Search Engine Optimization Workshop
This Friday, Chad Huntley will be presenting for the Grand Haven Chamber’s Friday 2E Social Media Workshop. This workshop will focus on search engine optimization, and how to apply various strategies and techniques to your own website.
If interested in attending The Chamber’s 2E Network – A Social Media Workshop, register by calling 616-842-4910 or email Courtney at colson@grandhavenchamber.org. Held at JSJ Corporation’s Lower Level Training Room, the cost to attend is $15 for Chamber Members, $20 for community members. A continental breakfast is provided and attendees are encouraged to bring a laptop or smart phone if desired.
GRAND HAVEN — The Chamber in Grand Haven, Spring Lake and Ferrysburg will look at the psychology of social media at its 2E-Network event Friday morning at the JSJ Corp., 700 Robins.
Chad Huntley of Element Design will lead a discussion of how customers process information and how that relates to increasing sales leads. Leading psychological concepts from advertising and marketing will be applied to new social media to help formulate new strategies for the digital age.
Huntley is a Michigan State University advertising graduate who has taught website design. He started Element Design in 2008 and prior worked on website projects for Fortune 500 companies. Element Design provides a variety of Internet-related services from its Grand Haven office.
The cost for the 7:30 a.m. social media workshop is $15 for chamber members and $20 for non-members with a Continental breakfast provided. Reservations must be made by contacting Courtney Olson at the Chamber 616-842-4910 or at colson@grandhavenchamber.org.
Scholarship Application Management System
The Resource Center for Persons with Disabilities at Michigan State University has just launched an online scholarship application system. Developed by Element Design, the online system eliminates the need for paper during the entire process, saving hundreds of pieces of paper.
The system directly integrates with student’s existing MSU login credentials, adding a level of security and peace of mind for privacy. After logging in, students can create “drafts” of scholarship applications that they can save at any time, and come back to at a later date.
Each scholarship application has verification questions and special parameters that check if the student is even applicable for the scholarship. These parameters save both the review committee and students time, something that was not possible with standard paper applications.
Completed scholarship applications are then placed into the review system, where committee members can view and score each application. This easy to manage area can send reminders, save score drafts, automatically average out scores for each application, and sort based on the highest scores. Everything can be done instantly, compared to previously using the postal service for communication.
This completely custom application was developed by Element Design. If you have any ideas or systems that need to be replaced, please feel free to contact us.
In the News: Muskegon Chronicle
Element Design has been featured for an article in the Muskegon Chronicle. The article focuses on the social network that was developed for Mulligan’s Hollow.
GRAND HAVEN – “Has the groomer been fixed yet?” “Thanks for creating the berm at the bottom of the hill to catch the (snow) bunnies.” “I think we should get ungodly-sized jumps or maybe a half pipe…”
These are some of comments members have posted on the Mulligan’s Hollow Ski Bowl new social network, “The Scene.”
Fans of Mulligan’s Hollow can sign up for the online group for free at www.mulliganshollow.com. Fans are encouraged to build their own personal profiles, post photos, videos, comments, and earn points to win prizes. They can also register for events and get up-to-date ski, snow and weather conditions at the bowl.
“The primary goal of the site is to create a friendly outlet for kids to post their own videos and pictures, as well as bring up various discussion points,” said Chad Huntley, owner of Element Design, LLC, 208 Franklin. The company was enlisted by Mulligan’s Hollow officials to create the site.
“In the future we hope to engage people even more, offering prizes and online collaboration with the Mulligan’s Hollow staff to help improve the Ski Bowl,” Huntley said.
The Scene, which went on-line in September, currently has 140 members. Huntley, who frequents Mulligan’s Hollow himself for weekly Adult Nights and other special events , said a social network of this type provides a level of control beyond established social networks, such as Facebook.
“People have asked why we didn’t just use Facebook to build this community, and that’s because of the lack of control you get with that route,” Huntley said. “By developing our own social network, we can now provide a niche network that is under 100 percent control of the staff. Everything is monitored by Mulligan’s Hollow staff and Element Design.
“We just thought it would be a great way to keep kids involved with the Ski Bowl,” Huntley said, “even when they were at home.”
Get a Short URL for your Company’s Facebook Page
An easy to remember Facebook URL for your company’s page can be a great asset for further marketing your online presence. If you are an administrator of your Facebook page, you can follow these steps to create an easy to remember name (for example, Element Design’s Facebook URL is http://www.facebook.com/ElementDesignLLC)
(Updated 8/30/11)
1) Login to Facebook
2) Go to http://www.facebook.com/username/
The “Page Name” drop down is a list of all pages where you are currently an admin. Simply select the business page, then a “Enter Desired Username” will pop up on the right.
Whatever you type in this box will placed directly after “facebook.com/”. Be sure to capitalize each word in this box, as it will retain capitalization when users visit your page. Also note that once you click “Check Availability”, you will never be able to go back and make changes. Triple-check your spelling!
If it gives you the message “Your Company is not eligible for a username at this time. In the future,Your Company will be able to set a username.“, this can be due to several reasons. One is that your page may be to new for this feature, or you do not have enough fans or activity to warrant an easy to remember URL. Keep working on building a fan base, post relevant content, and keep checking back!
Update 11/10/2011: Thanks to Woody in the comments, he pointed out that all Facebook URLs can be abbreviated to an even shorter version. The URL fb.com redirects to the normal facebook.com for all URLs. For example, instead of http://www.facebook.com/ElementDesignLLC, you can use http://www.fb.com/ElementDesignLLC.
Print a Webpage Bypassing the Print Settings Dialog
When developing software for intranets or kiosk-like applications, a critical feature is automatically printing documents for specific tasks (i.e., printing a reciept when a sale is completed). Windows environments can use Printer Functions provided by PHP, however for Linux environments a different solution is needed.
If the application is in a controlled environment, and the easiest solution is a combination of JavaScript and a Firefox extension called JSPrintSetup.
JSPrintSetup creates a robust collection of controls through JavaScript variables. For example, printing the current page is as simple as:
<script type="text/javascript">
// set the printer (based on your printer name)
jsPrintSetup.setPrinter('hp psc 1310 series');
// sets silent printing (skip the print settings dialog box)
jsPrintSetup.setSilentPrint(true);
// print the page
jsPrintSetup.print();
</script>
As long as the webpage is viewed in Firefox with the JSPrintSetup extension installed, the page will print, skipping the print settings dialog box. For a full list of available options, visit the JSPrintSetup website.
Increasing Password Security: Hash with sha256 Client-Side
An important part of user registration and authentication is the security of their password. A password stored in plain-text, or transfered over the internet in plain-text without the use of a SSL certificate can lead to the theft of the password, posing a security risk to not only the user but to your site as well (especially if the stolen password belongs to an administrator).
An effective way to deal with this is a simple Javascript solution: hashing the password client-side using a jQuery plugin, then transferring that hashed version of the password to server side. To ensure proper security, this script uses sha256, which is a cryptographic hash function developed by the National Security Agency (NSA).
The Form
Preparing the HTML form is simple, it only takes 2 fields to make this happen: User Name and Password.
<form name="user_login" id="user_login" method="post" action=""> <label for="user_name">User Name</label> <input type="text" name="user_name" value="" /> <label for="user_password">Password</label> <input type="password" name="user_password" id="user_password" value="" /> <input type="submit" name="login" value="Login" /> </form>
The Javascript
jQuery is required for this to work, be sure to have it included on the top of the page. The plugin for hashing the password can be found at: http://www.alexweber.com.br/jquery/sha256/jquery.sha256.js
Now however you handle the submit, be sure to run these two lines of code:
$("#user_password").val($.sha256($("#user_password").val()));
The Javascript code finds the plain text value of the password (in the user_password field), hashes it using the plugin we included, then changes the user_password field to that hashed version.
That’s all there is to it! Before the password even leaves the client’s machine to the internet, it will now be hashed.
Upcoming Grand Haven Ski/Snowboard Event
Element Design is proudly hosting the “Exposed to the Elements Rail Jam” at Mulligans Hollow, in Grand Haven, MI. All proceeds of the event will be donated to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.
The event sponsors include: Buffalo Bob’s Skate Shop, Kowalski Granite Center, Skull Candy, Marhar Snowboards, and HR Block.
Single Joomla Page SSL (https)
Joomla offers only several options for SSL usage in the Global Configuration of the site. Under the “System” tab, you can set it to force SSL on all of the site, only the administrator portion, or none of the site. With a SSL certificate installed, I recommend having the administrator portion of the site selected.
In most cases, having the entire site using the SSL certificate is overkill. To force the SSL certificate on a certain page (i.e., a form submission page), go to the Menu Manager and find the menu item of the page you want to force SSL.
When editing the menu item, click “Parameters (System)” on the right, then switch “SSL Enabled” to “On”.
s[0] is undefined with CKEditor & MediaEmbed
While working on a client’s website, I ran into a issue with CKEditor and the plugin MediaEmbed. MediaEmbed is a plugin that allows embed code for videos. You can use this for Youtube, Video, or even your own local video files (as long as you wrap them with a video player, like Longtail).
I was able to successfully install and activate the plugin, and was even able to launch the dialog box to insert the embed code. The error happened once I clicked “Ok” on the dialog, which while running Firebug, gave the error “s[0] is undefined, in ckeditor.js line 119″
The solution to this problem is simple, download and install this version of MediaEmbed instead!
jQuery Performance and Coding Tips
This is a great article that showcases 50 jQuery Snippets to help you program scripts for your website. It covers basic jQuery functionality and methods, all the way to how to fine-tune your code for increasing website performance.
50 jQuery Snippets That Will Help You Become A Better JavaScript Developer
