Irrelevant Ramblings

Sam Tse a.k.a The Big Chinaman is a friend of mine. If you’ve ever met Sam you would understand why they call him this. He is the tallest Chinese man I have ever met and he has a heart of gold. Sam worked along side me in Vancouver at a place called “The Warehouse“.
Sam is now working with a missions organization in Columbia. He has a blog where you can keep up with all the latest goings on in his life.

You can find the aptly named blog of the Big Chinaman by heading over to the Chinito Grande (which means Big Chinaman) blog.

Here is some quick info about Sam.

I’m 24 young man who was born and raised in Beautiful Vancouver, BC. I’ve been called as a missionary to serve the people of Santa Marta. The first Spanish settled city in Colombia will be my new home for the next while as I learn to serve and live along side the locals. They call me Chinto Grande down here (Big Chinaman…thus my blog url) so I’m not exactly inconspicuous, either way I’m sure life will bring many interesting experiences and stories that I hope to share!

Frustrating Navigation

If visitors have a hard time navigation through the site to find what they are looking for, many of them will leave. I’m sure we’ve all been in the position of the frustrated visitor. To make things easier, navigation should be given plenty of thought and attention. The pages that are most important or most commonly sought after should be very easy to find, and navigation should be logical and intuitive. Larger sites can use a sitemap and/or a sitewide search to help visitors who want to use them.

Annoying Advertisements

While ads can lead to lost visitors because of clicks on the ads, the can also chase visitors away is they are too distracting or intrusive. Most visitors now have come to expect ads on websites and blogs, and you shouldn’t lose many visitors on that principal alone. However, if you use accept ads that are overly flashy, have moving parts or changing colors, you could chase some people away.

Slow Loading Pages

No one likes to sit and wait for pages to load, and if it takes too long visitors simply won’t wait. This is obviously influenced by the connection speed of the user, so some of it is out of your control. However, you can use a stats program like Google Analytics to tell you what percentage of your visitors have different types of internet connections. From this data you can get a good idea about how fast your pages need to load. If most of your visitors are using dial-up, page loads should be as quick as possible. On the other hand, if most of your visitors are on high-speed connections, you can take some more liberty with the design and content.

Audio or Video that Starts Automatically

Although audio and video are very common online today, most visitors prefer to have the option to start it themselves. Visitors that are greeted with a startling sound that they didn’t choose to start will often click the back button and be gone. If you use these elements in your pages, give the visitor the option to start them. LOSE THE MUSIC even if you have a photography site.

Poor Readability

If visitors aren’t able to read the content, or if they have a hard time doing so, they may just leave. This is especially an issue with blogs. Be careful with background colors and images, as well as text color and link color, and also make sure to use adequate whitespace. Things like headings, lists, and short paragraphs can also improve readability.

Outdated

Have you ever landed on a page that said “last updated 2001?? Depending on what you are looking for, this page may be of no use to you. Things online change so quickly that old information is often irrelevant. When setting up a blog one of the decisions you’ll have to make is whether or not to show the post date. Readers often like to see the date just to understand the context of the post and to understand its significance, but showing the date can also cause some lost visitors if they arrive at older posts.

(HT: vandelay)

Simone and I took the kids to the Kamloops Wildlife Park, with my parents and sister. We had never been there before and thought it would make a spring break day fun for all of us.

We packed up the family and headed to Kamloops looking forward to some fun at the zoo.  We had a great time.

As soon as we got there the first thing was saw was the big Grizzly Bear taking a nap, man their big.  We made our way through the birds of prey exhibit, as we headed to catch the train for a rail tour around the park. While we were on the train the conductor pointed out that the cougars were out and about and mentioned that they usually stay pretty hidden during the day.  It was cool to see them, but they were on the other side of the enclosure so we didn’t get a good look at them.

After the train we took the kids to the playground there and let them  burn off a little steam, before checking out some elk, big horn sheep, mountain goats, and other animals.

The kids talked grandma and grandpa into taking them for another ride on the train. Simone and I opted to just walk around the rest of the park while they were on the train.  And am I glad we did.

We headed back to see if we could get a better look at the cougars.  When we got there, one of the cougars was up near the front of the enclosure sitting there eyeing up the people as they gawked at the large cat. What we didn’t realize right away is that this beautiful big cat was specifically eyeing up a little kids in a stroller.

I’m not joking this cat was watching every move that stroller made. At one point the father moved the stroller down the fence a few feet and the cat slowly and slinkily began to follow the stroller.  He was totally stalking the little baby. It was so cool, and surreal, but unbelievable as well. I kind of felt like I was in the middle of a nature show where the cougar is stalking the  stray injured deer, but he was stalking kid, in the zoo.

Anyway, it was pretty cool and here are a few picks of the cat stalking the kid. (yes we took pictures, it’s not everyday you see a cougar stalking something, especially a kid. Not to mention within the walls of a zoo).