| LED Digest 2231: Hand Coding |
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There is a time and a place for hand coding... and a time and place for
WYSIWYG editors. Both have certain strengths and weaknesses, and this issue explores some.
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======== CONTINUING ===============================The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" Data > Information > Knowledge > Wisdom pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Registration from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam, led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ............................................. August 23, 2006 Issue no. 2231 ............................................. .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ==== CONTINUING ================= <Moderator Comment> ~ Late because of Server Stuff --== Rectifying DMOZ Listings ==-- ~ Paul Campanella "Regardless of what title and description you have...DMOZ will not read these." ~ Michael Martinez "Google and MSN now both honor the "NOODP" value for the robots meta tag." --== HTML Editor Recommendations ==-- ~ Mark Whitman "...I decided it was much faster, less tedious and less aggravating to hand code." ~ Rod Aries "We use Note Tab Pro not only to create sites now..." ~ John Smart "There is a time and a place for hand coding." ~ Tom Anson "I have to agree heartily with Michael Linehan's remarks about hand-coding v Dreamweaver." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== .htaccess File? ==-- ~ Cheryl Berry <Moderator Comment> Greetings LEDer- Sorry about the late issue today -- our server needed some maintenance and it turned into a 4 hour ordeal this morning. Much better now though :-) Hope it's a good day, Adam -------------------------- From: Paul Campanella Subject: DMOZ listings > My site is listed in DMOZ in a different title > than the actual title. I have noticed that same > title is in Google and MSN search results. - Baruch Avraham, LED 2230 The reason why your titles and descriptions are different in DMOZ is because a human editor has reviewed your site, and they released your site into their directory with a title and description that they felt was appropriate for your site. Regardless of what title and description you have in your meta tags, DMOZ will not read these. Some search engines, such as Google and MSN, have been known to use the same title and description that your site is listed under in DMOZ. This can sometimes have a negative effect on your ranking in the search engines. There are a few things you can do to help prevent your DMOZ titles and descriptions from appearing in the search engines: To prevent all search engines (that support this tag) from using the titles and descriptions from DMOZ, enter this line of code in your meta tags: <META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOODP"> To specifically prevent Google from using this information, use the following: <META NAME="GOOGLEBOT" CONTENT="NOODP"> To specifically prevent MSN from using this information, use the following: <META NAME="MSNBOT" CONTENT="NOODP"> Note that once you add one of these meta tags to your page, it may take some time for the search engines to update your site in their listings. Good luck! Best regards, Paul Campanella -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Michael Martinez Subject: DMOZ listings Google and MSN now both honor the "NOODP" value for the robots meta tag. If your robots meta tag looks like this: <meta name="robots" content="index,follow"> Change it to look like this: <meta name="robots" content="index,follow,noodp"> It may take a while before they start to show the title and description from your page instead of the ODP. At the very least, you have to wait for your page to be recrawled. Michael Martinez http://www.michael-martinez.com/ -------- new post - new topic -------- From: Mark Whitman Subject: HTML editors > I've got to strongly speak against this idea > of hand-coding... With even a modest modern > website, this rapidly becomes incredibly > laborious and time-consuming. - Michael Linehan LED 220 What typically happens with editors however is that you frequently have to go in and make modifications in order to make things fit together properly which requires a knowledge of HTML anyway - you can't get around it. I used Dreamweaver for a while hoping it would save time but spent so much time making corrections and stripping out code pollution I decided it was much faster, less tedious and less aggravating to hand code. As far as being "incredibly laborious and time-consuming", you typically just use the same limited set of tags over and over, it's no big deal at all unless you don't have a very good understanding of HTML. I'm not implying that Michael does not have a good understanding of HTML, maybe he does, but I'd imagine that most people who tag by hand would disagree with that process being "incredibly laborious and time-consuming". M.Whitman -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Rod Aries Subject: HTML editors > I strongly recommend that you invest > the time to learn HTML... - Jere Matlock, LED 2229 Up to about 2000, we would create web sites for smaller clients and we would use Front Page because after we were done it was a program they could use to edit their own site, had a low learning curve and despite some shortcomings it was a convenient alternative for all parties. We use Note Tab Pro not only to create sites now, but we use it because it is one of the most powerful software programs available. It allows you to do write simple (in my case) scripts to do all sorts of projects such as create mail merges with it, do comparisons of lists to see which single rows are different, do massive sorts like by type of domain (sort by the extension at the end of the line - com.net.org, then sort by the alpha at the beginning), strip HTML, do text counts, cut only 50 or 119 or 231 lines at once off a list, sort by length of line (handy when you are looking for short domain names), as well and complex search and replace features across hundreds and hundreds of HTML pages all opened at once... and, by the way, you can create web pages with it as well. The scripts are simple to do, here is a sample of what I use to remove the .org .net or .com extensions when I am creating keywords from a domain - essentially it is an automated search and replace script: ^!Replace .com >> "" WAST ^!Replace .net >> "" WAST ^!Replace .org >> "" WAST There are also authors out there who have contribute script libraries that do everything from validate, to create keywords to CSS to Perl to javascripts. The script libraries are cool because they can sit resident as a tool bar, and you simple double click to do some task for you, saving you hours and hours. Links are here http://www.notetab.net/html/library.htm I use this program 2-3 hours every day... I think the pro version is $29 and the standard is $19, there is a light version for $5 that seems to do most things, not sure what all the differences are but for $29, get the pro... no, I don't get anything for recommending this... I am usually close guarded about who I use for outsourcing work, but in this case let me tell you about Jody. Whenever I got in trouble, or lazy, or pressed for time, I would contact Jody (@) notetab.com and he would create a custom script for me that worked perfectly at a very, very reasonable price. While I haven't had to use Jody's services in a year, he probably still is around. Just think of the biggest, time-consuming problem you have, and I bet that Jody can solve it with a script from this HTML editor. I usually accused Jody of under-pricing his work... I use scripts he has created for me 20-50 times every day, saving hours of time. Note Tab Pro makes notepad (that comes with Windows) look like a unicycle when compared to Note Tab Pro, a Hummer / Corvette model. Rod Aries -------- new post - same topic -------- From: John Smart Subject: HTML editors There is a time and a place for hand coding. A lot of scripts (php, asp, etc) create tables based on the data they get from a database. When you are writing this sort of code, life is so much easier if you can hand code. Also, if you nest multiple tables, being able to hand code can really help if you manage to confuse Dream Weaver, that said, you really shouldn't be nesting multiple tables! I can put the spare wheel on my car if I get a flat - I think everyone who drives should know how to do that. I cannot do much of anything else to my car - I cannot change the oil, recalibrate anything or adjust anything. And why would I need to? Can a fully qualified mechanic drive any better than me? Well, probably yes, now that you ask - but not because he could rebuild the car with a wrench and some scotch tape! (sadly, because I am not such a great driver!) There is a place for hand coding, unfortunately it seems that often time that place is inflating egos. John Smart InternetDesign.com - A Human Touch in a Digital World -------- new post - same topic -------- From: Tom Anson Subject: HTML editors Hi all, I have to agree heartily with Michael Linehan's remarks about hand-coding v Dreamweaver (LED Digest 2230). I've been working on a revision of my www.health-essentials.info website (not uploaded yet -- hopefully by sometime next week). I'm using Dreamweaver for this. But I've developed a quirk, of sorts, in my use of Dreamweaver. I use the split window view (code on top, design on the bottom), and sometimes, I find myself merrily hand-coding things. That's fine, except it takes me longer to get the job done. A lot longer. Why, pray tell, should someone with other things to do spend two hours doing something "by hand" when it could be done in 20 minutes using the power of Dreamweaver? Yes, it can be fun. Yes, it gives a certain sense of "accomplishment" -- but really: what is it you're trying to accomplish? If the goal is to have a good, functional webpage, it just makes sense to use the tools that will get you to that point sooner. Tom Anson Anson Aromatic Essentials http://www.therapeutic-grade.com ==== BILLBOARD =================================== From: Cheryl Berry Subject: .htaccess File? Adam, I really appreciate your input from the Google employee post by Brian White (August 17th) "including a modified .htaccess using rewrite rules". I've seen this directory on my web server and plead ignorance. Can you or an LEDer provide in layman's terms, the functionality of this file? Since we've been on the topic of security, I feel this is something I've missed and probably need to understand. Looking for guidance! Cheryl Berry
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