Tech Tips | Extraordinary Thoughts

26Apr/101

Web Seminar @ CLC

I will be hosting a small Web Development Seminar at the College of Lake County.

The seminar will be on Tuesday, April 27 at 7pm, and last approximately 1.5 hours.

The sessions will be hosted in B161 in the Brandel Court.

Topics will cover:

Basic Web Concepts
Designs & Complex Visuals
Scripting & Animation

You can find more information inside this post.

Filed under: Design & Programming, Imaging & Design, Intellectual Discussion, JavaScript, Tech Tips Continue reading

10Feb/101

Guest Posts: Share The Love, Lighten The Load

This is all about Guest Posts; one of the most useful social tools for any blogger! You can easily expand your reach with simple SEO & Blogging tips, my last article missed one of many joys through blogging ‒ everything is community oriented.

Tagged as: blogging, content, guest, post, seo, writing Continue reading

27Jan/1018

Blogging & SEO: An Old Dog’s Guide

You're probably thinking "Shawn, what is this all about - you're young - you know all the new trends!?"; that's only half true. I've been coding websites as long as I can remember, and things have changed drastically. I've been able to easily snag #1 result on Google and related engines, but that was over 5 years ago. 5 years isn't much to any average Joe, but when it comes to technology it can seem like a lifetime.
- Try to remember when tabled layouts were more than acceptable!

The "New Web" is cluttered with social networks - and this is great - but it can prove very difficult to optimize anything for search engines. Everything has become what you could call "organic". It's not longer focused on hits or links, it's focused on content and interest. Hits and links still play a key role, but the old "link spamming" tactics don't work anymore.

Let me guide you through some key points to help bring your website recognition!

Filed under: Design & Programming, Intellectual Discussion, Randomness, Tech Tips Continue reading

23Jan/106

Adsense and AJAX: A Solution

Tired of fight with Adsense when using AJAX? That's exactly how I've been the last couple days. For such a widely spread service, it's terrible how bad flexibility for Web applications can be!

Anyways, most reputable programmers wont be relying much on iFrame, so here's an easy solution - just run this function every time you want to update the ads on your page.

I must warn you, DO NOT abuse this, Google can and will ban your account if impressions are being forced. I can't vouch that Google will even approve of this method, but from reading the ToS it should be acceptable giver the [end] user sent a request to change page content.

var redirects = 0;
function updateAdsense() {
	redirects++;
	var ads = document.getElementsByTagName('iframe');
	var src;
	if(ads && ads.length){
		for (var i = 0; i < ads.length; i++){
			src = ads[i].src.split('&');
			if(redirects > 1)
				src.pop();
			src = src.join('&');
			src = src + '&'+new Date().getTime();
			ads[i].contentWindow.location.replace(src);
		}
	}
}

You can see I use "location.replace", this solves issues with Adsense updates effecting browser navigation. In basic, it makes the back button work correctly.

As you can see this code is rather lazy, I will be providing an update soon.

Update

var redirects = 0;
function updateAdsense() {
	redirects++;
	var ads = document.getElementsByTagName('iframe');
	var src;
	if(ads && ads.length){
		for (var i = 0; i < ads.length && ads[i].id.substr(0,16)=='google_ads_frame'; i++){
			src = ads[i].src;
			if(redirects > 1) {
				src = src.split('&');
				src.pop();
				src = src.join('&');
			}
			src = src + '&'+new Date().getTime();
			ads[i].contentWindow.location.replace(src);
		}
	}
}

Tagged as: adsense, ajax, dynamic, iframe, JavaScript, refresh, update 6 Comments

11Nov/092

Better Browsing with Firefox

Firefox has numerous competitors - Google Chrome, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer - yet it still remains one of the most customizable browsers of all time.
If you're like me, you either - A) Want to Maximize Screenspace - or - B) Have low resolution.

I've decided to put together a guide of Firefox plugins to bring you're boring browser to this:
Firefox Minimal

Remove Statusbar

This may sound crazy, but we're not removing information from the statusbar, we just want to combine features to maximize screen space.

For this we want to install a handy little plugin called Fission.
By default it just shows the page loading status in the URL bar, but if you go into the plugin settings you can also show the active link status and connection status.

After installation go to the Firefox view settings and deselect the status bar and you're all set!

Add More Search Options

Fastestfox comes quite in handy. It can convert text URLs into links, show a search bubble when text is selected, and add extra options to search pages.

I recommend installing this plugin for a more refined experience, but prefer to turn off the "Endless Pages" feature as it can create issues with many websites.

Remove the Menu Bar & Bookmarks Toolbar

This process can be quite cumbersome, but the results are superb! First we want to install a nifty plugin called TinyMenu, this allows us to merge the Menu bar into one tiny button. I personally like to go into plugin options and use the image rather than the text "Menu", but this is entirely up to you.