Welcome to to the Summer 2007 issue of ZooNews, from professional Web site design company Zoonini Web Services.

Tip for Tat features something a bit different this issue... since I've been tagged! Frequent Zoonini collaborator Charlotte (A.C.) Riley has asked me – via her B(abble)log – to share five Web links.

To that end, here are five of my favourite bookmarks:

Beyond Salmon – this food-blog's tagline says it all: "Everything you ever wanted to know about fish – and other musings on all things yummy, by Helen Rennie." When I'm faced with a naked piece of fish, this cooking instructor and fish evangelist never fails to provide inspiration. If I lived in Boston, I would sign up in a jiffy for Helen's "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" cooking course!

Chowhound – a far-too-addictive compendium of food-related message boards where I'm a frequent participant.

Duck Island Greeking Machine – "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet..." This tool makes it super-easy to grab some of the dummy text (aka "greeking") used by graphic and Web designers in mockups and prototypes, whether it's the traditional Latin, or the more amusing Techno Babble, Hillbilly, or Pseudo German varieties.

Grand dictionnaire terminologique – an indispensable resource for finding French translations of English technology-related terms, among other not-likely-to-be-found-in-your-dictionary lingo.

Webcogs UK Online Password Generator – need a hard-to-guess random password? As someone who assigns passwords to clients on a regular basis, this tool makes my life a lot easier! I often capitalize one of the letters and add a few more numbers at the end to make the passwords even stronger.

I had the pleasure of spending a few relaxing days last month in rural Ontario not checking my email, which I've dubbed an email detox. As someone who's a compulsive email-checker under normal circumstances, I found the experience a bit tough going at first. Soon, though, I felt a huge relief at being able to let go of my addiction... if only for a week or so. I'll admit that being limited to a slow dial-up Internet connection definitely made it a little easier to resist the temptation to check my mail or browse the Web.

Got a technology term you'd like demystified in ZooNews? Send it to questions@zoonini.com.

Zoonini is excited to announce that in tandem with our partner Cresedo Tec we have acquired a new dedicated server to host our clients' Web sites and have begun the process of moving sites from our present server. The new server boasts more space, a more powerful processor, more RAM, dual mirrored hard drives, and a very stable operating system. We have been carefully planning the server transfer so that most of our clients will not have to do anything at their end and should not see any interruptions. We look forward to offering you a better-than-ever hosting service!

Our client Cream Hill Estates produces uncontaminated (gluten-free) oat flour and rolled oats, suitable for people with wheat allergies, including those with celiac disease. As the LaSalle, Quebec-based company's distribution has expanded across North America, it was time to provide an easy way for its customers to find Cream Hill Estates products at a location near them. We called in database experts Cresedo Tec to help us create a newly launched online store locator that allows visitors to search for a store in Canada or the U.S.

Like some of you, I get emails flagged as potential spam delivered to a special mailbox that I can check and empty from time-to-time. Last week I noticed a message in my spam box from a cooking magazine that I subscribe to, asking me to complete a survey about upcoming recipes.

I wondered why the message was marked as spam since it was a legitimate mailing, so I looked at the spam-identification headers for a clue. (Complete headers are found in the full message source, viewable in some programs by selecting Message > View Source). I discovered the culprit was the magazine's innocent use of "Dear Friend" as its opening greeting, which alone managed to add a whopping 2.7 points to the message's total spam score, pushing it over my pre-set spam threshold of 4.

Missed my piece about reducing the chances of one's own messages being flagged as spam? Check out Tip for Tat in June 2006's ZooNews.

Finally, I'd like to share an entirely frivolous Internet-related YouTube video that made me laugh out loud so hard that my partner wondered what on earth was going on in my office. Check it out at your leisure when you have three minutes to spare – and no one listening in the next room. See you in September!

À la prochaine,

kp
aka Kathryn Presner