Written by eric on July 30, 2007.
Posted in News Bits.
Microsoft’s Windows Live Search has recently added a fun new twist to searching the internet with its Live Search Club.
This free service allows members to play online games including Seekadoo, Dingbats, Flexicon, and Chicktionary, among others. To find clues and answer questions in the games, players conduct searches through the MSN Live Search engine, conveniently provided within the game window.
Each completed game earns the player “Ticket” points, which can be redeemed for prizes… but these prizes aren’t stick-on gold stars or junky plastic carnival loot. Available prizes include music downloads, t-shirts, electronic gadgets, computer software and even Xbox 360 consoles and games.
Since the launch of the Live Search Club, MSN has seen its share of the U.S. search market increase noticeably. According to Danny Sullivan’s article at Search Engine Land some metrics show that MSN’s slice of the overall search pie increased almost 5% from May 2007 to June 2007. During the same period, search giant Google‘s share dropped a little over 4%, its first decline in some time (yet it still retains more than 62% of the market).
So is the Live Search Club the slingshot that will allow MSN to take down the mighty Goliath Google? Probably not, but it is too early to tell. Regardless, Live Search Club members are likely to enjoy their prizes, and perhaps also likely to start using MSN Live Search as their search engine of choice.
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Written by eric on July 19, 2007.
Posted in User Guide, Web Site Design.
For WebSpawner members with Enhanced accounts, creating a consistent-looking multi-page website couldn’t be easier:
- Create and Modify the first (a.k.a. “Index”) page to taste;
- Click ‘Create’ (under Step 2 in the Member Menu) to add a secondary page, fill in the fields for Headline and Body Text, upload an Image if desired, and complete the process by clicking ‘Continue’ at the bottom of the form and ‘I Like It’ at the test page preview;
- Repeat #2 as needed to add more pages (as many as you like).
By default, the WebSpawner engine creates all additional pages with the same layout template, colors, backgrounds and other options as selected for the Index page. If any of these options are changed on the Index page, all secondary pages are automatically updated to match, making site-wide style changes a snap.
Sometimes, however, a user may wish to add pages that are unique, rather than following the same style as the Index page. This can be done using Expert Mode, which is found under the ‘Options and Preferences’ tab in the Member Menu, as shown below:
Don’t let the word “Expert” scare you; setting Expert Mode to ‘On’ simply allows you to toggle additional options in the ‘Modify’ form for secondary pages. We’ll cover these options in further detail below. To make changes to any secondary page, simply select the page under Step 1 in the Member Menu and click ‘Modify’ under Step 2, as shown here:
By default, the Modify form allows changes to the Headline, Body Text, and Image, as well as providing options to add an Image Gallery, Voting Booth opinion poll, and Meta Tags information. If Expert Mode is turned on, a small button labeled “Expert Mode Options” will appear at the top of the Modify form, as depicted here:
To enable additional options on the Modify form, click the ‘Expert Mode Options’ button. The following window will appear:
By default, all three options are checked. If you click to uncheck one or more of these boxes, additional options will appear on the Modify form for your page when you click the ‘Back to Modification’ button. The modification options which are toggled on or off by the three checkboxes are as follows:
- Unchecking the first box adds modification steps allowing for use of a different Layout template and color as well as a different Background color or texture;
- Unchecking the second box adds modification steps allowing for a different Email Address and Hit Counter style, as well as options for a Yahoo Search Engine box, Guestbook, Free-For-All Links, and Email-A-Friend feature;
- Unchecking the third box adds a modification step to allow different Links options than those used on the Index page, including options for automatic linking of all other account pages, for using the same default links as entered on the Index page, and for the manual entry of additional links.
Simply uncheck the boxes as desired and click ‘Back to Modification’ to access the Modify form with the additional options. When you complete the Modify form be sure to click ‘Continue’ and then click ‘I Like It’ at the test page preview to save your changes.
When Expert Mode is enabled you will have the ability to turn on these additional options for every secondary page in your account. If you choose to leave all three Expert Mode Options checked for a page, that page will still be auto-updated with any Modification changes you make to the Index page. In this manner, you are given maximum flexibility to modify each page in your account to your satisfaction while still providing the option for a uniform look and easy style updates across select pages.
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