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Debugging Javascript Using console.log & Conditional Blocks

When developing a site, you may have a main javascript file that contains various blocks of code for different parts of your site. As time goes on, this file could get really long and you may not want to break it up to keep minimize requests and the number of files to maintain. Sometimes you might accidentally have code in one block that is meant for one part of  your site interfere with code from another. In addition, you may find it hard to see which blocks of code are getting executed. One way to overcome this is by setting up your code as follows:

/**
 * Code to do one thing on one part of your site,
 * e.g. slide show your product pages
 */
(function ($) {
	$(document).ready(function () {
		 if ($("body.products").size() > 0) {
		 	if (typeof console != 'undefined' && console !== null) {
				console.log("slide show on product pages called.");
			}
			// put code here ...
		}
	});
}(jQuery));


/**
 * Code to do one thing on one part of your site,
 * e.g. custom animation your resources pages
 */
(function ($) {
	$(document).ready(function () {
		 if ($("body.resources").size() > 0) {
		 	if (typeof console != 'undefined' && console !== null) {
				console.log("custom animation on resources pages called.");
			}
			// put code here ...
		}
	});
}(jQuery));

Embedding Google Maps into a Website

Google recently updated Google Maps and while it looks nice, I actually had to go back to the old (classic) Google Maps to find how to get the embed code to embed a map into a website. If you need to embed a Google Map into your website, you can follow these steps:

1. Go to maps.google.com and search for your location.

2. If you see the new Google Map, click on the gear in top right and select “Classic Maps”

Continue reading Embedding Google Maps into a Website

Article Submission Directories to Increase Inbound Links

When it comes to search engine optimization and internet marketing, getting inbound links from high quality websites (those that have a high Google page rank) is very important. One way to do this is by writing articles related to your website and including links from it to your site. Finding quality sites to submit articles to and managing your submissions can be a lot of work.

Following is a list of article submission sites with their Google Page Rank

  1. Facebook
  2. http://www.ehow.com/(7)
  3. http://www.newsvine.com/ (7)
  4. http://www.examiner.com (7)
  5. www.squidoo.com (7)
  6. www.gather.com (PR = 6)
  7. www.hubbpages.com (PR = 6)
  8. www.ezinearticles.com (PR = 6)
  9. www.articlesbase.com/(5)
  10. http://www.isnare.com/(5)
  11. http://trcb.com/(3) Continue reading Article Submission Directories to Increase Inbound Links

Preparing a Video on Windows for Kickstarter

Recently, I had to take and prepare a video for uploading to Kickstarter. Since I wanted a high quality video and I did this all by myself, I just used my phone (Samsung Google Nexus), put it on a tripod and filmed myself in HD. I then transferred the video over USB to my Windows laptop, opened it up in Windows Movie Maker, added some still images, and then saved the output in 1280×720 which has a 16:9 aspect ratio.

Converting a video from 16:9 to 4:3 aspect ratio for Kickstarter

It turns out, for some reason, Kickstarter uses the old 4:3 aspect ratio for videos. Since I wanted to show as much of the video possible without any black bars, I had to crop the video from a 16:9 aspect ratio to 4:3. The width of the Kickstarter video area is 620px wide so I wanted the video to be that wide. I decided to just go with 640 px wide and crop the video to 640 x 480 since that’s a common size. I did this by downloading HandBrake and automatic cropping as shown in the following screenshot. I used the High Profile for the highest quality output. Click on the image to enlarge. Handbrake will automatically crop the black bars.

Continue reading Preparing a Video on Windows for Kickstarter