Please provide feedback on recent changes to dotTech
September 15, 2012 70
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Hello dotTechies,
I’ve recently made a few changes to dotTech and would greatly appreciate any and all feedback you all have.
Content Changes
A few months ago I decided to make a major change in what dotTech covers. Instead of just doing reviews and tips and tricks, dotTech started posting interesting tidbits on the happenings of the tech world. While some dotTechies were resistant to changes, eventually many people can to enjoy the new articles. However, last week I realized dotTech’s core value is providing reviews and recommendation on software and apps. Combine that with the fact that there is only so much interesting tech news that happens in a day, I decided to try to find a balance between news and reviews. As such, as some of you may have noticed over the past few days, dotTech is now going to be posting three reviews on Windows, Android, iPhone, iPad, Mac OS X, and Chrome/Firefox/Internet Explorer/Opera apps and programs each day.
With these reviews we have decided to not write extremely long articles that no one reads (yes, I know some people read the title and skip to the download link) and not write extremely short articles that are nothing more than infomercials. Rather, we want to find the perfect balance between too much information and too little information; our goal is to provide you with all the necessary knowledge (major pros and major cons) of an app/software so you can make an informed decision without having to spend an hour reading each article. Please do let us know how we are doing by posting a comment below.
Now just because we spending more time reviewing software does not mean we will completely ignore tech news. While we will try to no longer writer those annoyingly useless “XXX has released XXX” type articles, we will still continue to write tech news. The only difference is we will now try to focus on only the most interesting news of the day rather than post whatever we read, like some blogs do. Feel free to share your thoughts on how we are handling tech news in the comments below, too.
Other Changes
I spend most of the day Friday making back-end changes to dotTech, which is actually why you saw me post no news articles on Friday — I was busy polishing the beloved machine that holds this awesome blog. (Yes, I will never shy away from praising dotTech.) One of the major changes I made was simply the URL for dotTech posts. Now URLs will no longer say the category that which the article belongs to, rather only showing its unique identified and the name of the article. Why did I do this? For two reasons.
Firstly, saying the category name was redundant seeing as the title is already there, and the category actually caused confusion among some readers when an article would be categorized in more than one category yet the URL only showed one category. Secondly, and more importantly, many users have been asking me to put the operating system tag (e.g. [Android]) at the beginning of article titles as opposed to the end. Until now I resisted this request for SEO purposes but with the removal of category name from URLs, I have absolute no issue with placing the tags in the beginning and dotTech will do so from now on.
The change in URL comes with one drawback — there might be broken links. So, please, if you ever come across a broken link do report it to me. You can always e-mail me or simply post a comment below.
Aside from changing of URL, I made upgrades and optimizations to dotTech’s server which should — hopefully — make dotTech load faster for everyone. Let me know if this isn’t the case.
Conclusion
I have nothing to say here. It is your turn to talk.
-Mr. Boss
Being a long time reader/supporter of the dotTech, I truly enjoyed and appreciated Ashraf’s [and Associates] contributions to the blog.
However, recent changes/expansion introduced to dotTech produced an overwhelming amount of available information and made very difficult to deal with it in a timely fashion. A sheer volume of provided material did not allow average/busy person to efficiently/expeditiously select/read or download topics of the reader’s current interest.
I wholeheartedly agree with the suggestion posted here a few days ago, by one of the readers, to clearly identify each dotTech e-mail by its category – by inserting a single, appropriate word in the subject column in front of the e-mail’s description, e.g. Android, iPad, iPhone, Mac OS X, Photos, Win 8, Win 7, Vista, Win XP, Security, CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, PC Sys, HDD, Music, Audio, Movie, Video, Players, Converters, Art, Browsers, Comics, Games, Miscel etc. Please include some or all categories in the opt-out options.
Thank you for taking this suggestion for consideration and most importantly for implementing it almost instantaneously for the benefit of all us.
From now on, it will be much easier to navigate through a huge amount of available information and select the most needed or interesting topics effortlessly.
Keep up the good/excellent work Guys!!!!!!!!
Faithful and now 100% satisfied reader.
I prefer the old Windows/Android Software of the Day, where each article included 3 pieces of software. Now that each software gets its own post, there is too much scrolling and it’s harder to browse for stuff I want to read.
Plus it saves time to just click on one link, as opposed to three, where more time is wasted loading…
I am still wading through the backlog of stuff coming every day.
I like the idea of compartmentalizing the articles to specific operating systems.
But I also like some general articles on whats new and in the pipe line.
I did like app of the day but i can imagine getting three good ones per day took a lot of searching
So i am open to that being changed to a periodical post on readers recommendations.
Maybe once a month ask for peoples latest great apps.
This way the apps will have been tried out in the wild so as to speak.
That said
Its a great forum Ashraf and I have adapted to all the previous adaptions quite easily.
I will continue to com to your site
Great job.
I wish there was a way to get the emails in a digest.
The number of emails per day is overwelming and has become work instead of fun.
Hi, Mr. Boss!
Here’s my feelings / suggestions:
About “Software of the Day” — I like it, but it doesn’t have to have three items and it doesn’t have to be every day.
About technical / company news, etc. – I don’t like it. CNet, ZiffDavis, TechRepublic, and almost every other website I visit on a regular basis cover such things on a daily basis. There is too much duplication now. So unless you find something that it really, really interesting, important, or unique . . . . . :>)
About tagging the subject lines in your emails – as in “[Windows] Increase drive speed by . . .”: I really, really like it. But we should be able to subscribe to only the subjects in which we are interested. For me, it’s windows tips, tricks, utilities, security, reviews, etc. – not iStuff [ thanks, Bob Levy :>) ] – , Android, comics, cell phones, pictures, etc.
About articles – Length is always just about right – but you might think about the first paragraph being a “Take Away” that summarizes the article and its conclusion.
About emails – I prefer individual topic emails [ especially if I could subscribe to only the ones pertaining to my interests ] over one email with multiple links.
About the new website look – I like it!
Let me close by saying that every thing you do you do really, really well and thank you for all that you do.
Thank you to everyone that has posted here and provided feedback. Rest assured I have read all the comments here and will shortly be addressing all concerns or explaining why I cannot or will not do as you ask.
Hello, Ashraf.
In general, its all good!
I just changed my subscription,
to the single email per day mode.
MUCH easier than contending with,
say, 20+ emails, every day.
Now I’m getting the single email,
and I do have a request.
I did public speaking for years,
and one thing I learned,
was to format my notes in a way that made it easier to rapidly scan.
For instance, the single email has a bulleted list.
To make it easier to scan,
try to increase the line spacing,
to keep the bolded Times New Roman from ‘growing together’.
A 30-50% increase usually works for that.
I don’t know if your software can handle it or not, but in Word or an open-source variant its simple to increase the letter/character spacing.
A .5 increase will aid rapid character recognition.
Also, I found that a serif-less font,
like Verdana Ref, or similar,
makes it easier and faster to scan.
BTW, I was checking out a recent giveawayoftheday,
and I saw where some of their regulars were asking about you.
Apparently, you are missed over there.
Keep up the good work!
Have a GREAT day, neighbor!
From perusing the above, it seems you and your colleagues are working so hard that you are outdistancing us! I’m referring to remarks about too many emails, too many articles.
Depending on how many follow-ups you subscribe to, it is sometimes a bit much to get a separate email for each and every comment, especially on subjects that ellicit a flood of comments. Perhaps you should look into combining and very briefly summarising a number of new comments on popular subjects that one wishes to be notified of, instead of sending 5 separate emails to report each comment separately. I don’t know if this would be possible to implement, but it does seem more practical.
As for the articles, who will decide which ones to disqualify? We have different interests and you can ignore what is not relevant for you. The subject line of email notifications about new articles are generally clear and self explanatory, so, really, it should not be a problem to decide which ones to delete without firing up your browser.
As for news articles, I agree that it should be very carefully weighed. I believe few people care whether Apple may or may not have lied about the iPhone 5 being 0.1 mm thinner than other phones, and similar trivialities.
In closing, as long as the site stays as user friendly and sensibly managed as it is, I shall rely on your common sense and abide by what comes this way.
@Madhamish: Thank you!
@Roger Nicholls: Thank you!
@riezo haibane: I’m sorry you feel like we are posting too much. I have no plans on curtailing back on content — only eliminating low quality content. Feel free to only read what interests you, not everything!
I’m sorry but I cannot enable reply by e-mail simply because if I sent everything out by e-mail, people wouldn’t visit here and without visits dotTech would slowly die.
@otieatkins: You are welcome! And, yes, there is definitely a team: myself, Locutus, Brett, Kathryn, and Brendan. I couldn’t pump out roughly 20 articles a day on my own.
@Sin Chu: You are welcome!
I’m a bit confused as to what you are suggesting. Move what to where? And what do you mean the main section seems to never change?
@Digish: I’m sorry you feel like you are being spammed! Please see http://dottech.org/e-mail-notifications-one-email-per-day/.
@sgrams: Thank you for being a loyal reader! I’m glad you enjoy our content.
@AFPhys: I understand that the old way of putting software into one article is more conducive for some readers. Unfortunately that old way isn’t very SEO friendly so it was hurting dotTech. I’m sorry but this new way is here to stay. :-(
Thank you for coming here since you discovered us!
@Eric: You are welcome! Thank you for the great feedback.
I’ll look into what you are suggesting but cannot make any promises. In regards to one e-mail a day, however, I think you may be interested in http://dottech.org/e-mail-notifications-one-email-per-day/.
@John: Please see http://dottech.org/e-mail-notifications-one-email-per-day/ if you are getting too many e-mails.
@incenseman: Thank you! I appreciate you being a loyal follower from way back in the GOTD days. :-)
What has happened to that website anyway? I quit going there a while back…
@ebta: What form of e-mail subscription are you on? If on one-email-per-article, you already have the ability to select what topics to be e-mailed about. For RSS feeds if you only want a few categories it can be done easily: instead of subbing to the main feed, you can sub to individual category feeds. For example, http://dottech.org/category/windows/feed will get you the Windows feed, http://dottech.org/category/android/feed will get you the Android feed, etc.
@Carleton: Thank you! As for registration, you don’t *have* to register if you don’t want to. There are many readers that browse dotTech without registering. You can even post comments without registering. The only thing you need to register for is to use the forums.
@fajohn2: Cool :-)
@fajohn2: In-app purchases is the way for the future of apps. We try to make references in app reviews when there are Pro versions of apps or the app has in-app purchases. If we ever forget (we are human, after all) simply post a comment to remind us. Thank you!
@Kathryn: Glad you like it. I cannot promise you more on BB simply because BB is a dying breed as of this moment. As a hobbyist blog, I simply cannot invest in what may not be around soon.
As for dates on Amazing Photo of the Day — I don’t take the photos myself so I have no way of knowing when they are taken. :-(
@Mags: Yeah, information overload is a concern. I realize that with more articles people will only read what really interests them. However, generally speaking, traffic tends to go up with more articles so, yeah…
Thanks for the feedback, kind words, and being a loyal reader!
@garlicook: Thank you — and you are welcome!
@Dazed & Confused: I’m confused as to what you are suggesting. You want the homepage to be less blog-style and more magazine-style? Please do elaborate, I want to hear your thoughts.
@Leslie: Thanks! And thanks for helping everyone out with the tips on subing.
@Bob Levy: Thank you for the feedback. I’ll take that into consideration, although no promises.
@kelltic: Sorry, that pics thing was a bug — rookie mistake on my end. It has been mixed.
What do you mean headers are large — do you mean post titles?
@Bushidojoe: Yeah, I agree. I can’t do anything about that though. Only way to make it “less busy” is to stop posting articles o_O.
@mukhi: Thank you for the feedback! I have the bar as it is based on the available article types. Until we get more content, it will unfortunately have to stay like that.
Also, I used to have iOS but I realized no one searches for iOS — they look for iPhone or iPad.
@DougvT: You are welcome! Thank you for trusting us for your tech needs.
@Flowers ForA: To go from one-email-per-article to one-email-per-day, simply do what you just did — sub to one-email-per-day then unsub to one-email-per-article. The unsub link is found at the end of every e-mail you received in the past.
I’m look into integrating into profiles but I’m not sure if that is possible. I’m no coder.
What do you mean by search engine? Is it bad? I use Google Custom Engine for dotTech so it should be the best there is at the moment.
Thanks for all your feedback! I’ll definitely consider it all.
@Jim-1: That Twitter/Facebook/Google+ box you refer to should *not* be in articles — it belongs in the blue area. What browser are you using? This is a bug that I need to look into to. Please provide more details.
Thank you for the compliment!
@Mark: Thank you for the feedback and being a loyal reader! I understand how you feel. I agree we haven’t done a long, in-depth comparison in a while. Let’s see if we can pull one or two on a regular basis for ya’.
@Doug (UK): Thank you for the kind words and feedback! I’ll take it into consideration.
@Horrabin: You are welcome! Yes, unsubing is done from the emails. I wish I had the budget of the likes of ZDNET to make the subscription process a but more user friendly. :-(
@Dru: Thank you for the feedback! Like others, I will take it into consideration.
@Stephen` Cohen: Unsub to ‘Miscellaneous’ if you don’t want the jokes, comics, photos, etc. Sorry about that.
@Franklin: What do you mean? Please elaborate.
@Stephen` Cohen: While there is no way to opt out of Win8 articles without opting out of Windows altogether, you can opt out of mobile categories such as Android, iOS, etc.
@Mr.Dave: You are welcome! Thank you for the feedback. As for tags, we already use those although not as intensely as you suggest.
@Trev: Miss the reviews? Over half of our current content are reviews. o_O Sorry for the overload. :-(
@Prema: That should be fixed now. Thank you for the kind words!
@etim: You are welcome — thanks for the kind words!
@Bull: Thank you for making dotTech your homepage! I’ve actually purposefully moved away from freebies. I made the decision that I did not want to be a “freebies” blog — I want to be a “tech” blog. Too many freebies we getting us known as a freebies blog and people only came here for freebies. Freebies blogs aren’t very valuable — any kid with a laptop can fire up a website and do that. Tech blogs, however, are valuable especially if they offer something others don’t. I hope dotTech does that for everyone.
Sorry :-(
@BuddahBoy: Thank you for sharing us and thank you for the kind words! As I find interesting comics I’ll be sure to post. If you have good sources, be sure to let me know.
@Suze: Thank you for being a loyal reader!
@Dan: Thank you for the feedback and kind words!
@fishingjoe: Cool :-)
@jayesstee: Hehe… thanks for the kind words :-)
@a simple happy man: You are welcome! Thank you for the feedback and kind words — much appreciated.
@Frank D: You are welcome! Glad we could be of service.
@John Amrein: As I told some people above, there is a way to do everything you ask except unsub from Windows 8. Sorry :-(
@Kerry: You are welcome — thanks for the kind words!
@janusz: Glad you like the new change.Thank you for the feedback, kind words, and being a loyal reader!
@Jyo: As I mentioned in an earlier comment, we have moved to the new format for SEO purposes. Sorry :-(
@clockmendergb: Thank you! I would love for dotTechies to participate by sending in their free apps. Any takers?
@Barbwyr: There is a way. Please see http://dottech.org/e-mail-notifications-one-email-per-day/.
@albert otojunk: You are welcome — thanks for the feedback! There is already a way to unsub from what you aren’t interested in. Look at the link at the bottom of each e-mail you get.
@sl0j0n: Thank you for the feedback! I agree with your suggestions. Unfortunately, Feedburner does not allow me to modify the digest e-mails to put more spacing between bullets :-(
@Jazz: Thanks for the feedback! To be honest, looking for a way to e-mail comment digests is actually pretty low on my priorities list (so much on my plate) but I will definitely keep it in mind.
As for the iPhone article you quote: you would be surprised how many people are interested in knowing Apple lied ;-)
I like the changes a lot. Many thanks :)
Hi Ashraf & Team,
Must admit I’m not one for change (the pain of change and all that stuff), but hey you obviously do it for a reason, so yeah I can live with that, and it does not take too much time to adapt. You just have to learn to look for things in different places from time to time.
My only ask would be if you could also include a thumbnail of the amazing photo of the day so as I know whether I want to open the web page or not.
Other than that, there is nothing more I could wish for. Keep up the great work, we would all be very lost without you!
Cheers,
John
I am enjoying the new format and the other improvements. Also the pages load smoothly now, as opposed to an almost painful wait previously. Keep up the good work and thanks for this great site! :-)
I read dottech via RSS, and that works quite well for me – I can scroll through the new articles quickly, ignoring the articles marked for OS or gadgets I don’t use, and since the feed only gives me a preview, it’s quick to load even when I miss a day or two.
@Ashraf:
from Flowers ForA:
Many thanks for your kind reply.
Re. the search enine… e.g. while searching how to unsub from the mail-per-article I entered “unsubscribe” (among others) in the top right searchbox (not the search option on the extreme right on the black top ribbon, i.e. the magnifying glass icon) but didn’t find anything on the subject. This is just one example…
I’m planning a more systematic “tryout” of the search engine before commenting any further on this and report back to you on a later date via seperate mail – lots of other work keeps piling up and I really should deal with that first :(
BTW, is there a functional difference between the searchbox and the search icon? I guess not… That should be one of the first things to tryout ;-)
Thanks again & keep well!
Patrick.
@Jazz:
I agree about the comment digests in emails. That is what I was talking about in my second to last paragraph near the top of the first page. I reckon over half of my email comes from these comments and it can be overwhelming and they are not particularly easy to read either. Like I said before, I would like an option to get one email of comments per day across all my subscriptions. I don’t think this is an option in the one email per day stuff.
I like the format changes. If this will be the new style it should be broken out into categories. Might be a little extra work but some of us are not fans of one category or another.
1. Windows
2. Android
3. Apple
Or they could be a multi-choice.
PS: This is for the email or RSS feeds
@Ashraf:
From: Flowers ForA:
Further to my last post Re. search engine:
There does seem to be a substantial difference between searches using the searchbox and those using the magnifying glass icon on the black top ribbon – the latter of which seems only to appear once one is signed in.
- search box: entering e.g. “unsubscribe” or “feedback” (without the quotes) in the said the search box gives no results at all – only the normal right collumn (showing Subscribe, Recent postes, etc.) appears
- icon: using the icon however gives lots of results for the same search terms (but I should further compare results on relevance, time of publishing,…)
So search results seem to depend on wether one is signed in or not.
But then again, signing in is important only/mainly for those who want to participate in the forums (adding content, threads,…) while “shared” content (i.e. not part of the forums) constitutes a large part of the total site content. So I can’t quite figure out why (e.g.) “feedback” gives no results from the (default) search box while it doesn’t seem to be exclusively forum-linked… I hope I’m not getting anyone confused at this stage :-)
Of course I will do some further experimenting and comparison of results in the days to come and report back as promised.
In the meantime, would anyone here with more (or similar) experience care to share thoughts or tips on this?
Many thanks & have a nice day,
Patrick.
Have found that being able to choose what articles I want sent to email working well for me. After opening page I want to read I find that I can quickly browse the recent posts on the side to check if I missed something else i was interested in. A thumbnail pic of the photo of the day would be helpful in deciding whether to read the article. I enjoy this feature is amazing the things you find. Shorter articles are good but sometimes I think longer ones necessary in your tips and tricks as not everyone understands what to do. Dont need 3 new apps or programs a day 1 would suffice. Like that Android is covered as well as windows.
Thank you for a wonderfully informative useful site.