Highland Accounting Services - Delays to tax returns lodge in January 2010

Highland Accounting Services - Delays to tax returns lodge in January 2010

The Australian Taxation Office replaced its software in January, and because of this any tax returns lodged were not going to be processed till February 1st.

I contacted the ATO on Monday and was informed that the software update didn’t go as planned and that instead of the 1st being the start of processing the lodged tax returns, it would now be February 15th.

So those who lodged the tax returns throughout January and the start of February, your 14 day processing time as suggested by the ATO started on the 15th.

Your tax returns should be appearing about March 1st.

Making Websites 404 Error Pages Make them work for you.

Making Websites - 404 Error Pages Make them work for you.

404 error pages, we all know what they are, right. I will refresh your memory, a 404 error occurs when your server is reached by a user, but the page the user is looking for, can not be found. This may happen for a variety of reasons;

• A typo by the user, by simply missing the “l” in “html” will result in the 404 error,
• An external link to a moved/deleted page,
• An internal link to a moved/deleted page.

I read an article recently that stated that most users of the internet when encountering a 404 error page assumed that the whole website is no longer available, not just the one page. Bearing that in mind, after attracting a user to your page and for them to find a 404 error page, all your hard work is undone as they are browsing away from your website to your competitors site.
Stop making your 404 error page the exit page to your website. Create a 404 webpage that replaces the default error page. How I created my 404 page on my websites is to make the error page in the same format as any other page on my site, and then place the error information where the content would go.
If you do not want to create your page as above, make sure that you have;

• A link to your website as big and as clear as possible so the user will prows to your site,
• Make sure your page is less than 512 kilobytes, as windows explorer may display a default 404 page.
• If applicable have a search box so the user can type what they are looking for and be directed to the correct page.
• If applicable a drop down menu so the user can browse to the page of interest.
• If your site is small, maybe a sitemap showing all your pages.
• An apology for not have the page there, eg “We apologise for the inconvenience, please browse to the home page www.yourwebsite.com”.

Most website hosting services will have the ability to change your 404 error page, cPanel is a commom interface used by web hosting business, please contact your hosting company and they should be able to direct you on how to make the changes.
To get your new 404 error page up and running, first create in your favourite html editor and then upload.In cPanel you first need to logged in, click on the error page icon at the bottom of the configuration page, click on the “404 (not found)” link and then copy and paste your html into the text box. Save the information and it is completed.
To view the updated page live, browse to a page that you don’t have on your site and the new error page should be displayed.
If you have any ideas that have worked for you, please add to the comment box below.
http://www.makingwebsitesblog.com/?p=171

Web Hosting - Facts and Figures

I have been comparing web hosting packages lately, mainly as research for a websites I am working on so my visitors will know which hosting package will suit them.
One of the web hosting packages I examined has 10 GB of webspace and 300 GB of transfer per month for a reasonable fee of $US 4.99 per month, so what do all these figures mean?
I will attempt to put into perspective for you. The page that you are reading now has an approximate file size of 140,000 bytes. As you can see this page consists mainly of text with a few small graphics, a typical blog page. A page with graphics, photos and flash media will of course be larger in size than a page consisting mainly of text.
So how does this web page of 140,000 bytes fit in to the 10 Giga-Bytes of web space and 300 Giga-Bytes of transfer per month?
The web space and transfers also includes any databases that you may have, as well as the sending, receiving and storing of emails. The calculations and estimates will only include the storage and transfers of web pages. As you will see in the following calculations, these extras, are merely incidental
First off I will look at the webspace. The 10 GB of webspace means that 76,000 pages can be hosted at the file size of 140,000 bytes, that is a huge amount of information, I would seriously doubt that any one person would be able to create that much data.
Now for the transfer of data from your web site, 300 GB how many page views does that equate to. This blog page as mentioned before is 140,000 bytes of data which equals 1 page view so the 300 GB will give this page over 23 million page views per month.
For $US 4.99 per month you can host 76,000 pages and have over 23 million page views per month, as a comparison www.debian.org has over 20 million pages views per month.
Assuming the above is still not enough, then for $US 14.99 per month at the same web hosting service you can recieve unlimited web space and transfers.