Wed 17th May '00
In this issue (Part 1):
1. INTRODUCTION
==>Recap, Small Error - Big Effect, Planning for Updates,
Biz Bits Affiliate program.
2. PLACES TO VISIT
==>Places for you to visit.
3. TIPS BITS
==>Tips to make your life online easier, or more productive.
4. CLASSIFIED ADS (6-10 ads per emailed edition only)
==>Subscribe to the quality ezines advertised here.
In this issue (Part 2):
1. VOTING BOOTH
==>This week's quick poll and last week's results.
2. TOOLS AT NOWSELL.COM
==>Useful tools to make your life easier from NowSell.com
3. FEATURE ARTICLE
==>"On the Internet Content Rules"
By Rob Spiegel.
An info Section with subscription details is included at the end
of both parts.
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X INTRODUCTION X
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Hi,
I was extremely surprised that so few readers tried out the "Make
Your Price Sell!" pricing software after my mention of it last
week. This is a genuine offer:
You decide *if* and *how much* you want to pay!
So you've nothing to lose, just lots of vital pricing information
to gain. But don't wait too long: a 'Perfect Price' will
eventually be fixed for MYPS! as determined by MYPS! itself.
As I said last week, the software is very good; I didn't expect
it to be, but it *is*. The following day, I noticed that even the
marketers marketing expert, Ralph Wilson http://www.wilsonweb.com
had done a glowing review of the Make Your Price Sell! service.
Here's what he said in summing up:
"MYPS! succeeds wonderfully at its chief goal: to provide
marketers with a scientific tool that will help them set their
product's "Perfect Price." And for the first time it makes
available to mere mortals on the Web the sophisticated analytical
tools once only high-priced consultants were privy to."
MYPS! is a world first, using a patent pending process. An
excellent Pricing Manual which covers pricing strategies in
detail, is given free to all who try it out.
Seriously, if you currently sell, or are planning to release your
own product, you owe it to yourself to take a look at "Make Your
Price Sell!" http://myps.sitesell.com/info.html
Try MYPS! Here
BB
If you are one of the many readers building your own web site,
you may find the following tale instructive.
Small Error - Big Effect.
Last weekend, I finally got around to putting the Biz Bits
archives on the NowSell.com web site (you'll find them at
http://www.NowSell.com/internet-marketing-ezine/ ). It's something I've been
meaning to do for ages, but put off because of the time involved.
It did end up consuming a fair amount of time in terms of
preparing the copy, making links 'clickable', and actually
putting the 60 or so pages together. That I expected.
What I didn't bargain for was all the troubleshooting required.
Once I'd finished (or thought I had!) and uploaded the pages, I
checked each for errors. Ouch!
Many pages had large sections of copy displayed in the wrong
font. Invariably, the cause of the problem was an email address
enclosed between '<' and '>' brackets in a reader's signature
file.
Knowing that these would be treated as 'comment markers' by a
browser, rendering anything between them invisible to the surfer,
one of the things I did at the outset was a multi-file search and
replace. I replaced every occurrence of '<http' with 'http' and
every occurrence of '.com>' with '.com'. I did the same for .net
and .org.
I didn't want to simply remove the symbols, or replace them with
the HTML code equivalent because that would destroy existing HTML
links. I thought I was being smart: it only took a few seconds to
do.
Unfortunately, I forgot about email addresses, which as you know,
don't start with 'http'! This caused any email address thus
bracketed to retain the symbol at the front, whilst losing the
one at the end.
The browser thought that the single open bracket was the start of
a new HTML tag. In addition, it seemed to assume that if a new
tag had begun, the previous tag (a 'pre' tag containing style
information) must have closed!
In this case, that caused my pre-formatted text in Courier to
change to the default, left-aligned background font of Arial. I
use Cascading Style Sheets, but the effect would be the same if
you use the font tag to specify a particular font for a section
of text.
Now I'm aware of the problems a slip up with this kind of
bracketing can cause, I will be keeping an eye out for it. To
reduce the likelihood of errors, I will also avoid their use when
preparing content for Biz Bits. If you have one, I suggest you do
the same with your own publication. One day you might decide
you'd like to archive your issues.
BB
Planning for Updates - SSI.
Ease of preparation and updating is another thing to consider if
decide to archive your ezine or newsletter. If you visit the Biz
Bits archives (you might find it helpful to do so before you read
the following), you'll find each page has a table a the top,
displaying links to each month.
This is actually a separate HTML file, written into each page
every time it loads. This is done through the use of SSI (Server
Side Includes). The benefit of using SSI here is that by adding a
new link to this one file at the start of the month, the link
will automatically appear on the pages of *every* issue. However
you do it, having to update each page separately (currently 60+)
cannot compare to the ease of this two minute job.
The right-hand column of the page also uses SSI to display links
to the issues in the current month. This means that as I archive
each new issue, I only have to add two new links to this one
file, as opposed to adding it to each of the separate pages
(which with 2 pages per issue since January, will number 8 or 10
by the end of the month).
In fact, to be honest, I don't even add the links. Allocating a
separate directory for each month allows me to specify relative
path links (as opposed to absolute links) in the form of
href="1.html", href="1a.html", etc.
At the beginning of each month I copy this file and upload it
into the directory for the current month, uploading the latest
issue as 1.html and 1a.html. The links will all be working, so
before uploading the copied file, I simply paste the subject
lines from the current issue into the first two links, and delete
the descriptions for the remainder so that they won't appear on
the page. The following week, I will paste in the subject lines
of the latest issue, which will be 2.html and 2a.html.
The text of the issue itself is also dynamically written into
each page as an include. This isn't really necessary, but I
prefer it since it means every page is an identical template that
can be easily changed without having to mess about with the text.
Each week I just make a copy of this file, name it 1.html or
whatever and change the link to the included text file for the
issue. I upload that, together with the text file and I'm done.
I have written before on the benefits of using SSI on your
website. However, the feedback I received from I-Helpdesk after
its recent publication of that article, would seem to indicate
that many website owners are still in the dark about SSI.
I use SSI extensively. It *does* save you lots of time, and it's
very simple to understand. If you are using a free web host that
doesn't support SSI, move to one that does, like Hypermart for
example. http://www.hypermart.net
You might find your host does provides SSI, but only on pages
with the .shtml extension. If this is the case, and you want to
use SSI on your existing pages without converting them (and all
your links!) to .shtml, here's a tip courtesey of Robert
Marlbrough from http://www.webwizards.net :
You can make the server parse .htm and .html files just like
.shtml files! No recoding needed! I'm assuming the web server
is Apache or some variant which uses a '.htaccess' file, as
that's the type of server that usually requires .shtml for SSI in
the first place.
Here's how to do it:
- Create a file named .htaccess in the top or root of your web
directory. - Insert these two lines:
AddType text/x-server-parsed-html .html AddType
text/x-server-parsed-html .htm
When the server grabs a file to serve out to browsers, it will
check the .htaccess file, and see that .htm and .html files now
need to be parsed for SSI commands. It will then parse through
doing any SSI cmds found, and then output the results to the
browser. (More details on Apache's server commands are available
at http://www.apache.org/ )
BB
Join the Biz Bits Affiliate program and earn advertising space
here in Biz Bits. You have your own online stats, and all you
need to do is advertise your unique referral URL in your
signature file, ezine, on your web site, or anywhere else that's
legal. Click to join now: http://www.nowsell.com/bb-aff.html
*** GET 100 IMPRESSIONS FOR EACH NEW SUBSCRIBER YOU REFER! ***
BB
Tell me what YOU think! Send your feedback, comments, what you
like, what you hate, etc., to me at: mailto:azam-nowsell.com
Happy Vesak day if you're celebrating!
TTFN
Azam
PS - Don't forget to download the "Stealth Marketing" ebook and
learn unique marketing techniques to explode your income.
You can get it FREE right now:
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X PLACES TO VISIT X
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http://www.FreeDemographics.com/
Provides free unlimited access to U.S. Census 1990 data and U.S.
Census 2000 Dress Rehearsal Data. FREE!
http://www.strategyweek.com/
Each week, Karen Lake interviews a leader in the online world to
learn what strategies they have found to be successful, and how
small businesses can apply them. FREE!
http://www.softwaresolutions.net/free.htm
3 Free Software programs (Win): Word Market shows in real-time
what people searching for in the major search engines. Visibility
Analyzer checks the placement of any URL in the top 10 search
engines. GIF Runner retrieves GIFs from the Web using a keyword
search. FREE!
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
Xenu link checking software (Win). Validates internal and
external links throughout your site, generating a full report
when the check is complete. FREE!
http://www.link-box.com/
Like a banner exchange except you trade text ads instead of
banners. Display 1 to 5 links from your category choices in a
customizable Link-Box on your site. 3:2 ratio with additional
credits for referring new members. FREE!
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X TIPS BITS X
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When reading ezines or surfing, keep your eyes open for
particularly good ads. The sort that entice you to respond, or
arouse your interest, even though you might not be in the market
for the product or service advertised.
Take note of ads that you see repeated in many locations,
unmodified, time and time again. These ads are likely to have
proved effective; thus their continued use.
Whenever you come across ads like these, copy and paste them into
what's often referred to as a "swipe file." This is simply a
plain text file that you always keep close at hand (like on your
desktop) for the purpose. It will make your life easier later on
if you use a basic text program without formatting, as opposed to
something like Word.
(Mac users get EZnote from MacDownload. This shareware program
enables you to append selected text to a file of your choice when
you press a modifier key to bring up it's contextual menu.
Operation is quick and easy and the menu contains many other
handy functions, including several text manipulators, the
character count for the selection and opening the file to edit,
etc.).
Use the 'good bits' from the ads you've collected to help you
prepare your own ads. Don't simply duplicate the ads, but use
them for ideas and to improve your own copy.
For example, in my ads, on my site, and for Biz Bits, I use the
slogan:
"Do it Better - Do it Faster - Do it RIGHT!"
The inspiration for this actually came from an 1930's ad for a
radio receiver! I forget the exact wording of the original ad
(about the benefits of owning the radio), but one line had the
format:
"Hear it better, hear it [-----], [something else] it [------]."
It had punch and gave me an idea. I played around with the words
until I came up with something I was happy with, and then
formatted them for greater impact.
Azam
GOT A TIP?
Send it, together with your 4 line signature file to appear here!
mailto:TipsBits-nowsell.com
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X CLASSIFIEDS X
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(6-10 ads per emailed edition only)
OK, that's it for part one! Below you'll find the info section.
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Biz Bits is Copyright © 1999-2000 Azam Corry. All Rights
Reserved. No part of Biz Bits may be reproduced in whole or in
part without written permission, though it may be freely
redistributed in its unedited form. All guest articles are
copyright their respective owners and reproduced with permission.
Biz Bits is an internationally registered weekly publication.
