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Apr 7, 2003, 10:10 AM
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interactivetools.com newsletter - April 2003
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INTERACTIVETOOLS.COM
An HTML version of this newsletter is available at:
http://www.interactivetools.com/news/?nl
April 7, 2003 - Issue #18
http://www.interactivetools.com/?nl
info@interactivetools.com
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In this issue:
1) Moving to our new office on April 11th.
2) Help us test our software.
3) Looking for more sites to feature.
4) Welcome Cliff, Donna and Mike.
5) News from the Forum.
6) Some solutions for SPAM.
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1. MOVING TO OUR NEW OFFICE ON APRIL 11TH.
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With all the new people we've hired recently, it's starting to get a little cramped in here; but not for too much longer. We've negotiated a new lease in the building right next door, and should give us a little more room to stretch our legs - 3,500 square feet... and that's just my office! ;-)
We're scheduled to move everything over late afternoon on Friday, April 11th from 2:00pm to 5:00pm Pacific Time. Our phone/Internet company has made us a solemn promise that there won't be any interruption of service as we make this transition, but we just wanted to let you all know, in case you try and call and no one seems to be answering.
Try our toll-free number first (1-800-752-0455), but if that isn't working, give our regular line a try as well (604-689-3347). And if neither is working, we'll still be checking our email regularly using a backup Internet connection.
General Inquiries: info@interactivetools.com
Sales Inquiries: sales@interactivetools.com
Software Support: support@interactivetools.com
Our new mailing address is:
540 - 601 West Hastings Street
Vancouver, BC
V6B 5A6
Hopefully, everything will go perfectly smoothly; there'll be no interruptions; and the only evidence of the move will be the pictures we take of the new office. Wish us luck.
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2. HELP US TEST OUR SOFTWARE.
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With some of the new updates we're releasing, we're finding it harder and harder to test our software on every platform that we might come across. We'd like to enlist your help to catch any outstanding bugs - give our new betas a try!
When you install a beta, it's a win-win-win situation for everyone. We benefit from all the extra testing, the community benefits from having the software exposed to a wider range of environments prior to general release, and you'll get a sneak peak at the upcoming features we'll be releasing into our software.
If you're interested in taking part go to:
http://www.interactivetools.com/beta/
And see the betas we have available. At the release of this newsletter, we have betas available for Article Manager (email notification to editors of new articles) and Auto/Realty Manager (image thumbnailing).
Once you've downloaded and installed the beta, post any bugs you find to our Beta Discussion Forum here:
http://www.interactivetools.com/iforum/Products_C2/Beta_Releases_F20/
Just a few things to note:
- You need to be fairly technical and comfortable installing the software yourself. We can't provide any installation support.
- DO NOT install the software into your live website. If you're eager to get this new functionality into your website, we urge you wait for the official release. The whole point of doing this testing is to uncover any flaws that could cause the software to misbehave or even damage data.
- You must be an existing customer and have a valid license for the software you plan to test.
- Please let us know of any successful case studies as well. No, it's not to pad our egos, but to tell us what platforms have been tested. :)
Thanks in advance for all your help, we really appreciate it.
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3. LOOKING FOR MORE SITES TO FEATURE.
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Have you used our software to help build a website, for yourself or your client? We want to know about it. We maintain a list of featured clients on our site, and we're always looking for more sites to feature.
For example, here's the list for Realty Manager:
http://www.interactivetools.com/products/realtymanager/clients.html
If you've used one of our content management tools to create a unique looking website drop me a note at mailto:fraser@interactivetools.com. I may add you to the list.
Are you using Realty/Auto Manager for something other than real estate or auto listings? Are using Realty Manager to list hotels, rentals, vacation properties, jobs, business directories, arts, collectibles, or even farm animals? We'd like to know!
We're also short on sample websites for News Manager, DocBuilder and Search Engine, so send them in.
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4. WELCOME CLIFF, DONNA AND MIKE.
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And speaking of new hires, I'd like to welcome Cliff, Donna and Mike to our Customer Service Department. So now our customer service department accounts for nearly a third of the company.
First we have Cliff, who was previously working as a webmaster and technical support rep for a Vancouver-based web design firm (one project was Wayne Newton's website, believe it or not). A braver man than me, Cliff navigates the insane Vancouver traffic on his bicycle every day to get to work.
Next we have Donna, who is easily the fastest typist I've ever seen; seriously, her keyboard positively crackles with mini sonic booms. Previous to joining our team, Donna was the communications producer for the web arm of a Vancouver telco.
Last but not least, we have Mike who hails from London, Ontario. He fled the cold weather to immigrate to Vancouver (we have a very mild climate in the winter) - who can blame him? Mike was a sales/support rep for a printer company but the siren song of the Internet lured him away.
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5. NEWS FROM THE FORUM
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Article Manager: Syndicate starting from article n
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Want to have your webfeed generator skip the first few articles when it delivers the news to all your syndicates? Want people to just be able to see today's articles? Benjamin comes up with a clever Javascript solution to do just this.
http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?post=9166
Article Manager: Thumbnail in Syndicate Content
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Although the webfeed doesn't syndicate images by default, there's a simple setting in the config.ini that you can switch to have the images show up. Here's how you do it.
http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?post=8005
Article Manager: Your thoughts please: Subdirectory Publishing
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We're in the process of adding some new functionality to Article Manager that will allow you to specify the directories it publishes to. Is this an important feature for you? Do you have any specific functionality?
http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?post=8324
Article Manager: Headlines By Cat
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Here's a solution to show news headlines from only one category.
http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?post=8581
Article Manager Add-ons: Calendar popup to view articles by date.
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Ben has Javascripted together a clever calendar that lets you browse through articles by date. Unfortunately this only works in IE 6/Netscape 6.
http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?post=9329
Article Manager Add-ons: Today's Articles Link
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Here's another Ben-written Javascript tool you can add to your installation of Article Manager that lets you have a link to just the articles posted today.
http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?post=9263
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6. SOME SOLUTIONS FOR SPAM.
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We really hate SPAM. It's hard to even express in words how much we despise the stuff. Every time I read my email and see the pointless, inane and disturbing crud shoveled into my email box, my heart sinks a little. We've tried out lots of spam filtering tools in the past, but we've found they're either inadequate, or a little over-enthusiastic (throwing out the good with the bad).
Here are two free solutions that seem to offer a ray of hope:
Mozilla 1.3
Mozilla has added a new junkmail filtering technology to version 1.3 of their browser/email program which allows you to train the system to recognize what's spam for you. For each email that you receive, you classify it as either spam or not spam. Mozilla then keeps track of how many times you've considered individual words to be more or less spammy. It then looks at new emails, measures the amount of spam/non-spam words and then discards emails which hit a certain score.
I've been using Mozilla as my email program at home and after a week or so, I've found it's extremely accurate, catching almost all the spam that I was getting - and it's getting better every day that I spend time training it. More importantly, it never accidentally calls legitimate mail spam.
Mozilla is a great browser, and it already deals with the plague of Javascript popup windows, so it's definitely worth trying out if you're willing to switch email programs.
You can download the latest version of Mozilla 1.3 here:
http://www.mozilla.org
Cloudmark SpamNet
This add-on works with Outlook, so you don't have to dump your email program if you're already happy with it.
SpamNet works by taking advantage of a huge community of people (339,000 at last count) to compare email boxes. If someone receives an email which they consider to be spam, they can flag it - everyone else in the community will then have that email automatically dumped in the junk folder.
If a rare junk email actually gets through, you just flag it as spam. Not only does it toss the email in the junk folder for you, but you're protecting the whole community. Pretty cool. And unlike Mozilla's mail, this seems to work perfectly right out of the box; no training necessary.
The only problem is that it makes checking mail a little slower because it needs to compare each email to the community's spam list. It's not noticeable if you have your email checking all day, but if you dial up to receive your mail in a batch, you might be waiting a little longer than usual.
You can download it here:
http://www.cloudmark.com/
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
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The interactivetools.com newsletter is written by Fraser Cain.
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OTHER RESOURCES:
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At interactivetools.com, Inc. we make affordable Perl CGI scripts, software and tools to enhance your website.
You can visit our website at:
http://www.interactivetools.com/?nl
or demo our products at:
http://demo1.interactivetools.com/?nl
Call us at 1-800-752-0455 if you have any questions not addressed on our site.
>> This publication may be freely redistributed if copied in its ENTIRETY <<
(c) Copyright 2003 interactivetools.com, Inc.
Fraser Cain - Product Manager
interactivetools.com, inc.
Tel: (604)689-3347 - Fax: (604)689-3342 - Toll Free: 1(800)752-0455
Software for your Website - http://www.interactivetools.com/
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