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#047/17-Aug-00
POOR RICHARD'S WEB SITE NEWS
Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site
Editor: Peter Kent
Top Floor Publishing
http://PoorRichard.com/
Over 50,000 Subscribers in More Than 100 Countries!
~~~ IN THIS ISSUE ~~~
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Beginner's Column:
Checking Your Site for Problems
Reciprocal Marketing
Adding "Viewlet" Content to Your Site ... Free
Do You Use PayPal?
Poor Richard's Web Site and Other Top Floor Books
Book Reviewers Wanted
Reading Back Issues
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
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{{ Beginner's Column:
Checking Your Site for Problems }}
========>>>
You've got your Web site up and running. Perhaps it's just a
few pages, or maybe hundreds. However many, you've got a
problem. Things change, and you need to know when your site has
problems. In fact even if things _don't_ change, you may have
problems. You may have "bugs" in your HTML, or perhaps links
that work okay on your hard disk, but not once you've
transferred them to the Web server. (For instance, an link may
be an "absolute" link, the entire URL pointing to a page on
your computer -- such as <a href="c://My Documents/index.htm">
-- rather than a relative link such as <a href="index.htm">.
Clearly this link won't work once the site has been moved to
the server.)
There are a number of ways to check a site for such problems.
Some HTML authoring tools have built in checkers, but these
have serious limitations. They only work when you tell them to
work, and they are generally working on the computer on which
you created the site, not where the site is hosted. And they
are usually fairly limited.
However, there are a number of online services that can check
your site for problems. You can set these to run automatically
on a schedule, and to send you a report. The checkers can do
various things, from checking links to spell checking and HTML
checking. I have been looking at a few recently, though haven't
yet picked one. In fact I may end up picking a couple, because
some do one or two things very well, yet omit other features.
Most of these service provide free demo reports, by the way --
they'll check a few pages, maybe even 100, on your site and
send you the report so you can see what you'll get when you
sign up. So these are also great little free tools for checking
one or a few pages.
***LinkAlarm:
http://LinkAlarm.com/
I like this service, though it's drawback is that it _only_
checks links. The cost is 1 cent/page/check; that is, if you
have a 100-page site, and you pay $10, you'll be able to check
the entire site ten times. You can set up scheduled checks --
every day, week, two weeks, or month -- or run a check manually
at any time (unfortunately you don't seem to be able to set a
time at which the check would be done, which would be useful).
There's also a re-check feature; if you fix link problems found
in a report, LinkAlarm will re-check just the pages with
reported errors.
This is a very sophisticated link checker, so take a look at
the details for yourself -- it will report where file:// links
are, where passwords are required for entry (you can let
LinkAlarm into secure areas of the site), tell you which pages
have banner ads, and so on.
***Doctor HTML
http://www2.imagiware.com/RxHTML/
***RxHTMLPro
http://www2.imagiware.com/RxHTMLpro/
Doctor HTML is the free version of RxHTMLPro, a nice tool for a
quick check on just a few pages. If you want to check an entire
site, you'll need RxHTMLPro, which varies in price from 50
cents/report to 20 cents/report, a trifle expensive when
compared to the other services. (It's not clear what a report
contains, whether a one-page report and a complete-site report
are the same cost.)
These services check a number of things: spelling errors,
links, form structure, table structure, image syntax (are the
HEIGHT, WIDTH, and ALT tags present), document structure
(unclosed tags, etc.), page-loading times, and a few other
things. But the service may also be a little out of date. The
most recent example is from April of 1998, and there are limits
to the form checking, too. Still, you may well find the reports
useful -- I particularly like
***NetMechanic
http://www.NetMechanic.com/
NetMechanic has a number of useful tools, two of which are of
interest in this context: HTML Toolbox and Server Check.
HTML Toolbox identifies broken links, spelling errors, long
load times, browser compatibility problems, and HTML code
errors. It even has an HTML repair feature -- it will fix the
HTML errors and send you a replacement file.
The price is $35 per year for up to 100 pages, $200 a year for
up to 400 pages. But that buys you a lot of checks -- every
week, every two weeks, every month, or manual checks at any
time. What if your site is more than 400 pages? I guess you
could probably use the robots.txt file to exclude the system
from one area of your site (there are details of how to use
robots.txt in the HTML Toolbox FAQ), then set up another
account to check just that area.
The HTML check finds open tags (tags without an ending >),
badly nested table tags, unrecognized tags, invalid and missing
tag attributes, empty tag pairs, and so on.
The Server Check program is $9.99/month, for which you'll get a
check every 15 minutes, every hour of every day. If there's a
problem, you can be notified by e-mail or pager, and you can
define what sort of problems you want to hear about: server not
responding, slow responses, performance below a certain level,
and missing keywords. The keywords check is a way to ensure not
just that the server is responding, but that it's serving pages
correctly -- you can specify keywords that are found on
particular pages, so if Server Check does _not_ find them it
assumes there's an error.
Server Check works from two locations, one in the U.S., and one
in Europe, so you get a view from two different backbone
connections in different parts of the world.
... More Services and Programs
I don't have time to check all of these, but here's
information on some other services ...
***Web Site Garage
http://websitegarage.netscape.com/
Another service with a number of tools, including Tune Up,
which tests for browser compatibility, search-engine readiness,
load-time, link problems, link popularity, spell checks, and
HTML syntax. This has recently become part of Netscape
Netcenter, a free service. However, it only checks a single
page, and although there used to be a way to buy a full-site
service, that seems to have gone, at least for the moment.
***CSE HTML Validator
http://www.htmlvalidator.com/
The nice thing about this product is that it's an offline
product -- it runs in Windows 95/98/NT/2000 -- so you can check
your site's HTML before you upload. It's a $90 product that
seems to get great reviews: 5-cows at Tucows, WUGNET Shareware
Hall of Fame, and others. But there's also a Lite version that
is free, so you can download and try it. (The commercial
version has "link checking, a more powerful built-in HTML/text
editor, a batch wizard, better syntax checking, XHTML support,
and much more.")
***Tucows Library
http://www.tucows.com/
Go to the Tucows software library and search for "HTML
validators" and "link checker." I found six different programs
(including CSE HTML Validator).
***W3C HTML Validation Service
http://validator.w3.org/
This service is from the World Wide Web Consortium, the
organization that is responsible for promulgating versions of
HTML. It checks HTML and reports on problems, but it's not very
convenient, only doing one page at a time.
***Dr. Watson
http://watson.addy.com/
I did try Dr. Watson, but didn't like the report very much; I
found it very complicated and hard to use. It analyzes HTML
syntax, checks links, spell checks, calculates download speeds,
checks search-engine compatibility and link popularity.
***Bobby
http://www.cast.org/bobby/
This system is specifically for testing Web pages for their
accessibility to people with disabilities. It's a free service.
***And more ...
http://dir.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Data_Formats/HTML/V
alidation_and_Checkers/
You can find more services at Yahoo, under the HTML Validation
and Checkers page.
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{{ Adding "Viewlet" Content to Your Site ... Free }}
========>>>
I recently ran across Qarbon.com and their "viewlets" system --
in fact Kent McBride, who runs BizBlast.com's learning center
told me about these things, as he plans to use them in our
E-Biz Training Center.
Viewlets are little Java-based animations that can be used to
demonstrate a process of some kind. At the Qarbon.com site
you'll find viewlets demonstrating how to use AOL menus and
tools, how to work with Web browsers, how to use PowerPoint,
how to work with Linux, and so on. (At the moment they're
mostly used for demonstrating software, but you could put any
kind of images into them to demonstrate any process, really.)
Now, you can work with these viewlets in a variety of ways.
1. Borrow from the viewlet library ... and make money
There are hundreds of viewlets in Qarbon.com's library. You can
download these viewlets to your site, so visitors to your site
can view them. Not only are they free, but you'll even share in
the advertising revenue -- at the top of each viewlet is a
banner ad, and you'll get paid 25% of ad revenues generated
when the viewlet is used from your site.
2. Create your own viewlets ... and make money
You can create your own viewlets and add them to the Qarbon.com
library. If anyone else downloads and uses the viewlets, you'll
earn 15% of the advertising revenue. If someone comes to your
site and views a viewlet that you created, you get 40% of the
ad revenues.
3. Create your own viewlets ... but kill the banner ads
Qarbon.com has programs that allow you to create viewlets -- or
use viewlets from the library -- without displaying banner ads;
you can place your own images (a logo or perhaps your own ads)
in the banner ad space. For $49 setup and $49 a month you can
have up to 30,000 viewlet downloads a year; for $99 setup and
$399 a month you can get up to 350,000 downloads a year.
As the viewlets are Java applets, they won't work in all
browsers, but they will work in most: Internet Explorer 4.0,
Netscape 4.06, AOl 4.0 and later on MS Windows (unfortunately
they won't work in Mac versions of Netscape until Netscape
upgrades its Java support for the Mac).
Creating viewlets is very easy. Qarbon.com provide a special
tool to help you drop images into the viewlet and add your own
text callouts; you can use voice-overs, too.
See for yourself, at http://www.Qarbon.com/
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{{ Reciprocal Marketing }}
========>>>
A reader recently sent me an article on "reciprocal marketing."
That's a fancy term for merchants getting together to swap
discount coupons or gift certificates. If someone buys a
product at one site, that site issues a coupon or certificate
for another site, to encourage the buyer to visit the other
store. For instance, Gap.com and ProFlowers.com played this
game -- Gap customers spending $40 or more got a $10 coupon for
ProFlowers.
For more information, see the Silicon Valley News article:
http://www.sjmercury.com/svtech/news/breaking/merc/docs/006197.
htm
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{{ Do You Use PayPal? }}
========>>>
Do you use the PayPal payment service? PayPal allows you to
send money to people via e-mail, and it's growing rapidly
because of the popularity of the auction sites -- most ebay
transactions are now paid for by PayPal. But there's one
weakness with PayPal -- at the moment there are no
shopping-cart systems enabled for PayPal (there will be soon!).
It's a simple concept. You create an account, then load the
account in some way. You can actually send a little money by
mailing a check, or you can give them your bank-account or
credit-card information, and PayPal will draw money as you
spend it. And spending it is very easy -- you log into the
PayPal site and use a form to "e-mail" money to someone. If
that person already has a PayPal account, the money goes
straight into the account and an e-mail message is sent to the
recipient. If not, a message tells the recipient to sign up for
an account to get his money. (Now _that's_ viral marketing!)
But as I mentioned, there are currently no shopping-cart
systems available to the small business that can handle PayPal
transactions. PayPal did recently introduce a very simple
system, called WebAccept, that is basically a Buy button on a
Web site; when someone clicks on the Buy button the PayPal site
opens and allows him to make a payment, but it's a far cry from
true shopping-cart integration.
If you've been using PayPal and want a shopping-cart system
that handles PayPal transactions, the good news is that there
will be one available soon -- e-mail me at [EMAIL PROTECTED]
for more information and to hear when it's ready.
{{ Poor Richard's Web Site and Other Top Floor Books }}
========>>>
Top Floor Publishing now has seven books in print:
The Official Miva Web-Scripting Book: Shopping Carts,
Feedback Forms, Guestbooks, and More
http://www.topfloor.com/miva/
Poor Richard's Web Site, 2nd Edition: Geek-Free, Commonsense
Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site
http://PoorRichard.com/
Poor Richard's E-mail Publishing
http://PoorRichard.com/email/
Poor Richard's Internet Marketing and Promotions
http://PoorRichard.com/promo/
The CDnow Story: Rags to Riches on the Internet
http://TopFloor.com/cdnow/
MP3 For Musicians: Promote Your Music Career Online
http://www.topfloor.com/mp3m/
MP3 and the Digital Music Revolution: Turn Your PC into a
CD-Quality Jukebox
http://TopFloor.com/mp3/
... we also carry the following books by Peter Kent
Making Money in Technical Writing: Turn Your Writing Skills
into $100,000 A Year
http://topfloor.com/techwr/
The Official Netscape JavaScript Book
http://www.topfloor.com/books.htm
Order direct from the publisher, and you'll get a 100%,
1-Year Guarantee. If you feel the book wasn't worth the
money, send it back for a refund!
And remember, these books are discounted at the Web site, and
you pay just one shipping cost regardless of how many books
you buy!
^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+
{{ Book Reviewers Wanted }}
========>>>
Do you review books for newspapers, magazines, newsletters
(electronic or paper), Web sites, or other media spots? If
so, perhaps you'd like to review one of Top FloorPublishing's
recent books: "The Official Miva Web-Scripting Book" or "MP3
For Musicians." Or perhaps you'd like to review "Poor
Richard's Web Site: Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a
Low-Cost Web Site, 2nd Edition"? Or maybe one of the other
books I mentioned above?
Contact Top Floor's Marketing Director, Missy Ramey, at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Include your full mailing address, the
name of newspaper/magazine/whatever in which the review will
appear and the probable date of publication, and the editor's
contact information.
^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+^+
{{ Reading Back Issues }}
========>>>
If you need to refer to back issues of this newsletter -- and
search the archives -- you can find them at the following
location:
http://PoorRichard.com/newsltr/
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