On Bootstrap and HTML5: Redesigning Older Websites to be Google Search Mobile-Friendly

A year or so ago, Google dropped a bomb on all website designers, publishers and online content authors: Your websites had better not only be SSL-secure, but also “mobile-friendly” — and while the first edict is easy to solve with money, the second command costs you a lot of time and money and energy — especially if you’ve been publishing live content on the web for a long time.

Continue reading → On Bootstrap and HTML5: Redesigning Older Websites to be Google Search Mobile-Friendly

Blast from the Go Inside Magazine Award Past!

I am not one to live in the past or have any regrets.  History cannot be changed and regret only rots the promise of tomorrow.  In putting together this new Boles Blog to reflect what came before in 14 other instances of thoughts and writing, I came upon the old Awards page for the now retired Go Inside Magazine; and I found great joy in looking back at those wildly created and brightly colored animated .GIFs, and I decided to share them with you here now.  I moved the images off the now dead GoInside.com domain and placed them on the live Boles Books domain for serving, but I left the historical, clickable, URLs intact as a compendium of the greatest hits of what was, really, The Original Internet.

Do you recognize any of these websites?  Animated .GIFs were big back in the mid-1990’s, and one good way to promote your new website was to “give an award” to another website — there were no blogs back then — and require a link back to your award website.  The most elite award we won was from, at the time, the fledgling “Microsoft Network.”  MSN was starting with a big bang and a booming promise and it was a Big Deal to get that congratulatory email from Microsoft telling us we were “The One” for a day.  That single award from MSFT doubled our readership for the rest of our being.

4anything.com award!Innovation Award! (28155 bytes)

The Microsoft Network! 2825 bytes) awardit.jpg (3096 bytes) Ravi's Elite Website (4628 bytes) Great Gig Award! (9052 bytes)

NealWeb Award Winner! (8465 bytes) Cool Bananas! Laziness Central Site of the Day! Star Site Award (3753 bytes)

PC Webopaedia Outstanding Page Award Dynomite Site of the Night Cool Site of the Hour! Pirate Pete's Catch of the Day

Top 100! Rocking the Web! Top Ten! Top Fiver! Top Five!

Continue reading → Blast from the Go Inside Magazine Award Past!

The Microsoft Office 365 for Mac Review

Last week, I signed up for Microsoft Office 365 and, even though I’m on a Mac, I thought the online email and team and website services would be a good and solid backup for the life I have heretofore entirely and exclusively run on Google Apps.

I was right and I was wrong to try Office 365.  This is the story of how it all played out.

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Dirty Phonebook Gives You the Finger

The tide of uncontrolled anger on the internet — think Juicy Campus and FML and Lori Drew as previously excoriated examples — rises anew in a wave of awkward hatred as Dirty Phonebook crashes against our moral shore.

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We Own the Devil Note

We are pleased to announce today that BolesBlues.com now also owns the domain name DevilNote.com.  That means if you type http://DevilNote.com in your web browser, you will be brought right back here!

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Welcome to Panopticonic

Welcome to Panopticonic!

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Emergency Call with sosASL.com

There is no substitution for being clearly understood in an emergency situation.  It is honoring that truth that led Janna and me to invent sosASL.com as a free online portal for urgent, living and dying, communication between first responders and the Deaf.

Continue reading → Emergency Call with sosASL.com