful of sites to finish, but we’ve already found a couple of places we’d love to rent in Albuquerque or Santa Fe… Time to start counting the days on the calendar.

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“Whatsmydns.net is an online service that allows you to instantly perform a DNS lookup to check a hostnames current IP Address and other DNS information against a selection of random name servers around the world. This is especially useful to check the current state of DNS propagation after making changes to your domains zones.”

WebsiteForensics.com says: AWESOME TOOL!

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There are so many web-hosting companies to choose from and so many technical flavors. How do you know which one you want to sign up with? This is not an easy decision, as the server choice will impact development, deployment, security and many more aspects of web hosting. Do you really want to export databases, redo a CMS installation from the ground up and move your work from hosting company A to hosting company B after six months of bad service?

Not all companies are equal, not all services are the same and before anybody go ahead with a hosting provider, and one should do as much research as possible before hand. What are the best Linux Hosting Plans, why should you use a VPS (virtual private server), what is dedicated hosting, who offers the best email hosting?

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Finally, you can organise that flow of information that comes down your twitter feed! Twitter is now launching a beta feature which empowers you. By creating lists and adding the people you follow to respective lists, you can really improve your tweeting experience.

Thank you twitter! Really, thank you!

Now for the bummer: not everybody has lists enabled yet. They are only available to some twitter users for beta testing so please be patient if your account does not have that feature enabled! If you see this message, you’ll have to wait : Lists are a great way to organize the people you follow and discover new and interesting accounts. We’re currently beta testing this feature and it’ll be available to you soon.
Hold on tight…

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We love our technology. In fact everybody here at WebsiteForensics has an iPod Touch, iTunes, thousands of mp3 files as well has hundreds of CDs. Some of us even had old tapes, LPs, EPs. One of us even owns a USB turntable – but what of music of yesteryear? We don’t just mean 78’s, we mean music from up to 120 years ago … We are talking about cylinder records from the 1870s to the 1920s. Cylinders made out of tinfoil, brown wax and plastic …

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We remember the web when the only source of income was direct sales and domain squatting… Today, there are many options available for those who wish to monetize their sites without driving away readers. The important first step for any blogger is to test every monetization service out there and find out what works best for your sites. Don’t assume because something is great for someone else’s blog that is the case for all blogs! One note of caution: read the terms of service as some monetization services are not compatible with competitors.

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There seems to be a new Web 2.0 service every day, some are not very practical but from time to time comes an idea that just makes sense. Anyone who’s managed a sports team, amateur or professional, high-school or campus based, knows how difficult it is to coordinate schedules, team attendance, photos, stats …

Welcome to TeamSnap.com the one stop solution for coaches and team organizers. Three flavors are available: Free which is ad support and limited in scope but can be well worth exploring, Basic and Premium that come with a monthly fee and many options such as fan sites, payment tracking, email reminders. TeamSnap – The simplest, easiest way to manage your team or group online.

Disclosure: this article is sponsored by third party advertiser.
Sign up for TeamSnap now and get 10% off for 1 year!

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Validation, Cross-Browser Checking

• HTML 2 Txt – html2txt: online service to convert web pages to plain text
• W3C HTML validator – This is the W3C Markup Validation Service, a free service that checks Web documents in formats like HTML and XHTML for conformance to W3C Recommendations and other standards.
• Jigsaw – Enter the URI of a document (HTML with CSS or CSS only) you would like validated.
• Backwards Compatibility Checker – Web Page Backward Compatibility Viewer
• Header Checker – Enter a URI for a webpage and we’ll tell you what the headers for that page are. This is useful to check the status code for a webpage for SEO purposes. Read the rest of this entry »

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SEO / SEM

• Keyword suggestion tool – This is a handy little tool will show you the results of your query from both Wordtracker and Overture for determining which phrases are searched most often.
• Keyword tracker – This utility can be used to check search engines (currently supporting Google, Yahoo and MSN) for search engine ranking and track those ranking historically, which as you probably know is critical when doing Internet marketing for your website(s).
• Co-op ad network - Many sites have a lot of content for users which could be used for a shared advertising network. So the way I figured it, is why not use it and create the first cooperative advertising network (it’s free by the way).
• Overture keyword tool – Not sure what search terms to bid on? Enter a term related to your site and we will show you.
• Wordtracker – With Wordtracker you’ll know which are the best keywords to drive more traffic to your sites.

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