My thoughts on business

There are hundreds of web-standards and CSS websites out there, I know. This one in particular caught my attention though. My boss at work emailed me the link, so I checked it out. It's run by Stu Nicholls, a web-designer somewhere in Great Britain. While much of his examples are experimental and might not be directly applicable in site development, there are several that could be quite usable. Go check it out…

stunicholls.myby.co.uk

I love sites like that, which freely share knowledge and are built around helping others to understand difficult concepts. On another note, I'm currently working on a redesign of a church site which is being held hostage by a husband & wife duo who refuse to turn over the domain names to the church. Logically, the church should be the rightful owner of the domain names, but in the way that the contract was drafted up, the company that initially designed their site owns them.

So, the church I'm trying to help is having to pay these swindlers twice. The first time they paid them, it was to create their website, and now they're having to pay again to ransom their domain names. Is it just me, or is this a bad way to do business? It seems like the complete opposite of what I hope to do, which is empower people to have more control over their website, not less. As much as I'd like to link to this other company, I don't really want to give them any more web-hits. Suffice it to say that their own website doesn't look any good, let alone the ones they've made for their customers.

It always amazes me how people try to take advantage of others, especially regarding technology. That's why I like doing websites for churches & non-profits, because it helps demystify things and put the power back in the hands of the people. I'm no Martin Luther, but I imagine he felt the same frustration when the mass was not being performed in the vernacular, and only the elite were able to read the Bible.