June 2007 Archives: According to Jim

Convert Microsoft Documents to PDF Files On Windows OS and Apple Mac

The following are a couple of ways to convert and combine your Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Publisher, Bitmap, GIF, JPEG, PNG, Plain Text, Rich Text, XML and HTM/HTML files and documents, to PDF file format.

There are actually many PDF writer programs available that can convert documents through a print emulation program for both PCs and Apple computers. What these types of programs do when loaded on your computer is act like a virtual printer. Instead of selecting your normal printer for printing the documents, you select the PDF Writer program from the printer select area. One of these types of virtual printer programs that I have used is the pdf 995 program that allows you to create PDF documents easily for free. The cool thing about this type of program is the ability to select the print to PDF from virtually any program that you are running. That means, if you can print from a regular application, you can select the print to a PDF file, which converts the output to a PDF file and saves it anywhere you would like. The free version does display some advertising when used, but this really is no big deal. If you want the paid version, you can get it for as little as $9.95 or get the whole powerful suite for $19.95 to provide all the bells and whistles imaginable.

By-the-way, you can also use this as a network selectable printer. That means, anyone that has access to the network can select the pdf 995 printer option and convert their documents to a PDF file. You can also combine multiple documents to form one PDF file.

The latest Apple computer operating systems provide a built in writer version of a PDF conversion type program. Simply select the print menu from any Mac application, and then select the PDF drop-down menu item. Select: Save as PDF, Save PDF as PostScript, Fax PDF, Compress PDF, Encrypt PDF, Mail PDF, Save as PDF-X, Save PDF to iPhoto, or Save PDF to Web Receipts Folder. This is quite handy for all types of document sharing across Mac OS X and Windows operating systems.

There are some other free online conversion places available, however some of these websites require you to give them your email address so they can send you the file. I have not taken the time to investigate if these sites are trustworthy to secure your information from online spammers or other types of privacy issues. In my opinion, there are other options available for free PDF conversions, that are secure with your email address and files.

Drawloop Technologies

Another way to convert all types of Microsoft documents to PDF files is using the LOOP software available for free as an add-on to the Firefox browser, and they are a trusted source in my opinion. They provide a privacy policy in which you can opt-out at the very beginning of items related to sharing of your email address for purposes of marketing materials being sent to you.

What is LOOP?

LOOP is a free web-based application that allows you to upload, convert and combine files to PDF. You do not need to install software or be working from your desktop computer. LOOP is delivered on-demand and available for use 24/7 through a web browser.

LOOP works with these documents:

Microsoft Word	Microsoft Excel
Microsoft PowerPoint	PDF

LOOP also accepts:

Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Publisher, Bitmap, GIF, JPEG, PNG, Plain Text, Rich Text, XML and HTM/HTML files

You can read more about LOOP at Drawloop Technologies An import note about the use of LOOP with a browser based system is the great versatility that this brings to all software platforms. The software works on Windows XP or Vista just as easily as it does on Apple MAC OS X because it is Web based through the Firefox Web Browser.

You can get the LOOP add-on and the Firefox browser from the Mozilla website.

PDF files are becoming the standard for document sharing today. Having a file in the form of a PDF can make it easier for customers to be able to read and save sales literature, technical documents, manuals, and various other forms of publicity materials. Give these programs a try. I think you will like them.

Jim Warholic
Internet marketing and SEO specialist.

Some Mornings Just Seem To Drag On And On

This morning started 24 hours ago. Picked up one of our cars from the shop for a coolant leak problem. They had to replace the coolant pump, which is behind a cover, which is behind the serpentine belt. Decided to also have the coolant hoses replaced. All of this added up to big bucks. Everything was fine, or so it appeared. Brought the car home, parked it in the driveway, and waited for our daughter, the regular driver of this car, to pick it up.

When she went to start it, all that we heard was a whining sound. The starter would not engage to start the engine. Gave it a rest, then tried it again, and the starter engaged this time. But, by now it was too late to take it in to the shop. Sure, I could have dropped it off, using their drop box, but I figured I’ll just do it in the morning. I surely would be able to get it started in the morning. Wrong assumption!

I must say, I am impressed with AAA. They were here with-in fifteen minutes of my call for a tow. So, it’s back to the shop for round number two or should I say, round #3. It was just last week that we replaced all the struts and got a couple of new tires to boot. Well, you know, when it rains it pours.

Get Started In Your Business

Time to get back to work. That reminds me, sometimes it takes more time online to get things where you want, and the way you want them for a website, than what you originally estimated or longer than what you expected. At times it seems the hardest thing to do, is to get started.

One of the stories that Bob Parson, CEO and Founder of GoDaddy.com shared with the public was when he was asked, “What advice do you have for someone who is just starting a business?” He came up with a list of Rules For Survival. In one of Bob’s podcasts I remember him also saying, “that you have to do something you love.” His whole emphasis was you’ve got to have fun doing it in the first place. Many companies that have become household branded names and made it big time online, didn’t get started because there was a great deal of money in it to begin with. No, the owners of many of the successful Internet related companies got started because first and foremost, they loved what they were doing. Some of these people dared to dream and created new technologies and new industries where there were none before. They saw an e-business hole, and decided to fill it. In the end, it was their passion, love, and pursuit of a dream that launched many of the Internet companies we have today.

So remember, when life sends you lemons, turn them into lemonade. Dare to dream big for your business today.

Jim Warholic
Internet marketing specialist

Talk about a confluence of power events…

Having a battery UPS backup system only works so long. San Ramon, California experienced a power outage that took out quite a large number of blocks. While talking on the cordless phone, the power went out, but I was still talking. How was that possible? OH yeah, I had the cordless phone plugged into the UPS. But, I was on Comcast Digital Phone Service, and yet it was still working. The Internet was down because the Comcast modem had no power, yet the Comcast Digital Phone Service was running strong. Sure enough when I went to a phone that was hard wired into the wall, and found the system was working just fine.

The alarm from the UPS was beeping continually. It was time to shut the computers down. Well, they shut down just fine, and an hour or so latter the power came back on, and everything started powering up no problem. However, a short while later, I smelt that familiar burnt odor, that says Ought Oh, there’s a problem, throughout the office. Looking over at the computer monitor, it was blank. The computer power supply light was out, and the smell was coming out from below the desk. Sure enough, the computer was dead. The power supply was red hot. Down to the bone yard to see if I had another power supply from one of the old hulks. Sure enough, I had a 300 watt supply in one of those stacks of computers awaiting reclamation. Actually, I’m somewhat of a pack rat, thinking that I’ll need something from all those old items. And, it usually works out that I end up using something that gets me through another predicament.

After installing the power supply, everything seemed to power up just fine.

This whole set of events started earlier with one of my small circulating fans going out for the office. The fan shaft and bushings were quite dirty and the fan had great difficulty turning on it’s own accord. After pulling that apart, and cleaning it up, I gave it a couple drops of my trusty Tri-Flow, teflon based lubricant (don’t leave home without it) and reassembled it. Sure enough the fan starting turning again. We’ll see how long it lasts.

Now back to the computer. Hopefully this 300 watt supply will last for a little while. I think it would be a good idea to check out a 400 or 500 watt power supply though. I have too many internal items running on this computer. Wow, just did a search online for power supplies and there are 550 and 600 watt supplies available too. Or, I could go for the Thermaltake Toughpower 1200w Power Supply. Now, that’s a lot of power!

An interesting thing happened when I came back online. Mozilla Firefox had upgraded itself, and some things changed on the configuration. Actually, I don’t think it actually upgraded, but something changed in the settings on the computer. My All-in-One Sidebar Toolbar had moved over from the right side to the left side. However, it added a new feature of automatically minimizing on the side when the mouse is moved off of it. This is actually a good feature, in that you don’t have to click anything to extend your browser window size. Also, my bookmarks were missing. Had to download them again from Foxmarks Bookmark Sync, which is a program for Firefox that allows you to synchronize your bookmarks across all your computer machines no matter where the computers are located.

Anyways, I’ll have to play with Firefox a little more to see what else has changed.

For now, it’s back to the Internet for some important items that I need to get done for some customers. I think some customers think things automatically happen with just a quick click of a button, and it’s done. But, that’s another story.

Remember, keep your fans blowing, and your supplies running cool, and power up your business online with Professional Web Services, and experience what professional Internet marketing services can do for you.

By Jim Warholic

I gave Apple a second chance with Safari for Microsoft Windows environment.

Check out the screen shot of Safari with our Professional Web Services website.

Read the previous posting: Apple Safari For Windows Partial Menus For Many

I am pleased to report, that the partial menus problem is not the case anymore.

After seeing a notice that an update to fix the font issue in Safari for Windows was available to download from Apple, I downloaded the new installer program.

But, just to be on the safe side of getting this to work properly, I read on Grupenet to “please make sure the read-only option on your Fonts.plist file is unset.”

I believe this is if you have previously installed Safari and used his fix on the previous version. See the comments below from Jared. His instruction is as follows: ‘unset read-only on the “Fonts.plist” which is located in “C:\Documents and Settings\%USERNAME%\Local Settings\Application Data\Apple Computer\Safari” on Windows XP and “C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Apple Computer\Safari” on Windows Vista.’ See comments.

I personally like to have the status bar on at the bottom of the Safari program when running. The user can turn this on or off depending on their preferences. Go to the View menu and select Show Status Bar to have the bottom of the browser display information such as when your cursor is placed over a link, the status bar will display the link location. If you want to have the Tab bar always displayed, simply select view Tab. The tab bar is nice to have because you can right click on the existing tab and open a new tab for another website or a fresh Search Engine search.

I know Apple has a thing with their Silver Surfer brand image, but I would like to see some colors for the Safari browser. However, with that being said, the Safari browser is kind of cool looking, with their elegant rounded slide scroll bars on both the bottom and right side.

From a web developer’s standpoint, it’s always a good idea to know how your website displays on other browsers. Also, from an Internet marketing standpoint, you will want to know how your business website shows up on other computers, operating systems, and the various browsers online. Quite a number of browsers are available besides IE such as: Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, Opera, Camino, SeaMonkey, Flock, and others.

Jim Warholic, President Professional Web Services, Inc.

Apple, if I were a teacher, and you turned in a term paper with no titles, I’d have to give you a failing grade.

This is how I felt when I decided to load Safari on my Windows XP computer. This week I read about Apple coming out with Safari for the Windows environment, and thought OK, I’ll give it a try. Now, I understood that the software was in beta form, but I did not think it was at an alpha stage.

The installation went fairly smoothly, except I was given an option to Install Bonjour Service. Confusing to say the least since I was expecting to be installing Safari. The installation screen reads:

Bonjour for Windows enables Safari to detect shared devices on your local netwok and make them available to you. For example, you can view and configure shared printers available through Bonjour, without any complica…

Was that last word complications?

Well, let me tell you of complications with the Safari for Windows XP Pro.

After going through the install, I launched Safari, and the first impression was all the menus were missing. They had little dashes – present in place of the menu items. Not only were the menus missing in the tool bar area, but the Apple website was missing large amounts of information and data. See the Safari screen shots below.

Apple Safari Missing Menus

Apple Safari Screen Shot With Missing Support and Menus

FYI, I also have a Mac PowerPC G5 desktop computer, running Mac OS X, version 10.4.9 and did the install of the new Safari on that platform prior to installing it on my Windows platform. So, I knew what it was supposed to look like.

I tried a number of fixes for the problem. Tried downloading the complete package again, with QuickTime included and then uninstalled and reinstalled Safari. I still had the same problem. I hate spinning my wheels on something that should work, but at the same time I hate giving up. So, I placed the issue on the back burner until today. After doing some research online, it appears that many people are having the same no menus problem.

I went to the Apple forums area for Safari for Windows and there is quite a collection of talk going on about this problem.

See the threads: Safari 3 Public Beta for Windows

and all the various forum talk for missing menus:

Apple.com > Support > Discussions > Safari

There is a fix for the font issue. Fix font issue in Safari for Windows. However, I feel that it is a workaround solution at best. Apple, if 99.9% of all my Windows programs function properly, I should not have to use special treatment for Safari.

Letter to Apple

To be honest with you folks, I have not been a particular fan of Safari on the Mac for quite some time. Most people that have a Mac have switched to Firefox a long time ago, in order to have a better browsing experience. Pages that would not be displayed properly on Safari, would be displayed fine on Firefox. Safari has to be more forgiving, if you wish people to take up the use of it as their main browser.

As an Internet marketing marketer, I have had to verify different websites for various customers across a broad spectrum of industries. So, having more than one browser, and more than one computer system is a prerequisite for website development.

Don’t dismiss this so lightly. If you say, that if website developers were to program their pages to certain standards, then everything would work properly in Safari. No, with so many people using the Windows environment, this argument is foolish indeed.

Now, you are trying to make the step into the Windows browser environment. I applaud your thinking, and think it will be good in the long term for both the Apple brand and giving the consumer more choices, but in the short term you are frustrating many individuals and not exactly helping your brand image.

So, for the moment Apple, I have to give you a failing mark. Go back and rewrite your code. Give me titles that I can read. Let me see the text in websites. Don’t be afraid to use some color. I’ll give you another chance, but don’t short change yourself or your long time fans. Give me something that I can write home about.

Sincerely,

Jim Warholic
President of Professional Web Services, Inc.

The Wize Rank

When doing research online for a new product such as a computer, printer, TVs, or PDAs, it is nice to be able to read a “trusted source” with information from the consumer and or business user’s feedback about the products and features.

Wize is an online central location where large numbers of people evaluate the products. The trademarked Wize Rank is according to their website, “is completely impartial, and cannot be manipulated.”

The essence of the Wize Rank is an algorithm designed to evaluate the following factors:

1. Differences in scale and type of reviewer
2. Statistical uncertainty of user ratings (margin of error)
3. Reliability of expert reviewers
4. Statistical confidence in expert and user ratings

As a product has been in the market place for some time, the product develops a larger number of reviews and ratings from various sources online. By taking those reviews and ratings, and processing the statistical information through an automated algorithm, Wize can generate a Wize Rank number. In addition to that, Wize also measures and takes into account what the early buzz of a new product is, and gives more emphasis to a product that has more reviews, so that, as a product that might have a great early buzz to it may in fact turn out to be a poor performer later.

This measure is intended to protect consumers from buying a product whose early buzz is strong, but is later proven to be a poor performer.

Here is an example of a multifunction copier, printer, FAX, and scanner machine from Wize. These types of printers are known as Multifunction Copiers, MFC.

I have personally owned a Brother MFC-9600 for years, and can personally vouch for what these types of devices can do for a business or in personal use, such as: automatic document feeds for scanning and faxing, and optical character recognition, OCR software for transforming a text image to a true text document. So, as I was doing some research online for someone interested in a new printer, scanner, copier, and FAX machine; it was interesting seeing how all the Brother All-In-One printers rank in the Wize Ranking.

So, enjoy your wise Wize service tip of the day.

Jim the Internet marketing: corporate web builder.

I decided to tackle the custom domain name setup again for Google Custom Domain names for both Blogger and Google Apps. The instructions for setting up a custom domain name with Blogger seem simple enough, but when entering a CNAME record and having the WWW point to ghs.google.com produces only half the desired results.

Here is an actual example of what I am talking about. When entering www.wednesdays.ws, that takes you to one blog. But when entering just plain wednesdays.ws, it would say the blog could not be found or something like that. So I decided to see what would happen if I created a second blog, and using the custom domain feature to point this second blog to a nearly identical template, but with different blog postings. Now both blog sites work independently of one another. Take a look at wednesdays.ws.

The Blogger system allowed for independent blogs on both the www and without the www. This really is not an ideal setup because most people think of www.wednesdays.ws and wednesdays.ws as one and the same site. However, the WWW is actually a subdomain of wednesdays.ws.

What’s The WWW Solution?

In the Blogger Help Group is a thread for Custom Domain. This particular thread talks about the very problematic issue, and unfortunately does not appear to have a fix at this time. I can’t help but think that there has to be some enterprising individual that has come up with a definitive answer to this CNAME record problem. Apparently, CNAME records are suited for subdomains and not the domains themselves. Here are a couple of articles that talk about the details of what is required.

Google Custom Domains – Elegant Yet Unreliable

Google Custom Domain – The DNS Referral

The interesting thing about CNAME records being for subdomains, is the fact that I was able to publish two different blogs using WWW for one and no WWW for the other.

Below is the actual GoDaddy Total DNS Control Panel screen shot. Click on the image to open it in a new window, with a larger view.

This has not been the only experiment with Google and the Custom Domain Names. Several months back, I had set up this website with a custom domain name and used both a blog for publishing, plus bring your own domain name at Google Apps. This was exceptionally interesting in the aspect that the WWW was being published at the blog, and the other without the WWW was being published at Google Apps. This does seem to work, but in my estimation is confusing for the person browsing from one location to another, even though technically the WWW is a subdomain, most people do not realize that, and expect to go to the same place no matter which way they type in the domain name. I am not exactly sure how the search engines take to having each go to a different location.

On one of the experiments, I believe I was able to get it to partially function, except the articles themselves would not render properly. If the article posting was being published using the WWW blog, then when someone tried to type in the article location without the WWW it would not find the posting.

Since that time, with the two different locations option, I have switched this website to publish with ftp publishing using Blogger as the Blogging engine. With ftp publishing there is an option to turn off the Blogger tool bar. Now, because the site is hosted at another location, both the WWW and the site without the WWW render to the same web page.

Additional Experiments Were Tried

Here are some other items I tried to see what would happen to try to alleviate the problem of dual personalities with Google Custom Domain name publishing. I located the IP address for where the particular blog was being published. I then created an “A” record which pointed to the location of the blog. I don’t remember all the particulars of exactly what happened, but I do remember there were performance issues. Additionally I tried to do a Meta Redirect in one of the blogs to go to the other. This also had performance issues, and the search engines probably penalized the website for having a meta redirect with little time involved before the page was redirected. Also, having a redirect places the person using a web browser, who wants to use the back button, in a position of not being able to easily get back to his or her starting point. Simply put, people do not like being hemmed in and not able to get back in their browser. So, that option was not ideal.

There has got to be an answer. If I only wanted to have a unique blog subdomain name on the front of my website, then using Google Custom Domain name publishing is no problem at all. Any suggestions from anyone? Google, do you folks have any answers?

Sincerely,

Jim Warholic the Internet marketing marketeer