The Demise of Borders Books: Death by Internet
Although the company used last week’s announcement that they’re seeking a buyout as an opportunity to blame a tight credit market and competition from discount chains like Wal-Mart, Borders’ disappointing performance stems from a failure to take e-commerce seriously.
I used to love Borders. That chain really had everything [...]

The Demise of Borders Books: Death by Internet

Although the company used last week’s announcement that they’re seeking a buyout as an opportunity to blame a tight credit market and competition from discount chains like Wal-Mart, Borders’ disappointing performance stems from a failure to take e-commerce seriously.

I used to love Borders. That chain really had everything going for it, except that in the late 90’s they scrapped plans to make an online ecommerce website and redirected their homepage to Amazon.com… which then became my bookseller. It was like Borders threw in the towel before the game was even half over.

The problem was that K-mart bought Borders in order to bail out Waldenbooks, but Borders management understandably left, and Kmart got bored. Borders managed to buy its way back to independence from Kmart, but by that time Barnes & Noble and Crown were everywhere.

There’s room for a parable here about a man who needed to cut some glass, and failed to notice that the tool someone gave him to do it with was a hefty, quality diamond.

What Is A Favicon And Why Use One
Visit almost any popular website and have a look in the address bar. To the left of the URL you will see a 16×16 pixel image or icon. If you then bookmark or favorite it you will see that icon when you scroll through the list. If your [...]

What Is A Favicon And Why Use One

Visit almost any popular website and have a look in the address bar. To the left of the URL you will see a 16×16 pixel image or icon. If you then bookmark or favorite it you will see that icon when you scroll through the list. If your browser supports tabs you will also see the icon in the tab. In most cases the icon is a static image unless you use Firefox or Flock.

A lot of you probably have had favicons for ages, but for those of you who don’t, this is a good article to check out.

Catching 404 Visitors
Running a site requires maintenance from time to time, perhaps an upgrade to the file structure too. Even if you’ve not altered the file structure from the original set up, a simple mistake such as an incorrect link in your content, can cause a 404 Not Found error. Unless you’ve set up a [...]

Catching 404 Visitors

Running a site requires maintenance from time to time, perhaps an upgrade to the file structure too. Even if you’ve not altered the file structure from the original set up, a simple mistake such as an incorrect link in your content, can cause a 404 Not Found error. Unless you’ve set up a custom 404 error page that offers a correct navigation to your main site (which I would recommend too, if you’ve got the option), then you could lose each visitor, a potentially paying customer, when that get that dreaded 404 page and leave your site for good. Also, when a file structure is updated the old files will still be known to the search engine spiders and they’ll continue to search for these files.

She goes on to show and explain some htaccess code and a php alternative to redirect both static links and links including a query string.

Be sure to check out this fanatastic Lord Matt Link - Make Money from UK Traffic - A Guide for Americans
When I purchased The Flip video camera in the US I paid $160 for the camera.
When a person in the UK purchases the same camera from a store in their land they pay the [...]

Be sure to check out this fanatastic Lord Matt Link - Make Money from UK Traffic - A Guide for Americans

When I purchased The Flip video camera in the US I paid $160 for the camera.

When a person in the UK purchases the same camera from a store in their land they pay the equivalent of $382 American dollars

Who would you prefer to sell the camera to if you were making a commission on the sale? The commission should be larger selling to a UK buyer.

The discussion thread is where they really get into the question of precisely how to target UK customers if you’re based outside the UK. In fact, it looks like most of us (particularly in the US) don’t have much idea how Google works in other countries and so on. It’s funny how you don’t think of little things like that as something you need to know, but they could make a huge difference.

Excluding Posts from Your Wordpress Feed
That will keep category with ID 5 out of the feed. You can get the IDs by looking in the wp_terms table in your database. With wordpress 2.1, these terms are tags and categories, and while I haven’t tested it with tags, I have seen that it does work with [...]

Excluding Posts from Your Wordpress Feed

That will keep category with ID 5 out of the feed. You can get the IDs by looking in the wp_terms table in your database. With wordpress 2.1, these terms are tags and categories, and while I haven’t tested it with tags, I have seen that it does work with Categories.

Click over for complete instructions. I’ve always wondered how to do this! You may want to check out the original post - some commenters aren’t having much luck with this method.

My solution in the past has always been to set up a new blog in a subfolder - it’s more trouble, but it works flawlessly.

Dangerous Mistakes Experienced Affiliates Make
Experience can lead to over confidence. Think about the last time you went into the doctor’s office… chances are they diagnosed you before you even finished describing your symptoms. This can have serious consequences, from prescribing the wrong treatment to worsening your condition.
Even if this is preaching to the choir for [...]

Dangerous Mistakes Experienced Affiliates Make

Experience can lead to over confidence. Think about the last time you went into the doctor’s office… chances are they diagnosed you before you even finished describing your symptoms. This can have serious consequences, from prescribing the wrong treatment to worsening your condition.

Even if this is preaching to the choir for you, the examples he gives of experience getting in his way are well worth reading. This is what zen is all about - maintaining beginner’s mind even when you have expert skills. The world is always changing, but humans have a tendency to want to stand still.