Microsys Blog

A bit of an unusual post by me, but I want to share my experiences regarding this topic.

About 7 years ago I had problems with my eyes that had grown so big I was unable to work in front of a computer screen more than 10 minutes at a time. My eyes would simply explode and all the white in them would become red. Then that happened my eyes would also become sore. It had become a vicious circle and at the time many eyes doctors were clueless and had failed to read up on common symptoms among IT people who work many hours each day behind a computer. Luckily I finally found an eye doctor that was of some help, and managed through experimentation to get my red eyes problem under control.

In the years following I tried a number of things. Some of these worked wonders. This is my own “as-is” personal list of tips and tricks to reduce problems with red and sore eyes:

• Consult with an eye doctor if you experience problems with red eyes.
• Get tear eye drops with no preservation additions. Usually that means one day dosis containers.
• Get eyedrops against allergy, again unpreserved like the tear drops.
• Make sure you do not expose you eyes to direct lighting. Experiment with slightly dimmed soft whole-room lighting.
• Turn down contrast and light on computer screen.
• Avoid reflections. Check your monitor, windows, glass frames etc. Avoid, dim and defocus all light reflection sources as much as possible.
• Remember to blink with your eyes. Studies have shown those that work and read much at computer screens blink less, which in return dries the eyes.
• Be aware of the room temperature. Computers can warm small rooms very quickly, and this can really worsen eye irritation.
• Force some pauses into your work. Chat with colleagues, sort papers or whatever.
• Use modern “flat screen” TFT monitors. Do not use one that reflects light!

Above are things that helped me the most. In addition you can also:

• Get your eyesight checked. Glasses can help reduce eyestrain “work stress” on eye muscles.
• Try massage and relax the muscles around your eyes once in a while.
• Get checked for obvious allergies. Whether it is pollen or something else.

Earlier today I wrote an article with a comparison of website sitemaps. The sitemap types explained include:

• Text file sitemaps.
• HTML and XHTML sitemaps.
• RSS sitemaps – RSS feed sitemaps are often used by blogs.
• ROR sitemaps – really RSS feed sitemaps with some custom extensions.
• XML sitemaps – also called Google Sitemaps and XML Sitemaps Protocol.

In my comparison of different site map kinds, I also explain:

• Background information and history
• Level of support by search engines
• Common and best usage tips and tricks
• Complete sitemap file examples

Have you ever wondered if ROR is actual RSS + some extensions? And howcome XHTML, ROR, RSS and XML sitemaps protocol all use XML, but still result in 3½ different sitemaps? Then read my article about website sitemap differences today!

I have recently written an article about crawling of websites which explains and shows how to solve many common crawling problems.

Things covered include:

• Having multiple domains with mirrored and/or distributed content.
• Consistent usage of www (or not) in front of domain names.
• Usage of Javascript for navigation.
• Broken links and redirects.

And many other things, about 10 in total, that can result in problems for a website crawler. The article focuses on solving all website crawl and scan problems using A1 Sitemap Generator. For those who have websites where crawler problems can not be solved, the article also shows how you can still create complete HTML and XML sitemaps for your website by configuring the sitemap creator program.

Read the article and make your website crawlable by search engines now!