When the internet started to catch my interest, it has become part of my daily routine to surf and get hooked. Mostly my favorite sites are about news and business trends. To some extent, I adapted a routine visit of reuters, bloomberg, bworldonline, the site of the bank i worked for, mtv, youtube, and facebook (of course!).

I wonder how much time do I really spend in the internet? If i would estimate, I am in social networks by 20% of the time, 30% on news, and 50% on videos and other lifestyle sites. I am so attracted with video and animation on the different sites I visit, and it is a sure return if I experience updated ones. Spending time watching and browsing on these sites provides me good entertainment. I just wonder why I'm attracted to it.

I believe each one of us have their own peculiar interest in the internet. Personally, I think mine is news reading, emailing, know how my friends are doing, and my desire to search for information and knowledge. The videos show a clear audio visual experience, and is the easiest to appreciate. The news is simply a need that I must do to update me on current events. Communicating, on the other hand, is because it's inevitable. In totality, all of these are my online activities that form part of my life in the internet.

One factor that describes my desires for the things on the internet is rooted on our culture. The way we are educated and raised, the work we do, the family interests and the influence of our peers and friends; somehow add to the whole aspect of our Netizen character. This is well evidenced by how people in different countries, so diverse from each other, statistically leave different footprints on the net. In closing this post today, let me share this information I found on how we are part of this cyber-world:

Have you ever came across the term "Snippet" before? It is by the dictionary defined as a small piece of something, and usually these are information or parts of literatary works or articles. And in the IT world, or in the Internet, these are small programming text or codes.

Snippet coding are re-usable codes and functions differently in a variety of programming platforms. Since it is re-usable, it may be present in different programming modules, and operates uniquely on each one. For example, are loops or replay instructions for countdown clocks on your programming. Imbedding videos and slide shows into your website, is another. These visual and non-visual operations are in the form of snippets that are in the code lines of your programs.

Snippets may be classified to be static, dynamic, and scriptable. As the word static implies, you can just do plain text display. For the dynamic ones, these are your time values or those that run clocks or dates that form part of another applications. And for the scriptables, these are the runnables where we also find some variations of shell commands.

How wonderful isn't it? So when you get across the term snippet - it may not only mean parts of literary works like poems and short stories, but are also a term used in the internet. Let's improve our knowledge of the internet, and explore the possibilities and the usefulness of this world in our daily lives.

The green bar or the https:// line in the address bar of your browser tells us that a website is secure. What really does it mean to be secured online? The common notion is that a Secured Socket Layer (SSL) certificate is in place.

An SSL certificate encrypts data that tells your browser connection to the company's web server is private. It prevents any intentional tampering of transmitted data and digital forgery. It is like a seal that tells your visitor that his activities on your site are free of any leak of confidential information.

Usually, it is a value add for your visitors to be engaged on your site. It guarantees somehow that your site is sensitive to your visitor's privacy. It improves the integrity of transaction online from your site, and will be a good reason to experience some more return visits. In a way, this improves the overall reputation of your site and your company.

SSL doesn't only secure the visit, but also authenticates the stay. This means you are not only sure of your information is safe, but also you have the peace of mind that you are sending information to the right server and not a dubious one. Some websites somehow mirror identities of legitimate companies, and you would be fooled to believe that you are in the right site. Not to mention, phising activities that are very rampant in the internet. An SSL certificate ensures that your are on the right location and company.

So, the next time you shall transmit information such as personal details on a feedback form, or a site that ask for confidential information, or a purchase you wish to do; check that the address bar should be color green with a padlock icon before the https:// prefix.

In surfing through the internet and when the search engine directs you to a specific name site, is it really that simple? To Netizens just surfing for information and gets directed to sites with the most probable primary domain, it seems just typing and there you go. But it is not so simple for the webmasters or the web designers.

The domain name is part of an Active Directory setup in the network. The primary domain usually is www.example.com and is suppose to show your way to the particular website. Usually, these primary domain bring you to where you wish to go through "cookies". Well, it is a bit complicated to expound on how the "cookie" functions, but let's just describe it to be a set of data that is held by an intermediary to bring your computer browser to a specific site. And, primary domains are actually a set of these "cookies" in an organize manner. You see, it is so difficult to find a site if it were a set of numbers, and so the internet set it up to be of words interralated and specific that there aren't any domain that is the same. All are unique in words and extensions.

The primary domains that make the website, may be subdivided and are called sub-domains. Sub-domains are usually in http://sub.example.com/ formats. But why do we need sub-domains? Are they necessary? Sub-domains are actually just like folders within your root directory, wherein you can organize the index page to be products, games, or forms redirecting your visitors into specific links within your primary domain. Simply just links that brings your users to the specific information, but for webmasters and web designers, it is a lot more. Some use sub-domains to shield the confidential information and those that are for public access. On the other hand, some just wish to organize the data for quick restructuring or management like what we do with our file folders in our hard drives.

Not for the unfamiliar, the use of the sub-domain directory is delicate. A novice may make a mistake of over extending the sub-domains that it interferes with the identification by search engines and the formats of the "cookies". This may become so nasty that it destroys the way the browser reads the pointers, and you lose your traffic. The "cookie" impact should be studied well.

The simple search is so complex in the world of the internet, that the codes should be well spelled. We experience, as ordinary Netizens, the convenience in searching for our needed information, and it's not so common to us to really ponder on how the internet brings us to the sites we choose to go. Now, isn't it awesome that the internet have its own location system that keeps everyone on the right path always?

I'm playing online games for quite sometime now. I have my favorites, and these are the shoot-em up first person and adventure rpg games. In my gaming experience, the name-handles become icons of who you are.

How important is it for the gamer to mirror his real self? As for me, I always use the handle Merda de Dragao on games that are adventure rpg, and jmdino for the shoot em ups. Sometimes I use Onid for warrior characters in the popular game Skyrim of Steam Media and Might and Magic. And I tell you, I am so attached to it, that I am so affected of an injury and so happy for every victory. But that's not me in real life, right!

How many of these gamers are like me or are more attached that they value their identity in the games they play. And some I believe reserves sequel versions in advance, so that they may register the same name-handles, and not be robbed of their gaming reputation. And yes! Some really do rob names in a game to be the person they never beaten or they wish to be to gain at least the reputation they never had in that particular online world. How awesome that people value their characters in the world of the internet.

Indeed, It really is quite a world we have in the internet. We become the heroes, the vermin, the prettiest, the royalty, and the general that we somehow aspire to be in reality. We see our gaming lives as a reflection of who we want to become, and we get attached and we feel our joy, fear, and sorrow on our online victories and defeats just like how it is in the real world. The only difference is that we can quit and reboot and change the outcomes as we think fit. And this I like. Happy Gaming! ;-)

Is being Online a bane or a boon to your business? The usual discussion in putting up an online business always, at first instance, is much about the cost. The usual contention is that it is too expensive, and to justify it with the volume of business to be generated is always vague and undetermined at the start. These discouraging facts slows the decision process and limits a company's conviction to jump into the world of the internet.

The right disposition and factors that points you to whether to pursue an online platform should be more on what are your liabilities once the site is activated. To know the amount of liability shall provide you the value or cost of doing so. Once you are online, the cost of development is already actualize, and to achieve the scale of business to be created shall be how the site plan will hit the objective. So is it the development cost that matters most in a decision to embark in an online business, or how strong will your plan be just right for the target audience?

Since we know that the world of the internet is so dynamic and the Netizens are impulsive in their actions, the audience preference on their online experience is king! It is so diappointing, and this is so true with a lot of websites we go to, that we always fill out an inquiry form or a feedback form that never responds immediately to us. Moreso, when the ecommerce site doesn't even update inventory and product catalogs, that when we delight on a couple of items we are redirected to a "page not found" screen message. This makes the cost of the development so expensive for these businesses that they fail to account the backlash to their brands and their company's reliability. In a way, turning all their online efforts into very big liabilities. In this regard the amount of failure, by comparing the cost of putting up an online business at start up and the cost of not having a good site strategy, clearly dwarfs the former.

In taking advantage of the benefits of an online business, it is very much important to know how you will satisfy the target audience. And in ecommerce, in particular, the target market should already be clearly identified including their preferences, and how the company shall manage their expectations. If this is done successfully, I believe the cost of putting up one is a smaller risk versus the larger overall success that needs to be worked on.

In developing a website, we should know first what we wish to convey based on the purpose of why we are putting up a website. The reasons may vary from selling products or raising funds, as the case may be. Or simply an infomercial or a showcase of our ideas. We need to know this so we could identify and focus on our target audience.

The audience shall dictate to us the technology to be used, say Flash or Jquery since not all have the best browsers to accommodate Flash. It is good also to consider, if we will use animation or simple slide shows, dependent  again, on how we wish to catch the audience's attention.

All of the above are good starting points in creating our website. We need to know our audience and we need to match this with our ideas and the site's purpose. To keep all these factors together, we should put a considerable amount of time with Navigation - the heart of the website.

A website with the most functionality and technology is nothing without a good navigation plan. It provides the audience a feel of the structure of the website, which also guides them on the flow of ideas and coherence of all the visuals and text put together. The total audience experience relies mostly on how he transfers from main page to sub-pages and sub-folders. This distinguishes a good website from the others.

The engagement is strengthened if the visitor knows what to do next. It is always good not to confuse the visitor when he lands on a certain page. They say a good website somehow implies and suggest to the visitor where next to click, and to find his much needed information. A good metrics of the navigation plan will always be the visitor's adventure from the main page, like a starting point of a maze; and his ease of exit up to the last available interaction.