I have been a long-time reader of both UseIt.com and Web Pages That Suck. Both concentrate on what’s called web usability.

Web usability can be defined by answering a simple question: How easy is it to use your web site? A large portion of ease of use comes from your selection of colors and fonts.

Color: Foreground and Background

Black on white is always better than white on black.

To some this may seem confusing because one would assume white on black is better. However the problem with that is text to the human eye tends to "fuzz" when reading white on black, be it in print or on-screen.

The only time white on black ever works is when the fonts are oversized and thick. But if you do that with your web design, the text is just too big.

If using color: Dark on light is better than light on dark.

Color: Links should be a primary color

On a computer monitor, the best link colors for black on white are the primaries of red, green or blue. Or in hexadecimal values: #ff0000, #00cc00, #0000ff.

Links are meant to be seen and should contrast against non-linked text.

Font: Links should be underlined

Although there is no rule that says "all links must be underlined", people expect a text-based link to have a line under it signifying a link to somewhere else.

Another reason for underlined links is to accommodate the color blind. Without the underline, many literally can’t distinguish a link from regular text.

There are some instances where non-underlined links are okay, such as buttons. When it is very obvious that the text represents a button, the lack of a line under the word is fine. For example, the top navigation bar PCMech is button-style. If read as a sentence it makes no sense so it is easily assumed they are button links.

Font: People usually prefer serif

This is another one of those instances where people are so used to a specific typeface that it’s okay.

Serif fonts are better known as "Roman" style, like Times New Roman and Georgia.

Sans-serif fonts are serif fonts without the serifs (i.e. the little "accents" at the end of strokes), such as Arial, Helvetica, Trebuchet MS, Verdana and so on.

The default font in nearly all web browsers is always serif – even on Linux (in Ubuntu, Firefox follows the global font settings and it’s usually Bitstream Vera Serif).

Windows users are obviously very used to seeing Times New Roman as it’s been around for a very long time.

Why serif and not sans-serif? Why do people prefer this? It’s because newspaper and books use it most. That’s what we’re used to seeing, therefore serif is the better way to go.

Font: Minimum 14-pixel size is recommended for main text

Monitor resolutions are increasing but the fonts are appearing smaller as a tradeoff. Years ago you could get away with 11 and 12-pixel font sizes on web pages, but the bare minimum these days is 14. It has to be that else you run the risk of people not being able to read what’s on your web site or blog.

14 pixels of font size on a Windows system using CSS is any one of the following:

• 14px
• .88em
• 10.5pt
• 88%

If you want to play it safe, use the standard 16px; the CSS font-size rule for that would be:

• 16px
• 1em
• 11pt
• 100%

Quick tips for when you encounter a site with bad design

Bad design is when the fonts are too small, the pages are white on black and so on. You can skirt around these issues easily by doing the following:

1. Know your zoom controls.

All modern browsers (IE, Firefox, Opera, Chrome, etc.) have zoom controls. Know them and use them. CTRL and plus-key increases, CTRL and minus-key decreases, CTRL and zero resets to default.

2. "Turn off" the design.

Firefox-specific: Click View, Page Style, No Style. The web site will then look like it was made in 1999, but it will be a nice plain-jane black on white with a serif font and easily readable.

I especially recommend this method for viewing MySpace pages as they are in my opinion the worst-designed pages on the planet.  Watch how much easier (and faster) it is to get around with No Style selected. The difference is like night and day.

To re-enable: Instead of No Style choose Basic Page Style.

Craigslist is not "Web 2.0". Heck, it barely qualifies as Web 1.0. The design of the site is Spartan and for a first-time user can seem a bit intimidating due to the fact there’s just so much stuff on it.

Fear not, CL is actually really easy to use. My personal opinion is that it’s far superior to eBay because there’s no sign-up required whatsoever (other than an e-mail confirmation) when posting a listing, and for most sections, posting an ad is absolutely free.

CL is divided into cities, states then countries. You pick your locale and go from there.

After that there are 9 major sections of the site, that being:

• Community
• Personals
• Discussion Forums
• Housing
• For Sale
• Services
• Jobs
• Gigs
• Resumes

I’m not going to cover all of what CL is, however I’ll touch on some areas you may want to check out.

Housing

I live in Tampa Florida. Some friends I have in northern states periodically ask me where to find information on vacation house rentals. The only link I ever give them is this one; it points directly where they need to go to look up information on that stuff.

Other times I’m asked how much it costs to rent apartments here. In that case I send this link.

For other locales on CL, they all follow suit.

Free stuff

Everybody likes free stuff, right? Well I can’t think of a better place to locate free stuff other than CL. You’ll find a lot of furniture, "curb alerts" (just drive on by and pick up what you want) and a whole bunch of other stuff. Tampa’s freebies is a good example of what you can get. Once again, other locales follow suit.

This is listed simply as the "free" subcategory under "for sale" for your locale.

Jobs

CL’s job boards are both known and unknown at the same time. They routinely command an enormous amount of web traffic yet there’s a good chunk of the internet populous that’s never heard of it. If that’s you, now you have.

Out of all job boards on the internet, CL’s is by far the easiest to work with. It’s also arguably the fastest place to get work right now.

And by the way, if you ever asked the question "Where do I find smaller businesses to work for instead of large corporations?", CL is it. If Big Corporate isn’t your thing (and it isn’t for many), look in CL to find your next job.

Computer gigs

Gigs are different from jobs. They are listed by people who need help with specific things computer related. Whether they pay or not is up to who posts the listing (and most are honest about it). It could be a web project or someone local that needs help with computer training. This is something you should look into if you’re adept at computers and want more options than just the job boards.

Computer gigs are listed under category "gigs", subcategory "computer".

Have you had good and/or bad luck with CL?

Let us know in the comments.

It amazes me to this day how many people are unaware to basic tenets of ergonomics concerning daily computer use.

Ergonomics as it pertains to you is to use your computer in a way that minimizes any damage to your body, hearing or vision in any way.

Instead of getting into all the technical crapola about it, I’ll instead just do simply question/answer style. Continued

There will be times when you have to call customer service, a.k.a. customer support a.k.a. the help desk.

If you are educated on how call center environments operate you will get better results.

Let’s start off with this:

The Big Question: Does asking for the manager really help?

NO. Speaking to a "higher level" will rarely get your issue resolved any faster or get any better results. For some strange reason people think that speaking to someone with a higher "rank" in the support environment actually works. It doesn’t. When you do this you’re doing nothing but circumventing the method put in place for the fastest most accurate resolutions.

Does the call agent have any contact with technicians?

The call agent is the person who takes your call and assigns a support ticket. The technician is someone who physically comes to your location to address the issue you called about (if required). In most situations the agent and the technician never speak to each other. The agent will escalate/assign your ticket and then the manager who oversees the technicians will assign a tech via a work order.

The reason this is important information to know is that the technician is only aware of what is written in the work order. If the call agent wrote a poorly written ticket that leads to a poorly written work order, this will inevitably lead to poor service.

Tip: When calling on an issue that requires a technician to be assigned to fix the problem, ask the agent to read back what is in the ticket BEFORE escalating it. This will give at least some assurance that your problem is explained properly before it goes anywhere.

Good managers will "bounce back" tickets that are poorly written tickets back to the call agent for a rewrite. Bad ones will desperately attempt to make sense out of the gibberish sent to them and assign a tech anyway hoping the tech will be able to figure out what’s going on.

If you want to see an example of poorly written call agent tickets, refer to the Chronicles of George. After reading that you will understand why you should always ask the call agent to read back the tickets s/he writes before sending them anywhere.

Why is it required to go thru "the process" every time you call?

Whether you’re calling about a computer issue, a cable television issue or what-have-you, you’ve noticed that every time you call you must go thru a "process" each time and it’s very annoying.

The reason you are required to do this is because that’s what the agent has been trained to do. They do this because typically most problems are resolved by performing a few simple steps, so the agents are told to always perform those steps whether you want to or not.

The only time you can get around this is if you’re calling to update a previous call. Otherwise it’s treated as a new issue and yes, you’ll have to go thru the process again.

What can you do if you’ve received unsatisfactory service and your issues are not resolved?

Yell and scream at the call agent. However this rarely works so it’s not recommended (and yes I know I’ve guilty of this myself but at least I admit it).

Request a printed account of all call tickets pertaining to your issue. When you request this the agent will immediately escalate you to the Team Lead or Supervisor without giving it a second thought because he has no authority to send you records – but the managerial staff does. When management is alerted you want this information, the tickets will be read personally by management staff and they will probably quickly discover poorly written tickets, "talk to" the call agents who screwed them up, get them fixed and attend to your issue properly. A call agent who writes proper tickets has nothing to worry about. But the one who writes poor ones will put his or her job in jeopardy. This is irrelevant to you as long as your issue gets attended to but at least you know something is getting done.

If the call agent states "we can’t do that" in reference to providing a written account of the tickets involved with your account, that’s a lie. They can. If the tickets are directly related to you and your account – yes you can request the information and the company is obligated to release it to you.

Request a printed account of all work orders. A work order is different from a ticket. The ticket is assigned by the call agent. The work order is assigned by the supervisor/manager who dispatches technicians. Tickets and work orders rarely "relate" to each other because once a work order has been assigned, the ticket is deemed "closed" or "resolved".

Every company has a physical printed record of all work orders – signed by the technician himself or herself once work is completed.

Why is it necessary to go thru all this b.s. just to get something fixed when things go wrong?

It is the unfortunate tendency that corporations lose their humanity once they become corporations. When you call to report a problem/issue, you’re not a person but just another number. Once you come to accept this reality you’ll at least know how to work with the system, figuratively speaking.

It’s a safe assumption that the vast majority of computer users today use LCD monitors. It is in fact a very reliable technology and it’s not often that you hear of one breaking. But being that it’s an electronic device, yes it will eventually fail.

How long does it take before an LCD fails completely?

Usually about 5 to 7 years.

What is the first thing to "go" on an LCD monitor?

With a free-standing LCD (i.e. one attached to regular desktop computer), the backlight is usually the first thing to break. With a laptop a whole host of other things can go awry. More on that in a moment. When a backlight fails, the picture will get extremely dim. It will still work but be almost unreadable.

Is it worth it to repair an LCD monitor?

Never. The cost of repairing an LCD monitor will usually cost more than replacing it outright.

Common issues with LCD monitors

Solid horizontal and/or vertical lines

One day you will turn on the monitor and these brightly colored lines will appear with no way to get rid of them. This is a hardware fault and there is no fix for this. Replace the monitor.

Monitor takes a while to "warm up" after starting it

You turn the monitor on and it takes a minute or two to reach full brightness. This is a backlight issue. You can still use the monitor normally until the backlight breaks (which it will eventually).

Monitor flickers on and off randomly

This is laptop-specific. The LCD ribbon connector cable is damaged from normal use of opening and closing the lid over time. This can be repaired. The monitor does not need replacement, but the ribbon connector cable does.

If you’re brave enough you can order this part from the OEM manufacturer and replace it yourself. It it normally located under the left-side hinge. It is not easy, but certainly cheaper than replacing the entire display.

Suggested course of action is to locate an authorized computer repair center and have them replace the ribbon connector. It will cost anywhere from $60 to $150, labor included. This may sound expensive but it’s still cheaper than replacing the monitor itself which will cost a whole lot more.

Corners or one side of monitor appears dimmer than the other

Again this is a backlight issue. There is no fix. Deal with it or replace the monitor.

Everything "goes green" or "goes pink" or "goes red"

For laptops, again this is the ribbon connector cable. Replace it. For desktops, replace the monitor cable which may or may not fix the problem.

"Wild patterns" appear for no reason

It will look something like this:

No fix for this. Monitor is busted. Replace it.