This is to thank all of our visitors for the co-operation extended during the website accessibility issues you may have encountered recently. The extended downtime of 7-10 days suffered by the Dirjournal.com server was due to a data center outage in the network operating center of our hosting provider, Hostgator, where our server is hosted.

In fact, this upset us so much, all efforts to switch to another hosting provider began and finally we decided on another hosting. We were actually thinking of switching the hosting provider from Hostgator to Rackspace, as we felt that was the only way of getting our website up fast in order not to cause any further inconvenience to our visitors.

However, at that point, Brent Oxley, the owner of Hostgator, came forward and extended his help in getting our website up as soon as possible. We decided to give Hostgator a chance as we never faced any problems with them prior to this.

Brent managed to resolve the issue by instantly moving the server to their new data center and the server was brought up immediately, and we decided to stick with Hostgator.

Directory Journal sincerely apologizes for any inconvenience this incident might have caused, to all those that may have attempted to access our website and failed. We also thank all visitors who contacted us during this downtime for their unconditional patronage.

We sincerely hope this has not affected your experience with us in any way and appreciate your understanding, patience and continued business.

CNET.com is the definitive online location for gadgets, internet and computer news, tech information and reviews. CNET.com is also the primary destination of online enthusiasts seeking the latest downloads and trials of new or popular programs. With so much to offer on a single website, could it possibly be easy to navigate? Oh yes – simple to navigate and much more.

A Classic Example of Web 2.0 Design

The colors, clean design and simple layout of CNET make it easy to follow and even easier to find what you’re looking for as you navigate the site. Tabs for the different areas of the site are a bright green in contrast to the pale yellow and white of the content and listings sections. The homepage is primarily comprised of listed stories, blog posts and review categories. The site is designed with an emphasis on showcasing a clean list using plenty of white space rather than attempting to cram every article onto the home page. The starkness of the pages is a welcome respite as there is little fluff and virtually no descriptions or teasers for the stories that you often find cluttering up other news related sites.

By keeping the story list to headlines, CNET allows visitors to skim the topics quickly without getting tangled up in related sub stories and photojournalism enhancements. Reading through the latest topics takes just seconds. Most of stories listed CNET’s homepage are breaking news or thoughtful, well-researched discussion of the technology industry happenings, the bottom half of the homepage showcases the almost endless number of CNET blogs covering a wide range of topics and industries.

A Wide Range of Technology Blogs on CNET

The latest blog posts are listed on the bottom of the homepage and featured post titles are pulled and rotate through the homepage list keeping content absolutely up to minute. All CNET blogs are listed on the homepage making it simple to find what you’re looking for in a single step. The CNET homepage also contains special offers and promoted articles on the right and bottom edges of the page, but these don’t make the site feel cluttered. In fact, you almost don’t notice the extra content. The ads and boxes provide a visual border for the crisp white areas which are so effective at showcasing the deceptively simplistic lists of content. Read the rest of this entry »

Forbes.com does what many other news websites fail to accomplish. Forbes.com brings you a complete source of both online information, discussion and commentary on how that information affects the marketplace and you. Forbes.com is not only news, but thorough analysis of what that news means to the markets, the economy and industry and services. Very few websites offer this much information, and only one can claim to be the business information leader Forbes.com.

Overflowing with Information

Forbes.com is a site simply bursting with information. To view the complete homepage you must scroll and read quite a bit, but the sheer volume of insightful articles more than makes up for the required scrolling. At least the most important and most recent of the many articles are listed at the top of the homepage making navigation a bit easier. On the homepage, ads and the many other Forbes business lines compete for space with seemingly every article written on the site in the last month. The homepage is long and saturated with articles and content, but there is not a single wasted area.

The content of the site is divided into related areas of business with new stories being featured each week or sooner for each category. Within each grouping, the feature story and related stories are listed for easy navigation along with teasers for each. Content is divided into sections such as Business, Tech, Markets, Leadership and Personal Finance. The feature story of each section and related stories are provided in boxes on the home page, and again on the sub page for the section. Sub pages are easily accessed from a menu bar at the top of the page. Read the rest of this entry »

At first glance, the Environment Web Directory at www.webdirectory.com has something to be desired. The site is first a collection of links in manageable categories related to environmental issues. Underneath the neatly arranged categories, however, are a rather odd assortment of links with descriptions. Some are related still to the environment while others, such as payday loans, seem completely out of place. The extra collection of links are almost missing a title or category such as “Featured Links” to let the visitor know what it is he’s looking at.

At the very bottom of the homepage is yet another list of links only marginally related to the site purpose. These lists are site wide as well, appearing as a separate list even on the “Other Places to Search” page which does contain quality environmentally related links. If these questionable links were removed leaving only the bona fide categories and related searches, the Environment Wed Directory would be off to a much more authentic start as a quality directory. As it is, one can only hope that the links are providing the financial backing for the site allowing the owners to pull together a terrific collection of environmentally related links.

The Environment Web Directory fills an obvious niche as it seeks to collect authoritative links on various aspects of the environment. According to the information page (also flooded with unrelated links) the staff of the Environment Web Directory numbers twenty-three and comes together in the basement of a music store to search out and list the best environmental sites available.

In the actual directory portion of the homepage, the environmental links are broken down into the same kinds of categories present on most directories. Only with the focus on the environment topics for the categories have a decidedly greener feel. In fact the entire website is green – in every sense of the word. Categories range from weather to energy to pollution with an impressive collection of sub categories under each. Read the rest of this entry »

The sister site of DMOZ, Open-site.org, is an internet community project designed to accumulate and distribute trusted information with no charge. Open-site is a collection of articles on everything from dust mites to SEO with editors checking to ensure the content is of the quality required by the site as well as being free of slant or propaganda.

While this concept sounds a lot like the overwhelmingly popular Wikipedia, there are critical differences.
Open-site.org is set up on a CMS platform, not a wiki. The open-site framework is much closer to that of a true online encyclopedia, not a wiki. Open-site.org does make it clear that they are neither a dictionary nor an encyclopedia, however. The site considers itself a “informational, volunteer-based web-site”.

Of course, it may not be written by scientists and specialists in the field, but editors must be approved before they can add or change content and even then, that content must be approved by a senior editor. The public can’t modify information at all without applying and being approved as editors. The site is also organized by category, much like a print encyclopedia might be making it simple to browse from one category to another and find related information. Read the rest of this entry »

Update - 3rd July 2008

The tools aren’t functioning perfectly as of now but we are trying our best to have them back pretty soon.

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Sick of searching all over the net for the internet tool you need? Tired of trying to remember what site was good for domain look-up and which was decent at finding DNS records? And even when you find the site you used last time, the internet is getting so crowded with junk sites and shady webmasters you never know if the site is even trustworthy. That is, until now.

The Directory Journal has released a set of webmaster tools designed to bring its users the high-quality tools they need in a single location. These tools are fast, powerful, and best of all – come from a source you can trust and find easily. There is no need to bookmark several sites for several functions. Everything you need to build and explore the fundamentals your own website can be found in The Directory Journal tools.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Best of the Web, or BOTW as it is called in internet marketing circles, is the Internet’s oldest web directory. It pioneered the concept of awarding quality sites with recognition, and in fact this was its premise during the site’s initial six years.

Founded in 1994, Best of the Web was designed to showcase websites that were nominated and then voted as the best of a category. Brandon Plewe, the founder, included many categories, and the site was very successful. Party planning and housing issues were listed along side financial websites and online magazines. However after 1998, the site lay dormant for years until it was sold and refurbished in 2002.

Currently, BOTW is a general paid directory that allows only quality websites and removes spam. It is still as progressive today as it was in 1994, but there are many more directories available to compete with. Of course, there is not actually much competition at all from these other directories as Best of the Web is known to provide quality listings without the garbage that search engines often offer up. Read the rest of this entry »

The Starting Point Directory is another old directory that had a great beginning, a rough patch down the road, but is currently one of the most respected directories around. Starting Point is a human edited paid directory that lists premier listings from Google along with paid submissions from webmasters. The directory is careful to include only quality listing to maintain its reputation in the industry.

Starting Point was founded in 1995 by early online pioneer Frank Addante, where it was designed to be both a search engine and directory. The two still overlap today. Initially, the Starting Point Directory had a unique feature which had to do with voting links on the pages listed in the site. Websites with high numbers of votes from visitors would receive a hot site award and actually be profiled in the directory.

During the last few years of the twentieth century, the popularity of the site grew until it was one of the largest directories around. Yesmail.com purchased the website in 1997, but did little with it until the site was resold to Techlabs, Inc in 1999. Unfortunately, Techlabs did not have a use for or desire to refurbish the website, so Starting Point languished for a few years. Finally, Starting Point was sold to a new owner who brought back the original polish of the site in 2006. Read the rest of this entry »

Flash web designing means using flash to design the web sites. Flash is a multimedia format, a web technology that allows graphic movement and animation. Flash makes the designers more flexible and gives them grounds to create animations and develop interactive movies and images that can be kept in the website that makes the website more attractive and interactive.

If you want to give a big impression to your visitors and get them occupied in your site then getting flash in your website is the answer. However, it is important not to forget that your visitors visit your site for certain information. So it is important that the use of flash doesn’t distract your main intention. You should use a quality piece of flash. Make sure that the flash doesn’t contain anything that doesn’t not match with the other content of your website and it doesn’t give wrong impression about your website. The flash animation you use should not be long and tedious. They should give quick information and gone. Besides bigger flash need long time to download and you don’t want your visitors waiting for a flash animation to download. Read the rest of this entry »

Rackspace is the globally recognized web hosting company that is into the web hosting business since the year 1998 and ever since its introduction into the market it has grown itself by more than fifty percent every year. Today, Rackspace has the customer base with more than hundred thousand users across the globe operating with more than seven major data centers in several parts of the world. Rackspace has managed to earn a strong reputation amongst the masses by delivering corporate leveled web solutions and is successfully managing the businesses of all types and sizes. Rackspace employs the best available technological equipments for all of their customer needs and also presents a strong and effective support through the company’s award winning expert staff.

Rackspace has successfully crossed an important business milestone of surpassing hundred thousand users with its global messaging portfolio along with its suite of email and messaging tools. It is known for its integrated email accounts portfolio and delivers highly efficient four level enterprise messaging services. It can also provide email or messaging services in response to the specific customer demands. Read the rest of this entry »