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interactivetools.com newsletter - December 2002
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INTERACTIVETOOLS.COM
An HTML version of this newsletter is available at:
http://www.interactivetools.com/news/?nl
December 6, 2002 - Issue #14
http://www.interactivetools.com/?nl
info@interactivetools.com
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In this issue:
1) interactivetools.com grows with new recruits.
2) Yes, we now have an Affiliate Program.
3) Page Publisher now supports multiple users.
4) Article Manager tutorials.
5) What's happening in our Forum this month?
Before I get into the newsletter, I'd like to take a second to congratulate Dave Lo, and especially his wife Florence, on the birth of their baby daughter - Caitlin Lo, born November 26th at a whopping weight of 6 lb 14 oz. Congrats Dave and Flo!
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1. INTERACTIVETOOLS.COM GROWS WITH NEW RECRUITS
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Three new staff have joined the interactivetools.com team in the last month. Three? What could all these people possibly do?
First we have Benjamin Keen, who joins our tech support team. He's just starting to get rolling, but you should already see his thoughtful posts on our Discussion Forum. Previous to joining our team, Ben did freelance web design work. Interesting side note about Ben, he's a puzzle inventor (http://www.interactivetools.com/staff/ben/puzzle.mpg), and has a huge collection of puzzles he brought in on his first day. Productivity has suffered ever since. Ben hails from the UK, so he speaks both European English and North American English, so if you call and have trouble understanding our silly Canadian accents, just ask for Ben. mailto:ben@interactivetools.com
Next, Rob Kraemer, who also joins our tech support team. Like Ben, Rob was a freelance web developer, but he also provided hardware support and network installation. He learned how hard he's capable of working during two grueling years at the aptly-named 24/7 Media as their MIS technician for a good chunk of planet Earth. Because he has some actual military training, Rob has been picked on during our lunchtime games of Battlefield 1942 - but I suspect our days of sending the new guy back to his spawn point are coming to a close. mailto:rob@interactivetools.com
Finally, we have Theo Wiersma, tasked with running our custom programming services (we'll keep you posted on this as it develops). Previous to interactivetools.com, Theo spent several tours of duty as a web development project manager with a few companies here in Vancouver; most of the projects he worked on were enormous, technically complex, and politically charged - all of which he maneuvered to success. So, working with our customers should be a cakewalk. mailto:theo@interactivetools.com
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2. YES, WE NOW HAVE AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM
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I wrote this section about eight times, and it always sounded like some kind of spam letter. MAKE MONEY NOW!!! WORK FROM HOME!!!
Um... yeah. So, we've added an affiliate program to the interactivetools.com website. If you have web developers browsing through your site, you might be a good candidate to join our program - we pay a 20% commission on every sale that originates from your website.
Some great examples of affiliates would be:
- Internet Hosting Companies
- Script Directories
- Online Marketing Companies
So, if you're interested, please take a look at:
http://www.interactivetools.com/affiliate/signup.cgi
Keep in mind that we're screening the affiliates pretty carefully, so you'll probably get a phone call from me about your site, the traffic you get, etc.
If you're a web developer, our reseller pricing is a way better deal for you - you can get up to a 50% discount off the single license price.
Take a look at the bulk prices on our order form:
http://www.interactivetools.com/order/
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3. PAGE PUBLISHER NOW SUPPORTS MULTIPLE USERS
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One of the biggest requests we've had is for Page Publisher to support multiple users, and to control which pages various people can update. So, version 1.20 now allows an unlimited number of users, and the administrator can define which people can work on which pages. It's pretty cool.
As always, updates are totally free, so go ahead and download the latest upgrades at your leisure:
http://www.interactivetools.com/upgrade/
Here's what's been updated:
PAGE PUBLISHER - version 1.20 (December 3, 2002)
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- User Manager added - create multiple users and assign access to update specific pages.
- Added the option to choose the number of user/page records to display per page in the interface.
SEARCH ENGINE - version 1.09 (December 3, 2002)
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- fixed directory browsing issue on the Mac.
- fixed parsing of Meta data so they no longer have a leading space
- fixed problem where keywords were being highlighted with default setting (cyan background and blue or red lettering) if the template cell for may_word or must_word was not on a single line
- fixed summarization of Meta Keywords so that non-alphabetic characters wouldn't be dropped
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4. ARTICLE MANAGER TUTORIALS
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One benefit of the Discussion Forums is that great step-by-step tutorials have surfaced to help people accomplish some pretty cool stuff with our software. To make sure they don't end up stratified down at the bottom our Forum, we've unearthed them, polished them up, and mounted them onto our website for the enjoyment of all.
Here are six tutorials for working with Article Manager... more next month.
- Allow writers to log in automatically.
- Customize the size of both the summary and content textareas.
- Unique template design for each category.
- Only allow specific categories in the Webfeed Generator.
- Migrate your installation to another webserver.
- Changing template sets.
http://www.interactivetools.com/products/articlemanager/tutorials.html
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5. WHAT'S HAPPENING IN OUR FORUM THIS MONTH?
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How to spell check your content in Article Manager
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This just got posted in the Forum, and it's extremely cool. If you've got Microsoft Word and Internet Explorer 5.5+ for Windows, you can use Word to spellcheck your articles:
http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?post=4378
Any other forums you'd like to see?
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While the forum has been a great resource for us to provide people with support for our software, we're really starting to get a sense of the great community out there. Did anyone have some additional sections to the forum that you'd like us to add? Perhaps some sections on HTML or CSS? Perl Programming? Server Administration?
http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?post=3803
Exclude blank fields from being inserted
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If you've created some new custom fields, you won't always putting something in each field. For example, if you're embedding a link to a video file, in some of your articles, you don't want the title "Video file:"... and then blank space to show up. Here's how to remove the title if the data is empty.
http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?post=4081
What's the difference between Article Manager and News Manager?
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They both help you manage news content on your website... how are they different?
http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?post=3977
Can someone point to a good tutorial on customizing templates?
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I've mentioned this post in the past, but it's one of the busiest ones on our Forum, so here it is again. Part way down the page, Luke explains the role of every single template for Article Manager. A Luke Holzken classic!
http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?post=602
Streaming media support.
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Just a quick note on how to embed a streaming media file into a page you're publishing with Article Manager.
http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?post=3694
Quicktime VR Photos for Realty Manager
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Here's how to make space for one of those cool 360 virtual tour images in Realty Manager.
http://www.interactivetools.com/forum/forum.cgi?post=4126
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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://www.online-demos.com/?nl
Call us at 1-800-752-0455 if you have any questions not addressed on our site.
To subscribe to interactivetools.com, simply e-mail: mailto:subscribe@interactivetools.com
>> This publication may be freely redistributed if copied in its ENTIRETY <<
(c) Copyright 2002 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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