My initial approach was to use the is_home() conditional tag from the WordPress Codex. Problem with this method was whenever you browsed through the previous 10 entries using the navigation links on the home page the next 10 articles would be displayed in the same manor as the first 10; The top article would show as a full post while the next 9 would show excerpt only, even tho the top article is not always the latest article published.

So what I wanted to achieve was, when a user lands on my homepage they would see the latest article’s full content and in reverse chronological order and 9 more posts showing the excerpt only. If the user clicked the navigation links (previous 10 entries) I wanted the next 10 entries to show their excerpt’s only without a full post at the top.

After thinking about it for a couple minutes there was a simple solution by adding a simple counter to my while loop and evaluating what number post (of 10) was being returned and returning 2 different results.

If the count is at 0 (1st time through the loop) and we are on the the homepage then return the_content rather then just the_excerpt:

<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
    <?php static $ctr = 0;
        if ($ctr == "5" && is_home()) { break; }
  else { ?>
  <div class="post">
      <h4><a href="<?php the_permalink(); ?>" title="Permalink to &quot;<?php the_title(); ?>&quot;"><?php the_title(); ?></a></h4>
      <p class="meta"><?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?> | <?php the_category(', ') ?><span class="alignright bubble"><?php comments_popup_link('0', '1', '%'); ?></span></p>
      <div class="entry">
                <?php if ($ctr == "0" && is_home() && !is_paged()) { the_content("Continue Reading..."); }  else if { ?>
          <?php the_excerpt('Read the rest of this entry &raquo;'); } ?>
            </div>
        </div>
    <?php $ctr++; } ?>
<?php endwhile; ?>

This is a very basic example of what you can do with this, you can also use this to display the number of posts to display within your loop, rather than the default “10″, but be creative and and experiment with this to make your latest WordPress post stand out from the previous entries anywhere you might be listing your posts.

Domain, Page Titles & Permalinks

If you haven’t decided on a domain yet, keep in mind that having your keywords inside your domain is very good for SEO. For example if I’m a photographer living in New York city and would like to rank well for the term: nyc photography then having the domain name http://www.nycphotography.com would be perfect. Unfortunately many if not every popular/competitive term’s .com has already been registered, alternatively we can use the keywords within the domain by adding in other words (IE. qualitynycphotography.com) or use other available extensions than .com.

If you already have a domain you’ve been using or just want to stick with your business or own name within the domain for your website, then what I recommend is to build an interior page using your keywords as the permalink. For example on my own site I made the interior page http://michaelciccarelli.com/las-vegas-web-design/ since I would like to rank for the search term las vegas web design.

Since I use WordPress to power my websites/blogs there is a plugin that controls the Page Title and permalink of each page on your site called All In One SEO Pack. This plugin dynamically writes the Page Titles and permalink for each post/page your publish based on the title you assign to it within the Post/Page Editor.

Use of Headers (H1 tags)

If you’ve used the seo-browser tool I mentioned above you should now have a good understanding of what a “bare-bone” version of your website minus all images and styling looks to a robot/spider, who cannot see these items. The only significant different in the appearance of your content would be the different sizes in type. Although the report isn’t using any styling H1 tags are still the largest text seen and most prominent, while other headers, ordered lists, paragraphs and other basic text styling is still some-what supported.

Since H1 tags are viewed as ‘more important’ than the other content on your page to the bots, the text within your H1 tags should most definitely contain your desired keywords. This way you know your website is being associated in some way with your desired keywords and actually related to the search term. I like to have an H1 tag on each website I make containing the keywords I am targeting, followed by another heading (h2 or h3) containing a brief paragraph describing what the website is about and to use more keywords.

Maintaining your design while bettering it’s search engine presence.

If you’re design doesn’t call for it to have type displayed at the top of your website there are many styling tricks you can use so the mentioned headers and content still load first on your site while it might not appear so for the end-user. Some methods I’ve used in the past are:

The use of the Absolute position
Using relative and absolute positioning within your stylesheet gives you the ability to set the order of items within the code of your website to load an item first on the page but have it displayed at the bottom of your site, when loaded within a browser. The benefit of this is to maintain the look and design of your website while ensuring the important content is rendered first when spiders and bots crawl your page for search engines.

Javacript that will give the user ability to toggle between the visibility of content
Using a pretty simple jQuery drawer script you can include content to be loaded at the very top of your page, but not visible to a user browsing your site with a javascript enabled browser. This way the user has the option of clicking an “about us” link somewhere in the header that will display the once hidden content from the site. Since bots and spiders do not support javascript the content is not hidden from them and since the content is loaded at the top of the page this content is consider important and assuming your keywords are included should be very beneficial for SEO.

Anchor Text

Robots tend to look at hyperlinks as prominent content and from my experience I know it is important to use proper anchor text and populate the title tag. The following is a good example of a hyperlink you should have on each page of your website (and others) if you are trying to rank for the keywords las vegas photography:

<a href="http://somelasvegasphotograper.com" title="Las Vegas Photography">Las Vegas Photography</a>

Remember to use ALT and TITLE tags

Bots and spiders cannot read images therefor if you’re using images to display titles and headers on your site, it’s important to use the ALT and TITLE tags to images, so the bots know what the image is. Here’s an example of how a banner image, that includes the text We provide quality graphic design services, should be included on your page (so bots can pick up on what message the image is suppose to give):

<img src="http://yourdomain.com/banner.jpg" alt="We provide quality graphic design services" title="Graphic design services" />

Conclusion

In brief, some very basic optimizing can be done by simply including your keywords throughout the content of your website pages. Although you should not completely saturate your website with your keywords, since search engines may penalize you if they think you are trying to manipulate the bots, however a strong presence of your keywords can be proven very beneficial to your page rank.

@Font-face

The @font-face rule will allow you to embed a font on your server, just as you would link to images within a stylesheet. The biggest problem with @font-face, besides the issue of browser compatibility, is that most font licenses do not allow you to serve the fonts over the web. Being a web designer and all, I felt achieving identical cross-platform appearance throughout my site was important, so I decided not to use this method and to try something else.

Web Fonts Embedding Support Matrix

Installation of @font-face

1. First you need to embed the font of your choice using the following CSS syntax:

@font-face {font-family: "Axel";src: url("font/Axel-Regular.ttf") format("TrueType");}
@font-face {font-family: "Axel";font-weight: bold;src: url("font/Axel-Bold.ttf") format("TrueType");}
@font-face {font-family: "AxelSC";src: url("font/AxelSC-Regular.ttf") format("TrueType");}
@font-face {font-family: "AxelSC";font-weight: bold;src: url("font/AxelSC-Bold.ttf") format("TrueType");}

2. Next you will reference the font to be used and declare the use of alternative fonts.

h1,h2,h3,h4,h5 {font-family: AxelSC,Georgia,Times,'Times New Roman',serif;font-weight: normal;color: #333;line-height: 22px;}

Following those small steps above you’re website’s headings (h1,h2,etc.) will all use the font specified and embedded on the server, regardless of the fonts installed on the users computer. Of course as I already mentioned this method just simply is not support by all browsers, so I decided to take a different approach.

Cufon

Cufon is basically a new and improved version of Typeface.js, with a focus on faster and easier implementation. Cufon loads very fast, since it is all JS and nothing more and the only real problem with it is that the font cannot be selected. Since I was only really interested in using rich typography on my headings and not the main content of my site, i decided this was the best solution for me. If you run a commercial website, I wouldn’t recommend using Cufon, since as far as I know it violates EULA and copyrights due the fonts being embedded.

Installation

Here is a very good tutorial on how to get Cufon installed on your site: http://net.tutsplus.com/videos/screencasts/the-easiest-way-to-use-any-font-you-wish/

Following the article above I was able to get Cufon up and running on my site within 30 minutes or so and am pleasantly surprised with it’s results on all platforms I’ve tested in.

Conclusion

Until recently, web designers were limited to working with the fonts of their end-users computer. Image replacement tricks and clever technologies such as sIFR have opened up new possibilities, but none of these are terribly easy to work with. We’ve recently made good progress in what is possible for type on the web because of the growing support for CSS 3′s @font-face property, as well as new technologies like Cufón and Typekit.

• Create custom ring tones using your own .MP3s
• Synchronize your iPhone with multiple iTunes Librarys (computers)

Creating Custom Ring Tones with iTunes only

Using the instructions in this article I can now take any DRM free music (MP3s) from my computer and convert them into perfect quality ring tones without paying iTunes $1. Not that I’m cheap or anything but it’s nice to be able to create ring tones from any song you’d like and not be limited to the few songs iTunes offers as ring tones.

In short what your doing is clipping the song down to 30 seconds or less, converting the .MP3 into iTune’s AAC format (.m4a) then renaming the file extension .m4r so iTunes recognizes the media as a ring tone. It’s really quite simple, and only takes a couple of minutes.

Synchronizing your iPhone with multiple iTunes Libraries/Computers

In my opinion this should be an option to any iPhone owner. I understand why Apple designed it this way, so you can’t just plug in your iPhone to any library and steal other peoples music, but what if you have 2 computers of your own, both sharing a library on an external HD on your own network? I’m sure there are a ton of other scenarios where people would want to synchronize their iPhones with multiple PCs and not lose the data from their device.

Thanks to this article I can now sync all my Contacts and iCal with my Macbook, while I control which music I want on my iPhone using my desktop PC. Basically I changed the library ID on my PC to match the library ID of my Macbook so iTunes thinks it’s the same library each time I synchronize. Just be careful with these steps, you could very easily mess things up.

Anyways I recently found a simple and free solution to Synchronize my Blackberry user data with OS X’s iCal, Address Book and StickiesNotes. It’s called Pocketmac.

A quick tutorial

If you need me to hold your hand through the steps
 

My setup

• Blackberry 8830 Word Edition (Blackberry OS 4.2) running BIS (not Enterprise Server)
• PocketMac 1.0.9
• Mac OS X 10.5.4 Leopard powered MacBook Pro
• iCal, Address Book and StickiesNotes

1. First Download: Pocketmac and install it (you will need to reboot).
2. Open up Pocketmac and attach your Blackberry device via USB to your Mac.
3. Run through each tab representing your Blackberry user data (Contacts, Calender etc.) and check the desired OS X application you wish to sync with.
4. Once you got everything checked, proceed to the giant green “Sync” button to the top right and click.
5. That should do it, give it a few minutes to synchronize everything, and then confirm all of your user data made it from your Blackberry to your designated OS X app.

and heres a little doodle for the lazy, non-readers…

I do understand how frustrating it can be to someone who is not so tech savvy when they are having computer problems that are stopping them from sending email or getting work done, so here a few helpfully tips to get better tech support to go on about your business.

Before you pick up the phone

Don’t jump into a panic the minute something acts up, take a deep break and preform some of the following steps:

• Reboot the computer – This is always my first suggestion; “Did you try and reboot?” and 5/10 times it corrects the problem. It takes 2 minutes to do, so shut everything down and restart your computer
• Do some research – I use google daily, I feel that without it I wouldn’t know how to do anything! So give it a try your self. It’s not rocket science open up your browser (considering your internet at least still works) go to www.google.com and type plain english what your trying to accomplish. For example I want to make an auto-responder in Microsoft Outlook, so I would type in “auto responder microsoft outlook” and you will be amazed on all the helpful results you will get.
• Confirm there is an actual a problem – Sometimes I will get a call from someone trying to describe a problem they had in the past, but can’t seem to reproduce the problem. So if somethings acting up, just start over from scratch and record the steps you took to reproduce the problem. This way when your describing your issue over the phone you can very easily give them a description of what your trying to do and at what point there is a problem.

While your on the phone

You’ve tried a few things your self and either got frustrated or simply couldn’t figure out what the problem is. So you’ve proceeded to make in the call for support. Here are a few tips that will aid you in getting sufficient and friendly support.

• Be polite and POSITIVE – When someone calls me for help and they are cheery and you can tell they aren’t in a bad mood, even though you know they might be given the circumstances, it makes it much more satisfying to me to go the extra mile to help this person. So be polite, friendly even. Ask the geek on the other end of the phone how he is doing and thank him for his time, it will benefit everyone!
• Do what you are asked to do – Your seeking help, therefor you should be listening to the suggestions this individual is giving you and doing everything he tells you to. Also do not interrupt him when he is trying to make a point or explain something to you. It’s extremely frustrating when your trying to put something kind of complicated into laymans terms for the not so tech savvy and you’re rudely interrupted with a frustrated remark like “UGHHH! I HATE THIS”.
• Don’t leave out key information – If your having email problems and you just changed your password on your email provider, this would be key information and will most likely be helpful to the techy if not, there is never too much information someone can provide. You’re also going to want to me completely honest. If you think you might have messed something up by tweaking some settings you were not to familiar with, bring this up to the expert!

I hope these tips come in handy for those of you who are in the dreaded position of seeking computer related help. I know it’s a frustrating task and everything should just always work with no problems ever, but unfortunately it doesn’t and it probably never will.

After doing some research, apparently to complete a software upgrade on most iPods you have to plug your iPod into the wall charger. This is so the iPod doesn’t die mid-firmware flash, in result turning your iPod into nothing but an expensive paperweight. Probably a good call on Apple’s part, but what if you don’t have a wall charger handy? In most cases you would be out of luck.

Besides the obvious (borrowing a wall adapter) there is a surprisingly simple solution. If you’ve ever looked closely at a FireWire or USB cable you’ll notice that two of the pins stick out a little farther than the rest. Those are the pins that carry the electricity to charge the iPods while the other prongs are used for data transfer (right?).

The Fix:
Trick is if you plug in the USB or FirmWire (while the other end is connected to the iPod) into the computer just a little bit so only the two charging pins touch the accompanying pins on the computer, you should be able to fool the iPod into thinking it’s a wall charger. The firmware will update, and you’ll have a working iPod again.

I figured out that the culprit was the display adapter that is installed along with the software required to use our Epson projector. It was a simple fix all I had to do was the following:

1. From the desktop right click and open the properties window, then the settings tab.
   
2. There will be a number of “displays” shown as numbered boxes. Your main display (1) and one or two others (2 & 3).
3. click on the secondary displays and uncheck the “Extend my Windows desktop onto this monitor” setting towards the bottom. That should fix the problem.
   

I’ve always used this path: \\webserver\e$ in Windows Explorer to access the web server’s E:\, Or say if I wanted to access a user’s desktop I could do: \\ACCOUNTING1XP\C$\Documents and Settings\jondoe\Desktop to view the contents of Jon Doe’s desktop from my own desktop.

The process is just as Simple in OS X. The following steps are how I gained access to the webserver from my Macbook. Remember to change “webserver” to the name of your network resource, as well as the drive letter, in my case I’m using E:\

• In the Finder, select the GO menu
• then the Connect to Server command
• Enter into the box: smb://webserver/e$
• Enter your username and password for the Windows Network
• To remember the login details, check the box to “Remember this password in my keychain”
• You should now get a Finder Window with all the folders on files on that machine

If that didn’t work, you can try removing the trailing drive letter (/e$) or you might also want to try:
• smb://192.168.1.1.. Where this is the IP address of the machine you are trying to access.

I am super happy that I didn’t lose this convenience. I had a bad feeling that Mac OS X and Windows networks wouldn’t get along so smoothly, I was obviously wrong, so far so good.

]]> http://www.scriptflipper.com/2008/04/how-to-access-windows-network-resources-on-os-x/feed/ 0 http://www.scriptflipper.com/2008/03/dvd-ripping-and-burning/ http://www.scriptflipper.com/2008/03/dvd-ripping-and-burning/#comments Tue, 25 Mar 2008 19:48:06 +0000 admin http://www.interwits.com/2008/03/25/dvd-ripping-and-burning/ Several months ago I wrote a tutorial How to burn copyrighted DVDs. It was a very simple, basic explanation of how to copy a DVD that was Copyrighted.

Lifehacker has recently posted a far superior article: Turn your PC into a DVD ripping monster that covers pretty much everything I had mentioned in my original article plus much more, let’s face it they are just plain better then me.

Commercial DVDs are far too expensive to let scratches turn your video into a glorified coaster, but most people still don’t back up their DVD collection. Let’s take a look at the best ways to back up and play any DVD rip on your home computer, along with how to burn a DVD rip back to a playable DVD.

Make sure you check out the article and download both DVD Rip and DVD Shrink. They are both very useful and simple to use programs, not to mention they are completely free.

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