One of the things we web designer types do is pay attention to where the visitors to our web sites come from. I use a program for this that gives me a sense of where they come from, what they do on my sites and where they go when they leave.

Well, I was just perusing my stats and figured out that my husband’s site Mexico Beachfront Real Estate, which I only released on October 8th, is rising fast in both Google and MSN Search, and is even number one for a couple of phrases.

The funny thing is that his site quickly gaining on both the Grupo Ritco site for Residencial La Playa and also the site that belongs to his boss there (she’s also an independent real estate agent). And both those sites have been out for a long time and have a lot more incoming links. But lately I’ve been finding that my sites are doing well in the search engines, especially the real estate sites I’m working on, I think it’s because I carefully studied the other major real estate sites for this area and have identified their weaknesses…shhh, don’t tell.

The other crazy thing that I just noticed is that this blog is ranked 4th on MSN Search (at this moment) for the phrase “Cancun Murder 2006”. Now really people, tell me, AM I THAT MOROSE? Do I deserve this? Do I talk about murder that much? The blog entry that’s being found is, admittedly, pretty negative but don’t all those posts about my stupid cats balance that out? I mean really.

Oh, and you might notice the new header graphic. I just got sick of looking at those green leaves so I did a 10-minute makeover on the site (which took half an hour of course). One of the joys of using CSS (cascading style sheets) is that I can change the header graphic and then go into the CSS file and search & replace all the blue text, change it to brown and voilá I’ve got a whole new look, well, a sort of new look anyway. I should really change out that dull boring green background…next time.

Here is a great little podcast from Paul Boag which provides a great mini-history of the internet and of HTML, along with a convincing argument for the use of web standards. It’s called the Business Benefits of Web Standards. Paul has a long lead in time, but it’s worth the wait.

If you own a web site, any kind of web site, you’ll get something from this podcast. And you don’t have to be technical to get something valuable from it. Be sure to watch the slides.

More proof that all I do is work…I’ve just released the Spanish version of the Condo Marketing International web site. I think I encoded all those pesky little accents properly, so it should look right in all browsers. There’s still some behind-the-scenes stuff to do in Spanish and I really should be preloading all those pictures… but the text is there and that’s enough for a Friday night.

Ok so it’s shameless plug time! In a big way too! I just released a new web site for my husband, Arturo Rivero, who is a representative at Residencial La Playa Cancun, the new beachfront real estate project north of Puerto Cancun. The web site is here:
Mexico Beachfront Real Estate.

Until now there has been very little information in English available about this project, but we went through all the marketing documentation and translated everything. You will find up-to-date pricing and availability linked down at the bottom in the footer area (as a printable PDF, and subject to change without notice). And there are lots of pictures and a full description of the project and the amenities that will be available.

Residencial La Playa will be a pretty sweet project when it’s done, with all 180 condos having terraces facing the Caribbean. And while I first thought it looked expensive, after seeing Bay View Grand and hearing the pricing there I think that Residencial La Playa is very reasonably priced for brand new Cancun beachfront real estate. And it’s much more convenient than Bay View Grand if you will be working in the downtown Cancun area.

The site still needs a few things. Namely the gallery page needs a description of each image and each image needs to be a link to a larger image, I’m just waiting for an IT guy to get me those bigger images (I’m always waiting for an IT guy to do something…). And I think there are some spots with awkward wording so I’ll be editing those too. Oh and I need to take a nice pic of hubby and put that up.

So if you know of anyone who’s looking for a beachfront condo in this area be sure to have them check out this site. And if you have any constructive criticism about the site I’m all ears.

My first email address was with Compuserve, and I think I got it sometime back in 1993 or 1994. I’m pretty sure it was sometime before Jerry Garcia died (August 9, 2005) because I have a snapshot in my mind of what my life was like at that moment and I know I was using the web for communication by then.

Back then spam was pretty much unheard of. In fact, you were lucky if you got email because just not that many people had email addresses back then. I remember feeling fortunate that my close family members did have email in those days, since they did not live nearby.

Well things have changed. I now get close to 100 email messages a day.

And I now have more than 10 email addresses, most which I check every day. I have email addresses for work, for friends, for specific things I do and for specific companies I do business with.

For example, I have a PayPal account and I have an email address just so PayPal can send me email (I give it to no one else, ever). This way I can easily keep track of which emails that appear to be coming from PayPal have a chance of being real. PayPal client’s are the target of many scams designed to get them to divulge their login information (these are called Phishing scams, see below for more info), so I am wary of any emails I get from PayPal. I do something similar with my banks and credit card companies, I use email addresses that only they know, and I do not use those addresses for anything else.

One of the email addresses I have is for spam. I give it to almost every organization that I do business with. I give it to online vendors and environmental groups and to people I don’t know. I give it to anyone likely to sell my email address. And also to anyone who is vulnerable to having a disgruntled employee rip off their database and sell it. Basically if they HAVE a database of email addresses then I give them my spam email address.

And so far this scheme is working pretty well. I get virtually no spam to the email addresses that I use for my family, friends and my own work. And my spam account gets, I don’t know, some hundreds of spam messages a week, nearly all of which are caught and deleted automatically by a spam filter. And this way I am keeping close tabs on my banks as well.

More Reading on Phishing:
Wikipedia Definition of Phishing
Anti-Phishing Working Group

I’m running WordTracker queries today, all day. It’s such a drag, their server is slow and about every minute I have to stop and wait for another full minute. It’s hard to concentrate with all this stopping and starting.

For anyone who doesn’t know, WordTracker is a web site which queries the databases of the major search engines to tell you how many times someone has searched for a particular word or phrase. It also tells you something about the number of other web sites which use that phrase in their text, so you can learn about competition too.

I use WordTracker to get an understanding of what phrases and words are important for my client’s web sites to use and target. For example, right now I’m working on discovering how people search for hotels in this area. I’m also running searches related to real estate sales and rentals in this area. I’ve got about 5 clients who all need WordTracker studies done, so I’m just drowning in WordTracker today.

So, while I’ve been WAITING, I’ve been catching up on reading blogs and email. And I’ve been checking out some new web sites that a few different friends have put up recently to support their various enterprises.

Can I bitch? I really want to bitch! [By the way, I’m going over to WordTracker after every paragraph I write. I’ve got it running in a separate tab in my browser. I feel like I am schizophrenic.]

So my complaint is that these people, who I care about, go off and get someone else to do a free-to-cheap web site for them. And then they don’t even ask my opinion? Why don’t they even want any free advice? This sounds really conceited doesn’t it? Maybe I’m a self-righteous bitch, I think that might be it.

I know I’m not in the business of handing out free advice. But still, I care about whether these businesses do well. And when I look at the sites and I see that the sites they have will hold the business back…well, that bugs me. And when I can think of 10 simple things, in 10 seconds, that could improve the sites, well it’s hard to keep my big trap shut. And when I see that the users of those sites are not being taken into account I just get upset.

So now I’m schizophrenic and upset! I know, I know I should take a chill pill and go back to concentrating on not being able to concentrate!

I had the privilege this week to meet Jerry Jacobs, the famous San Francisco interior decorator and architect. Jerry is nearly done decorating a condo which belongs to one of my clients. The condo is at Bay View Grand, which a beachfront hi-rise complex located on one of the nicest stretches of beach in Cancun.

I must say that the architecture a Bay View Grand is quite good, even without Jerry’s expert finishing. The condo is nicely laid out with lots of views of the sea. And Jerry did a lot to bring the ocean-views deeper into the condo. He used mirrors to reflect the ocean view back at you when you look away from the water. And he bought furniture which echos the colors in water and on the beach.

The place is plush and up-scale while remaining entirely comfortable. You want to snuggle into the over-stuffed furniture and spend countless hours staring out at the perfect Caribbean sea.

One of the things about Bay View Grand which I especially like are the wrap around decks on the corners of the buildings. They are architecturally interesting, but more importantly they insure fantastic views because from them you can see around the corner of the building.

All in all I was impressed both by the building and by Jerry’s eye. He took already good architecture and played up its strengths through creative use of color, space and furniture. He’s a gifted artist and is in full control of his craft. Meeting him and seeing his most recent work was an honor.

I’ll share the web site I’m building for this client when it’s completed.

I haven’t been blogging lately because my life is one long string of xhtml, css, javascript and a seemingly endless stream of cropped photographs. In short I’m working too much, but that’s good, right? August and September are always big months for web designers, it seems like the clients come down off the summer with new ideas, on about August 15th I always get a lot of new work.

My latest release is for Condo Marketing International. This is a company which helps timeshare owners to rent and resell their timeshare units. If you are looking for a luxurious vacation, but don’t want to pay resort prices, a timeshare rental might be the way to go. The more work I do for this client the more I understand about the timeshare industry and how to find the good deals in it.

Anyway, take a look at this site. It’s got a couple of bugs in old browsers (which no one in their right mind should be using anyway), and it has a minor Mac bug but we’re releasing anyway. The bugs will be tackled later in the week, after I’ve taken care of writing some more endless strings of xhtml and css and javascript for some other clients. Enjoy!

I just released the web site for ConfiCasa Riviera Maya. ConfiCasa Riviera Maya is in the business of making US bank mortgages available for properties in Mexico. This is a new development the real estate industry here in the Riviera Maya, it used to be that US banks didn’t make loans here.

This last July my good buddy Brian Murphy, the owner of ConfiCasa Riviera Maya was interviewed about mortgages for Mexico in this New York Times article [Warning it’s a PDF].

I finally got around to becoming a member over at Cork’d. The site provides a place for wine lovers to share the wines they love and write wine reviews.

I’d been planning to look the site over carefully because it was co-designed by Dan Cederholm who is a very talented designer, so my interest was driven by professional curiosity more than by any major love for wine.

Besides, I’m a wine idiot. I used to think that I couldn’t afford wine I would like because I had a boyfriend whose rich parents used to treat me to expensive wines which were excellent. Back then I never drank wine except when I was around this guy’s folks, and they never popped the bottle on anything that was less that $200 (usd). I loved many of the wines they shared with me, but quickly decided that good wine was going to remain outside of my budget (unless I was willing to marry their son which I was not interested in doing).

Somewhere along the way I decided I could handle drinking affordable wine occasionally. But I still have no real idea what to buy when I stand there in front of all those choices at the liquor store. So I’m excited to have found a resource on the web which might help me make some intelligent choices.

And besides that it’s cool to see Dan’s work in action. Though I do have a couple of suggestions I’ll be emailing to him, just as soon as I get caught up on my work (like THAT’S going to happen).