FaceBook Allows 3rd Party Advertisers to Use Your Photos Without Your Permission

Posted on by rchapin

or, how to modify your setting such that your content is better protected.

kdawson posted an article on Slashdot about the fact that FaceBook is allowing third party advertisers to use your photos in their ads. The article also includes a link to an article about how to modify your settings so that your photos don’t show up.

Here is how to make the change:

Go to: Settings -> Privacy -> News Feed and Wall -> Facebook Ads -> Appearance in Facebook Ads and click “no one.”

Quick HowTo Create a Subversion Repository

Posted on by rchapin

This assumes that you are creating the repo on your local drive.

First, create the directory in which you’ll store your repo.

Then, use svnadmin to create the repository in that directory:

svnadmin create /path/to/directory/

The typical convention is to set up an initial directory structure as follows:

/trunk

/branches

/tags

To do so, do the following:

mkdir svntemp

cd svntemp

mkdir trunk branches tags

svn import -m ‘Import of initial directory structure’ file:///path/to/repo

Now cd to whatever working directory into which you want to check out your repo and do a:

svn co file:///path/to/repo /name_of_dir_to_checkout_to

Launch Your New or Updated Website Early and Update it Often

Posted on by rchapin

When designing and developing a new website it is tempting to try to do everything before launching it. My recommendation is to launch your new or updated site early and then make regular, incremental updates.

A good website is never finished; you are always making updates/changes/revisions to it. If you build your site on a flexible framework, one with an easy-to-use content management system, then it makes it that much easier to go back on a regular basis and continue to make updates and changes.

For example, take the Nuts & Bolts Interactive site. Just a few days ago, we went live with a newly designed site running the latest-and-greatest version of formVista. While the new site represents an enormous change in both look-and-feel and content there is a huge list of things that we still want to do:

  • Updated Client List: We want to include a thumbnail and brief description of each project listed on the page.
  • Search Engine Optimization: It’s time to make another pass through the site to update page name, titles, and descriptions.
  • Add Better Business Bureau logo/accreditation page to the site.
  • Upgrade the Buy Now PayPal payment/button for the Live Demo purchase to the complete PayPal Shopping Cart Bolt-On.
  • Write a full capabilities statement and have it as a PDF download on the Services page.
  • Add client testimonials to various pages of the site as pullquotes.
  • Update the NBEmail interface to match the new website.
  • Technology Section: An entire section detailing the technology used to power the websites that we build and the infrastructure on which it runs.
  • Update the NBI Twitter page background
  • Update the Logo on our FaceBook page
  • NBI Labs Section where we post new technology and open-sourced projects that we are developing
  • Add a new Marketing Services section to the site.

And thats just a partial list!

The point is, that there is always something that you will want to add or update on your site, but that trying to get it all done before a launch hurts you more than helps you because you dont yet have the most important pieces of content live and available for your prospects and clients.

So, if you are going to follow the launch early and update often approach what do you focus on:

  1. Look-and-Feel: If you are redesigning then get the new look and feel sorted out. Once you have settled on how it will look you can always add new pages and content down the road.
  2. Top 5 Things: What are the top 5 most important things that need to be changed on the site New products A new sales pitch Free resources The specific items will be different for each site and the challenges that they face. Deciding on what they are and getting them done will get them up and out there ASAP.
  3. Everything else goes on your ToDo list: As you are working on your top 5 items you will certainly come up with more things that you want to do. Just write them down and then prioritize.

With this approach you will get a new or updated site out early and make regular updates and changes to the site. With each incremental update you then have a reason to send out an announcement or press release driving traffic to your site to highlight your new content.

If you have any questions or need some ideas for your specific business situation, feel free to give me a call at 301-956-5400, post your question to the NBI Forum, or send me an e-mail.

— Ryan Chapin
President, Nuts & Bolts Interactive, Inc.

CSS Styling for the HTML Superscript Tag

Posted on by rchapin

Anyone who has used it knows that the default styling for the HTML <sup> tag leaves a lot to be desired.  The biggest is that it modifies the line-height of the line on which it it rendered.

Here is some CSS that fixes that behavior:

sup
    {
    height: 0;
    line-height: 1px;
    position: relative;
    top: -0.6em;
    vertical-align: baseline !important;
    vertical-align: bottom;
    }

© 2005 Ryan Chapin