I was looking for some insights on creating effective websites that I could use. I found this list from marketing guru Seth Godin:

Here are principles I think you can’t avoid:
1. Fire the committee. No great website in history has been conceived of by more than three people. Not one. This is a dealbreaker.
2. Change the interaction. What makes great websites great is that they are simultaneously effortless and new at the same time. That means that the site teaches you a new thing or new interaction or new connection, but you know how to use it right away. (Hey, if doing this were easy, everyone would do it.)
3. Less. Fewer words, fewer pages, less fine print.
4. What works, works. Theory is irrelevant.
5. Patience. Some sites test great and work great from the start. (Great if you can find one). Others need people to use them and adjust to them. At some point, your gut tells you to launch. Then stick with it, despite the critics, as you gain traction.
6. Measure. If you’re not improving, if the yield is negative… kill it.
7. Insight is good, clever is bad. Many websites say, “look at me.” Your goal ought to be to say, “here’s what you were looking for.”
8. If you hire a professional: hire a great one. The best one. Let her do her job. 10 mediocre website consultants working in perfect harmony can’t do the work of one rock star.
9. One voice, one vision.
10. Don’t settle.

It seems I have a long way to go…

It seems there are some visualization problems with my CSS and IE6.0. I had to remove one Flickr photo as a quick fix. I will try to find a solution in the next few days.

Just finished the update and all seems working fine. I was a bit scared, but I must say the process was really simple and smooth.

A more serious note from BlogCatalog: Thousands of bloggers from around the world are joining together this Thursday, September 27th ith a single message: Stop Abuse!

Brian Gilley of Seoposition.com has posted a very useful list of “The Top 15 Free SEO Tools”. If you are into search engine optimization, which you should if you have a website, this is a list worth checking (you can find also some more useful or different tools suggested in the comments).