Finding those pesky bugs using “Break, First Exceptions”.

Posted on by
Reply

This is one of those instances when punctuation and grammar counts ie “I helped my uncle Jack, off a horse” vs “I helped my uncle jack off a horse” ….

Break, first exceptions is a method of debugging where you set Visual Studios up, to create a break point at the first instance of an exception. This is particularly useful when exception handling hasn’t been properly implemented or an empty Try – Catch block has been created and the exception is silently getting handled and not getting reported to the user ( or the developer ).

Here are the steps in order to setup up Break, first exceptions.

  1. In visual studios (2010 in this case) click on debug -> Exceptions or press the shortcut of ctrl+alt+e
  2. In the Exception dialog box, select Thrown for the category of “Common Language Runtime Exceptions”

That’s all there is too it. Have fun killing those bugs.

Increase Productivity by Organizing Your Code with #Region Tags

Posted on by
Reply

As developers we are often pushed into over-drive with strict deadlines, and tight sprints. Often we forget about code organization. One way to help maintainability and to keep your code organized is to use #region tags. I often found myself repeatedly typing   #regions Fields #endregion #region Properties ….

One easy way to automate this process is to create a code snippet that will fill in all the #regions for you. Code snippets are essentially just an XML file with a .snippet extension. Below is a sample of my code snippet.

Visual Studio Code Snippet

In order to import this code snippet into visual studios

  1. Create a new XML file using the sample code above. For the full xml schema go to http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms171418.aspx
  2.  Now Save the file as “EmptyRegions.snippet”
  3. Open up the Code Snippet Manager by pressing Ctrl+K, Ctrl+B. or by going to Tools then clicking on Code Snippet Manager
  4. Click on Import and browse to the location where you saved the file “EmptyRegions.snippet”
  5.  Now choose a location to save your Code Snippet, for this example I selected “My Code Snippets” Click Finished
  6. You should now see the “EmptyRegions” snippet in your “My Code Snippet” Click OK when finished
    Code Snippet Imported
    Now in the editor just start typing emptyRegions once you see intellisense pop up with the correct short cut, hit tab twice. You should now see the code inserted into the editor
    intellisense

That’s all, now you have a starting point to help keep your code organized without having to repeat yourself over and over and over again.

Json Serializer – C#

Posted on by
Reply

When working with jQuery there are a ton of scenario where you need to dynamically output a JSON Object to the ajax request.

here is a little bit of code to help you serialize the object and write it to the page.

Protected void PageLoad(object Sender, EventArgs e)
{
Response.ContentType = "application/json";
var cust = new Customer
{
ID = 1,
FirstName = "Jack",
LastName = "Doe"
};
var ser = new System.Runtime.Serialization.Json.DataContractJsonSerializer(typeof(Customer));
ser.WriteObject(Response.OutputStream, cust);
}

DataContractJsonSerializer Manual

Carnival Cruise

Posted on by
Reply

Carnival Cruise Information

Cruise Date: Jun 03, 2011 (Friday – Monday)
Ship: Carnival Paradise
Leaving From LB.

I have 8 cabins* in Category 4B (inside cabin no window)
Cabin prices for this Category $320.00
Port Chg. $89.00
Gov. Fees $33.63
Total prices for this Category $442.63 per person

Deposit
Name

The final payment for the cruise needs to be paid by 3/14/2011.

The gratuities also can be pre-paid: gratuities are $10 dollars a day per person.

Keyword Difficulty? 4 Tools To Help You Out

Posted on by
1

To fully optimize search engines requires using the right keywords and phrases within the webpage. This is a crucial step for every webpage. There are many ways to select the right terms to use including the internet tools within each search engine. Many search engines provide the utilities to enhance the websites souse the free tools yet there are other means to optimize the search engine traffic to your website.

Use the keywords, terms, and phrases on the first several pages of the website, but especially the first page, which is called the lead page. Placing the key terms on the first page will make the website traffic driven. Using the search engine results for the terminology, you will increase your website traffic, so if it takes what seems like ages for traffic to arrive to your website, do not give up. It will happen. You just need to be patient.

For the website owner that wants high amounts of traffic to their site, they need to use the keywords that have low competition ratings. This is not always to find the right words, but they are out there. The options of purchasing software that will supply the words are one option yet to use Google Tools will help with the quest free.

Some other tools available for the keyword search include Seochat’s Keyword Difficulty Tool, Seomoz’s Keyword Difficulty Tool, and Cached’s Keyword Difficulty Tool. These different tools will provide unlimited keywords and terms to increase the traffic to your site.

When searching for keywords and terms, use several variations of the phrases. This increases the selection such as if you are selling toys, include children’s toys, toy trucks, and bath toys to your searches. This is just an example; you will see the importance of using a more detailed description.

The tools for searching for keywords will provide a percentage for their findings. The percentages will state the amount of times the words were used by internet users. The fact some words have higher amounts of hits does not always mean to use those terms, since the keywords tend to change and become obsolete over time. Select the lower percentage words and see how the traffic levels are with the site. Monitor the traffic to your site, even using the higher percentage words and phrases will require monitoring. Everything changes all the time with keywords, so you will be changing your terminology on the website periodically.

Making sure to use the right keywords, phrases, and terms will increase the traffic to your website. Monitoring the traffic the site receives is an ongoing process. Even with the highest-ranking websites, the owners still monitor their traffic so they have the latest and most current terminologies to keep the traffic flowing.

Not Going Anywhere With SEO?

Posted on by
Reply

You have beautiful website, wonderful products, and services, and you even have a terrific customer friendly website, but you are not listed on the search engine results. There are reasons for this to happen. Whatever the reasons are, they can be corrected to move you higher on the rankings, so take heart.

Start out by analyzing your website content. There lies the true cause to all your problems. You will find the problems deal with the URLs that drive your website. The URLs need to be keyword driven in order to have traffic to your website. To check your URLs, type it in the search engine. You will find where your site is listed.

Obtaining search engine ranking takes time. You will need to change a few things within the website contents to get higher rankings. When you build business and have an established clientele from the website, you will get higher rankings. It takes time to become an established website so just be patient.

Check the wording in the first several pages of your site. If you do not have keyword relevance in those areas, you will lack traffic to your site. The contents need the right words to attract people to your site. Change the wording and you have dealt with more than half the problems. Reword the contents of your website to make the traffic find your site when they search the internet.

Look at your title tag of the page. Does it have a prodominent keyword included in the title? If it does not, the find a way to incorporate a great keyword or term into the title. Search engines seek titles with keywords.

Do you have keywords in subtitles in your website? That is another important factor you need to include within the contents of the site. Keyword relevance in the title and subtitles will be essential to the rankings of the website.

Do you use links within the website? If you do not, then add them to the site as well. This is known as link building. The links can be to other sites or other pages within your website. Generally, newer sites have links for internal pages of the website to add to their search engine appeal. Submit your webpage link to other websites or forums that are related to the services and products you have to offer the internet users.

Pump up your exposure in the internet world by creating a blog that links to your website. Write about interesting issues many internet readers will find and draw them to your site by adding the link within your blog. Add you website address to all your emails as well. The more you expose the public to your site the more traffic you will generate.

These are all crucial aspects for the lack of website traffic. Change the way you use your website and you will generate traffic leading to sells beyond your imagination.

If you still need some help I suggest using WEB CEO. Web CEO will analyze your site, and give you a report of the common SEO errors.

Optimization, Over-Optimization or SEO Overkill?

Posted on by
Reply

All of the top search engines have no limits whether it is technical or ethical. Google tends to exclude certain sites because of malpractice issues or black hat SEO techniques. It is understandable how certain techniques are frowned on by the search engines, yet some people will go any extremes to get rankings with the search engines. Even if the search engines do not catch onto any bad methods you use, you can bet your competitors are watching to see what you are doing.

Some of the practices the search engines push onto the website clients are using keyword stuffing. This is an unethical practice yet it is widely used to achieve higher rankings. This means that certain site will also use keywords that are not truly associated with their products or services but are used within the website. They use the terms more than the 10% rule for the main keywords also. People using the stuffing techniques are always discovered and reported.

Typically, keyword density is considered keywords in the title, the headings, and the first few paragraphs on the lead page. Using the keywords more is considered stuffing. Use Keyword Density Cloud as a tool to check the keyword density of your website to verify you have the correct percentage of 10%. Using bold or italized words add the attraction of search engines so if you are near 10% density, use the other techniques to raise your rankings.

Avoid using techniques such as doorway pages that are considered illegal for optimization. A doorway page is a page that is created for the search engine without any meaning to the site visitors. Google will come down on you with penalties if you use this technique.

Hidden texts are another no-no for websites. This is any text that is invisible to the human eye such as text color matching the background but the text is included in the HTML. This technique can get the site banned from most sites.

Another bad practice for websites is duplicating content within the website but on a different page or linked sister site to drive up the search engine rankings. The same page contents are used on two or more websites yet this is a common practice some SEO experts even though the search engines tend to think it is a bad thing. Use Similar Page Checker as a tool to verify you are not duplicating page content.

Links are another SEO tool that is highly misused on webpages. Yahoo! loves backlinks, Google tends to want to know where the backlinks are coming from. Using backlinks from a blacklisted site is going to get you a penalty and possibly banned from the search engines. Use Domain Stats Tool to verify the number of inbound links you have within your site.

Optimizing for Yahoo Search Engine

Posted on by
Reply

Yahoo! used to be the most popular search engine. Then Google made an appearance in the internet. Yahoo! is still in the running as far as search engines with about 25% of the search engine traffic yet it is still important not to count Yahoo! out of the search engine options since they are making a comeback.

Optimizing the search engines is not an easy task. They search engines have different criteria for their search results yet they all use a basic theory for their results. They do have differences but nothing that the website owners cannot overcome with a little imagination and internet skill.

Knowing the differences between the search engines will make achieving rankings with Yahoo! easier. Both sites use algorithms as part of their search criteria. Neither major site will share exactly how they use the information but knowing the differences will make higher ratings for each.

To utilize the Yahoo! uses spiders for their search engine. This means Yahoo! saves the information in their database and uses the information on the individual websites to later search the different sites once they have made changes for their search criteria. To find out how your website is used with spiders use Search Engine Spider Simulator to see if your webpages are spiderable.

Yahoo! also has a method called sandbox that will retain the information of the websites past and present content so they can index the information within the website searches. Google uses this technique as well but not as much as Yahoo! since Yahoo! does not wait as long to use the information. Google waits several months while Yahoo! uses it more frequently.

Google places more importance on backlinks while Yahoo! concentrates on the front pages of the websites including the title, URL, and the headings on the websites. Yahoo! treats keywords and phrases differently as well. You list a keyword or phrase within your site and Yahoo! will place your site higher on their rankings. The keywords must be located within the URL and title to obtain higher Yahoo! results. The shorter the keyword on the website the higher the rankings are with Yahoo!. An example of this is “horse” will score higher than “horse trainer.” The extra word in the description will move the website lower in the rankings.

In short, the smaller the keyword is on the webpage the higher it will be ranked with Yahoo!. Add the search results by adding the keywords or phrases in filenames in the directories of the webpage. Beware of doing anything too different within your webpage so you will still rank high with Google also. Changing the content of you website for Yahoo! can and will affect your ratings with Google.

SEO Tips – Google Optimization

Posted on by
Reply

To fully understand the driven traffic to your website you need to understand how the #1 search engine functions with the search requests. Google is currently the #1 search engine, so many websites are designed to use their criteria for their websites.

The design of the website is extremely important to the amounts of traffic directed to the site as well as the manner of the keywords used in the website. Here are the important criteria used by Google that you can implement to increase the traffic to your site.

Website structure affects how the search engine sees your website. The fact you have created a website designed to ethical techniques for all search engines. This means you do not have hidden text within any area of your website, and you have not stuffed content on the site.

Google has standards it demands of the websites. It the standards are not adhered to strictly, Google will ban the site for their search results as well as asses penalties to the offenders.

The location of the navigation on the website will increase the web traffic if it has a higher priority with the content of the site being listed in detail. To make the content of the site higher in code is not going to be as important since the navigation is going to be the foundation for the majority of the site traffic. Generally, the content of the webpage contains the majority of the keywords for optimization of the search engines. The more the site is optimized by the search engines the easier it will be to make any future changes to allow for the changing keywords and phrases.

The goals of the structure of the website design plays  an important role in the search engine results and traffic the site receives. The goal also includes how the spiders will retrieve the site information that is listed within the first few pages of the website.

Content optimization is the wording and formatting of the page and entire site content to maximize the effect with the search rankings. There are three principles involved with content optimization. Keyword density counts, formatting of content, and overall site relevance are the key principles.

Key word density is the number of times the keywords are used in the webpages in comparison to the total to all the webpages within the website. This percentage should be 10% or 100 times for 1,000 total words in the website. Some sites only use 3 to 5% and obtain high rankings on their results.

Formatting content in the header tags should be bold, italic, anchor text, and other formatting to increase the text content for the search engines. Only use bold or italic for important words or phrases. Using them otherwise is not a good practice.

Overall site relevance is the how the entire site is going to impact the search engine rankings. Use related phrases and keywords throughout the website to keep within the 10% rule of density. This is a good measurement to maintain for the overall site relevance.

Link baiting is the development of content and tools for the website for the website to attracting links to the specific page within the website. This can be achieved by linking the different pages to blogs or related websites.

Link Building pertains to using relevant links to your website or within your site. This helps to direct visitors to the different locations and attracts from different locations. This can be to a blogsite or an article you have published to create the new link to your website.

Google uses the important factors to produce website rankings and search engine results. Add the mentioned to your site and build the traffic to your website.