Arachne's Sister

If you’ve recently lost your job, or are just thinking about the future for your career, and wondering if staying in a corporate job is the right thing for your – or if maybe another option exists, I suggest you take an hour and attend Lynn Strigh’s free tele-class. Details from Lynn –>

The Corporate Employee’s “PLAN B” - Transitioning from your corporate job to financial freedom

In order to respond to my clients needs in these uncertain economic times, I am hosting my first F*R*E*E tele-class starting on June 1^st at 1PM EST. 

You will benefit tremendously from this F*R*E*E call if:

(1)  You are currently employed in corporate, but not happy with your job because:

• You are worried about the stability of your job
• There are salary freezes at your company
• Bonuses are being eliminated or reduced
• You are working more hours with less or the same pay
• Your total compensation package is decreasing (Employee contribution for Health Care is increasing, Employer 401(k) match has been eliminated /cut or Pension plan has been eliminated)

(2) Or… You have been laid off/terminated from corporate and are looking for a new opportunity

This tele-conference will run every Monday at 1:00 PM EST starting June 1^st. 

In order to reserve a spot for a tele-class, please send an e-mail to service@corporatemomscoaching.com with your contact information (name, phone & email address).  Once we receive this information, my team will reserve a spot and send a confirmation e-mail to you.  The confirmation e-mail will also include the date and time of the call, plus the dial in number information.

Please Note:  At the present moment, all transactions for this tele-class will be processed through the Corporate Moms Coaching Website.   Because of the great demand for these services, we are launching this tele-class prior to the completion of our rebranding process (website and company name).  So, please know that all corporate employees will benefit from joining this conference call, not just mothers.

Here are the topics I will be touching upon during this 60 minute conference call on June 1^st :

Module #1:  Design your lifestyle (this includes: personal and professional lifestyle) – In this module, we’ll reverse engineer the process in order to determine what is your T*R*U*E lifestyle you want to design for yourself and your family.

Module #2: Corporate VS Entrepreneurial track – In this module, we’ll discuss the Pros and Cons for staying in Corporate and explore what track will help you achieve your lifestyle goals.  As an extra bonus, I’ll give you some secret tips on how to land your next corporate job (even during this recession).

Module #3: Creating your business idea --  In this module, we’ll use three components to determine the perfect business idea that will fuel your passion and your bank account at the same time.

Module #4: Market Research – NOT all business ideas will support your lifestyle and financial goals.  So, prior to taking the next step, we’ll identify your target audience, the services or products your target audience will want to purchase and your competitors who are providing these services.

Module #5: Marketing and Selling ---  In this module, I’ll show you how to become a client magnet to place the right spotlight that will pull your clients towards you.

Module #6: Packages/ Leveraging – In this module, I’ll show you the strategies to position yourself to have multiple streams of income that will recession-proof your business model and your bank account.

Module #7:  Business infrastructure ---  In this module, we’ll discuss what pieces must be in place to support the foundation of your business but won’t bust your budget.

Module #8: Developing a Business Plan – In this module, we’ll pull all of the pieces together from above and create an implementation plan for the next 30, 60, 90, etc. days.

Module #9: Creating the Mindset of a Successful Entrepreneur --  You can have the greatest business idea, marketing tactics, and infrastructure, but if you are lacking in the self-confidence or faith department your business will crash and burn.   In this module, I’ll share the secrets that all successful entrepreneurs must have to not only survive but thrive in their businesses.

Today’s All Things Considered show had two stories about web marketing:

Good Times For Google Advertising

Stealth Ads: They're Effective — And Priced To Move

On Sunday I was invited by my good friend and stylist Monica Diaz to a Trunk Show for an awesome NYC-based designer, Roxi Suger and her line called AngelRox. Roxi’s fun, versatile designs are also eco-friendly and are sewn with fair labor practices, which makes them doubly cool.

If you have spent any time doing web development or updating your blog or website using some sort of Content Management System,  you have likely come across the problem of converting MS Word files into HTML code. It seems like it would be a simple operation – Word does include a “Save As Webpage…” option, but if you take a look at the HTML generated you would be disappointed to see what a mess it is.

Cleaning up Word-junked content before using it online is very important for code compliance and decent, consistent display. Sure the simplest way to strip out Word garbage is to just copy and paste the text from Word into a basic text editor, then copy & paste it from the text editor to your email, blog, or CMS interface. The only problem is that this strips out ALL formatting, which you will need to painstakingly recreate for your online publishing. If you have long formatted documents, this will quickly become tedious and error-prone.

The other option is to seek out a “cleaning” or conversion utility, which would take either a regular Word Doc and convert it to compliant HTML, or would take a “Save As Webpage…” word-generated HTML file, and strip out the Word-only HTML crap. In general< i have found that these tools do a decent job of generating clean code that still includes the basic formatting tags that are necessary for proper display.

As a web developer who has been dealing with this issue for over a decade, I have certainly tried many solutions and have yet to find my “holy-grail”. The main problem I have found with conversion/cleanup programs is that they aren’t smart enough to convert Word-styled bulleted lists into properly formatted <ul>/<li> code. Believe me, the utility that can do THAT will be the winner in my book.

So, here are a handful of options for your Word-to-HTML projects.

Online Utilities

Recommended

Textism.com Word HTML Cleaner
http://www.textism.com/wordcleaner/
COST: Word files up to 20Kb are free, larger files require an inexpensive subscription (€5 - €20)
HOW-TO: Save a Word document ‘as Web Page…’ to your hard drive, then upload to the website
NOTES: Does a good job, but doesn't fix converted lists.

WordOff
http://wordoff.org/
COST: free
HOW-TO: Save a Word document ‘as Web Page…’ to your hard drive, then open it in notepad, copy & paste the HTML to the form on the website
NOTES: Does a good job, but doesn't fix converted lists.

Not Recommended

HTML Tidy Online
http://infohound.net/tidy/
COST: free
HOW-TO: Save a Word document ‘as Web Page…’ to your hard drive, then upload to website, or paste in some HTML from the saved Word doc
NOTES: For the "Tidy Settings" check "Clean" and "Word 2000" for best results. Doesn't remove Word styles (class="MsoBodyText", etc.), doesn't fix converted lists.

Microsoft Word 2000 HTML Mess Cleaner
http://www.algotech.dk/word-html-cleaner-input.htm
COST: free
HOW-TO: Save a Word document ‘as Web Page…’ to your hard drive, then open it in notepad, copy & paste the HTML to the form on the website
NOTES: Converts paragraphs using <BR> tags, which isn't ideal.

Desktop Installed Programs

Somewhat Recommended

Firefox Add-on: Html Validator
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/249
COST: free
HOW-TO: Save a Word document ‘as Web Page…’ to your hard drive, then open it with Firefox. Go to Edit > View Source..., click the "Clean up this page..." button
NOTES: Requires that you have Firefox web browser installed. Doesn't remove Word styles (class="MsoBodyText", etc.), doesn't fix converted lists.

Zapadoo Word Cleaner
http://www.zapadoo.com/wordcleaner/
COST: $99
HOW-TO: Drag-n-Drop or open Word Docs into the program, choose the appropriate conversion template and click a button
NOTES: Can convert many documents at once, very full-featured including the ability to customize your own "templates" for cleaning, though I was dissapointed that the included templates don’t handle lists the way I want. I haven’t been able to  configure a custom one to my standards after spending quite some time on it.

RTF to XHTML Converter
http://rtftohtml.com/
COST: $34.50 (€29)
HOW-TO: In Word, save as RTF file, browse to it in the program, set an output file path, click "Convert" button
NOTES: This program did properly convert lists to <li> tags, but it also added all sorts of extra <div> and <span> tags with useless style info. There aren't any options to exclude this sort of formatting, which would have made this program a winner. Unfortunately, it just doesn't strip out enough junk.

WordHTML CV
http://www.technoriversoft.com/wordtohtmlconverter.html
COST: free
HOW-TO: Drag-n-Drop your Word Doc onto the program window
NOTES: Doesn't remove Word styles (class="MsoBodyText", etc.), doesn't fix converted lists

Not Recommended

Web Code Converter
http://www.web-code-converter.com/
COST: $19.95
NOTES: I couldn't test this, since it opened with an error message. Re-installing didn’t help.

Atrise ToHTML
http://www.atrise.com/to-html/
COST: $25
HOW-TO: Drag & Drop your Word Doc onto the little program window
NOTES: Easy to use, but not recommended because it strips out ALL formatting, leaving only paragraph breaks. I would expect more functionality for $25.

Word2html LT
http://www.wordcnv.com/word2html-lt.html
COST: €40
HOW-TO: Browse to your file, click Open.
NOTES: Even though their website claims "Full support of bullets and numbered lists" I found that it wasn't the case. No <li> in sight. I was also unimpressed with its inability to figure out heading tags.

Convert Doc
http://www.softinterface.com/Convert-Doc/Features/Convert-DOC-To-HTML.htm
COST: free, as far as I could tell
HOW-TO: Browse to your file, set some options, click Convert.
NOTES: Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to do very much differently than Word's own "Save As HTML" option. If you have other file conversion needs, though (PDFs, etc) you might find this a useful program.

WordToWeb 2.5
http://www.solutionsoft.com/w2w.htm
COST: $299
HOW-TO: Uses a Wizard-like interface to browse to your file, set a gazillion options and finally Convert.
NOTES: This has a lot of options to create webpages from your Word docs, but as far as I can tell, it does a terrible job at cleaning the html produced - if anything it seems to ADD extra junk.

If you have a favorite, feel free to post a link in the comments.

So, even though I am a pretty organized gal, I was getting tired of some of the clutter in my (very small) office space. One thing that I could never seem to do was keep papers from piling on my desktop.

The reason became pretty clear to me, and I’m sure it is a common problem for lots of people. These were current-ish papers which didn’t have a clear “home” in my file cabinets. The reason for this homelessness? The mish-mash included:

• business cards and brochures from recent events
• various notes from meetings and phone calls
• little “to-do” items (like an address label ripped from an envelope for correcting in Outlook and a packing slip from an item I needed to return via mail)
• business and programming ideas
• things that I need to hold temporarily
• things I need to make decisions about
• things that represented possible opportunities for my business
• things I want to scan for my “electronic” files
• papers I want to put into my file cabinets
• along with other small, random reminders of various levels of importance/urgency

The problem with having all this in a big pile? First of all the visual clutter and workspace this was all taking up. Ugh. Secondly, having to shuffle through the whole pile to find a specific note when I needed it. Thirdly, the unimpeded growth of the pile, which could (technically) reach as high as it could balance before toppling over.

So, I finally have a solution – a hybrid pile/file horizontal paper sorter:

The advantage of this is that it is inherently a temporary holding place with just enough different categories that most anything that comes to my desk can just as quickly be put into its proper drawer rather than added to an unwieldy stack. These smaller “piles” are also much faster to sort through when I am looking for something specific, and I don’t need to keep shuffling past things which I have already made decisions about.

When I have some time to “File” or “Electronic File”, all the papers are together and ready to go. When I have a few minutes free, I can grab something out of my “Quick To-dos” drawer. When I am ready to focus on business strategy, all my recent notes and papers are available quickly. And, I can easily schedule some time to go through the “Decisions” and “Opportunities” drawers to see if I am ready to move on any of those things now.

Another great thing – these drawers are only so deep – once one fills to capacity, I know I need to stop and clear it out.

I set this system up last week, and so far so good – the only papers that ever sit on my desktop are ones I am working on at the moment. Fantastic!

I purchased my stackable drawers at a local Container Store, unfortunately, I couldn’t find my exact drawers on their website. Here are two similar items, though:

Stackable Desktop Drawers

Gary Vaynerchuk presented one of the best keynotes at the Web 2.0 Expo in NYC September 2008. I had planned to look for the video, but didn’t really get around to it until today. This is highly recommended viewing. He touches upon branding, passion, hustle and doing what you love.

All the Keynote Speakers Videos: Web 2.0 Expo New York 2008 - September 16 - 19, 2008, New York, NY

Gary’s Wine Library TV Site

I was invited by my friends over at the Women’s Mosaic to guest blog for their CHICKS ROCK! Blog. Kristina suggested I write about my experience hiring a stylist last spring.

Check it out: CHICKS ROCK!: The "New" Me

Here is a short list of useful reading for those of you just dipping a toe into the blogging waters, or for those of you who are looking for some new tips for bettering your blogging experience. I will possibly be updating this list as new resources emerge.

What Makes a Good Blog/Good Writing

What Makes for a Good Blog? by Merlin Mann (Aug 19 2008) – Merlin’s Blog is a good one to have on hand for your “inspiration” list. Start with this post, which is pretty self-explanatory.

How to Blog: Video - An hour long presentation and accompanying slide deck of a talk given by the aforementioned Merlin Mann in September 2008. (Skip to 00:04:00 to avoid the “housekeeping” junk) Some great stuff about motivations, authentic voice, “niche”, audience, and quality of content) “What is the one thing that only you can do/say?”

Bloggers Beware? (My Post – 7/21/2008) – A post I wrote several months ago about best-practices for citing other websites in your blog posts.

Monetizing Your Blog

Review of Blogging to the Bank 3.0 by Rob Benwell (My Post – 11/4/2008) – A quick read, basic e-book about having a monetized blog.

How to Make Money From Your Blog by Steve Pavlina (5/3/2006) – Though this post is a few years old now, it has some great info. Read it more for the strategy and general tips, rather than as an exhaustive guide to every possible blog income stream.

ProBlogger.Net Darren Rowse’s Website all about blog monetization

Blog SEO, Promotion, etc

How to get your blog posts onto Facebook (My Post – 11/11/2008) – Step-by-step instructions for getting Facebook to pull your blog posts onto your profile.

In support of an article I wrote for my e-zine today, “The Problem with Flash” I have compiled a few sites that show excellent graphical design without being constructed entirely in Flash.

Examples of What Can Be Done Without Flash:

http://www.insuranceofcharleston.com/
Shows what can be done graphically with a traditionally conservative business industry.

http://www.keithkent.ie/
Click the links. You probably won’t believe this is done without Flash, but it is. Those effects are created using JavaScript and JQuery.

http://www.ndesign-studio.com/
http://www.webdesignerwall.com/
Gorgeous use of background images by talented illustrator and designer, Nick La.
(in case you can’t get enough - a whole gallery of these full-bleed background designs: http://www.webdesignerwall.com/trends/80-large-background-websites/

http://www.csszengarden.com/
A classic of amazing CSS design. (Click through all the designs in the right-hand menu.)

http://www.dantestyle.se/
Another portfolio that proves Flash isn’t necessary for sexy effects.

http://www.floggedmagazine.com/
Shows the limitless design options of HTML.

Galleries of Great Non-Flash website design:

http://www.cssreboot.com/

http://designshack.co.uk/gallery/layout/other/

http://www.cssimport.com/

http://www.cssbeauty.com/gallery/

An Example of a Hybrid Site

Lest you think I detest Flash in all its incarnations, a sensible example of using Flash elements in an otherwise standard website.

http://www.dev.bumpnetworks.com/
Only the top graphic of the logo and lizard is Flash on this site.

I love Content Management Systems and now always use them for my clients’ websites – no matter how “small” their site is. 

If you are thinking about moving to a CMS for your website, I say GO FOR IT! The flexibility it offers is totally worth it. There are a lot of options, both free (usually open source) and paid. If you want to research different ones, check out this site: http://cmsmatrix.org (ugly, but useful – though keep in mind that not all the listings are updated frequently, so you should check the CMS’s website for the latest info.)

The CMS I personally use for all my client’s websites is called umbraco (http://www.umbraco.org) My experience is with .Net (Microsoft) programming languages, which is why having an ASP.Net CMS is important for me, as a developer. This would be less an issue from a content producer’s/site owner’s view point.

The things I like the best about umbraco:

• free and open-source
• allows for ANY visual design (including those using JavaScript and Flash)
• extremely flexible and easy to develop for
• it’s very simple to build a site using search engine optimization best practices
• adding Google Analytics and other services is super easy
• can integrate any other .Net system in one way or another (most useful for more advanced applications)
• friendly and responsive community and core developer team
• attractive and “modern” looking backend (what the content producer and developer sees and works with)
• basically ANYTHING can be done with an umbraco site with some more advanced programming

The things that would be important to a content producer are somewhat different. Take a look here: http://umbraco.org/tour and click the big life vest (“For end users”) for some examples.

The only thing I would caution about umbraco, is that due to its flexible and customizable nature, setting up a website in it is somewhat more complex than some other “just install it” systems (and if you are not that technically inclined or want an exact conversion of a current website to umbraco, some professional developer assistance is required), but once your site is set up, it’s very easy for the content producers to use.

If you have a current website and plan to keep the same visual design and content layout, you will need to select your CMS carefully, since some of them have limited design options (frequently using a concept of “modules”, which is essentially little boxes of content), or insisting on 2 or 3 column design, or forcing you to use a certain “template” design which has limited customization options. So keep that in mind.

This is one of the big things I like about umbraco, since it doesn’t limit your design in any way and can produce web standards compliant code. (Which helps your site look similar in different browsers, and allows for better SEO indexing, etc.)

If you’d like to get an idea of the variety of sites that can be designed using umbraco, you can see sites I’ve done in it:

Generous Orthodoxy – a content-rich site I implemented for a minister

The Heart and Soul Fund – a non-profit website

Booker T Washington Learning Center – another non-profit organization website

Floyd Innovations - my consulting website

Whole Web Impact – my online marketing for independent professionals website

And also there is an international portfolio of umbraco sites by different designers.