Think About Your Customers

When you design a website, think about your visitors and how they going to use your website. Too often, webmasters do not put themselves in the position of the people who are going to use their websites.

Here's an example. The BBS website has two editions: English and Dzongkha. Toward the top of each page there are two links that allow you to switch editions.

Say a visitor speaks only English, but happens to land on a Dzongkha news page. Where does she click to escape into the English site? Everything's in Dzongkha, even the link to the English edition. That's not a good idea.

Here is the website as it looks today:

Uh? What do I  click now?

Here is a more usable version. Notice the difference?

Phew...

The same issue also exists in the English version. There's a link to the Dzongkha edition, but it's in English.

The Bhutan Portal is down. Why?

Another one bites the dust: DPT's website hacked

We've recently blogged about Bhutanese websites that have been secretly hacked . Now Druk Phuensum Tshogpa's website was broken into as well, and probably by the same hackers.

Hackers enjoy a free ride using RGoB, OAG, TCC, and other Bhutanese websites

It is not a secret that many websites in Bhutan are prone to hacking. Some hackers just enjoy showing off their abilities, and leave a noticeable trace on the website - perhaps a militant message accompanied by loud and scary music. Other hackers are more subtle. They take advantage of a vulnerable website by adding or changing its content in a way that is beneficial to them, but is not easy to detect by a casual visitor.

Case in point: The main portal of the Royal Government of Bhutan, www.bhutan.gov.bt. The portal has a pretty good page ranking by Google (6 out of 10). When a website with a good ranking has links to other websites, Google sees these links as recommendations, and so it improves the ranking of the linked sites.

Apparently, hackers were eager to take advantage of RGoB's ranking. So what did they do? They silently broke into the website and changed the content of pages to include links to websites that they wish to promote.

Take a look at the following source code snippet from RGoB's home page (by the way, if you want to view the source code of any web page, open that page in Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox, then click Ctrl-U. If you are using Internet Explorer, click on View, then Source).

Hackers are taking advantage of RGoB's portal

As you can see, there are some strange links in this page (that's the web addresses starting with http://). Just by looking at the domain names, it is apparent that these links point to websites that are - well, how to put it gently - not very "family-friendly". And there are many more similar links in this page, as well as on many other pages in the RGoB portal. The hackers, by the way, cleverly made sure that these links are readable by search engines, such as Google, but are not visible to humans (that's the style="display:none" part). So just by browsing the page you will not see anything special.

Here is a partial list of other Bhutanese websites that are currently being used in a similar manner, and serving as hosts to parasite links. All these hidden links, by the way, point to Turkish websites.

• Office of the Attorney General
• Thimphu City Corporation
• Bhutan Climate Summit
• BCCI
• National Soil Services Centre
• Local Developent Learning Intitute
• Department of Trade
• Bajothang HSS
• Yangchenphug HSS
• Agriculture Marketing and Enterprise Promotion Program

Bhutanese websites continue to be highly vulnerable to outside attacks. And as more and more websites, databases, and other systems are coming online, the potential harm that can be caused by malicious hackers increases.

Hat tip to our reader Anonymuse , who provided the impetus for this post.

Where are the T & C?

The DrukAir website is running an online campaign for the "Special Promotional fares" on its new PBH-SIN route.

These special fares often comes with a long list of Terms and Conditions (T & C). There might be specific embargo (blackout) dates, minimum/maximum length of travel, requirement for a return ticket, ticket validity period, maximum number of sectors, specific classes, specific payment requirements, minimum/maximum of passengers, etc.

Unfortunately, the website doesn't list the T & C. To find out what they are, you will need to walk into the Druk Air office (or call).

Why?

Business Website (K2, #46)

Question of the Week 
I am starting a business and I need a website, so what are my options?
-- Sompel Tashi, Thimphu

Answer
Dear Sompel,

Your options depend on the type of business you have in mind. For a small, local business, a Facebook page often suffices. It is simple to create and maintain, totally free, and offers good exposure as most Internet users in Bhutan are active on Facebook. The page can include basic information such as opening hours and phone numbers as well as photos and events. By “Like”ing your page, users will get your updates on their news feed. Examples of local businesses using Facebook pages are Radio Valley, the Folk Heritage Restaurant, and Junction Bookstore. To start, go to facebook.com/pages and click “Learn more about Pages” or “create your own”. Once you have enough fans, visit facebook.com/username to claim your own ‘vanity’ Facebook address (such as facebook.com/TheMomoFactory).

If your business is facing customers outside Bhutan, or you need more than what Facebook has to offer, you will need a “real” website. There are some fantastic, free and secure services that will host as well as help you build and update your website. Examples are Google Sites (sites.google.com), Yola (yola.com), Wix (wix.com) and WordPress (WordPress.com). No IT degree is necessary to use these services, although it usually helps to sport some gusto and computer savviness. To compare the various offerings, visit goo.gl/1bwDk.

Tip of the Week

Apple’s newly announced iPhone 5 uses a nano-SIM card, which is smaller and thinner than the micro-SIM used by the iPhone 4, which in turn is smaller - but not thinner - than the full-size SIM sold by B-Mobile and TashiCell.

If you are fantasizing about using an iPhone 5 in Bhutan, wait until it is confirmed that a standard SIM can be cut down to fit the tiny iPhone 5 socket. 

There is also a possibility that our local mobile operators will procure nano-SIMs. For updates on using the iPhone 5 in Bhutan, check out my blog at ThimphuTech.com

If you are not comfortable with taking charge of your own website, or you just don't have the time or the will, you will need to hire the services of a web developer. Initial costs can be quite high, and as web sites need constant updating and patching, consider also a maintenance contract. Make sure you hire someone reliable; many businesses in Bhutan have had a disappointing to disastrous experience due to hiring unreliable web developers. It is therefore important to insist on recommendations, and make sure you talk to past clients.

Good luck with your new venture!

---

Readers are encouraged to submit technology-related questions to boaz@thimphutech.com

Upcoming on K2: What are my website options?

Question of the Week

I am starting a business and I need a website, so what are my options?
-- Sompel Tashi, Thimphu

For the answer, check out the "Ask Boaz" column in the upcoming issue of Kuensel's K2 weekend magazine.

Domains, hosting, and websites (K2 #45)

Question of the Week 
I created a website using Google Sites which I want to use with my own domain. I need a reliable hosting company. Can you recommend one?

— Harilal, Thimphu

Answer
 Dear Harilal,

Google Sites, websites, domain names, hosting… Hold your yaks! Let’s get things in order. First, let us talk about the difference between websites, domains, and hosting. A website is a collection of files holding the content (text, photos, etc.) which is displayed to the user. These files need to be stored somewhere. They are stored on a server, which can be either owned by you, or - if you don’t want the headache involved in maintaining a server - by a hosting company.

Whenever a user accesses the website, the server delivers the information back to the user. Like all computers on the Internet, the server has a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address, which is a sequence of numbers. For example, the IP address of BBS’s server is 202.144.155.2. If you want to read the news from BBS, just enter 202.144.155.2 in your browser’s address bar and click Enter. Try it!

Most people are not very good at remembering sequences of numbers such as 202.144.155.2. That’s where domain names become useful. Domain names (like www.bbs.bt) are easier for people to remember. When you use a domain name, your browser automatically translates it into an IP address. Domain names are not free, however. They need to be purchased from a domain name registrar, a company that registers domain names. Check the table to see annual prices for domains. Naturally, you can only buy domains that are not already taken.

Domain type	Yearly fee	Registrar
Second level .bt domain, such as harilal.bt	Nu 1000	www.nic.bt (DrukNet)
Third level .bt domain, such as harilal.com.bt or harilal.org.bt	Nu 500	www.nic.bt (DrukNet)
Other (non-.bt) domains, such as harilal.com, harilal.info, harilal.me	US$4-$20	Name.com, GoDaddy.com, 1and1.com, and plenty of others

Many companies (for example, DrukNet) double as hosting companies and domain name registrars. It is often convenient to use the same company for both, but it is not mandatory. For example, you can buy a domain name from DrukNet, but your hosting company can be in India. Or you can buy a domain name from a US-based registrar, but the server can actually be located in your Thimphu flat.
Back to your original question: Google Sites is a service from Google that allows anyone to build a website with a few clicks, and Google also hosts that website for free - so your search for a reliable hosting company is over! The only missing piece is your own domain name. Just hop over to the DrukNet office and you can buy one in a jiffy.

Upcoming Workshop: "Create Effective and Secure Websites"

Why pay someone Nu 25,000 for a website, when you can build a super website for free? If you can surf the Internet and use Facebook, you can also build websites.

Following the success of the first "Build a Website" workshop, we are pleased to offer another opportunity to learn how to easily build free, media-rich websites. No computer degree necessary.

In this 3-day, hands-on workshop you will create your own free website using Google Sites. Instructed by Mr. Boaz Shmueli of the Rigsum Institute, the workshop will take place in Thimphu on August 1-3, 2012.

The workshop is intended for:

• Tiny, small and medium-sized businesses and organizations
• Educational institutions
• Entrepreneurs
• Tour operators
• Webmasters
• Anyone wishing to expand his or her knowledge

For full details, including online registration, click here.

MoLHR website down

This morning I discovered that www.molhr.gov.bt is down. Although frustrating for users of eGov services, these things happen, and a quick fix would be expected.

The catch is that a fix won't happen unless the website admin is aware that there is a problem. There are various services that provide alerts and notifications when your website is down. Some will even notify you by a tweet or SMS (for example, the free DingItsUp service, although SMS is unavailable in Bhutan).

We alerted the IT dept at MOLHR, so hopefully the website will be up and running soon.

Weather forecasts in the media: hot or cold?

Several local newspapers have weather forecasts in their online and print versions. While forecasts from different sources can differ (after all, these are uncertain forecasts), I found a few perplexing issues when examining forecasts from the two oldest papers: Kuensel and Bhutan Observer.

Kuensel takes a safety measure of giving high/low temperature and outlook forecasts only for "today". The first perplexing fact is the discrepancy between the print and online forecasts. Here's an example from today:

Kuensel's weather forecast. Left: print edition. Right: Kuenselonline.com (accessed 27 April, 2012, 4pm)

Turns out that the Kuensel website gets updated in the evening, so in fact their website does "back-casting" of yesterday's weather... The next strange discrepancy is between the names of the Dzongkhags as they appear in print and online (not to mention the different ordering). Third, I couldn't find the source for the forecasts. Where are they coming from? Finally, it would be helpful if the graphics in both modes used the same icons, order of columns, column names, and design.

Bhutan Observer has a Weekly Weather corner in its print and online editions. It offers more detail than Kuensel in terms of listing all the 20 Dzongkhags and provides forecasts for an entire week. However, unlike Kuensel which also reports high/low temperature forecasts, BO's graphic table tells us only the "outlook", that is, whether a day is likely to be of one of six types: mostly sunny skies, possibility of rain, cloudy, partly cloudy, partly sunny, or partly cloudy chances of snow/sleet. This choice of information is a bit unusual. I can see how it is useful for determining whether an umbrella, hat or boots are needed. It can also help guess the chances of flights landing in Paro.

And now to the data presentation: Is it easy to quickly figure out the weather information that a reader would be interested in? Here are some questions that a reader might ask:

Weekly corner from Bhutan Observer's website

1. What is the forecast for Tuesday in Chukha?
2. How many different weather outlooks across Bhutan in the coming week?
3. How many "partly sunny" days anywhere in Bhutan? (good for trekking?)

In trying to answer these questions you probably noticed a few challenges:

• Dzongkhag names are not listed alphabetically! With 20 names, searching for Chukha takes quite some time. 
• Distinguishing between the icon images is difficult because they seem similar. A simple trick that would have made it much easier on our eye is using different colours. On the website there is no reason to use greyscale. And if colour-printing is too expensive, then using a more distinctive greyscale can work.
• Given that there are only two different icons in this week's table, do we really need to see all six possibilities in the bottom legend? Removing unused icons from the legend would make the reader's task much easier.

Lastly, one should always ask about the data source. Here the source is listed clearly at the top as "Contributed by the Metrological Department of Bhutan". I suppose this is the Hydro-Meterological Services Division at the Department of Energy?

Search Engine Optimization (K2 #35)

Question of the Week

I am not getting many visitors to the website of my travel agency. Why is that la?
-- Dorji

Answer

Dear Dorji,

There are hundreds of tour operators' websites in Bhutan. And their number is growing fast! Websites are very important for travel agents, and a good website means increased web traffic and more customers. But what makes a "good" website?

Foreigners will often start their travel planning by searching the Internet. They might search the Internet for "bhutan travel agent" or "paro mask dance festival dates". If your website is properly done and appears in the first page of Google's search results, your website will get more traffic, increasing the chances that these visitors will become customers.

The art and science of creating websites that are highly-ranked by search engines (such as Google and Bing) is called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Few webmasters in Bhutan are familiar with SEO. Most tour operators' websites (and also other Bhutanese websites) that I run into are not optimized for search engines. In addition to not being search-engine-friendly, many of the websites are also not user-friendly.

Here are three common website mistakes. Perhaps your website suffers from any of these? If so, try applying the suggested remedies. Tashi delek!

Mistake #1: Linking to other websites

OK, so you got a visitor to your website. Why include links that will cause your visitors to leave your website and check other sites, such as BBS, Kuensel, Druk Air, etc.? Even worse, why link your website to TCB's website, where the directory of all other tour operators, with their websites, is available? You are basically telling your visitor: Go away.

Remedy: Remove all external links unless absolutely necessary.

Mistake #2: Copying content from other websites

In Bhutan, it is common practice to create travel websites where the content has been shamelessly copied from other websites, usually other tour operators' websites. Big mistake! Google doesn't like copycat websites, and will penalize your website for it. And when a user searches the Internet, since your website's content is similar to others, you are basically competing with all other identical websites, lowering your chances of being displayed in Google's search results (in addition lowering your copyright karma).

Remedy: Use original content only.

Mistake #3: Being creative instead of effective

Yellow text on a green background, 21 different fonts, flashing banners, sliding photos... Webmasters like to exercise their creativity, but often at the expense of the website's effectiveness. Visiting some of the more "creative" websites is similar to watching NDTV: too loud, too busy, and totally ineffective. When visitors are blasted by visual noise, they will soon become impatient and look for information somewhere else.

Remedy: Make your website easy on the eyes. Take an example from Google's homepage.

Coming soon: Three common mistakes that plague websites of tour operators in Bhutan

A tour operator recently complained to me that his website is not getting much traffic. Now, there are hundreds of tour operators' websites in Bhutan. And their number is growing fast! Websites are very important for travel agents, and a good website means increased web traffic and more customers. But what makes a "good" website?

In the upcoming Kuensel K2 tech column on Saturday, I will list three common mistakes that afflict websites of Bhutanese travel agents. If you're a tour operator, getting your website in shape can improve its search engine rankings.

I expand on these (and other) issues in the "Building Effective and Secure Websites" workshop.

Take charge of your website

www.women.bt

I recently taught two batches of Rigsum's "Creating Websites" course. I have designed this fun, hands-on, two-day workshop in order to help individuals and organization create effective, secure and easy-to-update websites using a user-friendly technology called Google Sites.

I started thinking about offering this training after hearing plenty of "website horror stories" in Bhutan: acquaintances told me about webmasters who took their money and disappeared on them, about stale websites that are all but impossible to update, ridiculously expensive hosting, hacked websites, and more. You might have heard similar stories yourself.

After completing my course, participants are able to create their own efficient, clean, and search-engine-optimized website. They save the hassle (and money) involved in hiring a webmaster. Participants are able to update the website themselves whenever they wish. Their webpages are automatically backed up online, so they never have to worry about losing their data. Moreover, hosting is free - an additional savings of at least Nu 4000 a year.

Participants in my workshops include people from different sectors: government, corporate and private. Here are two examples:

• Ms. Kesang Chuki Dorjee (KCD Productions) decided she had enough trouble with her previous website. Following the workshop, she created the beautiful Inspiring Bhutanese Women website.
• Mr. Tashi Wangyel created GNH Builders, a website for his construction company. Customers are now able to find everything they need to know abotu GNH Builders, including forms, work progress etc.

www.drukschool.com

Other organizations in Bhutan using this technology include Druk School and our own Rigsum Institute, as well as internal DHI websites.

I will be offering this workshop again on April 19-20, 2012. Seats are limited. You can find complete information on the workshop page.

Lots of (Imaginary) New @DrukAir Flights to Kolkata

With the aim of 100,000 tourists visiting the country this year, and double that five years from now, a major requirement is increasing the capacity of flights to/from the country. I was glad to read about Druk Air's announcement of additional flights on their website. I checked the schedule of flights to Kolkata on the Druk Air website and at first site it seemed too good to be true: flights every day except Friday!

I then tried booking the Wednesday flight on May 16, 2012 and got a catch-22 error message:

So is there a Wednesday flight or not? If some of these flights don't exist, why not post a monthly schedule with exact dates when real flights take off? Druk Air might want to consider some usability testing of their website if it is to be used for online booking by simple people like us.

Or maybe this is the remainder of yesterday's April Fools' day prank?

(Don't) Contact Us by Email

Ministry of Education prefers face-to-face communication

Websites of organizations are an important tool for communicating with their audience. The "Contact Us" webpage (or the bottom margin of the homepage) allows website visitors to further communicate with the organization behind the website. For those surfing the web, it is often very convenient to send an email. Hence, including a contact email address is a must.
Quite a few websites in Bhutan lack contact emails: MOIC, MOH and NSB have Contact Us pages that only list a postal mailing address, phone and fax numbers. NEC lists the same at the bottom of their homepage. For Kunesel, I could not find any contact information beyond a form to fill. The Ministry of Education only gives a map (in the Organizational Chart page).

The choice of email address to use for "contact us" purposes should be carefully considered. Typical email addresses are info@organization-name.com, contact@organization-name.org, etc. For example, the Druk Air website uses reservationparo@drukair.com.bt, Business Bhutan lists editor@businessbhutan.bt, and BOB uses customer.care@bob.bt. Such email addresses allow channeling emails to the right person in the organization.

What if an organization uses email addresses of individuals in the organization for "contact us" purposes? For example, the National Statistics Bureau GIS project page requests "Please support us by reporting any broken links to pema@nsb.gov.bt." I tried this email address and unfortunately it bounced. For whatever reason, this email address is no longer functional (maybe Pema left NSB, maybe s/he is no longer the webmaster, perhaps his/her email address changed, and so on). The JDWNRH Contact Us page lists ngawangtenzin@jdwnrh.gov.bt as the main Hospital Staff contact address, and the webmaster address is purna@jdwnrh.gov.bt. If and when new people staff these roles, the website will require updating. Also, records of emails sent to these addresses will be lost.

Live from the field: Visa card @ BOB ATMs?

"I'm really good at spitting out paper slips!"

On Dec 15, 2010 BOB launched their MasterCard service, where cash (in Nu.) can be withdrawn from its ATM machines using a MasterCard. BOB's website now boasts an announcement regarding Visa as well. Here is what I found:

What Happened to Bhutan Today's Website?

I've been trying to browse Bhutan Today's website (http://www.bhutantoday.bt), but it appears to be down.