Exploring Rootsweb

lightboxnyack.com

2009-09-23T07:11:00.000Z

lightboxnyack.com
: "Lightbox is located at 256 Main Street, Downtown Nyack, New York."

built using iWeb on a Macintosh

HTML 5

2009-07-29T00:01:00.000Z

HTML 5 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "HTML 5 is the next advancement of both HTML 4.01 and XHTML 1.0, as development on the next version of the latter has been ceased. HTML 5 was initially said to become a game-changer in Web application development, making obsolete such plug-in-based rich Internet application (RIA) technologies as Adobe Flash, Microsoft Silverlight, and Sun JavaFX.[1] Such applications would be made obsolete by specifying a standard video codec for all browsers to use. However, in July 2009, the editor of the burgeoning draft specification dropped the recommendation of the free software Theora and Vorbis codecs, after opposition from Apple and Nokia. This means HTML 5 does not currently specify a common video codec for Web development."

HTML5, - Google Search

Expression Web 3 launch

2009-07-02T20:30:00.000Z

Expression Web 3 « Expression Web Tips: "Expression Studio 3 due to be launched on July 10th. Expression Web 3.0 will be a part of that release. Information on the program is slow in appearing. What will be the look and feel of EW 3.0? Should you upgrade to the newest release? If you are using any of the Expression Web addons, will they continue to work with the newest version?"

Fever Ray

2009-05-03T06:35:00.000Z

Fever Ray

design !!!

| Web Development Blog

2009-04-08T23:53:00.000Z

| Web Development Blog: Heidi Adams Cool: "Why do you want to redesign your Web site?

Hint: The answer is not 'because the old site is old and boring and I'm sick of looking at it. I want something new.' A lot of site owners use this line of reasoning, but we have to keep in mind that we're designing sites for our visitors, not ourselves. If you're thinking about redesigning a site, take stock of the old one"

kgsindex

2009-02-11T10:58:00.000Z

kgsindex: "KINGSLAND GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY
P.O. Box 952, KINGSLAND, TEXAS 78639

© KGS 1989-2005

Are you an active Genealogist?

Would you like to learn more about your ancestors?

Are you interested in history? Have you ever thought about recording your family history?

Would you like to learn what it takes to get started in Genealogy?"

Breadcrumb Navigation

2008-09-04T01:08:00.000Z

Breadcrumb Navigation Increasingly Useful (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Breadcrumbs won't help a site answer users' questions or fix a hopelessly confused information architecture. All that breadcrumbs do is make it easier for users to move around the site, assuming its content and overall structure make sense. That's sufficient contribution for something that takes up only one line in the design.

Breadcrumbs have always been a secondary navigation aid. They share this humble status with site maps. To navigate, site visitors mainly use the primary menus and the search box, which are certainly more important for usability. But from time to time, people do turn to the site map or the breadcrumbs, particularly when the main navigation doesn't quite meet their needs.

Despite their secondary status, I've recommended breadcrumbs since 1995 for a few simple reasons:

Breadcrumbs show people their current location relative to higher-level concepts, helping them understand where they are in relation to the rest of the site.
Breadcrumbs afford one-click access to higher site levels and thus rescue users who parachute into very specific but inappropriate destinations through search or deep links.
Breadcrumbs never cause problems in user testing: people might overlook this small design element, but they never misinterpret breadcrumb trails or have trouble operating them.
Breadcrumbs take up very little space on the page.

So, despite the merely mid-sized benefits, the overall cost-benefit analysis comes out quite strongly in favor of breadcrumbs. Their downside is incredibly small: while they do take up space, that space is minute. When you divide a mid-sized numerator by a tiny denominator, the resulting fraction is substantial.

The main argument against breadcrumbs is that many users overlook them. So, why do something that only benefits a minority?

As I've long argued, breadcrumbs are different than most other little-used design elements for the simple reason that they don't hurt users who ignore them.

Site Map Usability

2008-09-04T00:58:00.000Z

Site Map Usability (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox): "Despite the prevalence of good site maps these days, users don't use them very much. So why bother making a site map for your website? Because it can help users understand your site and what it offers.

I still recommend site maps because they're the only feature that gives users a true overview of everything on a site. One could argue that a site's navigation serves the same purpose. For example, some navigation offers drop-down menus that let users see the options available in each site section. But even with these menus, users can see only one section of content at a time.

A site map lets users see all available content areas on one page, and gives them instant access to those site pages. Site maps can also help users find information on a cluttered site, providing a clean, simple view of the user interface and the available content. Site maps are not a cure-all, however. No site map can fix problems inherent in a site's structure, such as poor navigational organization, poorly named sections, or poorly coordinated subsites.

If site maps required a major investment to design, they wouldn't offer sufficient ROI to be worth doing. But because all of our guidelines call for site map simplicity, making a good one doesn't require a lot of work, and it will help some of your users. More importantly, it will help users at a critical time:"

Monitors and VDU

2008-07-22T02:36:00.000Z

How Can I Make My Web Pages Look Good On All Monitors? | The Patty Site: "Generally, there's not even any way to make most web pages look great on every monitor. A page which looks perfect at one size is going to suffer at a different size, at least to some extent, no matter how carefully you deal with the issue. But I'm going to suggest that there are wise compromises; you can please most of the people most of the time, and at least satisfy the rest most of the time."

The Difference Between ID and Class - CSS-Tricks

2008-07-17T06:32:00.001Z

The Difference Between ID and Class - CSS-Tricks: "We need to ways to describe content in an HTML/XHTML document. The basic elements like

,
and
will often do the job, but our basic set of tags doesn’t cover every possible type of page element or layout choice. For this we need ID’s and Classes. For example
, this will give us the chance to target this unordered list specifically, so that we may manipulate it uniquely to other unordered lists on our page. Or we might have a section on our page that has no relevant tag to signify it, for example a footer, where we might do something like this:
. Or perhaps we have boxes in our sidebar for keeping content over there separated in some way:
.

RootsWeb FreePages

2008-07-17T06:18:00.000Z

RootsWeb FreePages Banners and XHTML Doctype: "RootsWeb recently revised the masthead banners that are displayed on all free hosted websites. If you are using the HTML Transitional doctype and your pages already validate, you should experience no problems with the new banner validating.

If on the other hand, if your account is hosted on the FreePages server and you are using the XHTML doctype, your pages will no longer validate because of the bottom banner. Goods News, there is a “fix.”To change the banner code so that it will validate if you are using the XHTML doctype create a file named “banner_select” containing only that text: . . . continues . . "

Genealogy Computer Tips & Tutorials: "For those of you who may just be getting started with separating the presentation of your website from the content of your site by using cascading style sheets, understanding the difference between using id and class attributes may seem overwhelming. The id attribute provides a unique identifier for an element within the document. The class attribute classifies this element into one or more subtypes. The biggest difference between the ID and class attribute is that an ID can be used only once in a document while class can be used as many times as needed."

Flexible Layouts

2008-06-29T00:09:00.000Z

Flexible Layouts: Challenge For The Future | How-To | Smashing Magazine: "According to w3schools.com, the larger and wider screen resolutions (larger than 1024×768px) will become a standard in the future.

More problematic is the overwhelming confidence of developers that the individual decision-making is better for users from the accessibility point of view. When applied to fixed layouts the web-developer delivers a clear message:

Dear users, your browser can zoom my fixed layout - so please help yourself if you want or need to!

From designer’s perspective with this argument it is tempting to switch to a more comfortable (fixed) design solution at expense of accessibility. Why should a user adapt his viewing preferences to a web-site? Shouldn’t a web-site rather adapt itself to the viewing preferences of its users? If you think about it for a second, you have the same situation as in a cloth store where you are offered cloth only in some very specific size. If the size doesn’t fit to you, it’s your problem, not store’s owner. And if you want to you can take a needle, some fabric and create the cloth of its own choice for free. That is not user-friendly."

25 SEO WEB DESIGN TIPS

2008-06-29T00:04:00.000Z

25 SEO WEB DESIGN TIPS: "You may have a beautiful website but that alone does not promise a bright future in the web arena. It is essential that a website design must be properly optimized to reach out to the target audience. A well optimized website which is both search engine as well as user friendly makes a strong presence in the web world. Here are some SEO web design tips that can help to optimize your website properly."

with thanks to Pat Geary

Joomla!

2008-06-27T17:06:00.000Z

Joomla!: "Joomla! is one of the most powerful Open Source Content Management Systems on the planet. It is used all over the world for everything from simple websites to complex corporate applications. Joomla! is easy to install, simple to manage, and reliable."

but no sitemap

Life at the Home20

2008-06-22T14:19:00.000Z

Life at the Home20 - Genealogy: "This research began in 1986. It covers both my family and my husband's. Amazingly, we are both, so far, from southern families (Delaware and down) who originated mostly from the British isles. We were each told we have an American Indian line but neither can be proven at this point. Both families have been traced back several generations on most lines and there is but one line from France (tradition, but no proof) and no lines going back to Germany or Eastern Europe (although my grandmother swore otherwise). There is one possible Scandinavian line but I base that theory on the fact that the surname ends in 'son', no other reason. So while I ponder a few brick walls, I will try to share my findings here."

Life at the Home20 blog

Thompson Name Meaning and History

English: patronymic from Thomas. Thompson is widely distributed throughout Britain, but is most common in northern England and northern Ireland.
Americanized form of Thomsen.

Thomsen Name Meaning and History

Dutch, North German, Danish, and Norwegian: patronymic from a short form of Thomas.

Dictionary of American Family Names, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-508137-4

thanks to Thompson Family Civil War Service - Ancestry.com

Using Rootsweb Online Editor

2008-06-18T14:26:00.000Z

Using Rootsweb Online Editor: "This very basic guide will get you familiar with the resources on RootsWeb that can help you build your own Web page. It will not help you create the page of your dreams—yet. I will write several follow-up articles on this topic over the upcoming months that go into more depth."

rootsweb and ancestry sponsorship

2008-05-25T14:36:00.000Z

Virginia Family Tree - a genealogy resource: What's up with Rootsweb and Ancestry?

A few months ago, Ancestry sprung a surprise on the volunteers at Rootsweb and the USGenWeb Project. Ancestry was going to put a banner at the top of every page hosted on Rootsweb, an advertisement for their company. A large number of Rootsweb volunteers went crazy, furious that Ancestry had the audacity to turn their genealogy project into a profit center. The USGenWeb Project always stated its mission as being “non-commercial and fully committed to free genealogy access for everyone.” These principles seemed to clash...or did they?

I currently volunteer for two counties in Virginia. I have honestly neglected the sites for awhile because I am tired of all the controversy that has been brewing. Volunteers are moving their sites off Ancestry's servers so a lot of the old links do not work anymore. How does that help freely spread genealogy when you cannot find it? This is a huge mess and I am honestly getting tired of being a part of it. I think I am going to probably give up my two sites but I have not decided yet.

Through all of this I have not moved my sites nor would I in the future, if I keep them. The Ancestry banner is quite small, very similar to the Blogger banner you see at the very top of this page. Google owns Blogger. Blogger gives free web space for people to host their blog. It is therefore their right to get at least a small ad out of it. The ads are unobtrusive and most people do not pay any attention to them. I do not see what all the fuss is about.

I am getting a little off track but the point is that the USGenWeb project is at risk of falling apart, simply over a one-half inch banner at the top of every page. The banner says “Hosted at Rootsweb...an Ancestry.com Community.” It does not sell products or blatantly push a subscription service. It is a token gesture to give Ancestry more exposure in a tough market. If you look at Google trends, genealogy searches are falling off more each year. You cannot fault Ancestry for trying to expand their market reach in these trying times.

I would estimate that Ancestry spends tens of thousands of dollars per year to pay for all of the server space and bandwidth that Rootsweb has enjoyed for years. Instead of understanding that someone has to pay for all that space, people get all upset and scream that genealogy should be free for everyone. The last time I checked, it still was free. Ancestry is not directly selling anything with the banner and no subscription is required. I doubt they even get a large amount of traffic off the banners. People will become blind to them in a short mount of time. I wish some of the volunteers at the USGenWeb Project would stop looking a gift horse in the mouth and be happy that they have the support of a large, financial backer."

Usability, Design, and CSS

2008-05-23T09:14:00.000Z

Andy Budd on Usability, Design, and the Death of CSS [Design Principles]: "SP: What's your opinion of CSS Frameworks, and how do they fit into the approach you guys take in developing a solution for a client?"

We have an internal framework that we use for our wireframes -- our prototypes. Wireframes are not things that live by themselves, so it doesn't really matter how semantic or pure they are.

This library, or "framework" if you want to be down with the hip kids, is a mixture of HTML and CSS and JavaScript, which we use time and time again for our wireframing. It makes use of jQuery, and a company we work with called New Bamboo have helped us to develop a jQuery plugin called polyPage, which allows multiple state changing within a wireframe, which is really cool.

So I think these libraries -- frankly, I think "framework" is a bit of a grandiose term for something like Blueprint, for example. Essentially it's three or four CSS files and a page worth of HTML. It's not a framework -- a framework, I think, is a much bigger thing. And there's a certain element of trumpet-blowing going on there. By calling it a framework, it makes it sound like it's this big, important thing like Ruby on Rails. Everyone knows Ruby on Rails is hot, everyone knows Django is hot -- let's call it a CSS framework, and it will be big.

I think what you need to do is develop your own framework. You need to develop a series of tools, a library of elements that work for your team, that work for the types of sites you build, that work for the internal belief system structure and knowledge that your team has.

I think generic libraries like Blueprint box you in to certain solutions. They have a certain amount of flexibility, sure. You can choose between one of any number of columns -- I think it's 16 or 24 -- and you can span columns and stuff. But it's still limited to this column behaviour. And you're limited to the size of the gutters and the width of the window, and if that doesn't necessarily fit with your designs, what do you do? Do you spend hours hacking your library to fit with your designs? . . . . . .

Andy Budd on Usability, Design, and the Death of CSS [Design Principles]

But on the other hand the whole purpose of web standards, partly, is digital preservation -- if everyone created web sites in the proper fashion, we wouldn't have this problem in the first place. Wishful thinking, perhaps.

I honestly think that CSS is basically a dead technology after this next revision. I think that's really sad, because I'm a standards advocate, but that's what I believe. I don't think we'll see a CSS4. I don't think we'll see half of the modules in CSS3 implemented, or even end up in the specification, because CSS3 has been under development for 8 years or something ridiculous, and in 8 years we haven't got a single module complete yet. We've got a few almost finished.

But I do think that in this world where I've got a PS3 at home that performs live texture-mapping rendering in 3D, on the fly, why we can't get a browser that can render rounded corners on a box in 2008. You know, we should all have jet packs here! A rounded corner box or multiple background images shouldn't be rocket science.

I think part of the problem is that there are innate problems with the standards development mechanism, and I think there are innate problems with the browser vendors, and I do think we're going to see other technologies -- sadly, proprietary technologies like Flash and Flex and XAML and XML and MXML and non-native Web technologies -- take over, because we are limited with what we can do with our current technology. The reason we're seeing all of these JavaScript libraries come out is because they're supplementing what the standards and the browsers should be doing. It's kind of a stupid situation to be in, and we've got to lobby the W3C to pull their finger out to get these standards ratified, we've got to lobby the browser vendors to stop arguing among each other over petty little things and implement them, and there needs to be a radical shake-up in the way these things are created.

Andy Budd on Usability, Design, and the Death of CSS [Design Principles]: "I do think it's really hard though, and I think what you need to do is specialise. I think gone are the days of the generalist, because I think that, sadly, if you're a generalist, it does mean that you're doing everything not to the highest possible quality. Because there are so many specialists now, you've got to compete with those. So starting off and being really good at web standards, for example, if you want to get a job in industry, if you're really good at HTML and CSS then you will get a job, it doesn't take that long to learn HTML and CSS.

But learning the softer usability skills -- you can learn heuristics, you can learn basic principles. But it's not until you've actually sat down and built loads of sites and screwed them up that you can do that properly."

RootsWeb: NEWSROOM-ANNOUNCEMENT-L [NEWSROOM-ANNOUNCEMENT] New Mastheads - Look for them today.

2008-05-21T17:31:00.001Z

RootsWeb: NEWSROOM-ANNOUNCEMENT-L [NEWSROOM-ANNOUNCEMENT] New Mastheads - Look for them today.: "ay 21st, 2008 by Anna

As planned, the updated mastheads will start appearing later today. We
receive a lot of positive feedback on the content of your sites and are
proud to be able to be a small part of your success.

If you would like to change the masthead on your site from the new default
gray color to the green masthead please follow the instructions below.

Place a file named 'banner_select' in your public_html directory. (Yes, it
is a text file, containing only the text listed. But there is no file
extension; the file should be named 'banner_select'). This file should
contain the text 'BasicGreen' and nothing else.
Hosted projects who are using custom mastheads have been sent additional
emails with specific instructions. If you have not received these
instructions please contact the leader of the project you belong to."

RootsWeb: NEWSROOM-ANNOUNCEMENT-L [NEWSROOM-ANNOUNCEMENT] New Mastheads - Look for them today.

2008-05-21T17:31:00.000Z

Right-Justified Navigation Menus Impede Scannability (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

2008-04-29T19:00:00.000Z

Right-Justified Navigation Menus Impede Scannability (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox): "8 hours after posting this article, I got email from the University of Michigan design team that they had redesigned their navigation menu. Fast work.

Redesigned navigation menu from the University of Michigan.8 hours after posting this article, I got email from the University of Michigan design team that they had redesigned their navigation menu. Fast work.

U. Michigan's old (left) and new (right) nav menus.

Usually, I don't update my articles just because somebody redesigns a website I criticized. After all, any site I mention is only used as an example of a larger principle and the critique of any specific design choice is still valid, whether or not the mistake is live on one particular site. But fixing a usability problem the same day is unusual, and also allows me to show you the above screenshot of the improved menu. I think you'll agree that it's much easier to read than the earlier design."

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox, April 28, 2008:

Right-Justified Navigation Menus Impede Scannability

Summary:
Users scan lists by moving their eyes rapidly down the left edge. Menu items that are right-aligned make scanning more difficult.

study his site useit.com: Jakob Nielsen on Usability and Web Design

Technical Articles on Genealogy Websites

2008-04-21T18:45:00.000Z

Technical Articles on Genealogy Websites

Genealogy Hosting - Start your genealogy website now! - it's never been easier!

Document Object Model

2008-04-17T06:33:00.000Z

Document Object Model - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "(DOM) is a platform- and language-independent standard object model for representing HTML or XML and related formats.

A web browser is not obliged to use DOM in order to render an HTML document. However, the DOM is required by JavaScript scripts that wish to inspect or modify a web page dynamically. In other words, the Document Object Model is the way JavaScript sees its containing HTML page and browser state.

Because the DOM supports navigation in any direction (e.g., parent and previous sibling) and allows for arbitrary modifications, an implementation must at least buffer the document that has been read so far (or some parsed form of it). Hence the DOM is likely to be best suited for applications where the document must be accessed repeatedly or out of sequence order. If the application is strictly sequential and one-pass, the SAX model is likely to be faster and use less memory. In addition, non-extractive XML parsing models, such as VTD-XML, provide a new memory-efficient option."

DOM Inspector - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "DOM Inspector (DOMi) is one of the web developer tools included in Mozilla Application Suite and Mozilla Firefox. Its main purpose is to inspect the Document Object Model (DOM) tree of HTML and XML-based documents.

A DOM node can be selected from the tree structure, or by clicking on the browser chrome. Besides DOM node, other views are also available, including box model, XBL bindings, CSS style rules, computed styles, and JavaScript objects. Document stylesheets and JavaScript objects can also be selected from the tree. The active element is highlighted with blinking red border, which is helpful in 'debugging' CSS.

Other than inspecting, editing is also possible, though not via a rich text interface."

Sonderzeichen

2008-04-12T23:48:00.000Z

Sonderzeichen: "Ø and many other

HTML - Special Codes:

RootsWeb.com - Find Answers RootsWeb.com - (Page 1 of 2)

2008-04-11T13:08:00.000Z

RootsWeb.com - Find Answers RootsWeb.com - (Page 1 of 2)

Uploading web account pages

	Question
	How do I upload pages to my web account?

	Answer
	Once you have created your web pages, you must upload them to the server so the rest of the world can see them. There are several types of programs that can be used to upload files. If you create them online in the Online Editor you automatically upload them when you "save" them in the Editor. Other HTML Editors you may include an upload utility as part of the program. Consult the documentation for the program you are using. Many current browsers support file uploads and include a File Transfer Protocol (FTP). FTP is a special type of connection that allows you to transfer (copy) files from your computer to a server such as RootsWeb. You can upload files to the server as well as download from the server to your computer. General instructions for uploading to the Freepages server using your browser are available by clicking here. Consult your browser documentation for instructions specific to your browser and the version you are using. If your Web account is not located on the Freepages server, modify the ftp:// address in the instructions to reflect the location of your account.

Frames Suck Most of the Time (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox December 1996)

2008-04-11T05:28:00.000Z

Frames Suck Most of the Time (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox December 1996): "Part of the genius of Tim Berners-Lee's original design of the Web was a total unification of several concepts in a single idea, the page:

* the user's view of the information on the screen
* the unit of navigation (what you get when you click a link or activate a navigation action like a bookmark)
* a textual address used to retrieve information over the net (the URL)
* the storage of the information on the server and the author's editing unit (except if using embedded objects like image files which do require the author to manage multiple files for a page)

The fundamental design of the Web is based on having the page as the atomic unit of information, and the notion of the page permeates all aspects of the Web. The simplicity of the original Web contributed to its ease of use and its rapid uptake."

World's Worst Website

2008-04-11T05:15:00.000Z

World's Worst Website

You cannot log on to an FTP site

2008-03-25T16:16:00.000Z

You cannot log on to an FTP site or you are redirected to the root folder of the FTP site in Internet Explorer 7

from my email:-

I found the solution in IE7. When using IE7, instead of IE6, you cannot
logon to ftp sites. Instead you have to go through Windows Explorer to do
what we use to do in IE6. There was a design change in IE from 6 to 7 that
makes this necessary. You can see the explanation at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941896/en-us

- Ron

P.S. - You also need to make sure that the domain is
users.rootsweb.ancestry.com (with the "ancestry" included). The old URL's
won't work.

and or

I found the solution in IE7. When using IE7, instead of IE6, you cannot
logon to ftp sites. Instead you have to go through Windows Explorer to do
what we use to do in IE6. There was a design change in IE from 6 to 7 that
makes this necessary. You can see the explanation at:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/941896/en-us

- Ron

P.S. - You also need to make sure that the domain is
users.rootsweb.ancestry.com (with the "ancestry" included). The old URL's
won't work.

Search Engine Friendly Design

2008-02-13T07:23:00.000Z

Search Engine Friendly Design: "Generally, search engine friendly means to have a website that has been built which the search engines will visit, find out all about your website and include it in their index."

Websites as graphs

2007-11-12T13:45:00.000Z

Websites as graphs - an HTML DOM Visualizer Applet

from my [ROOTSWEB-HELP] email:-

This is toooo cool !

http://www.aharef.info/static/htmlgraph/

Anyone who likes histograms will love this.

And for those who've never seen a histogram, no problem! Think of it as
just a pretty picture of your website.

It takes a while to do a page print (I couldn't get a screenshot). Or---
The guy (gal?) will make a jpg of it for a donation.

You can see how your web looks in a new way-- plus, you can run it every so
often to see how your web looks after additions. You can even check out
your friend's website--LOL

Hope everyone staggers when they go to this site--- it's such fun and I
wouldn't want to overload the person's site.

Passive Voice Web Headings

2007-10-29T17:45:00.000Z

Passive Voice Is Redeemed For Web Headings (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Summary:
Active voice is best for most Web content, but using passive voice can let you front-load important keywords in headings, blurbs, and lead sentences. This enhances scannability and thus SEO effectiveness.

Traditional writing guidelines are clear on the use of passive voice:

Worst: The passive voice should be avoided.
Bad: The passive voice should be avoided by writers.
Better: Writers should avoid using passive voice.
Best: Writers should use active voice.

When structuring a sentence, active voice ("Actor does X to Object") is usually better than passive voice ("Object has X done to it by Actor") because it more directly represents the action. As a result, readers don't have to jump through as many cognitive hoops when trying to understand what's going on. . . . .

When Passive Voice = $$$

. . . recent findings from our eyetracking research emphasized the overwhelming importance of getting the first 2 words right, since that's often all users see when they scan Web pages. Given this, we have to bend the writing guidelines a bit, especially for elements that users fixate on when they scan — that is, headlines, subheads, summaries, captions, hypertext links, and bulleted lists.

Just like newspaper headlines

Selecting the first 2 words for your page titles is probably the highest-impact ROI-boosting design decision you make in a Web project. Front-loading important keywords trumps most other design considerations.

Writing the first 2 words of summaries runs a close second. Here, too, you might want to succumb to passive voice if it lets you pull key terms into the lead.

The importance of good page titles and summaries goes far beyond traditional search engine optimization (SEO) and its narrow focus on getting a high GYM rating (that is, a high ranking on Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft search listings). Usable and scannable results in your site's own search engine greatly impacts your website's conversion rate. And search usability is key for intranet productivity.

> Other Alertbox columns (complete list)

> Sign up for newsletter that will notify you of new Alertboxes

Acquisition of RootsWeb.com

2007-10-19T17:05:00.000Z

Ancestry.com

San Francisco, CA – June 21, 2000 – MyFamily.com, Inc., the leading online family network, announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire RootsWeb.com, the oldest and largest free community genealogy site. RootsWeb.com, a San Francisco, California company, is among the most popular genealogy sites on the Internet. With more than 149 million page views in the month of May 2000, RootsWeb.com was second among genealogy Web sites only to Ancestry.com's over 187 million page views, according to Nielsen NetRatings combined home and work statistics. With the acquisition MyFamily.com, Inc. will add RootsWeb.com to its portfolio of Web sites, which includes MyFamily.com, FamilyHistory.com, as well as Ancestry.com, collectively recognized as the premier Internet destination for families. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

Following the acquisition, the RootsWeb.com site will continue to be free to all users and will maintain its own unique Web site address, www.RootsWeb.com. The acquisition by MyFamily.com, Inc. will provide the RootsWeb.com site the financial backing to expand its focus on preserving, sharing, and exchanging family history research. As part of the MyFamily.com network of sites, the RootsWeb.com site will expand with additional technology tools, increased family research content and a greater range of genealogical resources.

With genealogy as one of the most popular hobbies online, the addition of RootsWeb.com extends MyFamily.com's offerings in genealogy research and further enhances its leading position in genealogy research and family services on the Internet. This new combination creates a central destination for the genealogy community online, offering something for every family historian. This move comes at a time when a recent Pew Internet and American Life Study reported that 54 million people belong to a family in which someone used the Internet to research their family history or genealogy.

Coordinator Waiver

2007-09-26T18:51:00.000Z

Coordinator Waiver - Yugoslavia, Serbia, Montenegro, Vojvodina, Kosovo: "Coordinator Waiver Should unexpected events occur that prevent me from fulfilling my obligations as Yugoslavia, Serbia, Montenegro, Vojvodina or Kosovo GenWeb Coordinator, I want it known that all information contained on these sites would become the responsibility of the WorldGenWeb Project, to do with as the WorldGenWeb Project Chairperson and/or the Regional Eastern European Coordinator feel is appropriate. Further, should such an occasion arise, I grant permission to the System Administrator of RootsWeb to release my account/password information for the aforementioned sites to the WorldGenWeb Project Chairperson and/or the Eastern European Coordinator as needed."

RootsWeb Agreement for Freepages Web Space Accounts: "RootsWeb's Pledge to Its Users - RootsWeb will neither sell nor charge for access to your genealogical information (for example, your posts to RootsWeb mailing lists or message boards, your Web pages hosted at RootsWeb, and any datasets you have donated to the USGenWeb Archives) without your permission."

See the PRIVACY STATEMENT for more information.

Scotland

2007-09-26T18:45:00.000Z

Index - A-B-C: "CHURCHES and GRAVEYARDS in Dumfries and Galloway"

Dumfries and Galloway Family History Society -- Home Page

The Ahern Family

2007-09-26T18:38:00.000Z

The Ahern Family: "Ahern(e), Ahearn(e), Hearn(e), O'Hearn(e), Ó hEachthigheirn, Ó hEachthigherna, Ó hEichthigheirn, Ó hEachthighearna, Ó hEachiairn"

Search engine optimization

2007-08-26T07:03:00.000Z

Search engine optimization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "(SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via 'natural' ('organic' or 'algorithmic') search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it 'ranks', the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines."

Nifty Navigation Using CSS

2007-08-21T02:14:00.000Z

Nifty Navigation Using CSS: "Site navigation is always a topic of interest. A decent menu system is important to any site. Lists are a natural way of providing site wide navigation. Styling them using CSS is easy."

Consumer Alert!

2007-08-06T07:23:00.000Z

Asa's Home Page: Consumer Alert!: "Even now, you may have a dangerous product lurking in your kitchen masquerading as a food. This green, leafy 'vegetable' is often sold in stalks or heads, and parents are often heard to refer to it as 'good for you'. A single case report of a 12 month old male indicates that eating this substance . . . ."
Meg Baker's Home Page
included on the site is direct information on Genealogy with a family tree of over 8000 individuals, indexed by surname, individual name, or browsable by family (for the very brave). The tree includes my direct ancestors and many, many cousins. I have recently added my partner Jessica Rouse's genealogical information to this page.

I also have Family Documents (photographs, letters and a diary) and Stories about individuals and my family history research processes. I have started an occasional Genealogy & General Subjects blog on the site, which will be updated occasionally. For more information on these topics, please follow the links to the left.

I also encourage you to review the Frequently Asked Questions for more information about this site and the research, as well as the copyrights.

Expression Web

2007-07-21T08:21:00.000Z

Genealogy Computer Tips & Tutorials » Blog Archive » New Quick Bits Tutorial Series

Cheryl Wise has written the first of a new series of tutorials for Expression Web users. The first in her New Quick Bits Tutorial Series is how to use stong or em on selected text. The tutorial is also available in Ipod format and as an MP3 podcast.

She has plans to include additional tutorials on using semantic mark-up in Expression Web

blockquote vs. class for indenting text
unordered lists for navigation
page structure using headings

If you have suggestions for tutorials topics approximately ten minutes in length, please visit the by-expression forum and the topic on Tutorials.

Cheryl a Microsoft MVP - FrontPage also teaches a class on Foundations of Microsoft Expression Web: The Basics and Beyond.

my thanks to

Pat Geary
Microsoft MVP - FrontPage
http://www.genealogy-web-creations.com/
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gearyfamily/expression-web/
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~gearyfamily/frontpage/

Rootsweb seasonal trends

2007-07-17T21:04:00.000Z

Anglo-Celtic Connections: Rootsweb seasonal trends: "readers may recall an earlier posting analyzing long-term trends in postings to Rootsweb newsgroups. Postings peaked in 2002, in January. The decline since has continued; every month in 2007 has fewer postings than the same month since 2000."

Why No Graphics

2007-07-14T16:55:00.000Z

Why No Graphics:

"# Download times rule the Web, and since most users have access speeds on the order of 28.8 kbps, Web pages can be no more than 3 KB if they are to download in one second which is the required response time for hypertext navigation. Users do not keep their attention on the page if downloading exceeds 10 seconds, corresponding to 30 KB at modem speed. Keeping below these size limits rules out most graphics.

in usa 25% still on dial ups

# I am not a visual designer, so my graphics would look crummy anyway. Since this website is created by myself (and not by a multidisciplinary team as I always recommend for large sites) I didn't want to spend money to hire an artist." Jakob Nielsen. ISSN 1548-5552.

Web Hosting

Useit.com and nngroup.com are both hosted on Pair Networks. (With domain name registration at GoDaddy.com.)

I have used Pair since 1996 for various smaller projects and been very satisfied, and since 2005 I am hosting the two high-traffic sites there as well. Good performance and almost no downtime.

One benefit of the small number of graphics on this site is that I can serve a quarter million unique users per month and about 50 GB/month data transfer with a relatively cheap Web hosting account that covers both sites for $75/month. The cost of running the sites comes to 0.03 cents per user or 0.006 cents per pageview served.

BTW

Nielsen Norman Group: usability consulting, training & user ...

Usability consulting, training seminars, research reports, and a user experience conference. Principals: Jakob Nielsen, Donald Norman, Bruce Tognazzini ...

Write Articles

2007-07-14T16:51:00.000Z

Write Articles, Not Blog Postings (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox): "For most sites, the content is not the point. Instead, you want to answer customers' questions as rapidly as possible so that they'll advance in the sales cycle and start buying (or donate, or sign up for your newsletter, or whatever else you want them to do).

Elite, expertise-driven sites are the exception to the rule. For these sites, you don't care about 90% of users, because they want a lower level of quality than you provide and they'll never pay for your services. People looking for the quick hit and free advice are not your customers. Let them eat cake; let them read Wikipedia.

Still, even if you run an expertise-driven site, you should comply with the bulk of content usability guidelines: be as brief as you can; use bulleted lists and highlighted keywords; chunk the material; and use descriptive headings, subheads, and hyperlinks. The small percentage of users who are qualified prospects still read in an F-pattern, so a headline's first words are more important than its last words, just as they are for normal sites."

design OK

2007-06-10T09:02:00.000Z

Frank Schilder - Frank Schilder

site:googlepages.com genealogy - Google Search
just get a google mail account and click through and experiment

as a blogger I was an early adopter
site:googlepages.com "hugh watkins" - Google Search

notes about genealogy

2007-06-02T23:29:00.000Z

notes: on the background to RootsWeb's WorldConnect Project: Ørum Pitzner

"Some time ago a friend asked Hedvig:

’Now you have been researching your family tree for such a long time, aren’t you ever going to stop?’
She replied that it has now become a habit, a great interest and an obsession and "I don’t think that I will ever stop."

These pages will be used for family stories.

Mainly these surnames:- ØRUM, MEYER and PITZNER

In these countries:- Denmark, Norway, Germany, Latvia and Russia.

"
Site Map - - Pitzner Jørgensen slægtssider på dansk

in 1997 by Jakob Nielsen.

2007-05-29T22:06:00.000Z

Zipf Distribution (power law) of Website Popularity (Alertbox Sidebar): "Much available data suggests that Web use follows a Zipf distribution. The figure shows the distribution of incoming page requests to www.sun.com during a one-month period last year. Each datapoint represents one page, with the x-axis showing pages sorted according to popularity: the first page is the most popular one (the home page), the second page is the one that received second-most requests that month, and so on until we reach page number 10,000 which was only requested a single time that month. The heavy line shows the actual empirical data from the log files and the thin red line shows a Zipf curve that seems to fit the data quite well except for the low end. The deviation at the low end is due to a variety of factors, including the fact that the site is not old enough yet to have enough accumulated pages of low-frequency interest."

ads on RootsWeb

2007-05-14T18:39:00.000Z

RootsWeb Newsroom

Annoying Ads on RootsWeb

May 14th, 2007 by Jamie

Over the past couple of days, we’ve heard a lot of concern about blinking or flashing ads on RootsWeb that are annoying and even potentially dangerous to those susceptable to seizures or migranes. We agree that these advertisements have no place on RootsWeb and we’ve been working with the ad folks to remove them all.

If you see a flashing or offensive ad anywhere on RootsWeb, please report it to the HelpDesk. Make sure that you include a general description of the advertisement and the text that is on the ad so that we’re sure that we remove them all.

Thanks for your patience and understanding and for helping us identify and nix all of these bad advertisements.

The RootsWeb Store

2007-04-11T04:55:00.000Z

The RootsWeb Store

The Official Guide to RootsWeb is an insider’s tour of RootsWeb.com and teaches you the tips and tricks to unlock the full potential of the world’s largest, free genealogy website. It’s available in two formats. The e-book version ($7.95) is available for immediate download or you can pre-order a print copy of the book ($12.95) that will be shipped when it becomes available in mid to late April. You will not be charged for the print book until it ships.

Check out The RootsWeb Store today - every purchase you make helps your own research, the RootsWeb site, and the RootsWeb community (see http://www.rootsweb.com/rootsweb/store.html for more information)! The RootsWeb Store is very much a work in progress, so if you have product recommendations or suggestions, please email feedback@rootsweb.com so that we can work together to make this store as good as it can be.

stylish pages

2007-04-06T23:07:00.000Z

one of the neglected themes of this blog is style in web design:-

Redirection to Fo Guang Shan Monastery

the danish artist Inger-Lise Kristoffersen and mammy dearest from 2006

RootsWeb Newsroom

2007-04-01T03:34:00.000Z

RootsWeb Newsroom is proudly powered by Wordpress

RootsWeb Newsroom » About the Authors

Anna

Anna is our new Community Operations Manager. In this role she is responsible for the team that helps run the day-to-day operations of RootsWeb - she is also currently acting as ListMaster. Anna has only been on the team since December 2006 but is a long time user of RootsWeb and is enjoying learning about all the ins and outs of what makes our RootsWeb site and community keep on ticking.

Donna

Donna is a familiar face around RootsWeb - her enthusiasm for RootsWeb began over 11 years ago when she started as a volunteer. She now spends most of her time behind the scenes working on bettering RootsWeb and leading the HelpDesk team.

Eric

Eric is currently working on UserDBs, processing all of those fabulous databases that our community has uploaded and also working on improving the current system.

Jamie

Jamie is the Product Manager for RootsWeb. She started with MyFamily.com in November 2004 and finally saw the light and came over to RootsWeb in March 2006 after working on Ancestry.com. She loves working to support the family history needs of the amazing RootsWeb community even better.

Melissa

Melissa is a Product Manager with a passion for message boards, mailing lists, blogs and other online community products. She began working with RootsWeb in Aug. 2005 and is currently acting as ListMaster for the RootsWeb mailing lists.

Randy

Randy is the Lord of all RootsWeb Development! He started working on RootsWeb way back in 1998 and has contributed innumerable features and tools to the RootsWeb community.

page title

2007-03-19T01:49:00.000Z

Cyndi's List: "Indexing links every day makes this topic one I frequently grumble about. Why don't people properly title their web site/pages?

If you publish a book you put your book's title on the front cover, on the spine, and on the title page. And most publishers would tend to insist that you should use the same consistent title on each of these spots. So, why don't people do the same on their web sites?"

Adobe mgazine

2007-03-01T05:09:00.000Z

Adobe Magazine for Creative Professionals
Eclectic branded entertainment. Pioneering interactive design. Artsy niche magazines. Explore design without boundaries — and discover the secrets that help this work shine

what a pain getting a zip and having to unzip on a MacBook pro
with broadband pdf is simpler

at 100% on an apple cinema screen it looks blurred
the graphic theme is noisy and clicheed
and if you know Iceland that bit was silly

if I touch my mouse wheel to scroll this ridiculous comments box the silly thing jumps to another page
Computer Weekly has afar better on line version technology
redigitaleditions.com

show us typography as good as the best of hot lead - the descenders on this face are too small and hinder reading

you better hire Jakob Neilsen as a useability consultant
on this page 27 alone the colours are a mess - not even ethnic

hacking rootsweb

2007-02-03T08:54:00.000Z

ScriptLance.com Project - Data Extraction - Scraping: " I am looking for a script that I can run on my machine or if you are going to extract and provide the data let me know this in the PMB area. I'm may go above the set budget if you extract and send me the file in RAR
The first site I need an extraction tool/script for is
http://ssdi.genealogy.rootsweb.com

Search requires a minimum of three characters and the wild card of ( * ) Don't see why you would need a name list for this but have a large list if needed. I want to be able to run the script from time to time as the database is updated frequently. I need all fields listed in the search results. Shouldn't be that hard to do this site.

Here is the next site I need a tool/script for
http://www.zabasearch.com/directory_link.php?id=11150

This one only requires on letter. The wild card is ( % ) and again shouldn't need a name list and should be able to get all names without difficulty.

If you know of other sources for date of birth records, marriage, divorce etc. please let me know and I may have you extract those. Already have zaba or their regular search anyway, birth database dot com, and any birthday dot com

I look for a guarantee the script will work and finish the job or ask you to change and adjust it as needed. I will pay half up front or escrow but not willing to p"

very useful freebie for smaller sites

2007-02-02T15:46:00.000Z

smaller sitesWeb Site Search Engine, Free and Pro Versions - FreeFind.com: "Advanced site search and navigation technology can be added to your website in minutes. You'll get high speed, high availability, hosted search technology from the company that pioneered the field.
There's nothing to download or install. It's free and easy."

By controlling your own web crawler you learn to understand how they all work

message boards

2007-02-01T19:03:00.000Z

I hang out mostly on
Topics > Ancestry.com > United Kingdom and Ireland

and this board which was set up at my request
Localities > Scandinavian and Baltic States > Denmark > Counties > Kobenhavn [Copenhagen]

and because I use Family Tree Maker 16
Topics > Genealogy Software > Family Tree Maker software

WorldConnect Living Persons

2007-02-01T10:24:00.000Z

RootsWeb Newsroom » Blog Archive » WorldConnect Living Persons: "Recently there has been a lot of buzz surrounding WorldConnect’s privacy policies. As the programmer for WorldConnect I would like to take a few minutes to explain how WorldConnect displays information for living persons.

We have not made any changes to our policy for cutoff dates to remove living persons from your files. While you are in the Advanced user setup option for your tree (to get there, just click the “Advanced” button when logging in to WorldConnect), the help text reads:

This field specifies the year after which people without death
dates are considered living. Maximum value is 1930.

Although 1930 is the default date in our system you are able to be stricter than 1930 with your cutoff date, with a date like 1900 by going to the Advanced setup tools for your WorldConnect database.

So, everyone born after 1930 (at the maximum) without death information will either be cleaned or removed, based on what you, the database owner, choose. While you have the option of being more strict than WorldConnect’s defaults (such as choosing a cutoff or a date before 1930) you do not have the option of being less strict, with a date like 2007. 1930 is the standard living person cutoff date because of the published US 1930 Census.

If you are looking for deeper information than this q"

Lets Open A Book into the Past

2007-01-02T15:40:00.000Z

Jeanne's Genealogy Main: "genealogy - an account of the descent of a person or family from an ancestor, pedigree or lineage

So simple a word, but one everyone should know. For ours is a great duty to find out more about ourselves by learning more about our ancestry, preserving that which we know, and passing on our knowledge to the next generation.
For we are not alone, and cannot function as such. We follow in the footsteps of those who have come before and shape the paths of those who follow us into the future. Thus to learn about our ancestors is to learn about ourselves.

Through understanding of the past and those who have come before us, events become meaningful and not just a group of dates.
We learn that every event effects not only our ancestors, but both the current and the future generations.
In short it connects the past with the future and helps us understand our place in the present world and how we came to be there.

"

Web Forms and ISO 3166 country codes

2006-12-27T08:21:00.000Z

Web Forms and ISO 3166 country codes: "anomalies have occurred as the result of using ISO 3166 country codes. Worse yet, they are part of the 'Domain Name System' as ccTLD (country code Top Level Domains). The founders of the internet just simply used the ISO 3166 codes rather then get involved in the politics of developing the Domain Name Standards. I have actually read comments posted on the internet, by other Developers/Programmers, to simply use these standards without question and if it's not suitable for the application to pass the blame along to the ISO.

Why?
Why ISO 3166 was ever developed the way it was, is beyond belief. Now there's more bad news on the way, I recently came upon Verisign's experimental use of ISO 3166-2 Country and Country Subdivision codes. It does not get any better here. The manner in which ISO 3166-2 details the subdivisions of the United Kingdom is so poor, that the United Nations opted to use the British Standard BS 6879 in it's UN/LOCODE system. Here's a direct quote from Part 3 of the UN/LOCODE MANUAL

'The subdivision of United Kingdom contained in ISO 3166-2/1998 is not suitable for the purposes of UN/LOCODE. For this reason, the code list below is based on the previous British Standard BS 6879.'

This sounds like a very polite way of stating how bad ISO 3166-2 is in regards to the 'United Kingdom'.

GENUKI: Country and County Codes - British Isles

nice looking german site about nature

2006-12-27T06:20:00.000Z

Wildbienen - Übersicht der Themen
Institut für Biologie und Naturschutz Kusterdingem happy Xmas

RootsWeb "Disaster" is getting sorted out

2006-12-21T11:57:00.000Z

RootsWeb Newsroom » Blog Archive » Update on the Message Board Updates:

"The message board team has been very busy this week reading your feedback and fixing bugs. We have also spent a lot of our time planning and developing adjustments to the boards based on that feedback.

Our first priority in this post-launch period is to fix anything things that are broken (also known as “bugs”). Often when new code is launched and/or a database is updated (both happened with this board update), there are bugs that are not caught during the QA process or things that don’t work correctly when the code goes live."

dreamweaver and XML

2006-12-21T03:35:00.000Z

Displaying XML Data in Web Pages

Macromedia - Dreamweaver Developer Center and more about XML

Web Designers Success free ebook

2006-12-21T03:24:00.000Z

Web Designers Success Guide: how to profit from freelance web design By Kevin Airgid: "The reason I wrote this book is because every time I speak about web design at conferences like Flash In The Can, DigiFest and other festivals I always get asked the same question repeatedly 'How did you get into freelance web design?' Unfortunately there is no short answer, so I wrote a book.

I don't claim you will make a million dollars after you read this book, but it will give you insight into ways to succeed. I've tried hard to keep the book concise and to the point. So no fluff, no page fillers with useless graphics that bump up the page count. In most of the chapters I end with a step by step tutorial on how to use software to achieve some of the goals of the chapter. This book isn't about theory, it is about practical applications you can use right away."

Finney / Woodward

2006-12-21T03:03:00.000Z

Finney / Woodward: "
John Andrew Finney was a successful business man who started his life in Ravenswood West Virginia. As a 17 year old he pestered his mother into allowing him to join the Union Army during the Civil War which ended two months later, but helped us located information about him through his military records."

Blogging to peak next year

2006-12-19T08:48:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | Technology | Blogging 'set to peak next year': "The blogging phenomenon is set to peak in 2007, according to technology predictions by analysts Gartner.

The analysts said that during the middle of next year the number of blogs will level out at about 100 million.

The firm has said that 200 million people have already stopped writing their blogs.

Gartner has made 10 predictions, including stating that Vista will be the last major release of Windows and PCs will halve in cost by 2010.

Gartner analyst Daryl Plummer said the reason for the levelling off in blogging was due to the fact that most people who would ever start a web blog had already done so.

He said those who loved blogging were committed to keeping it up, while others had become bored and moved on."

Projectseven.com

2006-12-19T08:19:00.000Z

Happy Holidays from PVII
- and don't forget to look under the tree !

Happy Holidays from PVII Projectseven.com - Dreamweaver Menu Extensions and CSS Templates

Projectseven.com - Support

Aptana: The Web IDE

2006-12-18T10:10:00.000Z

Aptana: The Web IDE

Aptana is a robust, JavaScript-focused IDE for building dynamic web applications. Highlights include the following features:

Code Assist on JavaScript, HTML, and CSS languages, including your own JavaScript functions
Outliner that gives a snapshot view of your JavaScript, HTML, and CSS code structure
NEW: FTP/SFTP uploading, downloading and synchronization
NEW: JavaScript debugger to troubleshoot your code
Error and warning notification for your code
Support for Aptana UI customization and extensions
Cross-platform support
Free and open source licensed under the Eclipse Public License, v1.0.

space saver for librarians

2006-12-14T12:18:00.000Z

Anguline Research Archives: "Shrink the cost of your library by using digital books, no longer do libraries have to be expensive Anguline Research Archives are dedicated to keep the cost of information down to affordable levels in order that everyone may enjoy the benefits of a wide range of sources.

A further benefit soon becomes obvious to anyone doing research and requiring extracts to be made from books, this may be done instantly without resorting to cramming the book on a photocopier and in the process damaging the spine, copies of extracts may be made quickly and conveniently with no damage ensuing.

Digital Conservation, archivists have long acknowledged the best way to conserve an object is to do the least amount of repairs to the object and certainly nothing that cannot be reversed at a later date.

Digital technology now affords the archivist and librarian the perfect way to avoid damage, and wear & tear to the library or archive stock. Scanning books does no damage and allows the original to be kept in archive conditions suffering no further damage yet the information contained within is readily available."

XHTML, XForms, and device independence

2006-12-14T09:33:00.001Z

XHTML, XForms, and device independence:

"Diversion: arachnophobia

'Google is, for all intents, a blind user. A billionaire blind user with tens of millions of friends, all of whom hang on his every word. I suspect Google will have a stronger impact than [laws] in building accessible websites.'

...

'In a world where Google likely has a valuation several orders of magnitude higher than any chrome such as flash, graphics, audio, interactivity, or 'personalization', I see a heady revision.'

Karsten M. Self

Spider traps

Sites with no content (e.g. Flash), no

Browser News: Statistics - Trends - learn about trends in browsers, colour-depths, and resolutions

2006-12-13T04:59:00.000Z

Browser News: Statistics - Trends - learn about trends in browsers, colour-depths, and resolutions: "1024x768 and higher: this accounts for ~80% of page accesses. Most new PCs have enough video memory for high resolution displays, but many are set to a lower resolution because many new PCs default to a lower resolution: lower resolution displays are faster. The percentage of high resolution users will continue to grow steadily."

Give Up or Transfer a Mailing List

2006-12-07T12:41:00.000Z

RootsWeb Newsroom » Blog Archive » New Tool to Give Up or Transfer a Mailing List: "RootsWeb mailing list administrators have a new tool to assist them in transferring or putting their mailing list up for adoption. The List Orphaning tool replaces the old process of writing the ListMaster or HelpDesk to request that a list be orphaned.

The List Orphaning tool provides list administrators with a secure method of transferring or putting a list up for adoption without having to wait for staff assistance. The process is secure because only the assigned list administrator can put their own list up for adoption."
Click here for more details on how to transfer or orphaning a mailing list.

RootsWeb: Requesting a Mailing List

How to achieve Web standards and quality on your Web site?

2006-12-06T21:36:00.000Z

W3C QA - How to achieve Web standards and quality on your Web site?: "Here you will find easy, painless techniques and ideas to improve your Web site quality and make your Web site valid. This document is intended for HTML users, developers working on Web applications, and Web masters.

Most of the Web sites on the Web are not valid. We may assume that this is the case for 99% of the Web pages, but there are no statistics to support this. It would be interesting to run a survey to prove that this case is indeed true."

an attractive graphic

2006-12-06T15:41:00.000Z

::: ANSWERS :::

Spans are Evil

2006-12-06T06:41:00.000Z

Spans are Evil: "Are you still using tables for page layout? If you use an authoring tool like Macromedia Dreamweaver, a very good tool by the way, you can easily fall into a trap. Dreamweaver makes it very easy to lay out a page using a feature called 'layout view'. When you use layout view, you simply use the mouse to 'draw' tables on the page. It allows a huge amount of flexibility in designing your page and allows you to place elements wherever you want them.

So what's wrong with that? The problem is in the code written by Dreamweaver to accomplish that task. Dreamweaver's layout view makes abundant use of COLSPAN and ROWSPAN attributes to split and merge table cells to format the page exactly the way you have drawn it. However, when you begin adding content to the page, you may find that your carefully crafted layout begins to explode. "

Image:Layout engine usage share.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

2006-12-06T06:40:00.000Z

Image:Layout engine usage share.svg - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bankside Gallery

2006-12-05T19:46:00.000Z

Bankside Gallery
an interesting web design

good design

2006-12-04T10:41:00.000Z

Apple still has one of the best designed web sites with navigation possible in three or four ways
Apple - Site Map

Site Development

2006-12-03T00:35:00.000Z

Site Development, Dreamweaver Training, Newsletters, HTML Emails - Certified

a nice example of a shaded background by Murray in my usenet mail:-

Look at my site - http://www.great-web-sights.com - and note how the
background is a fading blue horizontal stripe. It eventually fades to a
solid very light blue. Here is my CSS -

body {
background: url(newimages/page_bkg.jpg) #edf2f8 repeat-x;
margin: 7px 0px;
color: #000;
text-align: center
}

This rule says to make the body color #EDF2F8 (that's the light blue). It also says to use a background image -
http://www.great-web-sights.com/newimages/page_bkg.jpg - and to tile it
horizontally across the page. The color of the background happens to be the
same as the ending color of the gradient on the image.

more examples
Great Web Sights' Client Portfolio

help with editing with Dreamweaver

2006-11-23T21:30:00.000Z

Editing an existing remote website in Dreamweaver

You can use Dreamweaver to copy an existing remote site (or any branch of a remote site) to your local disk and edit it there, even if you didn't use Dreamweaver to create the original site.

NOTE

This section sets up a Dreamweaver local site on your machne to edit an existing remote website. You can also

edit the existing site without creating a Dreamweaver site. For more information, see Accessing sites, a server, and local drives.

Top 25 U.S. Web Properties

2006-11-21T17:13:00.000Z

More than Half of Top 25 U.S. Web Properties Generate More Traffic from Outside the U.S. than from Within: "

Sites with Audiences Concentrated in the U.S.

Some sites do not attract a substantial percentage of international visitors. Examples include U.S.-based, telecommunications/ cable companies such as Verizon and AT&T, media entities including Fox (owners of MySpace), New York Times Digital, and CBS, and major U.S. retailers, banks and airlines such as Target, Wal-Mart, Bank of America and United.

About comScore World Metrix

comScore World Metrix is the first service to continuously measure and report online behaviour on a world-wide basis, providing visitation metrics and demographic characteristics for Web site audiences around the world. With active representation of countries that comprise the vast majority of the global Internet population, World Metrix provides its clients with worldwide Internet population estimates and harmonized online performance metrics based on a consistent methodology across all countries. More than 100 clients subscribe to comScore’s World Metrix service, including 8 of the top 10 interactive advertising agencies.

About comScore Networks
comScore Networks is a global leader in measuring the digital age. This capability is based on a massive, global cross-section of more than 2 million consumers who have given comScore permission to confidentially capture their data"

Jakob Nielsen on Usability and Web Design

2006-11-15T21:02:00.000Z

Alertbox: Jakob Nielsen's Newsletter on Web Usability

Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2005 (October 3, 2005)

Writing for the Web means making content

short,
scannable, and
to the point (rather than full of fluffy marketese).

Web content should also

answer users' questions and
use common language rather than made-up terms (this also improves search engine visibility, since users search using their own words, not yours).

useit.com: Jakob Nielsen on Usability and Web Design: "User Experience 2006 Conference
> Seattle, October 22-28
> London, November 5-11

29 full-day tutorials on Web usability guidelines, intranet usability, corporate websites, email newsletters, Internet marketing, managing UE teams, writing for the Web, content management, search, personas, and much more."

Adobe web development

2006-11-15T20:11:00.000Z

Adobe Edge: November/December 2006: "When we redesigned the Edge, we not only gave it a fresh look, but we made it easier to use. From the inside out, we developed a framework that makes the newsletter more flexible to build, design, edit, and view. To achieve this, we used Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which enables us to separate design from content. Creating the CSS layout required some serious forethought because one of the requirements was to create one Dreamweaver template that all pages would be based on. This is how I approached and built the Edge using CSS."

Google offers personal searches

2006-10-28T19:29:00.000Z

BBC NEWS | Technology | Google offers personal searches

see Google Co-op

Harness the power of Google search technology to create a free Custom Search Engine that reflects your knowledge and interests - and make money from the resulting traffic.

this is a major break through because the tilde used on rootsweb blocked previous attempts at making a google powered site search

Developer Center

2006-10-24T17:45:00.000Z

Adobe - Developer Center : Designing with CSS – Part 1: Understanding CSS Design Concepts: "This article is the first in a series of tutorials about Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). The aim in Part 1 is to familiarize you with some of the basics of CSS. I'll review some of the problems you may run into. I'll also cover the shorthand and longhand versions of the CSS syntax.

I would like to make it clear that I do not advocate you dropping the use of tables as design elements. It is a case of what suits you best. Whatever you feel comfortable with is a good way to go. What this series of tutorials will do is provide you with the ability to create CSS layouts using Dreamweaver 8. Once you have some of the basics down, you will move on to Part 3 to create a simple but effective CSS layout."

I am lurking in the group macromedia.dreamweaver - This is a Macromedia newsgroup. Posting to this group is ...
1778 subscribers - Last message: 4 minutes ago

There is no such thing as half a pixel (.5px). Think about it. How could you possibly split a pixel?

it pays to use nntp news:macromedia.dreamweaver
otherwise your replies or questions may not be seen by all

more
I am using this blog to take notes to help me to become a better webmaster - on rootsweb freespace

about navbars

2006-10-22T11:16:00.000Z

css.maxdesign.com.au - CSS resources and tutorials for web designers and web developers

Advanced CSS from Google's cache of a broken .edu site:-

Use the list below to jump to different sections or scroll down and use the links at the bottom of each page to navigate to the next section.

Display Property
The display property is used to define the kind of display box an element generates during layout. Gratuitous use of display with a document type such as HTML can be dangerous, as it upsets the display hierarchy already defined in HTML. In the case of XML, which has no built-in hierarchy, display is indispensable.

Examples
h1 {display:block}
li {display: list-item}
img (display:inline}
.hide {display:hidden}

To see inline and hidden in action click this link to w3schools and follow the on screen instructions.

Lists as NavBars
Utilizing the display property + inline value in conjunction with list elements and a wee bit of CSS is an awesome way to create navigation menus that rollover in interesting ways and never touch Photoshop once. This nav bar was created in such a fashion. On this page we will learn how to make this nav bar and look at resources to develop your own nav bar styles.

Copy and paste the following CSS into the section in the of a Dreamweaver document. Notice how the display property of the #navcontainer ul li id is set to inline. By default a list is vertical, implementing the display:inline creates the horizontal navbar.

#navcontainer ul li { display: inline; }

#navcontainer ul li a
{
padding: 0.2em 1em;
background-color: #036;
color: White;
text-decoration: none;
float: left;
border-right: 1px solid #fff;
}

#navcontainer ul li a:hover
{
background-color: #369;
color: #fff;
}

Copy and paste the following HTML code into the Dreamweaver document. Don't forget to add in your own links and change the menu items from "item one" (etc) to something in line (no pun intended) with the content of your project:

Item one

Item two

Item three

Item four

Item five

Maxdesign.com has a plethora of links and nav bars to choose from. Check out both the Listmania and Listmania 2 pages for further examples of list based navigation and a range of different rollover styles.

getting ready to use dreamweaver

2006-10-20T17:34:00.000Z

Adobe - Dreamweaver TechNote : How to convert an existing site into a Dreamweaver site

How to convert an existing site into a Dreamweaver site

Entire sites constructed in other web page creation programs can be edited with Dreamweaver. This migration can happen all at once or file by file over a period of time.

The site files are on a web server
There may be situations when you need to get the site files directly from the web server. This may be because you don't have them locally, but know where to find them on the server.
1. Create a new folder on your computer system's hard drive.
2. Define the empty folder as the local root folder.
3. Connect to an FTP server. (For FTP issues, see Setting up Dreamweaver's FTP Connection (TechNote 14787).
4. Download (you can use "Get" in the Site window) the folder that holds all of your web site's files from the web server.
5. Define the site by using that main folder as the local root folder.

CSS help

2006-10-19T20:46:00.000Z

Max Design - standards based web design, development and training

The short, focused lessons presented in Sams Teach Yourself CSS in 10 Minutes will help you quickly understand CSS and how to immediately apply it to your work.

graphic website creator

2006-10-16T22:14:00.000Z

sitegrinder
SiteGrinder is a Photoshop Plug-in that converts Photoshop designs to web sites.

It is smart. It has many many features. It is easy to use. It rocks.

as does the BLOG THIS BUTTON in the latest Firefox 1.5.0.7 just upgraded for Mac OS X

just an experiment

2006-07-08T10:23:00.000Z

tried to upload a Sony Phone video
failed - wrong file type

watch this space !!!

I just got Dreamweaver 8 for MacOS X
and will be updating my Rootsweb webpages as I learn to use the programme

help for newbie webmasters

2006-06-06T16:17:00.000Z

Jason Edelman is offering an excellent freebie - enjoy his blog Fix My Site

I design and develop professional, valid sites for a living.

This is my personal attempt to save the internet one webmaster at a time.

I know this site doesn't validate.
It's Blogger. Get over yourself.

XML.com: An Introduction to FOAF

2006-04-20T09:56:00.000Z

XML.com: An Introduction to FOAF: "That's because there is still some debate around both the social and technical implications of assigning URIs to people. Which URI identifies you? Who assigns these URIs? What problems are associated with having multiple URIs (assigned by different people) for the same person? Side-stepping this potential minefield, FOAF borrows the concept of an 'inverse functional property' (IFP) from OWL, the Web Ontology Language. An inverse functional property is simply a property whose value uniquely identifies a resource."

Semantic Web

2006-04-20T08:55:00.000Z

RDFWeb and Friend of a Friend (FOAF) developer site

DANMARKS DESIGNSKOLE

2006-04-19T08:57:00.000Z

Henrik Drescher er født i København, opvokset i USA og bor i
øjeblikket i Kina og Hong Kong

PÅ DANMARKS DESIGNSKOLE!
Fredag d. 21. april kl. 14.30

I like his web site

Danish census site updated

2006-04-13T22:31:00.000Z

Danish parish registers and census online help
and a work in progress

freepages.computers.rootsweb.com help with html

2006-03-08T11:16:00.000Z

site:freepages.computers.rootsweb.com html - Google Search

Adobe Photoshop vs. Photoshop Elements - A Comparison

2006-03-05T16:45:00.000Z

Adobe Photoshop vs. Photoshop Elements - A Comparison: "Is Photoshop worth the extra $500 compared to Photoshop Elements?
A.
For most people, probably not. But for creative professionals such as designers and photographers, yes!
If you are a home user or hobbyist, save your money and go with Photoshop Elements. It has all the features of Photoshop that you are likely to ever need. However, if you are planning to enter the graphic design or photography business, you will need to know industry-standard Photoshop, which offers many more advanced tools and productivity enhancements over Photoshop Elements. Although the price difference (and learning curve) for the full Photoshop program are steep, students can purchase Photoshop at significantly discounted educational prices. "

Corel Paint Shop Pro XPhoto Editing Software, Photo Editors: "Jasc Paint Shop Pro 8 and Microsoft Digital Image Pro 9, are more user-friendly.' (Note that Jasc Paint Shop is now offered as Corel Paint Shop Pro X.)"

Corel Corp. - Products: " Corel Paint Shop Pro X offers the ideal combination of automatic photo fixes and precision manual controls ideal for beginning photo editors and professionals alike. "

Microsoft Digital Image Suite 9 review by PC Magazine
testing revealed that Digital Image Pro suffers from several intrinsic limitations. For example, the Stack lets you adjust transparency and change the stacking order in a photo montage, but you can't assign different blending modes (like multiply or overlay) as you can in the other programs here. Likewise, Digital Image Pro's brush-based tools come in only seven predefined sizes. And with the exception of GIF animations, Digital Image Pro doesn't output sophisticated Web graphics, like Web galleries or JavaScript mouse-overs.

new Guestbook tool

2006-02-23T00:31:00.000Z

RootsWeb's Guestbook - Delete an Entry

RootsWeb: Registry of RootsWeb Sites

RootsWeb Agreement for Freepages Web Space Accounts: "RootsWeb will provide free website space to users who request an account and whose intended use fits within our mission.

We will not make any websites for personal photo albums, games, fan sites, video files of any type, music files (eg. mp3), file storage, zip files, software, commercial material, etc. RootsWeb is a family-oriented server, so absolutely no pornographic or adult-oriented material will be permitted."

Photo restoration

2006-02-15T20:58:00.000Z

and it no doubt seemed a good idea at the time

Photo restoration 404

scroll down the page to see examples of restored photographs.
This page may take a while to load due to the size and number of photos on it.

For a small fee of £8, services offered include, repair of scratches, creases and tears... restoration of torn and small missing sections. Colour correction. Restore tonal balance (contrast & brightness).
By working from a high quality scan that you provide of the original photo, I can then email you the repaired photo, ready for you to print.

it survives as an archive

Don't see your site in the Wayback Machine? Submit an URL for inclusion.
We will archive the site you have submitted and you will be able to view it in the wayback machine within 6 months.
Please note: sites that are database driven, generate dynamic web pages or have robots.txt exclusions can not be archived.

You must be a registered user to submit a site to Archive That. Please login or register as a new user.

Any questions feel free to contact, Lesley, at tiscali.co.uk, with "photo repair" in the subject line. a talented person who needs to stick it out amongst all the competition

Genealogy, et Cetera

2006-02-03T14:16:00.000Z

Genealogy, et Cetera a rather pompous home page but technically interesting and worth scrolling down to the tools and crdits

Our cousin relationship, by virtue of this common ancestor (if known) but if not known how can they be cousins ? ? ?
Current Cousins Online none the less an excellent idea

Liam Quinn html help

2006-01-11T09:06:00.000Z

Common HTML Validation Problems
in answer to Linking to individuals in a WC tree

. . . . using a free site from Tripod using their online Site Builder html editor

"You seem to have run into a bug in their "Site Builder" application. It is escaping an already-escaped ampersand in an URL.You need to contact Trippod and let them know about this so they can fix it or tell you how to work around it."

from
HTML 4.0 Reference ~ HTML 3.2 Reference ~ Tools ~ Other Validators

BUT why use TRIPOD ?
because of their ante-google cache stance and bandwidth limitations, I would not touch them ever. Small minded people.

hand tinted photographs

2006-01-10T02:24:00.000Z

When our ancestors wanted a colored photograph the photographer just painted over a black and white print.

You could still buy a set of spirit based tinting dyes in the 1950ies, and you can get a similar effect in Photoshop Elements 4 by setting a brush tool to say 11% transparent and just play about

the old film was over sensitive to blue hence the white sky and under sensitive to red and yellow so that looked black or dark grey like the barrel - obviously this is a work in progress and you could do a lot with these children like the portrait photogrpahers of those days did before the invention of color film.

The smudge tool is my favourite for a quick fix of old photos, it works like a dirty finger on a drawing made with charcoal or chalk or a BBB pencil.

picture demo

2006-01-08T18:56:00.000Z

original 94kb

I opened the original in Adobe® Photoshop® Elements 4.0

erased the tear 175 kb

auto adjusted with smart fix 189 kb

converted to grey scale 156 kb

saved for the web 38kb

the images below are deep linked to Washington County, Missouri
in order to show the code you need to make the picture appear on a web page
(edit text to suite your site)

CLICK ON ANY PICTURE TO MAKE BIGGER

the left right thing refers to how the text will flow round the other side of the image

large center
click for big picture

click for big picture
large left

click for big picture medium left

click for big picture small "none"

click for big picture small right

small centre
click for big pictureclick for big picture

click for big picture
small left

Exploring Rootsweb

lightboxnyack.com

HTML 5

Expression Web 3 launch

Fever Ray

| Web Development Blog

kgsindex

Breadcrumb Navigation

Site Map Usability

Monitors and VDU

The Difference Between ID and Class - CSS-Tricks

RootsWeb FreePages

Flexible Layouts

25 SEO WEB DESIGN TIPS

Joomla!

Life at the Home20

Thompson Name Meaning and History

Thomsen Name Meaning and History

Using Rootsweb Online Editor

rootsweb and ancestry sponsorship

Usability, Design, and CSS

RootsWeb: NEWSROOM-ANNOUNCEMENT-L [NEWSROOM-ANNOUNCEMENT] New Mastheads - Look for them today.

RootsWeb: NEWSROOM-ANNOUNCEMENT-L [NEWSROOM-ANNOUNCEMENT] New Mastheads - Look for them today.

Right-Justified Navigation Menus Impede Scannability (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)

Right-Justified Navigation Menus Impede Scannability

Technical Articles on Genealogy Websites

Document Object Model

Sonderzeichen

HTML - Special Codes:

RootsWeb.com - Find Answers RootsWeb.com - (Page 1 of 2)

Frames Suck Most of the Time (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox December 1996)

World's Worst Website

You cannot log on to an FTP site

Search Engine Friendly Design

Websites as graphs

Passive Voice Web Headings

When Passive Voice = $$$

Acquisition of RootsWeb.com

Coordinator Waiver

Scotland

The Ahern Family

Search engine optimization

Nifty Navigation Using CSS

Consumer Alert!

Expression Web

Rootsweb seasonal trends

Why No Graphics

Web Hosting

Nielsen Norman Group: usability consulting, training & user ...

Write Articles

Books

Consulting Services

About Jakob Nielsen

About This Site

design OK

notes about genealogy

in 1997 by Jakob Nielsen.

ads on RootsWeb

Annoying Ads on RootsWeb

The RootsWeb Store

stylish pages

RootsWeb Newsroom

page title

Adobe mgazine

hacking rootsweb

very useful freebie for smaller sites

message boards

WorldConnect Living Persons

Lets Open A Book into the Past

Web Forms and ISO 3166 country codes

nice looking german site about nature

RootsWeb "Disaster" is getting sorted out

dreamweaver and XML

Web Designers Success free ebook

Finney / Woodward

Blogging to peak next year

Projectseven.com

Aptana: The Web IDE

space saver for librarians

XHTML, XForms, and device independence