Herself's Webtools

Way back when all sites started with www. or something of that flavor.  That’s what told you whether you were on the web server, ftp server etc for that domain.  Now most sites have dropped the www and just use the domain name. Which should you do?

I think for new sites I’d follow the trend and not use www. Older sites are a bit more of problem. Not only do search engines frequently list www.yoursite.com and yoursite.com as two different sites but www.yoursite.com/page1.html and yoursite.com/page1.html will be ranked separately as well. Further, incoming links will point to one site or the other diluting your incoming link count.

The best thing to do is to pick one, www or no www. Then force all internal and external links to do the same. If you are using WordPress there is a plugin to help you do that. If you are not using WP or would rather not use the plugin you can enforce www or not preferences in your .htaccess file:

Prefer www.yoursite.com
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.yoursite\.com [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Prefer yoursite.com ( no www )
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.yoursite\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://yoursite.com/$1 [L,R=301]

Google Webmaster tools also has an option for enforcing www vs not www preferences in its databases. See also ( Are you using Google Webmaster Tools )

Webmaster World has an Excellent discussion on whether or not to www also.

And do not forget to check that http://www.yourdomain.com and http://yourdomain.com both get you to your home page and not a ‘website not found’ page.

Before:

After:

1) Open a copy of your photo in Gimp
2) Select Dialogs->Layers ( a layer box will open )
3) Click on the copy layer button ( button with two photos on bottom row of buttons )
4) Select bottom layer by clicking on it in layers box
5) Go back to photo and select Filters->Distorts->Emboss ( an emboss box will open )
6) Select Emboss not Bumpmap
7) Click the OK button in the emboss box ( it may take a minute or two for the emboss function to finish)
8 ) Go back to the layers box Click Mode: and select Multiply from the drop down menu
9) Adjust the Opacity in the layers until you are happy with the result

* If you want to see what the bottom layer looks like before adjusting the layers just click the eye button next to the top layer and the top layer will become invisible.

This works better with less detailed photos than it does with more detailed photos.