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Well it has been a while since my last post, but thought I would share this little script 
The issue I ran into is how to fill out a horizontal menu nicely while allowing the content to be dynamic.
If we have a menu with a fixed amount of items and we don't let the user change the menu names we can just give each item a fixed width. But this falls apart if we add a menu or change the contents of a menu or if the font needs to be changeable. Sometimes we can also get away with having a large chunk of padding on the right. But in this case it just wasn't acceptable.
The menu needed the following attributes:
- Fill out the available width with each item being equally spaced
- The spacing between each menu text had to be the same with the actual menu button adjusting to the size of it's content
- The site admin needed to be able to add/remove menus from the cms
- The site admin needed to be able to change the menu titles
- The same menu had to work in 3 languages
- Each menu button had a left and right edge that were different and a mouse-over status
- Most menus had a drop-down submenu list
- The menu used a non-standard font, so it needed to degrade nicely to a default font if the user did not have it or css3 wasn't supported to force it
- We could assume the user had javascript enabled
- It needed to work in IE from 6, FF from 2, chrome, safari, opera
The solution i created was a mix between CSS, xhtml and Javascript (Jquery). In HTML i created an unordered list structure for the menu items. Each list item has a left/right image for the menu button as well as the label div.
I also set a "first" and "last" class for the first/last menu items. In the CSS i gave the items a default padding so the menu didnt look too bad should the javascript not execute for some reason.
In jquery i retrieved the width() of each menu item after loading, then calculated the additional padding to be added and applied it. Adding the remaining part split between the first/last items.
1 noteworthy issue is in webkit browsers: where the width seems to be slightly different for some reason.
Finally, the long awaited version 8 of our CMS platform T[CM]S has been released. It has many great new features and a new set of applications called "Tools". These applications add some additional functionality to the platform such as statistics, email account management, newsletter management and more. Like the modules that have been built like plugins, making it possible to easily add new general or site specific tools in the future.
Some of the platform highlights:
- Structurally completely optimized for Google findability
- User friendly interface and functionality
- Create and manage unlimited menus, submenus and sub-submenus and their SEO settings and contents yourself.
- Each menu has it's own URL for maximum search engine optimization.
- Support for multiple languages (English and Dutch included)
- Each language and even each page can have it's own design if required using our design template feature. Giving designers a lot of freedom.
- Many page types (Modules) available. Enough for most websites. New modules can be custom made.
- All kinds of pre-made functionality (Widgets) such as PDF export, newsletter subscription, search and page share that designers can include in their design effectively speeding up development time.
- Built in jQuery framework with many effects for interactive and animated designs.
- Useful Tools such as SEO scans, Email account management, Newsletter management and sending and statistics.
- Automatic recognizing of mobile users and displaying an appropriate design and content.
- Free updates, including new modules, tools and other features.
- Webdesign can be provided by one of our senior designers or you can assign your own designer.
- We can quote you design work, templates, custom modules, tools and functionality.
- Many professionals at your disposal, SEO specialists, copywriters, translators, photographers, advertising professionals, designers, printers and more.
For more information please visit www.tcms-demo.com or www.tcms-demo.nl for the Dutch version.
Some sites from our portfolio
www.opvoedpoli.nl
www.heartbeatvillage.com
www.hildevanderpas.nl
www.freepackers.fr
www.dokarchitecten.nl
www.dnps.nl
We have great offers for sales persons, designers, advertising agencies and any other parties who are interested in offering our product to their clients. Re-branding of the product in your brand image can be discussed.
http://9gag.com/gag/32339/
I recently came across this image on one of the sites I frequently visit (click the link for the image and site). This image promotes Common Sense for computer security but it does not say how. I thought I would elaborate on this with some simple tips.
Updates and system software
- Always keep your computer up to date using automatic Windows Update, be sure to manually check that also the optional downloads/updates are installed each week.
- Always have decent anti virus and spyware software installed. I recommend AVG free, Microsoft Security Essentials and Lavasoft Adaware - All these programs are FREE, are continuously keeping an eye on your computer, automatically update and run weekly automatic full scans. When installing read each step carefully and make sure you select the free version, also disable the optional extra tool bars and such.
- Do not assume that having the above scanner software installed makes it impossible for your computer to get a computer virus, spyware, malware or any other nasty affliction. If you run an installer for software that has not been tagged as malicious yet it will install just fine and will usually be near impossible to remove completely without fully formatting your computer. Always be careful with what you download and run on your computer. Even software acquired from friends - they may not know their computer is infected.
Software applications
- If you insist on using illegally downloaded applications be very careful. Many of these contain a virus. At least download from a site that supports comments and ratings on files so you can see if anyone has put in a virus warning (so you know not to download it).
- When installing applications make sure you opt out of any optional extra installations such as toolbars, scanners, etc. Especially programs such as p2p downloaders, emoticon packs and MSN extensions are known to have all kinds of extra software with them that can really slow down and mess up your computer. Disable anything extra that can be disabled, and if it can't then seriously think whether you really need this software.
- Do not trust random browser popups stating that you have all kinds of security hazards and to please install their software scanner to fix this. These are just misleading ads. If you have the software installed that I mention above you do not need any additional software installed. Disregard all of these kinds of banners, popups, etc. and only trust the non-browser dialogues from the above installed applications.
Emails and MSN
- Never reply to emails asking for your password or other personal details, even if it looks like you know who sent it. If you know the sender call them on their known number to confirm the request. Also never reply to emails that say you have won money or offers to transfer a large some of money via your account and emails offering you freelance or work from-home-jobs that you never asked for. And never reply to spam, no matter how annoyed you are at them, it will just confirm that this is a working email address and most likely cause you to receive even more spam. Just mark the email as spam and it should help filter out future emails that are similar.
- Be very careful of applications and zip files attached to emails. Even if you know the sender and they confirm they really sent the file, their computer may be infected with a virus without them knowing it. If you really need the application download it from another trusted source such as download.com if possible.
- Do not trust random links sent to you by email or MSN that mention that they have dubious or scandalous photos and if you would kindly "click here". The click links to a downloadable zip or application. This is a common tactic used by spammers and virus spreaders.
- If possible use "Honeypotting" for any online registrations. Lets say "yourname@gmail.com" is your main email address. Now imagine you register with some website who disregards any privacy regulations and sells your email address to a spammer. Now you have a problem, your main email address is out there on the spam lists and will never be removed. Imagine you had used a different email address for the registration, one that you only used for this site. Unlike your main email address you could easily block this 1-time-use email address nullifying the problem. This is called a honeypot address. Ideally it would be something recognizable to the site. For example: "yourname_website@gmail.com" or, even safer, "website_yourinitials@gmail.com". Another advantage is that you can catch a site selling your email to spam companies and report them. And you don't need to make a separate account for this address it can be a forwarder. So all emails sent to this address get forwarded to your main account, the point being they arrive on the honeypot address. But do be careful when replying to emails that you select the appropriate sending email address otherwise they will have your main email address anyway
Other
- Use the windows accounts feature. Have an Admin account for yourself which is password protected and make a guest account at user level with all security settings enabled to level "paranoid". This greatly limits the possibility that kids or friends will accidentally install bad stuff on your computer.
- Backup!! I cannot say this enough… ALWAYS backup! I use a Microsoft program called "SyncToy" which can be found and downloaded for free from their website. Make a daily backup to an internal secondary hard disk or to an external USB disk. And make a weekly or monthly backup to an external USB disk that you store on a different geological location - at a friend's place for example.
- Keep it Tidy. Admittedly this has more to do with my OCD than real security but it makes working with your computer so much nicer. Work with a clear directory structure. Tidy up your downloads directory from time to time, remove what you don't need any more, move images to the images directory, music to the music directory, etc. In the my documents directory create sub-directories for different projects or types of files. Work with archive directories for older files that you do not need any more. All of this makes it much easier to find what you are looking for, makes sure the backup isn't copying lots of junk each time, gives you more space to store files you actually need and provides an overall more pleasant experience using your computer.
Recovering from a virus or slow computer
The only way to 100% recover from a virus is a reinstall. You can always try cleaning your computer, using the different tools to go through all the system files and fix everything step by step but you can never be sure you got everything out and this poses a major security threat to your computer.
Copy all data to an external disk - including everything from your C drive (windows installation) so that you are certain you are not missing any data. Run either the full recovery option if your computer supports it (most laptops do) or boot from the windows cd. Choose an advance install, delete all partitions, recreate 2 partitions and full format them. Then install windows on the C drive. After installing move your user folders (my documents, images, downloads, music, videos) to the second partition. If you are uncertain about anything or all of this let someone else do it, everyone knows some geeky kid who knows how to setup a computer properly.
Also note that most new computers and computers after a full recovery are often severely bogged down with a whole host of applications that are really not needed by most users. De-install anything you do not need, this includes Windows features. Again, if you are in doubt, ask someone who knows.
There are a few simple things you can do to scan your own website to get an unbiased evaluation of it's quality and findability (SEO).
First off let's look at quality. W3, the organisation responsible for setting the standards for websites, has an online scanner: http://validator.w3.org/
Just enter your full website (including the http://) into the address field and press [check].
The first thing we see is either a red bar stating that errors were found, or a green bar stating it was successfully checked. Needless to say, red is bad. How bad will depend on how many errors are listed in the "Result" row.
Next you should look at the "Doctype" row. This could have many settings. Currently the latest, and best, setting is "xhtml 1.1". "xhtml1.0" strict would also be acceptable but anything else means the code of your site is old and most likely not fully compatible with all browsers, one of the reasons you may have a red bar.
Now look at the Result row again, warnings are bad but less important. Errors are going to give a rough idea of the quality of your website. If the Doctype is not xhtml and you have 0 errors (or a green bar instead of red) then your website is likely programmed to great quality standards, but it is either an older website, or the programmer chose to use an older programming standard which they are very proficient at. Either way updating to a new standard would improve your website's quality even more and if you passed with an older standard it may not even require that much work.
If your Doctype is xhtml and you have up to 10 errors your website is still good quality. But the programmer used some short cuts to get the final result. These could be fixed to further improve quality but most likely you will not notice much change. 10-20 errors: you should have a professional check your website to make sure none of the errors are too serious. Most errors are easy to fix and can improve your website's performance. With 20 or more errors you should really have someone look at your site's code and evaluate where the most pressing issues lie. It could me that much of the errors are in the content of your website and not the building code, but this many errors could mean that your website performs not as expected in certain browsers.
Next are some simple findability checks. By no means do these give a full evaluation of your site's findability as so many complex algorithms are applied by search engines in this area but these checks can certainly show some areas that could need improving or show that as far as the code is concerned what could be done, was done. Checking this will require a little digging and browser your site's code so first off lets open your site and go to a page you wish to check. This could be your homepage or it could be a content page. Once on the page go to the menu "view" in your browser and select "Page source" (FF) or "Source" (IE).
Now the first things you want to find and check will be some lines of code at the top of the page, see if you can find them. If you run into this text: "<body>" without finding them then your site probably does not have them at all (which is bad). Incidentally any code that starts with < is called a tag. "<body>" is the body tag. We will be looking for a "<title> tag and some "<meta>" tags with the name "keywords", "description", "author" and "content-language". See if you can find them. If you can find the title tag it should have the informative name of the page you are looking at in it. Ideally in a well structured sentance. For example: "Here you can find all contact information for companyName" on the contact page. The max characters for this title is 60, your title should not be longer than this. Now look for the 4 meta tags and make sure that the part of the tag that starts with "content=" is followed by proper text. For the keyword meta tag you should see 4-8 comma separated unique keywords a couple of general ones for the whole site/company and a few specific for this page. In the description meta tag you should see max 160 characters in a short description of the current page. In the author meta tag you should see the name of the owner of the website, your company name for example. The content-language meta tag should show the language of the website, this will be in a short form, something like "en_GB" for British or "nl_NL" for Dutch. If all of these are present and correctly filled out it is looking positive for your site so far.
Next we are going to get a little technical. Look for the before mentioned "<body>" tag. Now in the first few lines after this tag do you see mostly "<div>" tags or mostly any of the following tags: "<table>", "<tbody>", "<tr>" or "<td>". In this case "<div>" most likely is good and the other tags are not. Using the latter tags is an outdated method of structuring a website. The main problem, in terms of SEO, is that these tags require much code to build the structure. Resulting in a bad content to code ratio. This ratio is important because the goal is to have search engines such as Google see as much user readable content as possible in the code and as little programming language as possible. The other problem with tables is that they do not always display consistently in different browsers, screen sizes and platforms. Resulting in a different user experience across systems.
The next thing we will try to look at, and this is a bit more advanced so you could skip this step, is how far the content is from the top of the page. See if you can find your page's content in the code. With content I mean the main text of this page. The goal would be to have this content as close to the <body> tag as possible in the code. Ideally it would look something like this:
<body>
<div id="content"> Welcome to our website, we would like to show you several of our products</div>
<div id="menu">
<ul>
<li>Home</li>
<li>Background</li>
</ul>
</div>
Now this is a very simplified example but it shows that the main text is very close to the body tag and that things like the menu are after the content. This is quite complicated to do properly, especially on graphically innovative websites and shows that the developer was keeping SEO in mind when programming your website
Finally as a quick check of quality you should always check to see how your website looks on as many systems as possible. Check on an Apple computer in Safari and Firefox, check in Windows on different versions of Internet Explorer if possible, mainly version 7 and 8 as these are the ones mostly in use. Also check Firefox on a Windows computer and Chrome. You could also check your site on a mobile device like a smart-phone to see how it performs on that. If the overall experience is the same on all systems it is likely that your site has been programmed to decent quality standards.
When in doubt you can always ask a professional to do a full scan of your website. Especially if your site is older than 2 years. You may be surprised at how easily some websites can be brought up to current quality and SEO standards improving your user's experience and the overall quality of your web image and brand.
I would like to give an overview of the strategy I am working on and implementing with my ThomasSmart.com/hk Brand.
I was looking for a name for this strategy and thought to use the term "Spider-web strategy". However I recently found out that this is a term already used in multilevel marketing - a scam I do not want to be associated with. So for now I guess the strategy will just have to be nameless.
First off, I know I am not the only one implementing this strategy or something similar. A friend of mine in Hong Kong as been working on a similar set-up and I'm sure others have too. I feel it is a strategy that is a perfect match for the current day and age with fast internet, international markets and many great freelancers and sole traders.
The strategy makes for very low minimal overhead. Basically just my own living costs and some required business costs like the mandatory insurances, bank costs, internet, phone and some administration costs. The remaining overhead grows and shrinks with the work load. When I was still owner of BE inspired (which had the classic employees formula) we had a minimum project requirement of about 3-4 projects a month to break even. And there was a limit on the amount of projects we could handle in a month. My current minimum requirement is less than 1 project a month and almost has no maximum project limit.
The strategy consists of basically two networks. One network contains freelance account managers and the other network is freelance designers, developers, copywriters, translators and various other specialists located all over the world. The freelance specialist network is continuously growing and shrinking. With some freelancers leaving for fixed positions or getting too busy and new freelancers being tested, evaluated and included in the team. The implementation of the account manager network is phased so that it can be grown and evaluated step by step over time.
The task of account managers is to market the ThomasSmart.com brand, acquire new clients, manage these clients and document their projects. This is basic documentation and not technical, basically just function wish lists from a user perspective described as clearly and completely as possible. The account managers need some marketing experience, client handling skills, project management experience and some insights and experience with basic technical concepts of web applications. They need to know, and stay updated on, what is possible in this area. Payment of account managers is by percentage. They receive 20% of every invoice sent to the client for as long as they are managing the client. This is quite a high fee compared to other companies that work with account managers in this way but it is the result of a simple calculation applied to my overall work flow.
Phase 1 for the account manager network is account managers in a couple of key countries. Mainly the Netherlands where my brand is already well known and the UK where I have a reasonable network. The goal is to give each account manager exclusivity for a certain area within their country. About one account manager per six million people. So in the Netherlands we will have three account managers, currently there are two active and we are looking for a third. And in the UK we will have about 10, positions are available and we are talking to a few possible candidates. We also advise account managers within a country to work together as much as possible and to have regular conferences or meetings to go over marketing ideas and various insights.
Our expectations from account managers is that they sell about 400 production hours a month. For ThomasSmart.com this is the equivalent of 6 tiny projects (small tools, widgets, seo), 4 small projects (design work, simple websites, seo&sea), 2 medium projects (full website, small web application), 1 large project (e-commerce, web application) or 1 very large project (major web application) over 2 or more months. Once the account manager has optimized their work flow and are used to the formula, our strategies and possibilities, obtaining 400 hours a month should take no longer than 2 days work a week.
Aiming for this amount of hours and not more helps the account managers maintain a reasonably steady flow of work and makes it easier for them to plan projects and marketing efforts. With each account manager maintaining about 400 hours a month this makes for an even smoother flow of hours for the entire country and an almost perfectly smooth overall flow for the whole company.
As mentioned, each account manager draws up basic project documentation with the client. They go over ideas and advise and help the client to visualize what they are looking for by carefully evaluating target audience and the goal of the project. This documentation is then sent to me. With my technical background and experience I can further specify this document into a full technical briefing for a project. Then I put together and international team of senior freelancer specialists best suited to the project and work with them to create a quote and planning. This goes back to the account manager who quotes this to the client and goes over the details. Once the account manager gets an agree work can begin and the project is planned in. Some projects the freelancers work together as a team and on other projects each freelancer will just handle their assigned section.
In phase 2 for the account manager network we will expand to other western European countries - the Scandinavian countries, Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Spain, Switzerland and Austria. We are also looking at possibilities in eastern Europe. We advertise online for the vacancy (www.thomassmart.com/vacancy) and, if required, will employ head hunters and job agencies to help find the new members of our team.
Phase 3, once we get a certain amount of work-flow from a single country or a cluster of countries together will will assign a regional manager for that area. This manager's function is similar to a CTO. He will take over part of my work in translating the functional requirements to a technical document and briefing. This is then passed to me for inspection and I select the freelance team to go with it and get the quote. It will also be the manager's job to think up marketing ideas for his markets and to have regular conferences with all account managers in his region as to stay up to date on their expectations for the coming months and any questions or ideas they may have.
Phase 4 will be to expand to other regions such as America, Australia and Japan. Using the same formula of 1 account manager per 6-10 million persons and a regional manager once a certain target has been met.
Overall this strategy provides:
- Minimal overhead
- Step by step growing, nationally and internationally
- Smooth flow of work
- Space to expand as work increases and almost no maximum capacity
If you are interested in this strategy or more details or if you are interested in a freelance position in either network please don't hesitate to contact me. www.thomassmart.com/CONTACT.html
A term with many meanings. The one I wish to elaborate on is the ability that some people have to read people. To get a grasp of what another is feeling or thinking. A person with such an ability can be called an empath.
This ability generally works by placing yourself in the other person's shoes as it were. You observe their behaviour, movements, eyes, everything and you subconsciously think "What would I be thinking to cause that behaviour?". You overlay your experience and feeling onto their behaviour and get an overall jest of what they might be thinking. Experience and practice makes it more precise and the more you know someone the more you can associate their behaviour with their feelings from the past and get it even more precise.
This trick is very useful in business, when talking about a project to read the client on the fly and adjust the briefing, presentation and explanations at will. The better you get at it the more natural your presentation or explanation seems and the better the client's impression is. I think most good businessmen are pretty decent empaths in that regard.
The problem with this trick is that its not something most empaths can simply turn on or of. It becomes a part of their personality. So much so that they often don't even realize that they are doing it. They think they have formed an opinion on facts and proof when it was actually just empathy. And one would think that this would be great, but don't forget, in most cases this empathy is based on overlaying your own opinions onto another person's behaviour. The empath is not literally reading their mind. Now within specific situations like business presentations there is usually a general theme, a common goal and similar ideas/opinions. This makes the margin of error much lower. However when an empath's ability is applying itself on a personal or social level where deeper emotions are concerned or across different cultures and backgrounds it becomes unreliable at best and painfully wrong at worst.
Assumptions made this way can cause paranoia, emotional distress and all kinds of other negative reactions. It can break up relationships and close an empath off socially from those around them. Empaths should be aware of their ability, use it in situations where it can be beneficial and always remember that it is just a hint of someone's feelings based on their own experience and not absolute truth.
T
ThomasSmart.com currently has several senior account manager positions available in a few different EU countries.
Check out the full vacancy here: www.thomassmart.com/vacancy/
Things are going well here in Hong Kong. Have now got a place to live and work from, quite central in the Yau Ma Tei area of Kowloon. Will be finalizing all the necessary paperwork over the next couple of weeks then back to Europe for July to finalize my marketing strategy and material. Hoping to launch the new marketing campaign in August/September of this year.
Had a great evening yesterday at a show at Boom Chicago about politics. Maurice de Hond played my as a leader of a fictional Political party answering questions from the audience.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=125456430805394&ref=mf
A great show I can really recommend to anyone, even to those who (like me) are not much interested in politics. Check out the Boom Chicago website for their next show. http://www.boomchicago.nl/en/
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