Dave Southey

Firefox Web Developer Toolbar Disappeared/Blank/Not Showing

Dave — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 09:54:25 +0000

There is a really great addon for Firefox called Web Developer by Chris Pederick, used by a lot of web developers. Yesterday mine disappeared (running Firefox 3.6) , I tried re-installing it but it still just showed a blank toolbar. A little searching around the web showed that there are conflicts between quite a few addons and Web Developer.

I remembered that Webmail Ad Blocker had recently updated to version 3.0. Disabling the addon brought my Web Developer toolbar straight back (after a Firefox restart of course). If your having problems getting the Web Developer toolbar to show begin by disabling your most recently updated addons until you find the culprit.

Please leave a comment below with which addon was causing the problem for you and the version you were using as this will help others.

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.NET Framework Update Troubles – Remove and Reinstall

Dave — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:29:25 +0000

Skip to the solution.
For months I have ignored the repeated errors from Windows Update regarding .NET framework. There seems to be a variety of errors appearing on Windows XP machines all connected to the .NET framework service packs (1.1, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5). Below are a couple of example errors you may be seeing.

Some updates could not be installed

The following updates were not be installed:

Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1 Security Update for Windows 2000, Windows Server 2003, and Windows XP (KB953300)

The feature you are trying to use is on a CD-ROM or another removable disk that is not available.
Insert the ‘Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 Service Pack 1′ disk and click OK.

After a few friends discovered the same error on their PC’s and asked me how to fix it I decided it was time I should work it out.

I gave Microsoft’s site a go first; I followed two articles from their knowledge base (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/908077 and http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306160). These just brought up errors at certain points and once complete made no difference.

Eventually I found a solution from Aaron Stebner, a Microsoft employee, on his blog. I can’t accept any liability for what these solutions do to your computer, I can only assure you that they have worked for me. His first solution is to follow several steps which attempt to repair the current .NET framework installations. This blog post can be found at http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/archive/2008/03/07/8108332.aspx

If the repair doesn’t work then you can follow Aaron’s final solution, which wipes all instances of the .NET framework, allowing you to do a fresh install. The tool can be downloaded at http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/pages/8904493.aspx.

Extract the zip file you have downloaded from the previous link
Run ‘cleanup_tool.exe’
Select ‘.NET Framework – All Versions’ from the dropdown box.
Click ‘Cleanup Now’
Run Windows Update
Click ‘Custom’
Then you can find .NET framework under ‘Software, optional’, tick the updates you want and then click ‘Review and install updates’
Then just simply follow the on screen prompts

Hopefully this will help you fix any corrupt installations of .NET framework on your computer. Do feel free to leave any positive or negative feedback below in the comments section.

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How to Build a Professional Church Website and Avoid Common Mistakes

Dave — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 15:09:02 +0000

Having seen thousands of church websites from many denominations and throughout many countries, I’ve seen the good, the bad and the downright ugly! As a result I thought I’d draw up a list of the most common church website mistakes.

It’s obviously been done by an amateur. Most churches will try and find a member of the congregation to produce a website for them. Normally to cut costs. No problem with that, but if you are serious about attracting visitors and communicating effectively with your members then you might have to pay someone to do a professional job. If your church website design looks shabby and amateur, then that is what people are going to perceive about your church if they haven’t experienced it in person.

It doesn’t relate to the unchurched. Your church website should first and foremost be written with the unchurched person in mind. Now that may shake the foundations of most church websites, but we must understand that although we obviously want to relate to church members, the church is not an exclusive community. So many church websites are full of Christian jargon resulting in unbelievers being confused and alienated. And whilst we’re talking about wording, make sure that your content is well written, with no spelling mistakes or bad grammar. Write your copy in conversational terms and use lots of words like ‘you’, ‘your’, ‘I’ and ‘our’ to make it personable and engaging.

It’s not easy to navigate. If the page links on your church website are hard to find, not grouped together carefully or not consistent on every page, people will quickly become frustrated and it won’t take them long to browse away from your site. So often church web designers pay more attention to graphics and animations that the site becomes overloaded with various elements competing for attention. Your church website may look fantastic with lots of eye-candy, but it can easily become like a merry-go-round – brief excitement, appeal and attractiveness, but actually doesn’t get you anywhere and leaves you in a spin! People will browse your site for a purpose, so you need clear signposts for them as they navigate your church website.

The font size is too small. This is one of the greatest mistakes across all types of website, and unsurprisingly makes our list of church website mistakes as well. Anything between 12 – 14 pixels should be about right, depending on the typeface you use. You might want to try adding a little line spacing also, to make it easier on the eye. Rather than cramming in loads of words and reducing the font size, make your text shorter.

The information is out of date. Latest church news from last month (or dare I even say last year) is old news and portrays your church as being ‘behind the times’ and ‘irrelevant’ (two main objections that unbelievers already have with church without us making a further rod for our backs). You simply have to put the time in to keep your church website up to date. Designate someone to supply and update the news section or discipline yourself to write short blogs every few days which will keep the site constantly fresh and alive.

The church building is more prominent than the people. The church isn’t your building, the people are. Yes, pictures of your facilities are a good reference point and are relevant for people to get a ‘feel’ of your premises but don’t plaster them all over the home page. Rather, have pictures of people – ideally your own people. Get someone handy with a camera to take loads of shots of different people in different situations (natural, not posed) and select the best ones to go on your site. (Remember to get permission from everyone before you upload them.)

Religious music starts playing or stereotypical images appear. Don’t impose your taste of Christian music on your website visitors – even if you think it is ‘anointed’. Research shows that most people find music played automatically as annoying. Have it available by all means (if it’s relevant, of good quality and legal!), but not set to play when the page loads. On the graphics front, if your church website has a ‘rotating cross’, a ‘dove flapping its wings’ or any other similar images/effects, then your church website is very out of date. What may have worked 10 or 15 years ago certainly doesn’t work now.

For more information on how you can create a great church website that avoids all the seven deadly sins listed above, then visit Your Church on the Web.

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First WordPress Site Complete With My Favourite Plugins

Dave — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 14:56:55 +0000

UPDATE: This blog is quite outdated, therefore some plugins may not be in active development.

I have just finished making my first site using WordPress (the site you are on) and I have to say I am quite impressed. For years I have made all my websites using the Joomla content management system, which despite its annoyances is a really great piece of Open Source software.

WordPress immediately impressed me with its extremely simple, streamlined install. Within a couple of minutes I had my blog live and felt at home in the ACP. The WordPress ACP is a lot more intuitive than the Joomla one in my opinion. The integrated installer for themes and plugins has already saved me so much time that I would have spent searching, downloading and uploading in Joomla. The integrated updater just takes it to another level! No longer do I need to subscribe to 40 different RSS feeds and numerous twitter users just to keep up to date with the latest updates. My only gripe with the plugins I have installed is that there doesn’t seem to be a standard place to access them in the ACP. Some appear under ‘Tools’ others ‘Settings’ and some create their own category at the bottom. Hopefully WordPress will introduce some form of consistency in the future. So far I have installed the following plugins:

Akismet – A needed plugin for every WordPress site, it has already blocked one SPAM attempt on my site
All in One SEO Pack – This dramatically increases the SEO value of the site
Contact Form 7 – Simple but flexible plugin allowing you to customise a contact form
FollowMe – A nice tidy plugin to direct people to your twitter (the button of the right of this page)
GoCodes – Great plugin for affiliate links (only provides simple tracking but does the job)
Google Analytics for WordPress – Quick and easy way to add your Google Analytics code
Google XML Sitemaps – Top quality plugin for producing sitemaps
Login LockDown – This plugin was recommended to me to increase my sites security slightly
NextGen Gallery – I haven’t tested this yet but it has great reviews (I will use it when I get some of my photography up on this site)
Redirection – I am sure this will come in useful in the future
Sociable – I think this is the best social networking/bookmarking plugin around, it looks great and works
TweetMeme Retweet Button – Seems to work perfectly (follow me on twitter)
WP-DBManager – A nice little time saver (no one likes having to load phpMyAdmin)
WP-RelativeDate – You have got to love relative dates! (same link as DBManager)
WP Minify – Always nice to speed up your site
WP-Syntax – A required plugin for anyone who plans to share their code
WP Security Scan – This gave me a few nice security tips
Yet Another Related Posts Plugin – I am yet to test this but reviews seem to say this is the best related posts plugin

As you can see I have already given quite a few plugins a good test and I will probably continue to feedback over time. Joomla seems to have a larger and wider choice of components when it comes to big components such as ecommerce and directories but WordPress seems to generally have well established high quality plugins. With Joomla I am quite familiar with installing three or four modules before I find one that does the job well.

WordPress is an extensive, well thought out and designed piece of software. There are many parts of WordPress which I prefer over Joomla but there are also some components that I would miss too much if I moved away from Joomla. I will definitely be recommending WordPress to clients who it suits.

Please comment if you either like/dislike the plugins I am using or have some you think I should know about. Share your thoughts below.

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