Answers...

to commonly asked questions.

web page design

Which domain registar should I use?

Which domain register should I transfer to?
WordPress will let me set up a website and they will transfer my existing domain (cost is $300 per year.) But I thought you said to transfer the domain to GoDaddy -
Am I doing the wrong thing?


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I suggest transferring your domain to Godaddy. There you will have the future flexibility of also using their email hosting as well. Their customer support is very good and uptime is extremely reliable. Obviously different companies provide different services. Here's a brief overview as we have discussed:

Godaddy: Known as a domain registry, email hosting, and web page hosting service. If one uses godaddy to host their site, they would use a separate web design tool to create their page first then upload it via an ftp tool to Godaddy's servers where they would be renting godaddy server space. (this is what I do for the site you are reading this on currently.)

Wordpress: Known as an easy to use website creation tool that has both free and paid services. Popular among bloggers for its many templates. You use wordpress's design tool to create your site but your web address would end up being something like mygreatsite.wordpress.com. So you usually register you own domain name with a different company (like godaddy) then point that domain name to the wordpress site and choose to "mask" the address. This allows visitors to go to mysite.com which redirects to the wordpress site url but the wordpress url is hidden in the bar and replaced with your desired site name. Ta Da!

Squarespace: A more customizable version of wordpress basically. More detailed templates. A little expensive. They will also register your domain as well.

Wix: new to the scene making a big splash. Same functionality as Squarespace.

It comes down to how much you'll be working with your site. If you are just looking for a static presence on the web that you won't be creating much content for, then wordpress would be fine but again, I suggest still registering your domain with Godaddy. If you are taking on the design roll as your own web designer then you'd invest the time in a separate web design tool like Indesign, Rapidweaver, etc… then upload to a hosting service like Godaddy using a ftp uploader. This is probably not for you.

Most likely, you have already been using a page specific to your business that already has many of the products you sell. But the problem is the url is too complicated to pass out to people. So you transfer your existing domain to Godaddy, then redirect that domain name to the site you already have up and mask it.

Godaddy is not the only domain registrar. I prefer it but there are others FYI. Domain.com, Bluehost.com, dreamhost.com, and many more. The only negative thing about Godaddy is their strong upsell effort at checkout for additional products you most likely don't need. Although to be fair, most of them do this.

Building your OWN website. Say NO to SEO!

One more quick question...  As you know... our bellsouth internet connection is quite slow.  My kids having a problem with XBox live.  My question is ... would we be able to get better internet connection speed if we switched to MI connection (that is our cable here) or uverse?  Or are we just doomed with the wiring outside?

Let me know what you think?
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It’s no secret that I’m not a big fan of BellSouth’s internet service. The successor ATT’s Uverse seems to be making headway in Charlotte. Most of the clients I work with that have it are pleased. You would have to look at your television package however because Uverse is tv as well as internet. As far as MI-connection, I really don’t know of many clients that have that up in the Lake Norman area so I can’t really say much there.

File path of image on web page is wrong

I'm wanting to buy my son a used MAC for his birthday in a few days.  Any suggestions?  Do you have any extra Macs for sell?  Let me know.   Thanks.

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I'd just check the usual suspects:  Craigslist, eBay etc...

I do get requests all the time for used computers.  And people do offer their old ones to me often but at this time it would be way too much for me to undertake refurbishing each computer to resell.

Hosting your own website

I installed office mac 2008 onto our mac.  We previously had office 2004.  I installed from the installation disk from the box.  It installed and deleted the former version of office.

Now, we have noticed all of my emails that I receive and web pages have words that are either missing letters or letters being written over the rest of the letters in the word.

How can I fix this?

________

So this sounds like a font issue. First thing to try is to run your microsoft office updates. (under the Help menu)

Here’s an excerpt from Microsoft’s support site: (suggestions after the jump)

“Office Fonts
Office 2008: Office 2008 uses a different method for fonts and many fonts are new optimized versions. Office 2008 will install fonts to the /Library/Fonts/Microsoft folder. By being at the root, then all users on the machine have access to them and you don't get Office 2008 putting multiple copies on the machine for each user.
With this method: Office font install offers the user a choice – have our fonts or don’t Preserve hard drive space on the user’s machine Leave the user’s older fonts alone so that the user can choose to re-enable them if they so desire Put MSFT fonts in a location that keeps them organized and easily identifiable to the user.
The installer will scour /Library/Fonts/ and ~/Library/Fonts/ for fonts with the same name and move them to /Library/Disabled Fonts/ or ~/Library/Disabled Fonts/ depending on where they were found.
If you install Office 2008 then later go back and install Office 2004, Office 2004 installer will not honor the new font location and re-install fonts in it's usual location (see below). If you are using both Office 2008 and 2004 this could be a problem depending on how you installed. Office 2004 can use the new fonts where using the old fonts with 2008 could be problematic. Just be sure to install 2004 BEFORE installing 2008.
Font Facts:
Despite the version number, many (if not all) of the MSFT fonts are newer than the Apple OS ones.
Office 2008 does not need ANY of its fonts to "run." However, various features of Office 2008 will be broken or display poorly unless you leave the fonts it installs in place.
Office 2008 relies on up-to-date Unicode versions of fonts that support ligatures and faces. Its own font set has been updated to provide these capabilities.
I would caution you not to disable the Chinese/Japanese fonts. These are required to produce certain special characters.

Office 2004: The fonts in /Applications/Microsoft Office 2004/Office/Fonts/ were put there by the CD Installer to act as a source, backup and repair. They're not used directly by Office. At the first launch of an Office application they are copied to ~/Library/Fonts/, replacing any older versions put there by earlier versions of Office. These are the fonts used by Office and other applications
The general method of OS X is to look first in your user folder, here ~/Library/Fonts/ . If there happens to be a particular font there, it overrides any version that may be in /Library/Fonts/ or /System/Library/Fonts/ - it doesn't even look there for those. In most cases, once it's done with the user Library, it then looks in /Library/Fonts/ for any fonts not already found in ~/. Only these fonts from /Library will appear in the fonts lists. On OS X, most well-behaved applications installing fonts will do so in ~/Library, since OS X is a multi-user environment. You or your administrator might choose /Library, but it will simply get overruled by any user installation of the same fonts. However, if a user should trash his own fonts, the /Library version will then come into play. (And it may be that the admin won't let individual users have permission to remove those.) Finally, if no version of a font exists in either user or local location the default version in /System/Library/Fonts will take over. And those can't (i.e. shouldn't - and don't try) be removed. The system can access these versions as it wishes, and won't be overruled by other versions of those fonts you might have in the other Fonts folders which take precedence in other circumstances.”
Contributed by Paul Berkowitz, Mac MVP

Here are a few suggestions that I found around the web:

Try resolving duplicates (from the edit menu in Font Book) and see if that helps...
or try this....
  • Uninstall Office 2008
  • Reboot your machine
  • Install Office again. Do not proceed with a standard Installation. Go to the custom one.
  • Uncheck the Office Fonts
  • Install Office

or try this....
Open fontbook, select all the fonts, right click and select validate. All the fonts Office installed that are bad will show warnings. Remove those, and you'll be good as new without a reinstall.

Office is substituting system fonts for their own. ugh... In the long run, you may come to realize that iWork just works much better.


Here are some further links that may be helpful as well.

Information about the fonts that Office 2008 for Mac installs
Description of the Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac 12.1.1 Update
How fonts are installed in Office 2008

Site doesn't work on Safari

Hey Scott:

You helped us set up a macbook, imac, time capsule, etc in Oct 08.  

We are looking to add another macbook to the environment and having some trouble with some user ids and passwords for the time capsule and the printer.  I am not sure if the time capsule is connected through the imac.  If it is I might be able to find the user id and pw.  Also, I do not know how many failed log in attempts one gets before getting locked out.

Any thoughts will be helpful.

Please reply all. We realize it is a holiday and this is
not an emergency.

Happy Easter!

_____

Passwords for time capsule:

There are three to consider.
1. the Password assigned to the wireless network
2. the password assigned to make changes to the router
3. the Password assigned to access the drive.

By default the hard drive’s password is the same as the network. All these settings can be changed from within airport utility. If you need to find any password, the first place to look is on a computer who already has access. Go to applications/utilites/keychain access. Launch this application and browse through until you find the password you’re looking for. You’ll need to put in that admin’s password to view the other password but it should show it.

If all else fails, you can always reset the basestation if you needed to.

Second concern,

There are unlimited attempts to password entering on OSX so nothing happens if you just try all night long. After 3 attempts the program will close the window but you can always just open it right back up again.

Hope this helps.

alternative web page creators

Scotty,
A problem has occurred since you left yesterday...when I open something from the desktop I do not display the full width and I do not have any arrows at the bottom to increase the width... how do I fix this?
Thanks


There are a few ways to increase or decrease the size of a window on your mac.

  • You can click the green button for it to automatically resize to the best fit to your screen.
  • You can select the small triangle lines in the bottom right hand corner of any window to resize it by clicking and dragging the window’s corner.
  • If the window is already beyond it’s full size then the blue scroll handle will not display. This only appears when the window is smaller than what is contained in what your viewing.
This image is a theme.plist hack