For a long time now, my sites have been catching people’s eye. The most common feedback I get about them is that they are visually appealing. This is a very strong point in my view. A picture says a thousand words and people are happy to look at it, while they are not willing to read a thousand words. Going by that theory, some of my sites are presenting more than 300,000 words about their product and they are being read every day. People love my flash sites and they climb steadily in the search ranks for that precise reason.

Because of the growing pressure from the ipad market, I have been doing some reserach and devolpment about how we can best present our sites without Flash. We don’t want to forfeit the visual impact and emotional motivation that a well presented site holds. Some sites designed for mobile devices, actually just present a text-only version of their content. I think this is very poor marketting. People don’t make consumer choices based on information. They make those choices based on emotion.

I have developed a non-flash engine (still refining it) that uses javascript and jquery to present a non-scalable version of my sites. It replicates the flash version in many ways and yet still has a few restrictions. I would like to outline the features of this method here.

On the positive side:

• The site is the same content. All of the content shown on your non-flash version is drawn frome the same sources. This is very important. When you update your information in one place, via the regular text editor I provide, it is updated accross devices. The same text and images (and menu for those using the new databse driven menu config) appear on both. So there is no new content just a different program presenting the same content. Great!
• The site knows what device is viewing it. The first thing determined is whether the device has flash installed. Next the agent code is extracted from the browser of the device so we know whether it is an iphone, a pc, an android phone, an ipad, whatever. Then a respective “style-sheet” is loaded to help that device know just how we want the site layed out. So far this is tested on ios devices (iphone, ipad), pc and android devices.
• Smooth photo slideshow. Whether you know it or not, those large images that dominate your site are selling for you – guaranteed. I have utilised a javascript application to achieve almost the same result on non-flash devices. You can see it in the example.
• All on one page. We still have no need to scroll down. This is not a long columnar blog-style site where scrolling down removes you from the land of colour and emotion and leaves you in the wasteland of dry blank ink on white screen. The site is all contained within the one “frame” just like the flash version.
• Touch friendly. The site can be zoomed in and panned around using your finger on touch devices. In addition, the scrolling of text within a text box is by the same method, just drag it up or down with your finger. No need to tap tap tap on the down arrow.
• No change for search engine friendliness. All text is loaded at the start, but hidden from the viewer until requested. Research has shown that Google doesn’t mind this at all as long as the info can be found by the viewer by one method or another – so the result is complete text indexing. great again!
• For those of you who have back end photo organisers, text editors, comment editors and so on, there is no change required either to these engines or to your data. It all stays the same. the same content, the same database, the same folders of images, video and etc.

On the negative side:

• No resize. The site will fit inside a large screen with blank borders around it, or alternatively, a full-size background image that scales, while the other elements of the site do not (at this stage)
• Slower performance of animation and blending. Flash is still the best at what it does. You must remember that. It does many things for which there is simply no replacement. We are not moving away from it because it is poor, simply because the current mobile device monopoly owner refuses to allow us to use it on their devices. I still feel ticked off by this as you may well do also. The end result of Apple’s big greedy boycott policy is a squashing of internet creativity in order to protect their own profit margins. The internet was never meant to be this way. If you want to know why I think Apple have done this read here:
• Javascript too can be disabled. Without javascript, this new version won’t look right either but then again, almost nothing does. The good news is that all devices across all platforms have javascript enabled by default so you have to intentionally turn it off for the new site to fail its presentation.
• The software can be stolen. This may not concern you too much, but I’ll tell you anyway. Once your flash site is created, it is packaged up into a single file that is very hard to open and inspect to see how the internal workings are created. This is precisely why Apple don’t allow it. With Javascript, every character written in code can be read by anyone. It’s call “view source”. It simply means “show me how they are doing this”. In the long run, it means that your competition can simply copy your site, change the logo, the images and some text and have a site that looks and works exactly the same. that could be bad.

Within these restrictions, there is not a lot that we can’t do in javascript that we did in Flash, albeit a little slower. So don’t be too concerned. The world is constantly changing and we must change with it. I do hope that web development will one day be free again from companies who refuse ‘this’ technology or ‘that’ instead of simply allowing everything on their hardware. Until then, we are under Apple’s control and there’s no use protesting – let’s take advantage of every change.

So check out both these examples -. For those of you who get on board with this change in the next three months, you will get free upgrades as we refine the delivery method to get the best results, so don’t be shy to jump in first. You can expect that the upgrade will cost between $800 and $1800 depending on how old your site is and how complex. But if you’re like a client I sat with yesterday seeing that 750 people had visited his site on ipads and iphones over the last 3 months, you will know that you simply must show them something better than a text-only site. It will pay a good return on this small investment.

Call me for more info. Ph 0408 826 455

Brent.

Many people want to know how their site will be viewed on an iPad. Usually the question refers to flash content.

It is true that iPads do not display any flash content at all. They can be modified to force an install of the plugin, but I believe such modifications to their software voids the hardware warranty. That right there should tell you a bit. Apple is the only company I know of that will void a warranty of hardware, based on the software the user chooses to run.

There is much debate over why they have taken this stand against third party applications, and it is worth noting that Apple refuse other technologies too. It is my belief that Apple do this to control the transaction of money on their devices. Their policy is that they require 30% of the gross of all digital products sold on their devices. Applications such as flash actionscript can move data around without anyone else seeing what’s going on.

Apple has been in dispute with Sony Music because Sony’s iphone application sent people out to their website to finish purchases, thereby cutting Apple out of the gravy train. Similar disputes have happened with Amazon and Apple and probably many others. These companies are being forced to fork out 30% of their gross to the manufacturers of the devices that present their catalog.

It is also worth noting at this point in portable Internet history, that Google’s android and the devices that use it have no such claim. These manufacturers sell hardware products and allow their customers to use whatever software they choose on those devices. Imagine that! Tablet manufacturers like Asus, Samsung, Motorola and Toshiba are making brilliant devices and your flash content shows perfectly on them. Android phones also show your flash site as it was designed.

To give some idea of how handicapped iPad users are by this boycott of these technologies by Apple, just think that 80% of all video on the Internet is delivered with flash plugins. Think about the massive companies that have their primary sites built in Flash. If you’d like to start browsing them, just check out the premier award site FWA where almost every site is built in flash. These companies have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars in Flash technology and are still doing so. Unfortunately, many of them are building additional faces to their beautiful sites. These are a dumbed-down version of their site that can be seen on iPads and iPhones. I say “dumbed-down” because the reality is that nothing exists to replace the capabilities of Flash.

HMTL 5

If you say this to the rep at the Apple store, he or she will promptly tell you that html 5 has replaced flash. That’s a nice sentiment that may be true in 10 years, but it isn’t event close to true yet. Internet Explorer doesn’t support html5 at all yet and it is the most widely used browser. So if you build your website in it, you will lose more than half the market! There are other problems with html5 at this stage too. It is still in development and so sites that use it will require constant updating just to work properly, especially over the interim. Flash is the only way to do a great many things. That’s why so many educational programs like mathletics, and spellodrome use it exclusively. Gee, I hope your child didn’t want to get educated on your iPad.

What to do?

So that’s the low down on how things stand at present. I think that Apple’s bullying and control campaign will one day be over, but it will require that the common folk stop lining their pockets and funding their marketing. Apple is so keen on the billions it makes through selling other people’s products on their devices, that they are willing to sell their devices at cost or lower, just to get you into the trap.

Meanwhile, the progress of Internet delivery and development is being greatly slowed by this stale-mate. Internet sites are getting more ordinary, less flowing, less smooth and untuitive and interactive simply because they have to work on an iPad.

For my clients, your site will show on an iPad but not as it was designed. All the text will be readable and some of the images may be displayed. To see it this way, just temporarily disable the flash plugin. All the information of your site, the text and the images and the video is located outside flash. It can be accessed without the flash plugin. How we present it is another matter.

There is much that can be done to make this version of your site a little prettier and more functional for the small portion of the market that will visit on their iPad. I say small portion, but it is getting bigger at present. One of my clients that receives about 6000 visits per month in a travel based industry (more people will use their portable devices to reserach travel destinations because they may be already on the road), received

• just under 10% from iPhones and
• just under 4% of them from iPads.
• Meanwhile 71% of them were still from windows based machines and
• 13% from Macintosh-based machines

If you want to learn more about what we can do to your non-flash site, please call me for a chat about it.

Kind regards…

This fix is for both the upload image dialog and the browser module of FCKeditor

The problem is that emails need images to be referenced bu abosulte (not relative) URLs otherwise the client application doesn’t know which domain the image is to be found in. You can manually add the domain name to the fron tof the image scr tag but if you forget, the email will appear with nasty red crosses in it instead of beautiful images.

the file to change is in FCKeditor/editor/dialog/fck_image/fck_image.js

the function is SetUrl about line 849. Fist we declare a new variable to hold the domain name which we later use. Both changes are marked in red. This work is not mine, I’m merely referencing it here for my own purposes.

var theDomain = ‘http://’ + location.hostname;

function SetUrl( url, width, height, alt )

{

if ( sActualBrowser == ‘Link’ )

{

GetE(‘txtLnkUrl’).value = url ;

UpdatePreview() ;

}

else

{

//change from this GetE(‘txtUrl’).value = url ; to the following
GetE(‘txtUrl’).value = theDomain + url ;

GetE(‘txtWidth’).value = width ? width : ” ;

GetE(‘txtHeight’).value = height ? height : ” ;

if ( alt )

GetE(‘txtAlt’).value = alt;

UpdatePreview() ;

UpdateOriginal( true ) ;

}

This promblem occurs in AS3 when you’re sending and loading data through a URLrequest like this

var myData:URLRequest = new URLRequest(“http://www.mydomain.com/somescript.php”)
myData.method = URLRequestMethod.POST
var variables:URLVariables = new URLVariables()
variables.password = “somepassword”;
myData.data = variables
var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader()
loader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.VARIABLES
loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, dataOnLoad)
loader.load(myData)
function dataOnLoad(evt:Event){

trace (loader.data.someVar)

}

The variable if it is a string say comma delimited, will have no commas. It is because you didn’t send any variables ie you didn’t include the line in red.

Usually when you set up a button listener in actionscript 3 it listens for a mouse event and then fires a function. That functions needs to have the mouse event set as a parameter like this book now buttom function:

bookNow.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN,setupBooking);

function setupBooking(event:MouseEvent){

//this is where the functions methods are written

}

The problem is that if I want to call that function from some other place in my code, like from within another function, ie.

setupBooking();

the error fires saying “expecting 1 argument but it received 0.”

The way around this is to declare the argument as null in the function definition, like this:

function setupBooking(event:MouseEvent=null){

}

then we can call it with or without an argument.

This is a basic instruction of how to send messages with PHP list once it is configured. No configuration details are included here. For the full support and docs, please go here:

Once you arrive at the main Admin screen it will look something like this:

Click on the “send a message” button in the menu (right hand side) and you will see the following screen:

Notice the four areas highlited here:

1. The subject line. This can say whatever you want it to say. It is very important that it catches the attention of your audience and idetifies your company.

2. The from field. This contains two elements. The first is your name or company name. It can be several words separated by spaces if you wish. There must be a space after your name and before your email address. Your email address should be at your domain and it should be the registered reply-to address for PHPlist for best spam filter results.

3. The send test message button is used to send yourself a copy of the message to confirm that it looks the way you want it to before distributing it to your clients.

4. The test message address must be in the database for this function to work. That is, you must be signed up to your own newsletter.

5. The save button can and should be used at frequent intervals while composing your message.

TIP: The content that you enter in the main message box, should preferably not be posted from Word or another word processor. It is better to format your text after you enter it into PHPlist with bullets, bold, underline and colours. To strip away all formatting, simply paste your text into windows notepad first and the copy it from there.

Next click the Format Tab at the top:

Flashme clients usually have a default message format set and therefore you can skip this step. If the test message is not appearing as you hoped, check these settings. Any messages with images or text formatting included must be sent as “HTML”. The templates section is not covered here. This instruction assumes your designer has already installed a template for you. Flashme clients, this will usually be your default stationery.

Next click onthe “Lists” tab:

You will probably only have one list, but it must be selected nonetheless. When you have made your selection, click the button at the bottom to send the message to the queue.

PHPlist places messages in the queue for sending. If you want to create another message, do so before processing the queue as the program will not be usable while the queue is processing. It is advisable to leave your browser open for the duration of the queue process. For Flashme Clients, your messages will be sent out at 1 every 15 seconds, so every 100 messages will take 25 minutes. This is to prevent server overload and spam filters from marking your sender as unsolicited.

YOU ARE NOT FINSIHED YET.

When your process is due to be finished, you need to check that it is finished. The easiest way is simply to log in and click the button again here:

If the process is complete, you will see the log display a series of checks and then. “Nothing to do.” The process could be interrupted for a number of reasons. If you send a monthly newsletter and last month’s process was not completed, when you process the queue this month it will begin by finishing last months message, which will of course be out of date.

If you want to check to see if there are any old messages still queued go here:

Any messages that are still unfinished will have a suspend link visible beside them. Most businesses will want to suspend any old messages before processing the queue again.

It is always good to check that you received your own message as a subscriber to your list. This should be in addition to any test messages that you sent.

For any of you actionscript coders out there that may be searching for this. I discovered through trial and error that functions cannot be defined inside switches ie the following will not work

The code assumes there is a button on the stage called myButton

var myVar:String = “test”

switch(myVar){

case “test”:

myButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN,doMyFunction); //this listener will be reported as null error #2007

function doMyFunction(event:MouseEvent){

trace (“function is working”);

}

}

You have to move the definintion of the function outside the switch like this:

var myVar:String = “test”

switch(myVar){

case “test”:

myButton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN,doMyFunction); //this listener is OK

}

function doMyFunction(event:MouseEvent){

trace (“function is working”);

}

This is not the same as the if-then statement function and so can be a trap for those who begin using switch statements to be concise. Hope it helps.

SEO – search engine optimisation. It’s the task of making your website as readable as possible to search engine “spiders” and including in that text the key words that people use when they want to find you.

How much of your traffic comes from search engines? Here is one of our sites over the last month. The orange line is search engine generated visits.

Three of our sites compared:

A “Spider” is a program that searches the internet to find what’s out there and index or list it so that people can find it. It isn’t a person and so it has some major restrictions:

1. It can’t see pictures or identify what they are about.

2. It can’t see videos or understand how useful they may be.

3. It can’t decipher audio to know what it’s about.

In other words it has no idea how good the look and feel of your site is. You may have lots of high quality photographs taken by a professional photographer (like me ) or some excellent video that explains or showcases your product, and you might have some contagious music that makes people want to come to your premises, but the “spider” gives you no credit for any of this.

The conundrum is that people do. A picture says a thousand words to anyone except a spider. You all know that a site full of text without media is very poorly ranked  by real people. They love photos, movement, video and sound and they buy products when emotionally motivated. So you are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

You  make a site that people will love and the search engines don’t help those people find you. or…

You make a site that gets the most rankings from search engines and when the people arrive it has no interest or impact.

Good news! We have developed the optimum balance.

This is how it works. When a spider comes to our sites, or anyone who’s device doesn’t support flash, a script on our site determines that they need to be shown the text instead. They see a header image and then all of the text information from your site. This is the same info that you edit via the content management system including all the links to pdfs and other sites etc.

If you change the information via the CMS (content management system), it is automatically changed on this non-flash version of your site. You don’t have to do it twice. There is no trickery since the text they see is also shown on your main site when flash loads it in. It is an authentic replication of all your info in a format that the search engine spider can read.

More good news! This makes your site viewable to smart phones, PDAs and iphones too. These little devices don’t have the processing power to display a full flash site with all it’s media. Instead of just an error, they see all the text info too.

This new development will ensure that our sites continue to get excellent search engine rankings without forfeiting what they exist for; to make sales with real people.

An interesting side note:

The contradiction between what people like to see and what search engines are able to understand is narrowing. Search engines know that the best sites are not text driven and so they are finding ways to decipher non-text media. This is evident by the fact that many of the first listed sites for popular searches have little or no text on them. An example is the word “chocolate”. Type it into Google and the first site you get is Cadbury http://www.cadbury.com.au/ which has almost no text on it.

In the end the best sites get to the top, no matter how much the competitors try to trick Google with fancy SEO. This is because Google is determined to list the best sites at the top so that people continue to be happy with their search findings.

I am happy to report that Flashme is still making the best sites. People love them, they return to them, they buy from them and they tell their friends about them. I can’t count how many times we’ve heard, “I didn’t know web sites could do that.” or “Wow, I want to go there already.” Flashme sites are giving local businesses an unrivalled web presence. Do you own one? Check them out here: www.flashme.com.au

Merry Christmas to our wonderful customers.

We’ve had customers drop in with gifts, customers invite us to their homes for dinner, clients who sent us a card. Thank you to all. We really do love working with such wonderful people; people who like to do business with excellence. Thanks for trusting us with your website development which is such an important arm of your business future.
We are very glad to report that our customer’s websites are generating excitement and sales right across the board. Our policy of impressing visitors through a media-rich and immersive environment created through Adobe Flash, really does work. We are trying to create an online experience that replicates the excellent products and services that you provide. We have a growing list of very impressive and effective sites. You can see these in our portfolio at www.flashme.com.au.

We have also been researching constantly the issue of making flash-based websites readable to search engines to maximise your search engine hits and will be implementing some of our findings early in 2010. This is all in the aim of providing ongoing cutting-edge web services to you and riding the wave of success together as we bring more sales to your business.

So here’s to 2010 for you – that it will be a year of continued growth and that you will be satisfied and even surprised with the results month in and month out. We look forward to helping you make this a reality.

Check out this graphic (below). It lists the traffic sources for the last month for one of my Hunter Valley based sites. The size of the dot represents the relative number of hits.

Notice how much traffic comes from Sydney. This is clearly the target market for this company. 90% of the visitors to this site live too far away to come and see before booking. These people are relying heavily on the internet as a way of finding out whether this is the place they want to play or stay or wine or dine or fly or whatever.

My stats for this site show that 79% of those visitors had never been to the site before. They aren’t “clubbies” logging on to find out what’s changed. They are serious potential customers who have never seen before what they are about to see as the page loads. (mighty fast loading times we’re achieving too)

Think for a while how important this makes this web site as means of closing sales.

Now aren’t you glad that your web site doesn’t consist of large titles and blocks of text and postage-stamp pictures that sit there staring at you forever? Aren’t you glad for every visitor who has enjoyed the experience and been surprised by the inventive approach you’ve taken to presenting your company? I’ll bet you are.

Do you have this level of information about your traffic. If not, call me and I can start it for you very quickly and easily.
Kind regards…

Brent and Corina.