1. Comment moderation and spam

Comment moderation and spam are two of the most time consuming aspects of a webmaster’s workday. A high profile blog can get thousands of spam comments a day which are then queued up in a spam folder somewhere. Even the best antispam tools do not offer a 100% protection against spam. Another trade-off is that false positives tend to increase with every new antispam plugin and script installed which can frustrate visitors so that they either stop posting comments or leave the site to never come back.

2. Email Support

Most websites have a contact form or other means of contacting the webmaster or a person responsible by email. These emails can contain tech support topics, requests (either for new articles, help, guest blogging or advertising), comments, spam or rude remarks. Tech support questions are usually the most time consuming to answer especially if it is not possible to test the problem locally. Webmasters obviously do not have to answer emails but it is good behavior if they do in a timely manner (except for spam and the rude remark emails). It is still a time consuming process especially on high traffic websites.

3. Updates and Security

It is of uttermost importance to run the latest version of scripts and software on a website. Old versions can contain security or memory holes, incompatibilities or missing features. Many hackers wait for security releases and start searching for websites that still run an older version on the day the new releases get announced. Updates on the other hand are only one part of the security concept. Scripts on the server side can improve security by preventing brute force attacks or notifying tech support. Webmasters do not necessarily have access to these features especially on shared hosting but some security add-ons and features can be installed by them as well. This includes setting the right access rights for directories, making sure to use non-standard usernames, directories and database prefixes or installing scripts and plugins that increase a website’s security.

4. Features and Plugins

Webmasters have to keep an eye on the development of new plugins and features. Wordpress webmasters for example have thousands of plugins at their disposal that get constantly updated. Additions are posted in the dozens daily and it can be quite hard to keep up with them. There is however always the possibility to find a plugin or script that adds a new interesting feature to a website or is able to replace an existing script by providing an increase in performance or functionality. One of the main reasons why many webmasters stick with one content management system is that it is easier to keep an overview of the advancements (and other things including security) that are made.

5. Design

Not all webmasters have to be design-aces. It is perfectly possible to download templates and themes for many different types of content management systems or websites and use these with little modification. Another option is to order a custom theme from a designer. Small changes on the other hand are usually performed by the webmaster. This includes changing a logo, adding a graphic or other elements.

6. Performance

A slow loading website does not necessarily mean that the server the website is hosted is not capable of delivering the performance the website needs. Other things can play a role here including scripts and plugins installed. External scripts, like advertisement or third party widgets, can slow down a website tremendously. Even more so if the domain the data is loaded from is experiencing technical problems as well. A webmaster needs to make sure that the website can be loaded as fast as possible. While third party scripts are usually in the top list of elements that slow down a website the problems can also be caused by large multimedia contents like unoptimized images, broken scripts, not optimized loading sequences or not making use of compression techniques or image concatenation.

Many tools can help in the analysis including the XHTML Validator over at W3C, Firebug or YSLOW.

7. Testing and Compatibility

A website has to be tested with various web browsers to ensure that the user experience is similar in all cases and that it is possible to connect to the website with all popular web browsers. Webmasters also do a lot of testing that include testing advertisement, plugins, scripts or element positions on their website. A classical example is to test various advertisement positions on a website to find the one that is yielding the highest earnings for the webmaster. Other possibilities include testing various positions for content to increase pageviews or decrease the number of visitors who leave a website on the first page without visiting a second one.

8. Advertising

Not all websites and blogs run advertisements. Webmasters who do place ads on their websites open a new can of worms. Statistics have to be checked regularly to make sure that the ads perform well. Ads need to be tested (if possible) in various ways including different positions, color schemes and even different advertisers. Monitoring various webmaster forums and blogs for new advertising opportunities and tips is a must do.

9. Hosting, Domain and Billing

Webmasters using free webhosts do not have to worry about these. But webmasters with their own domain name and web hosting account need to keep an eye on a few things including expiration dates and paying subscriptions in time. This is usually not a big issue and not that time consuming unless hundreds or thousands of domains are hosted at dozens of different web hosters or web servers.

10. Networking

Networking is probably the most important aspect of being a webmaster. You tend to get the best tips from a network of webmasters who work in the same niche. I consider the day I met Everton from Connected Internet one of my luckiest days in my life. Not only have we exchanged information that helped us get rich (haha) and improve our websites; No, we also decided to run a joint project which turned out to be very profitable.

Not everything is about being profitable of course. Some tips are only passed around in close circles because many webmasters do not post their findings and experiences on forums or websites. This can be a better way of placing ads on a blog, a new plugin or script that a website benefits from or general tips.

Verdict:

I’m not sure if this article covered all the aspects. There are probably more including tax reports, law suites and the like. Please post a comment if you have something to add or would like to voice your opinion on the subject. Being a webmaster is more than meets the eye.

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FON allows people to buy a wireless router from them for €30. They then share their WiFi with other Fon users and gain access to other Fon users’ connections.

Whilst many FON users are in residential areas, a few exist in public and commercial ones; there are dozens in Central London. This may rise as BT now integrates FON in their ‘Home Hub’ routers. Neuf Cegetel made a similar move.

They run a scheme which allows their users to profit. They can charge non-FON users a nominal fee to use their WiFi, so it could be extremely profitable in a central location!

La Fonera, the name of their router, transmits two SSIDs. One is encrypted, for your own private use, and one is open, for others to connect to.

If you’re interested, leave a comment to that effect and I can send you a promocode to get a €10 discount on the router.

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Internet Maniac combines a set of networking tools in its interface. The portable software provides access to functions like traceroutes, pings, host lookups, whois information, lookup IPs or domain names and more. Every option is directly accessible from the main interface.

A click on an option will usually display a second window that can be used to enter data, say a domain name for Whois. The same window will also display the results of the function directly in its window.

The tool is completely portable and requires less than 5 Megabytes of computer memory. The homepage of the developer has been deleted a long time ago. You can download the latest available version of Internet Maniac right here at Ghacks (internet maniac).

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How easy you ask? Let me show you.

Locating the applet

The first thing you need to do is find the applet which will be in your system tray either in the top or the bottom panel on your GNOME desktop.

Network Manager Applet

How many bars do you have? As you can see I am already connected to a network. But what if I am not? Simple if you right click the applet a menu will appear which contains the “Edit Connections” entry.

Right Click Menu

Select the Edit Connections entry to open the Network Connections menu.

Network Connections

Click on the Add button to create a new network. This will bring up a simple window where you will enter basic wireless information.

Add Network

The first bit of information you should enter is the network SSID (the name of the network). Once you have that done you can click over to the Wireles Security tab, select the type of security (WEP, LEAP, WPA, etc), enter the Password, and click Apply.

Once you have created the network you can select the network by left clicking the applet to reveal the network listing.

Select Network

Of course the system will scan the surrounding networks and any network found will be listed in the Wireless Network listing.

If you select an already discovered network you will be prompted to enter the networks password.

Connecting

Final Thoughts

Connecting to a wireless network has become as simple as it is in any operating system. With the GNOME, as long as your card is supported, you should have your wireless connected in no time.

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Some IM networks can easily be adapted to run on a LAN. One example is Jabber, where numerous clients and servers exist. This article provides simple instructions on how to set a Jabber server – for LAN use – under Linux.

Using Bonjour, Apple’s auto-discovering networking tool, is another option. The beauty of using Bonjour is that no server is required and, to my knowledge, all communication is peer-to-peer. Bonjour is available on OS X, Linux and Windows (nb Windows users will have to install it). Pidgin provides for instant messaging via Bonjour. iChat can work in a similar fashion on OS X, and Miranda supports Bonjour if a plug-in is installed.

netsend is another method of sending messages between machines with Windows 95, 98, 2000, ME, XP and 2003 installed on them. To use netsend, go into command prompt and simply enter net send recepient_name text_of_the_message. Recepient name is the user’s account on the network or the computer’s name. netsend is not polished and requires a little more effort to actually communicate, as a recepient must be specified every time (making it slightly slower to use than other IM solutions).

Another option is BORGChat, although that looks increasingly aged and is not really developed, not having left beta since it started being developed in 2002.

It is worth noting the above options are all free and will not cost $1000s like some enterprise internal IM tools available!

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