Giving out professional advice

When people come up to me at parties and say "I want to you look at my website and tell me what you think," I view it as an opportunity to educate them about the costs/benefits of fussing with websites. Bottom line: As long as your site isn't fluorescent pink type on a bright green background (a la MySpace) and doesn't greet unwary visitors with loud music or disconcerting pictures of your recent medical procedure, you're likely on the right track. If you'd like to make improvements, your best bet is to find a website of the same genre (blog, small business, family site, etc.) that you like, and then move your design in that direction.

You'd be surprised how much business I get from people who hear me handling these inquiries at social events.

My friend the Samurai Radiologist gets requests for professional advice all the time, of course, most of them from people with far more urgent concerns than the appearance of their websites. He's devised some cutting-edge on-the-spot treatments using his handy iPhone.