Social Media Writing for Smart People » logos http://www.ivanwalsh.com Get smart with better social media writing skills Sat, 05 Nov 2011 17:15:50 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 How to Create Printer Friendly Page | No Coding Skills Required http://www.ivanwalsh.com/business-development/how-to-create-printer-friendly-page-no-coding-skills-required/ http://www.ivanwalsh.com/business-development/how-to-create-printer-friendly-page-no-coding-skills-required/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:00:50 +0000 Ivan http://www.ivanwalsh.com/?p=1841 How to Create Printer Friendly Page | No Coding Skills Required]]>

I’m thinking of updating the site and creating printer friendly pages. This seems like a good idea as we have lots of tutorials and such that people (like you!) might want to print out. So, how do you create printer friendly pages?

[ad#adc-2]

‘Providing separate stylesheets for printing a web page was good idea in theory, but in practice it all falls down.’

The idea here is to involve server-side script (PHP and ASP based systems) which will reload the target page and replace regular CSS file with stylesheet especially suitable for printing an article, entry, post or whatever.

To make stylesheet for printing, decide what parts of your layout are not likely to be printed (like various banners, navigation etc.). The simplest way to hide them is to define them as display: none;. If you are not familiar with stylesheets for print read more about it. Anyway, keep it simple—black text on the white background, with a font-size: 12pt; is a good start. When you’re done with it, continue reading.

Maratz.com seems to have the best solution. Here’s how it works:

Setting up the Query

Now that we have all client-side ingredients in place, we can put it all together. First, we have to add a link somewhere around the article, for example:

<h1>Title of the article</h1>

<p>Lorem ipsum…</p>

<a href=”?q=printme”>printer friendly version</a>

It literally means we are requesting this same page, but with a query q=printme. To make our page recognizes what we are asking it, we have to add somewhere in the <head> section some logic, something like:

“If i’m asked to ‘printme’—i’ll load my printing stylesheet, and if i’m not asked anything—i’ll load my default CSS file.”

Depending of your preferences there are two scripts—PHP and ASP. Backup your HTML file and replace the part where you called your CSS file with one of the following examples.

PHP print script

<?php if ($_GET['q'] == “printme”) { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<?php } else { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<?php } ?>

ASP print script

<% If Request.QueryString(“q”) = “printme” Then %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<% Else %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<% End if %>

You can read the full article over here:

http://www.maratz.com/blog/archives/2004/09/21/10-minutes-to-printer-friendly-page/

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com

Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

]]> http://www.ivanwalsh.com/business-development/how-to-create-printer-friendly-page-no-coding-skills-required/feed/ 2 How to Create Printer Friendly Page | No Coding Skills Required http://www.ivanwalsh.com/how-to/how-to-create-printer-friendly-page-no-coding-skills-required-2/ http://www.ivanwalsh.com/how-to/how-to-create-printer-friendly-page-no-coding-skills-required-2/#comments Tue, 30 Jun 2009 02:00:50 +0000 Ivan Walsh http://www.ivanwalsh.com/?p=1841 How to Create Printer Friendly Page | No Coding Skills Required]]>

I’m thinking of updating the site and creating printer friendly pages. This seems like a good idea as we have lots of tutorials and such that people (like you!) might want to print out. So, how do you create printer friendly pages?

[ad#adc-2]

‘Providing separate stylesheets for printing a web page was good idea in theory, but in practice it all falls down.’

The idea here is to involve server-side script (PHP and ASP based systems) which will reload the target page and replace regular CSS file with stylesheet especially suitable for printing an article, entry, post or whatever.

To make stylesheet for printing, decide what parts of your layout are not likely to be printed (like various banners, navigation etc.). The simplest way to hide them is to define them as display: none;. If you are not familiar with stylesheets for print read more about it. Anyway, keep it simple—black text on the white background, with a font-size: 12pt; is a good start. When you’re done with it, continue reading.

Maratz.com seems to have the best solution. Here’s how it works:

Setting up the Query

Now that we have all client-side ingredients in place, we can put it all together. First, we have to add a link somewhere around the article, for example:

<h1>Title of the article</h1>

<p>Lorem ipsum…</p>

<a href=”?q=printme”>printer friendly version</a>

It literally means we are requesting this same page, but with a query q=printme. To make our page recognizes what we are asking it, we have to add somewhere in the <head> section some logic, something like:

“If i’m asked to ‘printme’—i’ll load my printing stylesheet, and if i’m not asked anything—i’ll load my default CSS file.”

Depending of your preferences there are two scripts—PHP and ASP. Backup your HTML file and replace the part where you called your CSS file with one of the following examples.

PHP print script

<?php if ($_GET['q'] == “printme”) { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<?php } else { ?>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<?php } ?>

ASP print script

<% If Request.QueryString(“q”) = “printme” Then %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”print.css” />

<% Else %>

<link rel=”stylesheet” href=”default.css” />

<% End if %>

You can read the full article over here:

http://www.maratz.com/blog/archives/2004/09/21/10-minutes-to-printer-friendly-page/

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com

Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

]]> http://www.ivanwalsh.com/how-to/how-to-create-printer-friendly-page-no-coding-skills-required-2/feed/ 0 What’s The Social Technographics Profile Of Your Customers? Forrester Research knows the answer http://www.ivanwalsh.com/business-development/whats-the-social-technographics-profile-of-your-customers-forrester-research-knows-the-answer/ http://www.ivanwalsh.com/business-development/whats-the-social-technographics-profile-of-your-customers-forrester-research-knows-the-answer/#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:30:02 +0000 Ivan http://www.ivanwalsh.com/?p=1797 forresterForrester's Social Technographics classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation (see short presentation). Based on its survey data, they can see how participation varies among different groups of consumers, globally.]]>

hat’s The Social Technographics Profile Of Your Customers? Forrester Research knows the answer
Charlene Li and her colleagues at Forrester Research report that companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — ie a random assortment of blogs, communities etc— to achieve a marketing goal. Ms Li argues that “a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.”
You can use the tool on this page to get started.
Forrester’s Social Technographics classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation (see short presentation). Based on its survey data, they can see how participation varies among different groups of consumers, globally.
Some really terrific material over here including free case studies, PDF downloads and extracts from the book.
If you’ve read it, please let me know what you think.
Regards,
Ivan
and you can Twitter me @ivanwalsh

Charlene Li and her colleagues at Forrester Research report that companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — ie a random assortment of blogs, communities etc— to achieve a marketing goal. Ms Li argues that “a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.”

You can use the tool here to get started. www.forrester.com/Groundswell

forrester

Features of this profile:

• For an explanation of these groups (Creators, Critics, etc.), see a presentation (8 slides)

• Bars indicate the percentage of the selected demographic that are in each Social Technographics group.

• The white marks indicate the same percentages for the whole population of the country selected.

• The index indicates how the demographic compares to the population — a score of 100 means the demographic is the same as the population average.

• The message “No data available” appears when you request a profile for which our survey samples are not large enough to provide a reliable answer. This occurs for age groups in Japan, Metro China, and South Korea. To see profiles in these countries, set the Age to “Not specified”.

Forrester’s Social Technographics classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation (see short presentation). Based on its survey data, they can see how participation varies among different groups of consumers, globally.

Some really terrific material over here including free case studies, PDF downloads and extracts from the book.

If you’ve read it, please let me know what you think.

Regards,

Ivan

and you can Twitter me @ivanwalsh

Note: Any use of data and charts generated from this site must include the following citation: Data from Forrester Research Technographics® surveys, 2008. For further details on the Social Technographics profile, see groundswell.forrester.com.

]]> http://www.ivanwalsh.com/business-development/whats-the-social-technographics-profile-of-your-customers-forrester-research-knows-the-answer/feed/ 0 What's The Social Technographics Profile Of Your Customers? Forrester Research knows the answer http://www.ivanwalsh.com/how-to/whats-the-social-technographics-profile-of-your-customers-forrester-research-knows-the-answer-2/ http://www.ivanwalsh.com/how-to/whats-the-social-technographics-profile-of-your-customers-forrester-research-knows-the-answer-2/#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 04:30:02 +0000 Ivan Walsh http://www.ivanwalsh.com/?p=1797 forresterForrester's Social Technographics classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation (see short presentation). Based on its survey data, they can see how participation varies among different groups of consumers, globally.]]>

hat’s The Social Technographics Profile Of Your Customers? Forrester Research knows the answer
Charlene Li and her colleagues at Forrester Research report that companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — ie a random assortment of blogs, communities etc— to achieve a marketing goal. Ms Li argues that “a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.”
You can use the tool on this page to get started.
Forrester’s Social Technographics classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation (see short presentation). Based on its survey data, they can see how participation varies among different groups of consumers, globally.
Some really terrific material over here including free case studies, PDF downloads and extracts from the book.
If you’ve read it, please let me know what you think.
Regards,
Ivan
and you can Twitter me @ivanwalsh

Charlene Li and her colleagues at Forrester Research report that companies often approach Social Computing as a list of technologies to be deployed as needed — ie a random assortment of blogs, communities etc— to achieve a marketing goal. Ms Li argues that “a more coherent approach is to start with your target audience and determine what kind of relationship you want to build with them, based on what they are ready for.”

You can use the tool here to get started. www.forrester.com/Groundswell

forrester

Features of this profile:

• For an explanation of these groups (Creators, Critics, etc.), see a presentation (8 slides)

• Bars indicate the percentage of the selected demographic that are in each Social Technographics group.

• The white marks indicate the same percentages for the whole population of the country selected.

• The index indicates how the demographic compares to the population — a score of 100 means the demographic is the same as the population average.

• The message “No data available” appears when you request a profile for which our survey samples are not large enough to provide a reliable answer. This occurs for age groups in Japan, Metro China, and South Korea. To see profiles in these countries, set the Age to “Not specified”.

Forrester’s Social Technographics classifies consumers into six overlapping levels of participation (see short presentation). Based on its survey data, they can see how participation varies among different groups of consumers, globally.

Some really terrific material over here including free case studies, PDF downloads and extracts from the book.

If you’ve read it, please let me know what you think.

Regards,

Ivan

and you can Twitter me @ivanwalsh

Note: Any use of data and charts generated from this site must include the following citation: Data from Forrester Research Technographics® surveys, 2008. For further details on the Social Technographics profile, see groundswell.forrester.com.

]]> http://www.ivanwalsh.com/how-to/whats-the-social-technographics-profile-of-your-customers-forrester-research-knows-the-answer-2/feed/ 0 Groundswell – How Social Media Technoloiges Really Work http://www.ivanwalsh.com/business-development/groundswell-how-social-media-technoloiges-really-work/ http://www.ivanwalsh.com/business-development/groundswell-how-social-media-technoloiges-really-work/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2009 04:28:01 +0000 Ivan http://www.ivanwalsh.com/?p=1793 I’ve been reading this book most of the weekend. It’s a terrific exploration of social media and how social media technologies are effecting corporations and companies from a business perspective. I thought you might want look at these links as these are the footnotes to the book and provide some very interesting material. Worth a [...]]]>

I’ve been reading this book most of the weekend. It’s a terrific exploration of social media and how social media technologies are effecting corporations and companies from a business perspective. I thought you might want look at these links as these are the footnotes to the book and provide some very interesting material. Worth a look if you’re trying to get a handle on how twitter, facebook and the rest will impact your profit margin.

site1-1 BusinessWeek article on Digg’s Kevin Rose
site1-2 Rudd-O’s blog post on HD-DVD code
site1-4 Digg blog explains why HD-DVD link was removed
site1-5 Google Blogsearch
site1-6 YouTube musical video of HD-DVD code
site1-7 Digg member Grant Robertson on the HD-DVD incident
site1-8 Digg blog on defying lawsuit, restoring HD-DVD code links
site1-10 Church of the Customer
site1-11 Mike Masnick’s post on the Streisand Effect
site1-12 YouTube video of sleeping Comcast technician
site1-13 Snakes on a Plane fan blog, Snakes on a Blog
site1-14 The Lactivist blog post on the National Pork Board’s legal letter
site1-15 Blog coverage of The Lactivist blog post
site1-16 Korean blogger on unsanitary conditions at Dunkin’ Donuts
site1-17 The Korea Times article on Korean blogger
site1-18 Forrester report introduces Social Computing
site1-19 Forrester report with US online penetration statistics
site1-20 Forrester data chart with European online penetration statistics
site1-21 Wired interview with Mary Modahl
site1-22 Forrester report with projections of US online advertising
site1-23 Forrester report with projections of European online advertising
site1-25 Guy Kawasaki’s blog post on starting Truemors.com
site1-26 Chris Anderson’s blog The Long Tail
site1-27 GM FastLane Blog post comment on Pontiac GTO
site1-28 GM FastLane Blog post on Bob Lutz writing a blog
site2-2 Forrester Groundswell blog post on the word “user”
site2-3 Martin Lindstrom’s video blog
site2-5a YouTube video of Wayfarer sunglasses
site2-5b Youtube videos in Ray-Ban’s “Never Hide” campaign
site2-6 Second Life membership statistics page
site2-8 Netcraft page tracking Web server market share
site2-9 W3Counter page tracking browser market share
site2-10 Alexa tracks site traffic
site2-11 Forrester report on dealing with Wikipedia
site2-12 ExpoTV features video product reviews
site2-13 Amazon review page for Harry Potter book
site2-14 David Weinberger’s Web site
site2-15 Thomas Vander Wal’s blog post about “folksonomy”
site2-16 Wal-Mart’s blog tagged on del.icio.us
site2-17 Common Craft’s video explaining RSS
site2-18 Comscore’s press release about widget viewing
site2-19 UPS’ online widget
site2-20 Discovery Channel’s Shark Week widget
site2-21 3spots blog’s list of Digg-like sites and applications
site2-22 Twitter application for Olin College laundry room
site3-2 Forrester report on Social Technographics
site3-3 USA Today article about alpha moms
site3-5 YouTube video of Fujitsu commercial (in Japanese)
site3-6 Forrester report on online dating
site4-1 Forrester report on the POST method
site5-2 US News and World Report rankings of cancer centers
site5-3 Medical News Today article about M.D. Anderson’s therapy center
site5-5 Honomichl article on research companies
site5-10 J.D. Power and Associates site ranks vehicle satisfaction
site5-11 Forrester report about brand monitoring vendors
site6-1 Engadget blog post about blending the iPhone
site6-4 Forrester report on a new marketing metric: engagement
site6-5 Forrester report about consumer trust in advertising
site6-6 YouTube video about SOA by TIBCO
site6-8 Ernst & Young’s careers page on Facebook
site6-9 MySpace’s page on the report “Never Ending Friending”
site6-10 Washington Post article about Barack Obama’s MySpace page
site6-11 HP’s Vince Ferraro’s blog post on Vista printing problems.
site6-12 Sun’s Jonathan Schwartz’s blog post on acquiring HP’s founders’ images
site6-13 HP’s Eric Kintz’s blog post responding to Jonathan Schwartz
site6-14a Forrester report on the ROI of blogging
site6-14b Forrester report on blogging ROI case study
site6-14c Hugh McLeod’s blog post on the ROI of blogging
site6-15 Unica’s Carol Meyers’ blog post on ending its blog
site6-16 Direct2Dell blog post about the flaming notebook
site6-17 Procter & Gamble’s beinggirl.com post about an embarassing story
site6-18 Procter & Gamble’s beinggirl.com post with advice from Iris
site7-1 Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s page on WOM 101
site7-2 Fred Reichheld’s blog
site7-4 BzzAgent’s site
site7-5 eBags’ page on the weekender convertible bag
site7-6 Forrester report on consumers’ use of online reviews
site7-7 Shop.org’s report on sites’ attitudes about ratings and reviews
site7-8 Bazaarvoice’s case study on PETCO
site7-9 Forrester report on online reviews
site7-10 Constant Contact’s community site
site7-11 Constant Contact’s IPO filing
site7-12 Constant Contact posting about spam
site7-13 Wired article about LEGO working with its best customers
site8-2 Kaiser Family Foundation research on cancer attitudes
site8-3a Forrester report on American jobs going overseas
site8-3b Forrester report on European jobs going overseas
site8-4 Dell community forum post on DVD drive problems
site8-6 The New York Times article on Flickr’s Caterina Fake
site8-7 University of North Carolina’s definition of “psychic income”
site8-8 Henry Jenkins’ site
site8-9 Nuts Online story about Jericho fans
site8-10 CBS Jericho page about un-cancelling the show
site8-14 The New York Times article about Naver
site8-17 Yahoo! page for Kellogg’s Special K community
site8-18 TiVo community site page listing most frequent posters
site9-2 Eric Von Hippel’s page
site9-3 Patricia Seybold’s blog
site9-4 Wikinomics page
site9-6 Ideas.salesforce.com post requesting the end of Sawbanners
site9-7 Dell Ideastorm post about a Linux PC
site9-8 The New York Times article on crowd-sourced ads
site9-9 Crowd-sourcing site for Doritos Super Bowl ad
site10-1 The New York Times article on Rob Master’s wedding
site10-2 YouTube video “Dove Evolution”
site10-3 Alexa site traffic measurement for Dove’s site
site10-5 YouTube video trailer for dovenight.com
site10-6 American Customer Satisfaction Index scores for Dell
site10-7 BuzzMachine blog post on Dell problems
site10-8 BuzzMachine blog post on Dell hell
site10-9 The Inquirer article about Dell computer catching fire
site10-10 Direct2Dell blog post about the flaming notebook
site11-1 Best Buy’s Blue Shirt Nation (entering requires membership)
site11-4 Forrester report about Microsoft’s acquisition of aQuantive
site11-5 InfoWorld article about Intelpedia
site11-6 ConnectIT article about Bell Canada’s ID-ah!
]]> http://www.ivanwalsh.com/business-development/groundswell-how-social-media-technoloiges-really-work/feed/ 2 Screenshot Tips – How to create special effects with Snagit http://www.ivanwalsh.com/how-to/screenshot-tips-%e2%80%93-how-to-create-special-effects-with-snagit/ http://www.ivanwalsh.com/how-to/screenshot-tips-%e2%80%93-how-to-create-special-effects-with-snagit/#comments Wed, 17 Jun 2009 00:06:26 +0000 Ivan http://www.ivanwalsh.com/?p=1780 bpr10Screenshot Tips – How to create special effects with Snagit]]>

This morning I’ve been putting the finishing touches on some Process Design Template. The final step is the packaging, including the product shots and other marketing materials. Something I thought I’d share with you is how I take screenshots and especially tricks I use to add some nice effects.
The first image is the standard screenshot.

bpr10

In the next I used Techsmith’s Snagit to modify the image so that it has this nice effect.

bpr11

And then I flip it around in the other direction.

bpr23

Let me know how you take screenshots and what tricks you’ve found to be most effective.

Regards,
Ivan
Twitter @ivanwalsh

]]> http://www.ivanwalsh.com/how-to/screenshot-tips-%e2%80%93-how-to-create-special-effects-with-snagit/feed/ 0