Ricky’s Online Business Blog

A customer often needs to share files for his clients.  The clients need to see the photos of his products before deciding to buy.  The photo files are often large in file size.

He has been using File Transfer Protocol (FTP) software for this purpose.  He created a specific directory on his web server, uploads the files into that directory, and asks clients to download from that directory.

While this has been working for his purpose so far, it is not a very good way for file sharing.  For one, non-technical users may not know how to download files using FTP.  Either they need to know what to type on the address bar in Windows Explorer (such as ftp://user@ftp.domain.com), or they need to install and use some FTP software to download the files.  Worse, some companies do not allow employees to install new program without proper authorization.

Also, if the files are to be shared among more than one client, a client who can access the directory can often see the files shared to other clients.  Of course, my customer can create different directories for different clients.  But it’s simply more work.

Also, his clients just want to look at the photos.  By using FTP, they need to first download the files in order to view the photos.  But download wastes time, especially for large files.

FTP as its name suggests, is used for “file transfer”, that is to upload and download files from and to a server.  It is not really meant for “file sharing”, which is to share files between and among more than one user.

Since my customer needs to share photos, instead of using the more technical FTP, why not use Flickr instead?  Just upload the photos to Flickr, decide who can view the photos, and share the web address which contains the photos to the clients.  The clients will be able to view the photos without needing to download.

I was called in by a company to attend a meeting together with their outsource web designer.  My job was to give advice on their server hosting requirements.  But as I followed their conversation, I found something that may indicate how some people perceive web designers.

The customer saw web design as a lowly job.  It seems they considered a web designer nothing more than someone who get paid to simply put up their company photos online and finish her job.

They insisted a whole Flash-only web site to be done up for less than RM1,000.  But I think the market rate is at least RM5,000 if not more!

But what surprised me most was that, the pitiful freelance part-time web designer, though obviously being looked down on, accepted the job at such dirt-cheap rate!  I don’t know what quality of work she is going to deliver.

Are the web designers out there doing work just to “cari makan” (earn a little money here and there to feed stomach)?  Good and passionate web designers like Danny Foo will be the first to disagree.  Nowadays web designers are not just designers.  They are artists, engineers, strategists, marketeers and business consultants!  The good designers are in for long-term business.

Unfortunately how the market perceive web designers may not be so noble.  This maybe something for web designers to ponder on.  Why such a bad reputation?

For me I don’t see web design as a lowly job.  I know web design in general, though it’s not my choice for business.  I know the time and effort a dedicated web designer put in to show up a quality work, though not well recognized and appreciated by others.

Are you a blogger?  If you are in one of these situations, perhaps it’s time to consider stop blogging, or at least adjust how you do it:

• You do not know why you are blogging.
• You do not know what to blog about.
• You do not know who your target readers are.
• You do not know what you can offer to readers.
• You do not feel happy and at peace blogging
• You blog because others do, or others asked you to.
• Your blog is just a copycat of another more established blog.
• Your blog is not serving what you intend to achieve.
• Your blog conversion rate is too low.
• Very few people read or subscribe to your blog.
• You find blogging eat up too much of your time and energy.
• You find blogging become more important than other things in life such as your job and relationships.
• You find blogging working against your life objectives!
• Do you have anything else to add?  Please feel free.

Actually this is a checklist for myself.  I started blogging since years ago on Google’s Blogspot.  Since then, I have stopped and restarted a few blogs.

During my previous blogs, I could easily answer yes to many items in above checklist.  When one blog was not working, it’s time to take a hard look!

At last, I settled down with this blog since April 2008 and it’s been one year plus now.  Hopefully it will stay long this time