Introduction
More than ever, people are turning to the internet as a primary source of information. Every day, thousands of people from every demographic go “online”. For them, the internet is used to find information that will help them choose the products or services they require, from whom they will purchase them, and how much they will pay for them.
In recent years, no business would consider ignoring the local Yellow Pages directory or risk being invisible to the majority of their market. Today, the same can be said for the internet. Not having a “web presence” can make you virtually invisible to an increasingly significant portion of your potential market.
Knowing, however, that one of the most crucial components of successfully marketing your business will be your online web presence is only the first step.
Identification, Approach, Planning, Development, Implementation, Monitoring, and Directing your web plan are steps that are all equally crucial to benefiting from the vast potential of the internet.
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As many web-designers know, fonts can be a real issue.
Typography is an important aspect of any design, and the precise appearance of text is often critically important to the effectiveness of the message being communicated.
When we use images to display words, we have infinite control over how the text appears on a users screen. But then, that text is completely invisible to search engines. It’s self defeating if you produce a grand design for a client but no one is able to see it because of poor search rankings.
So, designers use text as much as possible. This introduces many challenges, especially in the multi-platform, multi-browser, multi-device environment we have today. Average users seldom have more than basic fonts installed on their system.
We have the ability to deliver fonts to their computer when they visit a site, but this often requires special licensing and quality fonts are not always cost effective to distribute legally.
Google to the rescue. Google has recently introduced Google Web Fonts (beta). A collection of high quality, web-optimized fonts that, thanks to a simple API, can be pre-loaded on the site visitors machine before the page is displayed. This guarantees that the user sees the information as it was intended to be seen. There are no tricky licensing issues to navigate, no fees required (although donations are welcome and help improve the library).
The fonts can be requested in the header of the HTML document making them available before the DOM is loaded. The fonts can then be used, styled and manipulated through CSS as any other font.
There are many fonts and families available (visit www.google.com/webfonts) but each font must be requested individually using the API call in the header.
It is recommended that only the necessary fonts be requested to reduce load time.
The API usage and the available fonts are well documented at Google Webfonts.
Written on March 25, 2011 at 2:16 am, by James ReedArticle Contents:
What is a QR code?
Why would you use them?
How Do My Potential Clients use this?
Quickstart for QR code scanners!
Like a typical Barcode found on just about any product in the supermarket, a QR Code is a pattern that can be read by machines. The QR Code, developed in 1994 by Toyota subsidiary Denso-Wave stands for Quick Response but you may have heard them referred to as tags or ‘tagging’. Unlike typical barcodes, these highly sophisticated QR Codes can store a lot of information in a tiny square, including instructions, words, letters, numbers, and more. A popular use for them is as a supplement to advertising. App’s on almost any smartphone can use the phone’s camera to scan QR Codes and follow instructions hidden within.
In short, you will be able to supply a potential client a quick and convenient way to access additional information that might not normally fit on your printed material or even store it quickly for later use. Capable of storing as much as 7000 numeric characters in a single code, QR Codes have nearly unlimited uses. For example, one might add a QR Code to their advertisement that included some or all of the following:
- vCard
- URL
- Compose an Email
- Display Text
- Send SMS
- Maps
- Phone Numbers
The uses for QR Codes is endless and the best part is that you can use any one of dozens of online generators to create your own QR Code absolutely free. But, once you have your QR Code, you must consider how to place it in front of your potential clients in a way that catches their attention and causes them to take notice. sodipop studios has the specialized professional skill set to maximize the effect of including QR Codes in your advertisement media. Afterall, it’s all about getting noticed and standing out from the crowd.
How Do My Potential Clients Use This?
Small, free, specialized applications available for any smartphone turns the phone’s built in camera into a magical barcode scanner. For iPhone alone there are over 50 free apps available for download. I personally recommend Optiscan but feel free to try several until you find one you like. If you are using a newer BlackBerry, you likely have a app that was pre-installed when you purchased your phone, but if not, you can download one called QR Code Scanner Pro. The Android App Market also has several offerings, including one that is commonly pre-packaged with your phone simply named Barcode Scanner. Other popoular Android choices include ZXing and QR Droid. Nokia has palced built-in barcode scanners in some of their models and they should be able to read QR codes.
QUICKSTART for QR code scanners: Find an app for your phone. I bolded a few options in the above paragraph.
There are usually two options you can do; One if you have the image of the QR code in your photo gallery, you can load it into your scanner app.
Secondly, you can use your smartphone’s built-in camera. Load the app point the camera at the QR code, and it will capture the QR code usually leading into some sort of action. Options tend to be, save QR code, share QR code, Or go to whatever the QR code is leading. If it’s a URL then it will lead you to the website. If it’s a vcard, it’ll ask if you want to create new contact, or add to existing, if it’s a map coordinates, it will take you to your map app for the location, phone numbers will just ask if you want to phone this number, etc.
The point of the QR codes is to reveal something extra that is found on your print products like a business card could have all your contact information stored in it, you scan it on your phone and it’s in your contacts list, allowing you to share information without having to give up your business card.
If you have any questions feel free to contact us through the website, or hit up some comments on facebook, we’ll do our best to answer your questions.
Contact us we have a lot of ideas to help you get noticed!
Written on July 20, 2010 at 5:01 pm, by lemontreeSpamming is big business. Sophisticated robots scour the web looking for raw email addresses in HTML files and seemingly overnight, managing your inbox can become a full-time job of its own.
Cloaking An Email Address
I went looking for a way to protect email addresses on all of my sites, without losing the functionality of the mailto: link and I came across an easy and helpful javascript solution which, with a little tweaking and customization, I was able to bend to my will.
The solution is to input an email address into HTML in a way such that farming bots won’t recognize it as an email address. Then, using javascript, replace the encoded email address with a mailto: link.
For example, instead of placing the following in our HTML:
- <a href=”mailto:address@email.com”>address@email.com</a>
we use:
- <span class=”address”>address_at_email.com</span>
which is not recognized as an email address by spam bots seeking the ‘@’ symbol or the ‘mailto:’ string.
We then execute a little bit of javascript which will replace the encoded email contents of any span tag assigned a class of ‘address’ with a properly formatted mailto: link.
- // JavaScript Document
- var Convert = {
- initialize: function() {
- var spans = document.getElementsByTagName(“span”);
- for (var i = 0; i < spans.length; i++) {
- if(spans[i].getAttribute(“class”) == “address”) {
- str = spans[i].childNodes[0].nodeValue;
- val = str.split(“_”)[0] + “@” + str.split(“_”)[2];
- if (val.search(“\\?”)>= 0)
- {
- email =( val.substr(0, val.search(“\\?”)));
- }
- else
- {
- email = val;
- }
- spans[i].innerHTML = ‘<a href=”mailto:’ + val + ‘”>’ + email + ‘</a>’;
- }
- }
- }
- }
- window.onload = Convert.initialize;
The above script locates <span> tags with the class “address” (change value on line 6), and parses the contents, replacing the ‘_at_’ email encoding with the proper ‘@’ symbol. The change is invisible to robots but will display in browsers as if it was a part of the source code. Of course, a View Source will reveal the original ‘_at_’ encoding.
The script then parses the contents of the <span class=”address”> to check for a parameter that you might pass to the visitors email client. For example, if we wanted to pass a ‘subject’ parameter to the email client when the user clicks the link, we can do that by placing the following in the HTML source and executing the javascript:
- <span class=”address”>address_at_email.com?subject=Pass This Subject to the Email Client</span>
The script will separate the email address from the parameter that follows the ‘?’. The parameter will be encoded in the mailto: link properly, but will not be displayed to the user except when the link is hovered over.
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LemonTree Studios can be contacted via info_at_lemontreestudios.ca?subject=Website Inquiry this email link, the inquiry form that appears below, or by any of the methods listed on this panel. We encourage inquiries of all types, but respectfully request that no spam or mass marketing emails be sent so that we may focus on responding to clients in a prompt manner.
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