Media Relations: How We Landed the Wall Street Jou

Media Relations: How We Landed the Wall Street Journalกs Front Page

by: Brad Phillips

Media relations is a great profession.

On good days, I earn my living speaking to and learning from knowledgeable experts who ask for help in raising the profile of their cause through the media. In the past few years, I’ve worked with billionaire philanthropists, a Pulitzer Prizewinning scientist and a world famous actor. Mostly, though, I work with unknown but equally impressive professionals regarded as experts in their fields.

When I speak to them, I’m always listening for ขthe story.ข Some of the time, the story is immediately apparent. But the most gratifying moments come when a story seemingly devoid of news value suddenly leaps out and surprises me.

Two years ago, for example, I was doing media work for a Washington DCbased environmental organization. Scientists from the group would regularly contact me regarding their latest field work, hoping I could convince a reporter to shine a spotlight on their project.

One day, I met with a charismatic field biologist to discuss his project while sipping coffee in a depressing restaurant. As he told me about his project, I quietly became more convinced that he didn’t have much of a story. I felt bad, but suspected no reporter would bite.

The West African forest elephant, he told me, was in trouble. The problem was largely one of capacity – no West Africans had been formally trained in protecting the 7,700pound mammals, which were being killed by the farmers who feared them.

To help correct the problem, he said, they had established a program three years earlier to train six West Africans to conserve the majestic beasts. In a month, they would end their training and begin working to protect the animals fulltime.

That’s when the idea hit.

I asked the scientist if we could call the group the firstever graduating class from Elephant University. When he agreed, I knew we were in business.

I drafted an email with a few highlights to a reporter I had recently met from The Wall Street Journal. The story pitch suggested that this story was the perfect fit for the quirky daily frontpage ขColumn Fourข feature. The reporter quickly wrote back. He agreed.

Two weeks later, the reporter was off to Ghana to report the story firsthand. When the story ran on November 27, 2002, the words ขElephant Universityข – the ones we had happily stumbled upon over coffee – were emblazoned on the frontpage.

This story worked because we didn’t pitch it ขhead on.ข Remember – the heart of this story was that West African scientists were receiving training – not exactly frontpage material. But by giving the reporter an unusual hook, he was able to convince his editors that the story deserved to be told.

If you’re speaking to an expert to assess a story’s newsworthiness and it doesn’t seem immediately obvious to you, keep talking. If they say something interesting, stop them. Ask them to slow it down and provide more detail. Paraphrase their response into something resembling a headline by asking, ขWould it be correct to say it this way?ข Finally, look for the nuggets. Ancillary parts of the story often jump out and become your lead.

About The Author

Brad Phillips is the founder and president of Phillips Media Relations. He was formerly a journalist for ABC News and CNN, and also headed the media relations department for the second largest environmental group in the world. For more information and to sign up for free monthly media tips, visit www.PhillipsMediaRelations.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 10

by Brad Phillips

Advantages for Using FrontPage… maybe this HTML

Advantages for Using FrontPage… maybe this HTML editor has some hidden advantages

by: Robin Nobles

Ever since Iกve been doing SEO work, Iกve always griped and complained about FrontPage and all the extraneous code it puts in the section of the page, etc.

Then recently, I had the opportunity to visit with a group of advanced search engine optimizers, and I was shocked to find that many of them use FrontPage and love it.

FrontPage??!!

The first thing I learned is that there are ways to keep out the extraneous code! With FrontPage, you can remove the code, but it keeps comes back again and again and again. But, there’s a way to get rid of it forever.

How to Get Rid of Extraneous Code and Headers

Dave Barry, Webmaster of SmartCertify Direct (http://www.smartcertify.com), explains how:

FrontPage 97 or 98 users:

Click on Start, then Find, then Files or Folders. Search your hard drive (generally your C drive) for a file named frontpg.ini. Click on the file.

When it opens, look for a line that says, ขVersion 3.0.ข

Add this line under Version 3.0:

HTMLREFORMAT=0

The next time you use FrontPage, remove the extraneous code and headers, and they won’t come back.

FrontPage 2000, 2002, or XP users:

Look at the menu bar at the top of the Open Web. Click on Tools, then Page Options.

You’ll see an option box. Under HTML Source, at the top of the page under General, you’ll have this choice:

When saving file(s):

Preserve existing HTML or Reformat using the rules below

If you choose Preserve existing HTML, and if you delete any extraneous code and headers, you won’t see the code or headers on your pages again.

(To view an example screen shot showing the above, click here: http://www.academywebspecialists.com/newsletters/fp2.gif)

Dave added:

ขTo disable the HTML changing of FrontPage 2000, a registry entry is also needed. This registry file (http://www.academywebspecialists.com/newsletters/noreformat.zip) will do it automatically. Just open the file with Notepad to verify its authenticity before using it.

ขThe attachment and registry entry must occur on the server.

ขOr, if you want to edit the registry manually, here is the code:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared

Tools\Web Server Extensions\All Ports]

‘reformatHtmlก=ก0ก

AddIn that Generates META Tags

FrontPage also has an Addin that will delete META tags without going into the source view. It’s called META Tag Maker 2002, and it will create and manage META tags through one dialogue box, without having to go into source view.

http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/downloads/addin/searchdetail.asp?aid=80

In fact, the FrontPage site has an amazing number of Addins for FrontPage that are free for the taking. http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/downloads/addin/def ault.asp

Some of the more popular Addins include:

Multimedia/Special FX, Windows Media Addin, that will easily embed audio and visual into your Web pages;

Clear Teal Template, that is a 16page easytouse Web template that lets you easily create a Web site;

Scripting/Database Tools, JBots Plus 2002 Trial. According to the FrontPage site, JBots components make FrontPage Web sites more customized by adding JavaScriptenabled features, but you don’t have to know how to write code or cut and paste. Simply fill in dialog boxes, click Generate, and the JavaScript is created for you.

Other Advantages for Using FrontPage

* Server side includes are easy with FrontPage. Before we go on, let me explain what ขserver side includesข are.

Server side includes (SSI’s) generate parts of Web pages dynamically on the ขserver side.ข They allow you to add customization features to your Web pages, such as an email form. Unlike other forms of dynamic content, or content that’s created on the fly, server side includes have a normal URL that’s easy for users to remember and doesn’t create problems for the engines.

In other words, SSI’s embed special commands into an HTML document that tells the server to perform specific actions when a user requests the page. The server then creates the Web page on the fly by merging files or inserting requested information.

How might you use SSI’s on your Web page? Let’s say you want to add a form to your Web site for your users to complete to sign up for your newsletter. You could create the form using SSI’s.

For more information on creating SSI’s with FrontPage, visit: http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage/using/default.htm and click on FrontPage Server Extensions.

* Dave Barry, who recently created two major sections of the Dell Web site using FrontPage, manages 40 to 50 Web sites at SmartCertify, and he easily moves back and forth between those sites using FP. With that many sites, there is a lot of duplicity, and he can effortlessly share objects with FP or edit multiple Web sites. With FrontPage, you can cut and paste between the sites, use shared borders, and easily drag and drop files, thus saving a lot of time versus handling each site separately.

If you’ve ever wanted to experiment with Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), FrontPage also makes using them a breeze. You can even create DHTML using FrontPage.

Dave created a video on how to copy and paste, how to use Cascading Style Sheets, and how to use shared borders with Front Page:

http://www.smartcertify.com/seo/frontpage.asp

(Author Note: When viewing these videos, make sure you have the latest version of Microsoft Windows Media Player. To download the latest version (7.1), click here (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;enus;Q299321). Also, I found that I was unable to view the videos if my firewall (Zone Alarm) was running.)

* Another benefit to using FrontPage is being able to create virtual directories with ease. As you know, when you specify a home directory, all of the subdirectories beneath than home directory automatically become subdirectories of the Web site as well. However, you can also designate a folder located elsewhere on the system as a subdirectory of the site by creating a virtual directory out of it. A virtual directory is a directory or folder on a server that is not in the actual server directory structure.

Again, Dave created a video on how to create virtual directories using Front Page:

http://www.smartcertify.com/seo/iis.asp

* If you want to create a database, it’s no problem with FrontPage. It will virtually create a database for you and import data without any database knowledge at all. The program works with Access, SQL, Oracle, and ODBC, and you can set up an SECcompliant database within 30 seconds and begin working with asp pages with no prior knowledge whatsoever.

Click here for Dave’s video on how to create a database using FrontPage:

http://www.smartcertify.com/seo/dwizard.asp

* To Lee Davies of #1 Internet Marketing (http://www.1internetmarketing.co.nz), the main advantage to FrontPage is that you can so easily manage all your html pages from the folders section.

For example, ขIf you were to rename an image, which is something that needs to be done when optimizing, it will rename the links to the images from every page,ข he explains.

* What I kept hearing again and again as I interviewed users of FrontPage is that FrontPage saves you time in creating Web pages, because it’s so easy to use. Don Hammond with DonOMite (http://www.donomite.com) explains,

ขStraight HTML pages are a breeze with FP. I know a lot of programmers scoff at using it, but it means I can crank out a basic HTML page in seconds rather than minutes. And when I get paid by the job, it means more $/hr to me.ข

* Dawn Rowlett with Web Submission Services (http://www.internetmarketingwebsites.com) explains further:

ขFrom the first day that I was introduced to FrontPage, I was instantly able to catch on to some of the many features because it was so easy to use. I think the most beneficial factor to the program for me was that I was able to go in and design a page, knowing nothing at all about HTML. I could include hyperlinks, tables, images, change colors, backgrounds, insert text, create paragraphs, etc. with absolutely no background in coding. I was able to do all of this on my first day with the program!

ขI remember one time in the beginning when I was involved in a discussion with a designer who was using another HTML editor and was completely stuck on the coding of how to create a simple table. My first thought at the time was, using Front Page, that is such a simple task.ข

* Many professional SEO’s also like to use FrontPage because it’s a program that’s simple enough for their clients to use. So, when the SEO turns the site back over to the client, the client can easily make changes with FrontPage without having to know HTML. As Tom Altman with RSM McGladrey, Inc. (http://www.rsmmcgladrey.com) explains,

ขMost of the folks already have the office suite, so they are used to using Word and the like. FrontPage is not that much different, and it lets them maintain their own site.ข

Make FrontPage Work the way YOU Want it to!

At the Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions Resource Kit, you’ll find links to all of the possible ways to make FrontPage work for you, instead of the default values after installation.

http://officeupdate.microsoft.com/frontpage/wpp/serk/apndx03.htm

Take a Free Course in using FrontPage!

Dave Barry at SmartCertify Direct (http://www.smartcertify.com) created a free course in using FrontPage. Simply register at the following URL, and take the free course:

http://www.smartcertify.com/seo/registerseo.asp

In Conclusion

As you’ve seen, some very experienced Web designers and search engine optimizers use FrontPage as their ขeditor of choice.ข Its ease of use and variety of readymade templates make it a program that’s easy for beginners yet has the functionality that advanced designers need.

It also allows the designer or SEO to get a page designed quickly and easily, and time adds up to money for a busy SEO.

As Nancy Nelson with Search by Design! (http://www.searchbydesign.com) said,

ขIs it a perfect tool? Certainly not, but FrontPage combined with minor HTML knowledge can take you a long way…ข

So FrontPage users, don’t be ashamed to admit that you use FrontPage! Some of the best Web designers in the industry use it, with good reason.

Special Thanks to Dave Barry

Dave Barry with SmartCertify created the videos, screen shots, and free tutorial available in this article. Plus, he gave me the work arounds for getting rid of extraneous code, and he verified the accuracy of the content. Thank you Dave – there’s no way I could have created this article without your help.

Copyright 2002 Robin Nobles and Dave Barry. All rights reserved.

About The Author

Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web Specialists, (http://www.academywebspecialists.com) has trained several thousand people in her online search engine marketing courses (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com) and is the content provider for (GRSeo) Search Engine Optimizer software (http://www.seoptimizer.com). She also teaches 4day hands on search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe with Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com).

Dave Barry is a professional Webmaster, Web designer, programmer, and search engine optimizer, all rolled up into one amazingly talented man who works for SmartCertify Direct. (http://www.smartcertify.com) He has also begun working with Search Engine Workshops to put on ขhands onข training workshops at locations across the globe. (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com).

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 01, 2002

by Robin Nobles

Dreamweaver vs FrontPage

Dreamweaver vs FrontPage

by: Oleg Lazarenko

There are two major WYSIWYG(What You See Is What You Get) editors available for beginners. These are: Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver. So the question is which one is better?
This article is not intended to humiliate Dreamweaver or FrontPage editors. I just attempted to analyze both programs from different points, based on Internet research, experience of other users and my years of html coding experience.
To say honest I am not the fan both of them. In our production we regularly use AceHtmlPro but the fact is that many of our customers DO use either FrontPage or Dreamweaver and thatกs the reason our employee have to be familiar with both. Writing the article I have talked to our stuff and did some research about both editors and I came up with the facts Iกd like to share with you.
Pluses and minuses of MS FrontPage:
1. FrontPage as all Microsoft product has so many templates and ready to use solutions that you cannot admit it is easier for beginner to start using FrontPage to build his first website. You can create simple website personal or business with several clicks and all you will need to do next is to enter your text and pictures instead of used by FrontPage by default.
2. The good news is FrontPage html pages look exactly as they appear in MS Explorer and the bad news is that they look perfect ONLY in MS Explorer. However you may program FrontPage to get rid of nasty tags but I believe it requires some hand coding to adjust pages to Netscape or Opera. Another good news for FrontPage users: about 93% of all internet clients use MS Explorer 5 and higher.
3. As Microsoft application FrontPage is better with ASP pages, which are standard for Windows based hosting and windows based programming.
4. MS FrontPage perfectly interacts with other MS Office products. For example you can easily cut and paste some chart from MS Excel into FrontPage working area.
5. By default MS FrontPage uses table with the fixed width and sometimes it can be a problem to make it display tables with percentage width.
Pluses and minuses of Macromedia Dreamweaver:
1. You can build your own templates and use them to edit hundreds of pages of your website with one single click. Although Dreamweaver adds some comment tags to html file to distinguish editable and noneditable areas and I read in one forum that people experience some troubles applying template to more then 700 pages as they ran out of memory but I had never chance to test that.
2. Pages done with Dreamweaver usually have less trash in coding. They look almost perfect with Netscape, Opera and MS Explorer.
3. Dreamweaver doing amazing thing with SSI files and other server side include technology. Php code looks much nicer however with ASP scripts FrontPage still better.
4. Dreamweaver is much better interacts with other macromedia products.
5. Both editors in most cases display CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) correctly. But if you enter style attribute twice in Dreamweaver for it will definitely ruin your page and you will be able preview your page partly before this error. FrontPage however handles such mistakes easily.
There are many others pluses and minuses in both editors if I wrote about al of them I should probably start a book rather then single article, but those I have mention I heard most about.
My idea is that MS FrontPage is ideal for beginners as it provides so much help and templates, then you should move to Dreamweaver when you feel yourself more comfortable with the html code and finally, if you are serious about web design, you should reach the hand coding level as it still best way for coding pages. It gives you the freedom of using tags and styles, as you want them to use. Do not forget however validate you hand coding, or code generated with FrontPage or Dreamweaver. You will be surprised if you knew how many errors produced during coding starting from broken links to invalid tag attributes.

About The Author

Oleg Lazarenko Production manager of Metamorphosis Website Design Studio Custom design, Website Templates, Web design Articles and Tutorials.

http://www.metamorphozis.com
You may reprint this tutorial for free as long as the content, About the Author sections and all links remain unchanged.

This article was posted on June 14, 2004

by Oleg Lazarenko

The Contrast And Similarities Between A Web Design

The Contrast And Similarities Between A Web Designer And Web Programmer

by: Onaefe Edebi

The concept of web designing based on the nature and rapid growth of the Internet is nothing to boast of any more. This is because of the large number of web sites published to the Internet everyday, so as to showcase one’s presence and dominance on the World Wide Web. You may ask why this is so, well, the so simple answer is the rate at which technology is evolving.

An example is illustrated with the popular Microsoft FrontPage and Macromedia’s Flash. They are two different web designing software which have the same basic function (to create an interactive website). However, a person who has used both programs would observe that Microsoft FrontPage, which has been existing over quite a long period of time, deals basically with HTML codes. No programming language or knowledge is involved; that is why I choose to term its use in the category of web designing. Almost everybody, who owns a computer with the Windows Operating System along side MS FrontPage installed in it, knows how to design a simple website. This is because of it’s format which does not require programming skills, but only requires the user to type the text, copy and paste even drag and drop a picture to the potential website. However, Macromedia’s Flash, which was released years after Microsoft’s first release of it’s FrontPage, shows it’s advancement in effects, animations and even graphics. This powerful also shows an advancement in web designing technology. You’re probably thinking, “how incorrect”. Well, I like you to know the programming and designing are entirely two different things. While designing as been discussed about using Microsoft FrontPage as an example let us look into programming on the web.

Now, unlike Microsoft FrontPage, Macromedia’s Flash creates a more animated and effectsfilled website that Microsoft FrontPage. However it require programming skills to maximize its use and put it to work. So as a person with ground knowledge of Microsoft FrontPage would call himself a web designer, the other with Macromedia’s Flash would call himself a web programmer so as to differentiate himself to a so called ‘novice’, who may have learnt web designing through the widely believed ‘easytouse’ Microsoft FrontPage. But whichever way a website is created, it is important to note that its primary function is to supply information about services, products and other functionaries. So, whether a web programmer or a web designer; if the same work given to them is to create a website, they symbolize oneness, in the sense that however way the site may be created, or how more interactive one’s work may be, compared to the other, they still pass the same information to the website visitors, thus making them both creative in the aspect of ‘web designing’, which almost every high school kid can do.

Yet as one, who is a programmer, I do not see much of a difference between the web designer and programmer, unless a far more advanced form of web programming than we (web programmers) have now, is created. But till then the socalled web programmers would continue to stretch on their differences from the web designer, irrespective to their similarities.

About The Author

As a student I studied the basic and intermediate concepts of Web designing and Web programming. I am also into webdesigning and webprogramming

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 25, 2003

by Onaefe Edebi

The Basics of Starting Your Own Website

The Basics of Starting Your Own Website

by: Tim Frady

You will note from the title that this article is for the beginners. The very first thing to consider is what kind of software you will use. I admit, my personal favorite is Microsoft FrontPage. It is what is known as a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) web site editor. It enables webmasters to create websites without knowing any HTML. Those of you who write HTML code like a second language will probably not care for it very much. The latest version, FrontPage 2003, has great improvements from the older versions, like the split screen which allows you to see the HTML code as you edit. Even if you don’t write your own code, the more familiar you are with HTML, the better off you will be. FrontPage 2003 also lets you do a find and replace over your entire site. So if you made a mistake or want to change a link that is on all one thousand pages of your site, all you have to do is find the code and do a mass replace. Microsoft offers a 30 day trial CD if you would like to try it for free. Another cool web page editor, Macromediaกs Dreamweaver, can be downloaded and used on a trial basis at Macromedia.com.

If you are on a tight budget, which I can definitely understand, then go to Download.com and search for WYSIWYG HTML. There are a lot of free trials for easy to use HTML editors. You have to look really hard, but you may even find a couple that are completely free. Just skimming through the list I found one for around $15. Of course, you definitely want to use the free trial before you buy any of these to make sure you are comfortable using the software and that it does what you want it to do.

HTMLKit is a must for any aspiring webmaster. You can download a completely free copy at Download.com. HTMLKit is not WYSIWYG at all, but if you start working with more advanced options like php, cgi, .htaccess, or any of the other many file extensions, youกll need this one eventually.

If you are looking to practice a little with a small website for free then try Bravenet.com. You can get 1.5 GB of bandwidth and 50 MB disk space. This isn’t very much compared to a host you pay for, but it can help get you started if this is your first outing in web page development. If nothing else itกs great free practice for the real thing.

The next important thing to consider is the web host. There are a number of questions to ask yourself in looking for a web host, like cost, bandwidth, disk space, type of scripts that are allowed, etc. You might want to check out this article http://webmastertips.us/articles/webhosting/goodwebhost.htm for a lot of great tips before putting down any money.

About The Author

Tim Frady webmaster of http://www.webmastertips.us/ filled with free scripts, articles, forum, and tutorials.

This article was posted on September 14

by Tim Frady