Everest Computers Blog About Computers and Web Design

Do-Follow blogs are the right way to go, this is why Everest Computers Blog is a Do-Follow blog. “U comment, I follow” is a concept, which assumes the respect for a person, who found the time to read the blog’s entry and write a comment.

The trend, which I’ve recently noticed, is that many former DoFollow blogs ceased to be Do-Dollow. It’s either because owners got sick of all the spam they were getting as comments or they’ve decided to boost their website’s status by setting the “no-follow” attribute for the outer links the readers brought to the site. I don’t think it’s the right thing to do. I think if website’s Do-Follow participation has been announced, the website should stay like that and continue to pass the benefits of the Internet Do-Follow movement.

Unfortunately, some people write comments only to promote their own website or are being paid to promote other people’s websites. They are not interested in adding something useful to the article or engaging into the discussion with the article’s author or other blog readers. I don’t blame them for what they’re doing but I also won’t give in, that’s why I have strict rules on commenting on Everest Computers Blog.
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Antivirus, antispyware and firewall software are essential for the modern computers connected to the Internet. Despite the fact that it has been said many times, I’d like to reiterate that every computers should have some sort of protection against viruses and spyware because presence of these nasty things on the computer leads to the personal data theft, additional hardware load and system instability.

If the computer is new, then there is no excuse not to install the antivirus and the third-party firewall. That is because if the computer is fast and can bear a couple more programs running all the time and consuming some computer resources, it should at all costs be protected. There are plenty of free antivirus programs and firewalls and all-in-one solutions available, so considering the serious threat unprotected Internet connectivity can bring, there is no need to deliberately expose the computer and the data on this computer on the Internet.

If the computer is old and slow, it is usually difficult to install an antivirus and a firewall and let them run all the time. In this case I recommend to use the pre-installed Windows firewall as before but run antivirus and antispyware programs once every two weeks or once every month. In this case they won’t protect the computer at all times but at least the user will know that the computer is clean and it is safe to type the passwords, to enter the credit card numbers and to do all sorts of activity on the Internet without the fear that someone is monitoring your traffic and searches. I’m not talking here about the governments and the secret services - they can get access to the Internet traffic of a particular individual for sure and in all cases if they want to - with the help of ISPs. I’m only talking about the hackers and people who break the law by writing the viruses and spyware and using them as a gateway to read the people’s personal data and use their computers as hosts for the Internet attacks or spam email servers.
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Today I figured out that it is actually possible to have Javavscript functions and VBScript functions on one page and it is also possible to call a VBScript function from a JavaScript function. Previously, I didn’t think it’s possible - scripting geeks, please forgive me.
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Not a long time ago I wrote an article on this website about the future of laptop and desktop sales figures and the future of the computers. Since then I’ve noticed a new trend in the UK. The computers have actually become more expensive.

Everyone have probably seen full page Dell advertisements selling desktops and laptops, with some special discounts in them. These ads appear more often in the run-up to big holidays or during the discount seasons. The beginning of February is neither and I was firstly mildly surprised to see the ad but then have got very surpreised when looked at the prices. They have substantially gone up. The desktop with the old and tired Intel Pentium processor would now cost as a computer with Intel Pentium Core 2 Duo processor. And the price of the desktop with Pentium Core 2 Quad  - the top processor on the domestic market at the moment - has shot up by about 200 pounds!
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For a web designer, the graphical aspect of a website is as important as textual. And sometimes the website’s colour palette, pictures and photographs used on a website tell more story and make a bigger impression on a visitor than the text. This is why it­ is so important to make the graphics right on the website.

In old days, I used to get the pictures and images from the libraries on CDs and DVDs. Remember an additional second Microsoft Office disk filled with images? Those days have long gone because now the Internet instead is filled with this sort of stuff and the only place to look for this stuff is the Internet. And there are plenty of places where the beautiful and - most importantly - useful pictures can be found.

The first place would be the stock photo websites, where the pictures cost money. The best one and the biggest one is iStockPhoto. They’ve got the biggest and in my view the best database of images and pictures on the web.

The next one is ShutterStock. They also have the big database and many original photos.

The third one if Fotolia. In comparison with iStockPhoto they have less quality images but I use them sometimes because their prices are much lower than those of iStockPhoto and ShutterStock.

And the last one I use is BrightQube. It stands from the rest by its design and an innovative way to search through the pictures.

There are plenty more stock photo websites and all of them can easily be found by typing “stock photo” in a search engine. These include the free ones and the paid ones - there are so many of them that I get confused - that’s why I decided to stick with four stock photo websites I have described above.

The other thing is that the same images can be found on multiple stock photo websites, which sometimes makes searching through many websites pretty timewasting and useless.

Apart from the dedicated stock photo websites, images, pictures, photographs and clipart can be found all over the web. The image search system I often check is Google Images and the website is Flickr. These are well-known to everyone. But remember that some images found here are copyrighted and cannot be used and copied without author’s permission.

This also relates to the images on Webshots and photoSIG websites because all photographs on these websites are private and cannot be used by other people without the prior agreement with the author.

For clipart, the best site is Clipart - as simple as that. They’ve got millions of pictures and you’re assured always to find one you’re searching for.

Concluding this list of the Internet graphics resources, I’d like to mention that if for some reason you cannot find what you’re looking for on the Internet and would like to be creative, it’s always possible to create your own graphics either by photographing what you need or by drawing it and then scanning it into a file. The best websites are done this way because the own pictures bring a personal touch to the website design, which is likely to be directly related to a person or a company or a family thus graphically empasizing the website’s belongness and its ownership. For example, photographs of your house or your town or pictures drawn by your children always make website nicer. Having the pictures of your own making on the website is not always a possibility but if it’s possible, I’d advice to have them there.