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Articles by: Brian Getting

Brian Getting

Brian Getting

Brian Getting is the founder and owner of the Tatemae Consultancy (formerly Terra Firma Design & Consulting), an Internet consulting, marketing and development firm located in Newport, Oregon.

Prior to founding Terra Firma Design & Consulting, Brian was a core member of the Practical eCommerce team from 2005 until 2009, where he served as Chief Architect, in addition to being a regular contributor of articles and blog posts.

Brian specializes in Ruby on Rails development, search engine friendly website design and accessibility.

Find Brian on LinkedIn and on Twitter. Visit The Tatemae Consultancy.

Business
Diagnosing Site Performance Delays

March 26, 2007 • Brian Getting

When your site begins to experience performance drains, which usually show up as slow-loading web pages, the problem's diagnosis can be more challenging than its solution. The first thing developers should examine is the nature of the website. Is the site a static HTML website, or does...
Design & Development
Will All My Windows Applications Run On A Mac?

March 8, 2007 • Brian Getting

This question relates to the new Apple computers that include Intel chips. Since the switch to Intel processors, it has been possible to load Microsoft's Windows operating system onto Apple hardware. As long as the system requirements for the version of Windows you plan to run are met b...
Marketing & Advertising
Tutorial: Gaining Control of Search Engine Spiders

February 12, 2007 • Brian Getting

Introduction Most of us are familiar with the term “search engine spider” and at least understand that they have something to do with how search engines index websites. The purpose of this article is to help you make your web pages more accessible to spiders. After all, spiders are our...
Design & Development
Does A Proxy Server Keep Me Anonymous On The Internet?

February 7, 2007 • Brian Getting

Does a proxy server keep me anonymous on the Internet? No. And that is that. Unless you are a very talented hacker, there is no such thing as anonymity on the Internet. A common misconception about anonymous is that they allow you to surf the Internet and do whatever you want without ...
Design & Development
How Is An Atom Feed Different From An RSS Feed?

February 7, 2007 • Brian Getting

An Atom feed is very similar to an RSS feed in that it is a lightweight XML format allowing for easy syndication of web content. In fact, most RSS readers and news aggregators will be able to read Atom feeds just fine, as it is becoming a widely-used alternative to RSS feeds. What's a ...
Design & Development
Google Analytics’ Security Warnings

February 5, 2007 • Brian Getting

The subject of security warnings with Google Analytics is one that has been frequently brought up by our readers, and was something that I ran into when I launched an earlier Practical eCommerce website. The issue is that occasionally someone will install Google Analytics on their site ...
Design & Development
What Can Digg.com Do For My Online Business?

February 5, 2007 • Brian Getting

Digg.com is probably best called a social networking news site. The idea behind Digg.com, and other sites like it, is that users submit web pages they have bookmarked or "dugg." After a certain number of people "digg" the same web page, it is moved to the top of the index, which is on D...
Business
Video Tutorial: Eliminating Dynamic URLs with Mod_Rewrite

January 28, 2007 • Brian Getting

Get started using Mod_Rewrite to clean up your website's dynamic URLs with this video tutorial presented by Practical eCommerce's online director Brian Getting. We'll look at using simple Mod_Rewrite commands in an .htaccess file to get rid of those ugly dynamic URLs that look like th...
Design & Development
Preparing Your Website For Mobile Devices

January 15, 2007 • Brian Getting

With the growing number of consumers using mobile devices, such as cell phones and PDAs, to access the Internet, it’s important to make sure your website can be accessed by ...
Business
Video Tutorial: Creating an RSS Feed

January 10, 2007 • Brian Getting

Learn how to create a simple RSS feed in this tutorial by Practical eCommerce's Online Director Brian Getting. Walk through creating the XML file needed to establish a syndicated feed, and a look at the minimum tags, or feed elements, required to have a meaningful feed. No explanations...
Design & Development
Internet Explorer 7 is Coming

December 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

The upcoming release of the Windows Vista operating system also means the impending release of the full version of the web browser Internet Explorer 7. Like most website developers, I toughed out a brief bout of panic as memories of the release of Internet Explorer 6 came rushing back t...
Design & Development
Tech Support – December 2006

December 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

Question: I'm confused by all the prices out there for domain-name registration. My hosting company occasionally offers free domain name registration, yet I see some other companies charging up to $29.99 annually to register a domain name. Are the more expensive versions somehow better...
Design & Development
Get To Know Your .htaccess File

November 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

A valuable tool many web developers either don't understand or aren't aware of is the .htaccess file. The file is available only to websites hosted on servers running the Apache web server, which is the overwhelming majority of hosting servers. An .htaccess file is a small, plain-text f...
Design & Development
Tech Support: November 2006

November 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

What are Technorati tags and what do they do? Technorati is a website that provides an index of the web, allowing people to find up-to-the-minute information and web content. One of the ways Technorati achieves this is by using content tags, which are also used by other sites, that pro...
Code
Flash or HTML: Which to Choose

October 16, 2006 • Brian Getting

The question of whether it is better to design a website using Flash rather than using just HTML has sparked many debates among web developers. For the most part, it seems that developers tend to defend what they know, although there are some important differences between a pure HTML we...
Design & Development
Email: How It Works

October 7, 2006 • Brian Getting

Email has become one of the primary sources of communication among people in the world today, yet how it works remains a bit of a mystery to many people. In order to shed some light on the subject, let’s follow an email message from the sender to the recipient. Most people use some sor...
Design & Development
Tech Support: October 2006

October 2, 2006 • Brian Getting

Question: I keep hearing about a two-tiered Internet. What is that? Brian Getting: Two-tiered Internet refers to the attempt by major telecommunication companies, who provide the infrastructure for Internet communications, to send information across the Internet in two separate speed...
Code
Tech Support: Isolate CSS and Javascript

October 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

Last month we discussed the separation of content, design and functionality when it comes to developing a website. We introduced the idea that HTML documents should contain primarily content, with as little markup code as possible. The reason for this is that any extra code dilutes the ...
Design & Development
Have You Ever Wondered How a Website Works?

September 18, 2006 • Brian Getting

In the most basic terms, a website is a collection of files on the hard drive of a server that can be accessed by the public. Since this is not a very satisfying explanation ...
Design & Development
Separate Content from Functionality and Design

September 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

A website can be broken down into three main development parts: content, design and functionality. To optimize a website for search engines, it’s important for developers to separate content, which is of interest to search engines, from design and functionality, which are not. Content ...
Business
Tech Support: September 2006

September 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

PeC: I keep reading about the Web 2.0. What is that? Brian Getting: Web 2.0 is a term that has come to represent a new way of thinking with regards to developing websites. While there is an origin to the name, that is less important than what people mean when they speak of “Web 2.0 m...
Design & Development
Use Scripting for Dynamic Websites

August 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

One of the first tasks when planning a website is to develop a strategy for delivering content and functionality to visitors. Since a website is a collection of HTML documents, the most basic approach is to simply code the information you want into these documents. Using this method re...
Business
Tech Support: August 2006

August 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

Question: My web host has different bandwidth levels depending on the price. How can I compute what my ecommerce site's bandwidth needs are? Brian Getting: Bandwidth can be a tough one to understand for most people. I like to use the analogy of a water pipe where the speed of your In...
Design & Development
Control Panels Simplify Tasks

July 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

Every website needs to be hosted somewhere, and every web developer will need access to the hosting server in order to perform tasks such as setting up email accounts, managing databases and creating FTP (file transfer protocol) accounts. Since most websites are hosted with a third-part...
Design & Development
Tech Support – July 2006

July 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

Question: I’m contemplating either DSL, cable or a T-1 line for my business. How can I determine which Internet connection is best for my company? Brian Getting: While DSL, cable and T-1 lines all provide a high-speed, "always on" connection to the Internet, they differ in both the co...
Design & Development
Tech Support: June 2006

July 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

Question: What’s the difference between a web server and an email server? Brian Getting: In this case, both the web server and the email server are software packages that provide services, rather than referring to a hardware server that is running these applications. Web server sof...
Design & Dev Tools
Tools of the Trade

June 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

Welcome to our first installment of “Programming Notes,” a column designed to help novice web designers and developers with some of the challenges that they may face. Creating and maintaining a website requires someone to be familiar with graphic design, computer programming, server adm...
Design & Development
RSS Can Help Your eCommerce Business

June 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

Last month we introduced the technology commonly called RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and explained how it is being used to distribute online content. This month we will look at how ecommerce business owners can use RSS to improve their online presence. Announcements RSS is a syndic...
Design & Development
Tech Support: May 2006

May 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

What is “keyword density” and how does it affect me? Keyword density is a phrase that is used to describe how relevant a keyword “topic” is to text on a web page. Keyword density is measured in much the same way that normal density is measured- by comparing the number of times a keywor...
Design & Development
Tech Support – April 2006

April 1, 2006 • Brian Getting

What’s a page rank and how does it work? PageRank is Google’s system to rank the relative popularity of a website. Developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google’s founders, the PageRank system uses the Internet’s vast linking structure to measure an individual web page. A link from o...

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