One of our clients has several Microsoft Access databases which we developed, and when I need to work on them, we email the files back and forth. Recently, his email program has started renaming the attached files!! For some reason, it comes through named as database.zlh instead of database.mdb. So I did a little digging and it looks like some program along the way is doing that for protection, to prevent viruses, trojans and such. Here’s an article which details the different extensions given to files when they’re being automatically renamed. I’m still not sure which program is doing this, but it’s good to know why it’s happening and to be assured that the contents are not being changed, just the name. The solution is to give the file the proper extension when saving the attachment.
One way to personalize your web site is to provide a favicon – the little icon that shows in the address bar of the browser when a visitor is on your page. You may have noticed ours… the blue diamond with a magnifying glass in it (a sign of our site to come!!). I made this by taking an image and running it through an online program which creates the required favicon.ico file. Then I uploaded it to our web site and presto! The favorite icon image appears. It’s one of those small details which can help make your site stand out from the crowd.
Here’s a great site which does a fantastic job of creating an icon from an image:
You can also draw one from scratch, if that’s your thing. Just make sure to click the “Download” link when you have something you like. Then upload it to your website (make sure it’s named favicon.ico) and you should be all set!
Recently I found this great article about easily selecting just a piece of an image, using the wonderful, free image editor called GIMP. Sometimes you want to use just part of a picture, so here’s a way to easily select an irregularly-shaped object:
Removing Backgrounds Quickly In The GIMP
Nice!
Recently I made a form for a client, and on her computer, one field in the form was showing up with a yellow background. I checked it on 4 different browsers on two different computers in our office, and could not duplicate the problem. Argh! So today, I finally hit upon the correct Google query and found the answer!!
Google toolbar highlights autofill fields
The link above will tell you how to turn that feature off. Personally, I don't use the Google toolbar because it seems an invasion of privacy and I don't think it's available for Linux, anyway. But it's a good thing to keep in mind how other internet programs can affect your browser.
If you're trying to figure out what software to use on your computer or web site, here's a site which may help you decide what to do:
You can select the kind of software you're evaluating and compare different packages by features… just click on "Compare Products" on the left side when you arrive at the site. This is a work in progress – feel free to contribute if you have some information to share!
Yay! Thanks to LifeHacker, we now have a way to check your web site in a whole bunch of different browsers, including Safari on a Mac:
This is a free service but be aware… it can take a bit of time and babying to get results. There's a 30 minute time limit for results, and sometimes it takes longer than that to process all of your choices. So you have to babysit the process and refresh the screen so you can extend the time allowed. The effort is SO worth it! I've been looking for a way to see stuff on a Mac browser, and here it is! Totally awesome.
Recently I was tasked with creating a little ad rotation program, and part of it was providing a place for a page of content, where the user would go after clicking on one of the ads. Of course, you want to be able to make a page look pretty (especially since you're trying to sell something), so I went looking for a simple, user-friendly online web page editor, and I found a really nice one! It was extremely easy to add to the web page, and the code it produces is valid (a very important feature). So if you ever find you have a need for inserting HTML into something, give this editor a try:
Try it, you'll like it! 
One benefit of having valid HTML on your web site is the likelihood of your page looking pretty much the same no matter what browser is being used by your visitor. One of the problems a developer may face is lack of access to various browsers (for example, a developer using a Mac may not have Internet Explorer available). Netrenderer to the rescue! Here you can put in a web address and see what a site looks like in three different versions of Internet Explorer:
http://ipinfo.info/netrenderer/
Now if I could just find one of these for showing what things look like on a Mac! Please leave a comment if you know of one. Thanks!!
phplist is a wonderful, free program for managing your mailing lists. I'm setting it up for a client, and she wanted to know if the subject line could be personalized, because that's a very important part of the newsletter. People just love to be addressed personally. It turns out, that's a feature that needs to be added to phplist, but I did find a solution on the forums. It was easy to do and points out one of the great things about open source software – you can change it to fit your needs, if you're so inclined. Here's a link to the forum post, in case you're interested:
phplist mod to personalize the subject line
I've always thought if you build a nice site, with lots of good content related to your central theme, the search engines will rank you appropriately. But it turns out there's much, much more to consider when optimizing your site for the search engines. Here's an article presenting the "collective wisdom of 37 leaders in the world of organic search engine optimization". It's quite lengthy and involved, but great reading if you're wanting to know what you can do to help your rankings in Google:
SEOmoz – Google Search Engine Ranking Factors
If you would like help implementing any of these items, please contact us – we're here for you!
