New Advances in Web Design Marketing!
I was reading my morning web design blogs today and ran across this post by our friends at Smiley Cat:
The Best Web Design Commercial Ever
My response to the video…. 75% good idea, 1% good execution, 100% comedy!
Hide your “mailto:” Email Addresses from Spambots with JavaScript
Ever wonder why you get so many junk emails at your business email addresses? Your web site may hold the answer. If you or your clients use “mailto:” links instead of email forms for correspondence on your web sites, your email addresses are likely to be picked up by spambots. And as we’ve all learned, once you’re on the list, it’s impossible to get off it.
Rather than pay for an anti-spam service like Spam Arrest or rely on email spam filters on your mail server, why not use JavaScript to hide your email address from spambots? Here’s how:
Place the following code in the HEAD of your HTML document:
<SCRIPT language="JavaScript" TYPE="text/javascript">
function email(department,title){
var recipient = department;
var domain = "YOURDOMAIN";
document.write('<a href=\"mailto:' + recipient + '@' + domain + '\">');
document.write(title + '<' + '/a>');
}
</SCRIPT>
Replace “YOURDOMAIN” in the code above with the domain name of your email address (eg. “siteforce.com”).
Now paste this code in the BODY of your HTML where you would like your email link to appear:
<SCRIPT language="JavaScript">email('YOURADDRESS', 'LINKTEXT');</SCRIPT>
Replace “YOURADDRESS” with your email address (eg. “ecunning”) and replace “LINKTEXT” with the text you would like to appear in your mailto: link (eg. “email us”).
That’s it! To the user, the email link functions exactly the same way as your standard “mailto:” link but your email address is invisible to most spambots.
If you want to be extra tricky, take the code you placed in the HEAD of your document and store it in a .js file to reduce the amount of code in your HTML page and make your email addresses even harder for spambots to find.
Enjoy!
Learning the Language of (X)HTML
Please feel free to add any comments or insight that might help someone getting started on Web Design. I hope this helps anybody needing the basic information to start their own little piece of cyberspace. I have found the best way to understand and learn HTML is to jump right in and start practicing. Getting a quick reference cheat sheet for your tags will help you learn as you go.
Most every Web site has one thing in common, HTML. HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language and is what holds each web page together. HTML files that produce Web pages are text documents. These documents allow the Web to perform as well as it does because text is the universal language of computers.
Understand that web pages aren’t merely text documents; they are a collection of HTML and directions that help others see those pages as you would like them to be displayed. Therefore you have a document that not only has text but pointers and directional commands that explain how your web page is to act and what it is to look like.
The instructions within HTML allow text to link to something else. You can usually spot a link by its highlighted color, usually in blue, and its underline. These links are what we call Hypertext. Hypertext (a link) is what holds the World Wide Web together. This is the only way that you are able to move from one page to the next. Without these links the “www” would stand for World Wide Where the Heck am I. The Web would be a mess of text pages standing alone.
Special tags within a HTML text document are often referred to as “Markup”. Any text that is found between less-than and greater-than signs is an HTML tag, or the markup.
<B>enter your text</B>
These special markups are what give a web page directions on how, where and what size to display your text and images. The purpose for these tags is to let the browser know how to display your Web page. So learning your tags is the key to opening the door to your very own website. Practice makes perfect and time is what it takes to learn the language of HTML.
“Flashy” Web Sites
To introduce web design newcomers to the stunning visual effects made possible by (now Adobe’s) Macromedia Flash, I thought I would offer a couple of links to complex, imaginative and altogether outstanding Flash web sites.
The first is 2Advanced Studios, LLC. These guys have been designing elaborate and awe inspiring Flash sites for several years. From what I’ve seen, they are among the best in the industry.
The second Flash site I find worthy of extreme kudos is Caduceus Cellars. I’m still working on identifying the web site developers. If they aren’t already established, they certainly have a bright future in animation or flash design.
Are there other sites you know of that rival the two Flash designs above? Please leave your comments and links.
