Choosing a ‘green’ laptop

We all need to play our part in moving towards a ‘greener’, more sustainable lifestyle. This covers every part of our daily lives, including work. I’m in the market for a new laptop, so I’ve decided to try to go green and I’ve been researching my options.

I’m not a computer expert but I am technically minded, so I’ve been hunting down information that strikes a balance between the two. I thought I’d share these with you, in case they can help you too.

What I’m looking for

Firstly, my considerations:

I have a limited budget (as far as laptops go) but realise I might have to pay a bit more to meet the environmental standards I’d like (which, by the way, I’ve only identified by reading the following articles – my initial standard was, well, ‘better’). The majority of my clients are corporate and are therefore using Windows. My new laptop needs to be compatible with the technology my clients use. I don’t just want the ‘green’ offering from a company that’s targeting that area of the customer market. …

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A local domain name is important

Nomensa reports that ‘the .co.uk domain name is now an essential part of a company’s brand presence in the UK’, according to research by Sedo (a global domain name marketplace, funnily enough).

I’m not that surprised, really. For many global companies, for example, a regional domain name is a key part of their localisation strategy.

Inspires trust and creates credibility

The Nomensa article goes on to say that ‘the research, undertaken at Internet World 2009 revealed that two thirds of respondents said the domain extension inspired trust and security in a website’s credentials. In addition, 45 per cent of respondents highlighted that .co.uk was their primary domain’.

You’ll notice that this website’s domain name is .co.uk too, which was a deliberate choice on my part. I freelance from Spain and I felt sure that a .es domain name would put some potential clients off, rightly or wrongly (well, wrongly in fact).

Also, I think (correct me if I’m wrong) but .co.uk sites rank more highly in an English-language search …

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Mobile web experience: could do better

People are increasingly using the internet on mobile devices and companies need to provide an equal user experience for visitors accessing their online information in different ways.

However, a recent Gomez/dotMobi report says that mobile web performance is getting worse (in the airline, banking and search industries at least): there’s an increasing gap between ‘traditional’ and mobile websites, with the former getting faster and the latter getting slower.

Are two websites better than one?

Many organisations (such as Vodafone) are producing two websites: a ‘traditional’ one for PCs and another version for mobile browsers. This is generating a lot of discussion in the industry (including among accessibility professionals) regarding the need for – and wisdom of – separate websites.

The arguments are wide ranging, from making the same content available to everyone (without forcing people with different browsers to use a different version of a website) to providing a good user experience across all devices.

It also raises issues of doubling maintenance efforts (and …

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