Monthly archive: October, 2008

[Update] Wireless networking in church

October 19, 2008, by No comments yet

This past weekend, my wife and I undertook a rather large project.  Not only install a wireless network in the  parish hall and sanctuary buildings, but also move the entire wired network that was terminating in the secretary’s office into a communications closet in the hallway.  Given that my wife is a gifted Sunday School director, and not a network engineer, I knew this was going to fall largely on my shoulders.

While it was a challenge, we managed to not only keep the wired connection, but also to create a total of three (3) wireless networks in two buildings.  I will follow up with posts for each step along the way.

[Update] So far, this has been a worthwhile endeavor.  We managed to get a wireless signal all over the campus, minus the education building.  But, we did not intend the signal to go there, so I am pleased.  I can login in either the parish hall or sanctuary/admin area with no dofficulty.  Moreover, the desktop machines used in the admin area get consistent signals all day long.

[slight pat on back]Very good.[/slight pat on back]

Use Link Tag to Execute Javascript

October 16, 2008, by No comments yet

While we are all familiar with the use of buttons (Submit, Join Now, Click Here) for all manner of executing a form, there is also the possibility of using text to accomplish the same thing. Try this:

<a href=”javascript: executeFunction();”>CLICK ME</a>

You can then have javascript in your <HEAD> section that will accomplish alomost anything.

Show/Hide (toggle) an Element

October 16, 2008, by 1 comment

If you have developed websites for more than a few minutes, you have inevitably been asked to do some cutesy stuff like adding flash, drop-down menus or toggling elements. While all of these may be ligitimate features of a site, they may not be the easiest to implement and perhaps even very challenging.  I have recently been overhauling my employer’s website and needed to show/hide some text when a visitor clicked on a list item <li>TEXT</li>.  While I knew what I wanted to do, I had some problems getting it to work.  Unfortunately, I could not figure our (or remember) the javascript command for viewing the value of an element’s display attribute.  After a quick Google search, I found it.

<script type=”text/javascript”>
<!–
function toggle_visibility(id) {
var e = document.getElementById(id);
if(e.style.display == ‘block’)
e.style.display = ‘none’;
else
e.style.display = ‘block’;

}
//–>
</script>

Now, you will notice that the attribute I was looking for is “display”.  I made the mistake of adding “value” to the end.

I can say it works well with no problems.  I will probably make changes to it, but otherwise it works if you need a quick way to toggle element’s visibility. Thanks to the folks at Movalog for the help.

More Search Engine Optimization [SEO] Suggestions

October 14, 2008, by No comments yet

I have been working on a total plan of attack with respect to getting my employer’s website higher up the Google Search rankings.  In addition to my previous post, here are some other suggestions from Mountain View, Calif.

If you are looking for suggestions about META descriptions, Google recommends the Open Directory Project.  Type in a search term and see what others have used to describe their website.

[Updated] Google Webmaster Tools

October 9, 2008, by No comments yet

I manage several sites, for work, church, clients and personal.  One of the most important things that needs to be done (besides CONTENT) is to work at getting the search engines to notice and return relevant results from any of those sites.  Recently, I have been making changes to my employer’s website and came across some tidbits fromGoogle.  In no particular order, here they are:

  • Get as many high value links to your site as possible.  High value meaning sites that are “real” and not just landing sites filled with advertisements.
  • Create a Sitemap.  Follow the Sitemap Protocol as this is what Google prefers.
  • Do not use iFrames.  They may be difficult to crawl.  I have begun removing those few we use and replacing them with pages that have the same layout.  This way the iFrame “effect” is largely maintained but with each page of content having its own link off the main page.  I also took the effort to leave the command to download all my images from the main page.  This way, the new pages load faster and it looks more like an iFrame.
  • Recreate your sitemap when you change your site.
  • Add the sitemap location to your Robots.txt.  Something like this: Sitemap: http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml
  • Speaking of that, make sure you have a Robots.txt file.
  • Give each page a unique title.  Use the organization’s name if necessary, but change the rest, e.g. thisMInistry.net – About Us and thisMinistry.net – Blog.
  • Use the Google Webmaster Tools if you can.  Free analytics and site recommendations from the largest search engine can’t be ignored.

I’m not sure what results we will get from these changes, but I suspect there will be positives.  If nothing more than indexing of our iFrame pages, that will be more than enough.  We use them in order to present content in a small area that can be viewed on all monitor sizes.  The image download I mentioned above it because many still use dial-up connections.

Together, these changes are intended to help others locate our site and services more easily.  Anything that I can do to make that possible is important.

Case in point is that I spoke with a service provider this week about increasing our visibility.  One of the other things he mentioned is social networking sites.  Now, my employer has little/no interest in social networking sites, so I was a bit skeptical.  However, he told me that sites like YouTube help because they are (the above mentioned) high value links.  YouTube is well respected and links to your site carry weight.  I may not want to host videos of my youth group on YouTube, but it would work fine for my employer who can take advantage of the increased visibility.