She made a physical sitemap or flowchart of their website so she could picture the hierarchy and flow of the website. This sitemap allowed her to move things around easily and make “big picture” changes before touching (pun not intended) the actual website. This also helped her wrap her head around some of the decisions that were made before she was brought on board and to focus on some of the hidden pages on the website that have direct links to them such as their product pages.

This is much easier to visual than normal sitemaps with only boxes & lines. It also helps you ensure your prospective buyers and brand community can easily find things because you’re on the adventure with them.

If you’re making big changes in your company and to your website, this might be a great place to start.

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The new website replaces the past website developed in the 1990s and can be updated by numerous members of the faculty and staff instead of just a few individuals with HTML knowledge. It is built on a WordPress CMS (Content Management System) with different levels on control and access to different sections of the website (for example, the football coach can update the football page and not the band page). The homepage also has a place for alerts for weather, school closed, and the such.

The Brother Martin website is nearly 100% editable by the school including the navigation, news, downloads, & quick links sections. The website was refocuses to make it easier to find information and has areas for the four main users – students, parents, alumni, and future students.

Drew Brees on the cover of Sports Illustrated with his wife & son.

The Saints have won the Super Bowl, but that is not the glimpse that I am referring to in this post. As part of the celebration, WWLTV.com posted headlines from newspapers & websites from around the world. Notice, I said headlines from websites. Of the 43 headlines, about one-third of them were from websites. This is a sign of the nearing end for newspapers. Already, a few major newspapers in the United States have moved to an online only format or have folded altogether.

Will the new Kindle & iPad create a new culture of reading newspapers online? How many newspapers do you have clipped out and in scrapbooks or hanging on your walls of your kids? Will this come to an end as the age of newspapers falls.

Below is a sampling of the headlines from both newspapers & websites in WWL’s post. View their website to view all of them.

This is unfortunate, because that 17% is missing out on a whole new world of interactivity, design aesthetics, functionality, speed, security, and quite frankly, I can’t understand why.

Internet Explorer 6 has been criticized by web standards experts, internet security firms, and designers since it’s launch in 2001.

In June 2004, the U.S. Government’s Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) urged readers to use ANY browser other than IE6, because of security flaws. Read the article here.

As of 2009, the security firm, Secunia, counted 142 vulnerabilities, of which 22 remained unfixed.  Some of these 22 are classified as moderately critical in security. Read the article here.

In 2005, PC World magazine rated IE6 as one of the 25 worst tech products OF ALL TIME.  This list is going back 30 years.  The list included some older products, but also included AOL and Windows Me, which turned out to be a complete dud.

On top of all the security flaws prevalent in IE6, there is much criticism from web designers and web standards experts regarding the functionality of IE6.

The problem is that IE6 does not support CSS2, unlike most browsers.  This means that developers must write hacks and other coding workarounds to ensure proper display.  This means a longer turnaround time and extra costs that are then passed on to the client.

Jeff Zeldman, author and leading web standards guru says

“IE6 is the new Netscape 4. The hacks needed to support IE6 are increasingly viewed as excess freight. Like Netscape 4 in 2000, IE6 is perceived to be holding back the web.”

IE6 does not support transparent PNG files, which are smooth transparent images, that allow for shading and depth on a web page.  Designers must include hacks that display less attractive transparent GIF files that leave a choppy, hard edged outline.  This option certainly lends itself to a less  fulfilling web experience.

Even social networking leader, Facebook, has decided their users using IE6 will receive an inferior user experience, by not allowing many features when using IE6.  They bluntly explain why, and encourage the user to upgrade their browser.

The thing that escapes me the most is the reasons for not upgrading your browser.  Aside from some large institutions and government bureaucracies, that require certain software that will only run on IE6, there isn’t much reason for a normal user to stay with such an antiquated piece of software.

Imagine you got a car in 2001 (internet explorer 6).  This car was comparable to other cars at the time.  It wasn’t the fanciest, it wasn’t the most secure, but there weren’t many other options, and it got the job done.

Now, imagine five years later, you were offered a brand new car. This car was fancier, quicker, safer, and it was FREE (internet explorer 7). You decided to turn it down.

After nearly ten years, you were offered a newer, faster, even more secure car, with side impact air bags and anti-lock brakes, all wheel drive, and stability control (Mozilla Firefox 3)… Completely free. But still, you turned this car down for your ten year old jalopy that was falling apart, had proven safety issues, and frankly was ugly as sin.

The logic escapes me.

As an IE6 user, you may not even know what you’re missing out on.  But, do yourself a favor, download a newer browser.  One of my personal favorites is Mozilla Firefox, an open source browser with lots of add-ons and extras. Google Chrome is a new kid on the block.  If neither of those entice you, you may want to try Microsoft’s replacement for IE6, IE7 here.  However, you shouldn’t get attached to IE7 too long, because version 8 was just released.

Trust us folks, you’ll be happy you did.

PUSH THE REFRESH BUTTON!! Quick!! Do it before the “window” closes!

Really, you can’t miss the end-of-the-year update event. Why you ask? Because, right now your customers and clients are pondering the year that’s past. They are considering their end-of-the-year purchases, and they have time in between gobbling turkey and sipping port with relatives to surf the web to see who’s been naughty and who’s been nice.

Whether you’re a B-2-B computer consultant or a B-2-C purveyor retail products, right now is the time for web site updating and content redoux. We are very busy with this kind of web work right now, and the reason for it is obvious. So, push your refresh button before Mardi Gras comes to town!

RobF.