Expression Web Blog

Quick Response and Datamatrix Codes

Typically available in Japan and not in the USA but beginning to be available throughout Europe. Quick Response Codes (QR Codes) (if it appears in Japanese just hit English on the top right corner) and Datamatrix (DM) are two dimensional bar-codes that can be read by any mobile device that has a camera and the right reader software. They can hold more information than conventional bar-codes and offer a lot more scope. This means when vendors incorporate these bar-codes in their products the given URL can lead you to their site and infinitely more information about the product.

This has even led to Audio Barcodes which might be used in the automatic transmission of website URLs to the mobile phone when it is directed at a TV or radio.

So just how does this work with Expression Web your asking?

That is where Feed2Mobile comes in. This is a free service which bridges the gap between web based and mobile based content. You simply use the generator to create the mobile code of your RSS Feed for your mobile readers, thereby producing it in a manner more suitable for a mobile device.

This is my code for this blog below:

<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://feed2mobile.kaywa.com/202182835.js”></script>

Simply insert your generated RSS Feed code in the sidebar in Theme Editor under Presentation (if your using WordPress) at the location of your choice. You can see results on the right. Simple click on the graphic to see how the RSS feeds for the blog will appear on a mobile device.

When the USA and the rest of Europe catches up with this technology we will be able to make much more informed choices about our purchases. This means your Expression Web site content had better be as good as it can be. So while you have time start your writing updates now.

My main Expression Web Help site had not been spidered since the 10th August. Though I added content and changed small bits on the homepage. So I decided to check what I’d not done that I thought I had done. This was twofold.

Getting Google to spider your site

I want to talk about the first part in this quest which was to do with redirecting the www of my domain to the one without as http://any-expression.com is the link I use and the link I want others to use. So to correct the dilution of my homepage link I needed to do a 301 redirection from one to the other. This domain happens to use a Unix plan with FPSE (FrontPage Server Extensions) installed. So I needed not only to redirect correctly using a 301 header but to make sure I did not break my FPSE.

First I needed to know what code I needed to redirect from one to the other. So I headed off to my favourite SEO Guru Blog to learn more about Basic 301 Permanent Redirect Here I found out I needed to add the following for my particular purposes

To Redirect www.mysite.com to mysite.com

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.domain\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://domain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Now I had the code I wanted, the next bit of research was in finding out how NOT to break my FPSE. Fortunately for me Pat Geary had already checked out how to do this and her .htaccess file with FrontPage Server Extensions Tutorial outlined the directions clearly. There was more to come however.

Ernie Secrest of Sea Crest Hosting goes into detail where FPSE is concerned and explains the three OTHER .htaccess locations in the _vti_bin that also needed modifying if I was ever able to publish again. Sure enough I could not publish after adding the 301 redirect code to the main .htaccess, so I proceeded to do this. A quick check afterwards and I was able to publish once more. I then checked my site was redirecting from the www.mysite.com version to mysite.com version I preferred. Finally I did a header check

The correct version of http://any-expression.com/ returned the header code of HTTP/1.1 200 OK => which means Successfully Found. The www version returned the header code of HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently => which is exactly the result I wanted of Moved permanently.

I will continue write about other methods I employed and the resources I used in my quest to have Google spider my domain once more.

Tina Clarke. Microsoft MVP - FrontPage © Copyright 2007. All Rights Reserved

Our latest Expression Web Interview is with Ian Haynes, Microsoft MVP - FrontPage. Ian owns the ASP.Net resource site EW Resources When asked the following question in his interview.

Do you have a special tip for Expression Web you can share with our readers?

Ian told me that something he had found very useful recently is the ease with which you can bring in content from older sites and quickly update it to be ’standards compliant’ XHTML. Learn more about what Ian had to say about this question and his other insightful answers.

Expression Web Addons and Video Training DVDs from Left To My Own Devices

I was glad to learn that Alex Tuskinsky a long time FrontPage Addon Developer had decided to revamp his site and addons and even make two new ones. Alex currently teaches web design and development at Bergen Community College, New Jersey and is a master at ASP.Net.

To that end he has produced three DVD Video Tutorials called:

Introduction to ASP.NET programming

These take you through the basics of programming using Visual Basic.NET on the ASP.NET platform. The videos are narrated and you can watch an example on his site. The DVDs are physically shipped.

• Visual Web Developer Express 2005
• SQL Server 2005 Express Edition
• ASP.NET Programming
• Creating and running queries
• Build a complete ASP.NET web site that uses SQL Server as the back-end data
  engine
• ASP.NET Security features

Best of all, if you have questions as you take the course, you can email Alex and get additional assistance as needed. All tools required for the class are completely free and can be downloaded from Microsoft. As well as his revamped FrontPage Addons his two new Expression Web Addons consist of the following:

Media Manager 2007 Expression Web Addon

Using your favourite players you can easily embed video and audio files into your web site. Supported players are:

• Apple QuickTime Player
• Adobe Flash Player
• Microsoft Media Player
• RealOne Player

Not only can Media Manager upload your media content to your web server. Media can
be embedded from either within your web site, a url link or a file from your hard drive.

Embedded Media Fix Expression Web Addon

Fix resolves the Microsoft Internet Explorer issue of activating interactive controls. Learn more information about this problem from the MSDN Library web site and about how Microsoft Internet Explorer handles ActiveX controls, and the impact of this behaviour on accessibility tools and applications hosting the WebBrowser Control.

EMF can either scan all or selected files on your site and replace all <object>, <embed> and <applet> tags with JavaScript code, storing the original HTML as JavaScript, in a separate, external file. This allows the controls to be active by default, without further user intervention.

NOTE: As always, existing customers can download an update completely free of charge. Simply login to your account and download the latest version. The same as many other Developers Alex would love to hear your thoughts on wish list Expression Web Addons, so why not drop him a line?

XZAKT Media have decided to sell of some of their rights and full source code for several of their addins for FrontPage and Expression Web

The addins, as one bundle include :

• SiteSeal (Recently updated for MS Expression)
• Picture Splitter (Recently updated for MS Expression. Currently free but
  very sellable)
• Tables Tool (Recently updated for MS Expression. Currently free but very
  sellable)
• PowerTag+ 2006. (FP. META tagging with other tools)
• Cool Cursors.

So why are XZAKT Media selling these?

Over recent years XZAKT Media has concentrated much of their development down
a Flash and Mulitmedia line of products.  Rather than pull these other very useful products off the market they would rather see them carry on or be further developed by someone who would like to support them and grow their own addin development business.

What would you get?

The buyer will receive all source code (excluding user registration modules common to other products that XZAKT Media will continue with) and full rights to modify and sell if desired under their own label.  XZAKT Media will not persue the development of these products or create competing products for the period of at least 3 years, if at all. 

So how much?

This is currently open to offer.  Five products with full source code and complete selling and modification rights may be worth $500 in one mind or $2500 to another.  All enquiries or bids should be sent to info@xzmedia.com by mid October 2007.

Have you been waiting for your Language to be available for Spell Check within Expression Web? Well wait no longer, the xweb team tells us the Expression Web Language Packs for multiple languages have arrived.

 Not only that, these packs enable the Expression Web Interface and the Help files to display the language of your choice from the selection in the EW Language Pack.

 Microsoft have written a small article on  How to Check the Spelling of Different Languages and this outlines the different languages available with links, and how to set the usage of the language packs. The same information is within the help file of Expression Web, minus the download lnks of course.                                                                                                             

This week our Expression Web Interview is with Dustin Drees of Learn Expression Dustin produces really good Video Tutorials about Expression Web and is a ASP.Net Guru.