Free Javascript Downloads

Ever heard of javascript?

Well if you haven't you should.

You see, javascript is the easy way to do many things on your web site. Things like showing the current date, keeping your copyright date current, showing alert messages and a whole lot more.

Now I'll freely admit that I'm not a javascript expert however I have learned a few things about it since there's so many free javascript downloads available. And today I'd like to share 4 of them with you.

1. Until recently search engines couldn't read javascript so they didn't like it. However, some search engine spiders like Google's can now read some javascript code and pick up links. I say some because some search engines still can't read javascript and of those that can, they still can't always read the links contained in the code. That means if you're using javascript for your site's menu only some or none of the search engines will see the links to your other pages.
   
   
2. Unencrypted javascript code contained in your web page's html code will not hide a link or email address from hijacking bots (automatic software that looks for download links and email addresses).
   
   
3. When you put javascript code into your web page's html code you can get some neat effects however you are not using 1 of the best benefits of javascript. Using an external javascript file and calling it from your html code makes it easy to use that script on as many of your web pages as you want. And if you ever need to make a change you have only 1 file to change.
   
   
4. Many times the javascript contained in the html code can be easily modified and made into an external javascript file.
   

Here is an example of how easy it can be to put a free javascript download into an external javascript file.

Below is a free javascript download from http://javascript.internet.com/page-details/email-protector.html. (Please pick it up from their site since Blogger doesn't always display html type code correctly.) This code is to help you protect your email address and the instructions say to place the code where you want your email address inside the body tags of your html file.

< !-- ONE STEP TO INSTALL EMAIL ADDRESS PROTECTOR:

< BODY>

< SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">

< !-- Original: CDR Software --> < !--
Web Site: http://www.cdrsoft.com/ -->

< !-- This script and many more are available free online at --> < !-- The JavaScript Source!! http://javascript.internet.com/ -->

< !-- Begin
user = "username";
site = "yoursite.com";

document.write('< a href=\"mailto:' + user + '@' + site + '\"> ');
document.write(user + '@' + site + '< /a> ');
// End -->
< /SCRIPT>

< p> < center>
< font face="arial, helvetica" size="-2"> Free JavaScripts provided< br> by < a href="http://javascriptsource.com"> The JavaScript Source< /a> < /font> < /center> < p>

< !-- Script Size: 0.68 KB -->

Here's what it looks like on your web page.

username@yoursite.com

Free JavaScripts provided
by The JavaScript Source

Now don't run away because it looks like a bunch of gibberish.

You only part of the code you need is after the <!--Begin and before the //End -->

user = "username";
site = "yoursite.com";

document.write('< href="\"> ');
document.write(user + '@' + site + '< /a> ');

Now put those 4 lines of code in a file with a .js extension like sendme.js. Then put this code where you want to have your email address shown inside your html code.

<script language="javascript" type='text/javascript'
src='http://www.yourdomain.com/sendme.js'></script>

Everything between <script ... js'> is in a single line of code. It looks like 2 lines because of the width of this page. Also be sure to replace 'yourdomain.com/sendme.js' with your domain name and the path to your file.

That wasn't too difficult was it? Now not all of the free javascript downloads are that easy to change but a lot of them are.

Oh, in case you're wondering why you would want to place this javascript in it's own .js file there are 2 very good reasons.

1. If you ever need to change your email address you have 1 file to change instead of changing it on each individual web page.
   
2. Having a little ad for a free script site right next to your email address doesn't look very professional unless you're the script site owner. And while you should acknowledge that you are using someone else's script on your web page, you can place the acknowledgement where you want it.

Other examples of how easy it is to take a free javascript download and put it in its own .js file include the code for:

• put the current date on your page
  http://javascript.internet.com/time-date/current-date.html
  
• automatically update your copyright date
  http://javascript.internet.com/page-details/automatic-copyright-update.html

And again, all you need to put in the external .js file is the code between the and then you place the 2 lines of code to call the javascript file in your html file where you want the information to appear. And while it's doubtful you'll ever need to change these .js files, you may not want that free ad right next to these dates.

There are a lot of things you can do using free javascript downloads. Simply go to you favorite search engine and search for free javascript and you'll find many sites like TheJavaScriptSource where you can get and use thousands of free pre-written javascripts.

To Your Success,
Susan

Tags: javascript, free javascript download, java script, free java script download, web page design, javascript tutorial

Those Nifty Special Email Notification Sounds

If you've been doing business online for awhile like I have then you probably receive hundreds of emails every day. And hopefully you're using email software that will automatically move some of your email straight into the special folders you created to hold the ones that are important to you. Creating the folders and writing rules for incoming email is a great time saver.

Unfortunately, after a lot of your email is tucked safely into the proper folder you still have to sift through everything else and then check all your folders to see if anything new and important has come in.

But what if there was a way to tell you which folders needed to be checked?

Oh, you only check these folders when you have time? That's great! Except, what if it's an email from a family member or a special friend? Don't you want to know about those when you receive them so you can read them right away? Or how about those specially marked messages from your customers and subscribers? Don't you want to read and respond to them quickly? Or maybe you've made a sale and received a payment? Wouldn't you like to know you've just made some money.

If you're like me then you want to know when someone near and dear to you has sent you an email. Also, knowing when you've just made a sale is a great motivator to keep you moving forward in your business.

So how can you know when you've received a "special" email?

Simple, use those nifty email notification sounds.

As you set up your rules for putting your important email into the proper folders, simply include playing a sound as part of what is to be done when the message is received.

Now you won't want to play a sound for messages going into every folder since both you and your computer may get overwhelmed with all the noise. However, for the really important ones like family, customer problems and money received, you may want to have your computer let you know.

Since I use Outlook I'm including the link to the Microsoft page that tells you how to set up email notification sounds for individual messages that come into your inbox. I don't know how it's done for other email programs however I'm sure it's possible for many of them.

When you go to set up or modify a rule to play an special email notification sound you can use the .wav files that came on your machine. You can find free sound files online and download them. Or you can even make your own for free.

Here's a video showing how to make your own short sound file for a Windows PC.

Just think how nice it would be to hear your special person telling you they've sent you a message. And you can with email notification sounds.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. In case you or someone you know doesn't get much email and they would like to hear an email notification sound when they've received new email I've included 2 videos. The first one shows how to set up email notification sounds for new email on Windows machines before Vista and the second shows how it's done for Vista.

Before Vista:

Vista:

If you found this tip useful please let me know by leaving a comment.

Tags: email notification sounds, special email, important email, know when I've got mail

What's Wrong With HTML Font Tags?

In case you haven't heard, the HTML FONT tags have been depreciated (See Section 15.2.2). That means the FONT tags are no longer part of the HTML specification. And although browsers still support them and probably will for a long time, all of us who create our own web pages need to keep up with the changes and learn a new way to define the font face, font size, and font color of our web page content.

So what do you use instead of the HTML FONT tags?

You can use CSS styles.

Now when it comes to writing CSS styles there are 3 types:

• External style sheet (.css files linked to .html files) - make it easy to make formatting changes across your web site


• Internal style sheet (inside the <head> tag) - make it easy to make formatting changes on a single web page


• Inline style (inside an HTML element) - has priority over the above 2 and is used to make something on your page different from the defined styles

Now I'm not a expert at writing CSS styles. And because we don't have to be if we're using a WYSIWYG HTML editor I'm only going to talk about inline styles since those are the styles we may have to write ourselves.

Inline CSS Styles Equivalent To
HTML Font Tags

Font Size

HTML - <font size="4">Font Size</font>
CSS - <span style="font-size : 14pt;">Font Size</span>

Font Color

HTML - <font color="#9933ff">Font Color</font>
CSS - <span style="color : #9933ff;">Font Color</span>

Font Type

HTML - <font face="Arial">Font Type</font>
CSS - <span style="font-family : arial;">Font Type</span>

Font Underline

HTML - <u><font size="2">Font Underline</font></u>
CSS - <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Font Underline</span>

***Note***
The </span> does not turn off text-decoration as it does for other CSS inline styles. To turn off the text-decoration in an inline style you'll need to include:

<span style="text-decoration: none">Your text</span>
***End Note***

Font Strickthrough

HTML - <strike><font size="2">Font Strickthrough</font></strike>
CSS - <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">Font Strickthrough</span>

See Note Above.

Bold

HTML - <b><font size="4">Bold</font></b>
CSS - <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bold</span>

Highlight

HTML - uses the CSS inline style
CSS - <span style="background-color: #ffff00;">highlight in yellow</span>

Multiple Characteristics

HTML - <u><b><font size="4" face="Garamond" color="#9933FF">Multiple Characteristics</font></b></u>
CSS - <span style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold; ">Multiple Characteristics</span>

See Note Above.

As you can see, writing CSS inline styles is not more difficult than writing HTML FONT tags. It's just different. And since most WYSIWYG HTML editors will write external and internal styles for you, you don't have to learn a lot of CSS. However, just like HTML, you should learn a little because if you want to use inline styles to do something different you'll do have to write them yourself.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. BTW, I've checked FrontPage 2002 (my HTML editor) and Nvu (a free HTML editor) and found they both will create external and internal CSS styles. FrontPage does it through the Format menu and Nvu does it through the Tools menu. To find out if your WYSIWYG editor creates CSS styles, simply go to the help menu and search for terms like; style, css style, inline style, etc.

Let me know if you found this tip useful by leaving a comment.

Tags: html font tags, incline css styles, html font tags depreciated, how to replace html font tags, css styles, how to create css styles

What's so great about Twitter?

Well, to be totally honest, I really don't know?

I've read a couple of ebooks about it. I've read several articles about it. I've spent hours reading blog posts about it. And I've gone to quite a few tweeter pages to see what people are tweeting about.

Now in case you're not familiar with Twitter it's a micro-blogging service. And for those who don't know what micro-blogging here's how it's defined on http://en.wikipedia.org

"Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web."

Tweeter is the most popular of the micro-blogging sites and hosts pages for people like Mike Filsaime, Doug Champigny, BobTheTeacher, Brad Fallon and Joel Comm.

And after looking at the latest tweets from these guys I now know:

• Doug's e-mail list-build product is selling well and he doesn't know why article marketer is running a week behind.


• Mike was sitting in a seminar on May 3.


• Bob was going to exercise and who he hopes will win in the presidential primary.


• Brad's posted a couple of new entries on his blog.


• Joel's got a new blog post and he is in New Jersey.

Did I need to know any of this stuff? NO! Did I want to know? Again, NO!

So does Tweeter have a place? Sure it does. If you've got a group who needs to be in contact like a work-group, affiliates or your family and friends then you may have a use for these short notes.

But what about online marketers? Well, if they're working together on a project then yes, it could be useful. But if you're not part of the group then do you really care to get a bunch of "instant messages" about something that doesn't concern you?

Now Twitter pages do seem to rank well in Google so some online marketers say that if it's done right it's a good way to get a little traffic through the search engines. However others think most won't do it correctly and it's just another way to waste your valuable time.

So after spending several hours searching for information about micro-blogging and in particular, how to use sites like Tweeter effectively I still don't know if it's a useful social networking tool for most online marketers.

What do you think? Do you want to try micro-blogging because you have time to read and reply to comments? Or do you think it's just another way to waste time?

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. if you'd like to read some information on how to use Tweeter as a social networking tool here's the best place I've found for getting some information:
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/03/25/how-i-use-twitter-to-promote-my-blog/
At the end of that article there are links to 4 other articles about Twitter.

Tags: micro-blogging, tweeter, marketing tool, waste of time, social networking

"Current Email Scams"

It seems I write a tip about email scams (i.e. phishing) every year and this year is no exception.

Usually the warning about the current email scams being sent are for Paypal and banks. This year however I am writing about the most recent US email scam supposedly being sent by the Internal Revenue Service.

Now you may have heard on the news that people are trying to steal the current US tax rebates by making phone calls and sending fake emails. Let me tell you it's TRUE. Yesterday I received in my personal email inbox a message with an official IRS logo at the top and it said,

"Over 130 million Americans will receive refunds as part of President Bush program to jumpstart the economy.

Our records indicate that you are qualified to receive the 2008 Economic Stimulus Refund.

The fastest and easiest way to receive your refund is by direct deposit to your checking/savings account.

Please click on the link and fill out the form and submit before May 01th, 2008 to ensure that your refund will be processed as soon as possible.

Submitting your form on May 01th, 2008 or later means that your refund will be delayed due to the volume of requests we anticipate for the Economic Stimulus Refund.

To access Economic Stimulus Refund, please click here. http://newsar.us/edcart/prodgfx/help.php

© Copyright 2008, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved."

Did I click that link? NO! And neither should you.

Because you're a savvy internet marketer you're probably already aware of these types of scams. You already know not to click the links in emails that say your Paypal account needs to be updated or verified. You never click email from banks and credit card companies saying they need you to re-enter your personal information for some reason. If you want to check and make sure your accounts are up to date you always go to your account's site by typing in the url you always use to login.

However just because you already know how to avoid being a victim of the current email scams doesn't mean everyone does. So today I'm asking you to spread the word to your not so computer savvy friends, relatives, and readers. These scams only work on those who are less knowledgeable and less experienced than you.

The victims of these scams are usually those who can afford it the least. They are trusting individuals who believe that every email they get has been personally written to them. They are people who use a computer for email, shopping and maybe online games. And of course, the elderly make up the largest percentage of this group.

So let's make this year the last year I have to write a tip about the current email scams by spreading the word to everyone.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts about this tip.

Tags: current email scams, tax rebate scam, phishing