Fonts Etc

We're always on the lookout for unique fonts for use in website design. Here's a few of our latest acquisitions:

All free, of course. Just do a web search by font name, and you'll find them!

More Buttons

New promo buttons and logos:

More Logos & Buttons >

70s Fonts

We recently had the opportunity to create a book cover (and related web site design) for a traditional gothic fiction novel entitled Glinhaven. While the book is not scheduled for release until summertime, we’d like to share some of the bold and attractive fonts we picked over that were common during the 1970s.

In plain English, the pictured fonts include American Purpose, Avant Garde, Cooper Black, Futura, Kompakt, KTF Roadstar, Souvenir and Spicy Rice.

 

Click here to view the "Glinhaven Gallery" at Pinterest.

 

Newsers & Buttons

Our latest newsletter design to highlight the release of Arabic Cookery from Food Fare:

Topic-specific newsletters are often easier to put together because they focus on one particular subject.

We also created a button for Middle Eastern recipes based on the Arab League logo:

 

 

For more logos and buttons from Webs Divine, click here.

Browser Hijackers

Last month, one of our clients was complaining about links on a newsletter design we had just uploaded for her preview. Her message went something like this:

I'm seeing some weird links in the newsletter that shouldn't be there. Certain words - like "email" and "best healthcare" - are linked, and they lead to strange places. The words should be text only. Wonder why this is happening?

According to Bot Crawl, random links appearing on web pages are caused by adware or malware which is also known as "Text Enhance." It is a form of bundled flash adware (categorized as a "browser hijacker") that attaches to internet browsers without user consent. In other words, computers are infected with an adware virus that prompts certain text on web pages to show as links when they aren't meant to be linked. The web sites themselves are not infected, but the computer or browser is.

More from Bot Crawl:

Victims of the virus usually notice they have been attacked by Text Enhance when web pages have links or hover links with spam advertisements and information in a pop up window. These are called "in-text advertisements." The owners behind Text Enhance generate income by providing advertisement services (adware platform) to cyber criminals and unethical third parties, as well as compromising and possibly selling personal information. Note: Text Enhance does not infect web sites, Text Enhance infects individual users. If you see text advertisements on a web site then you are infected, not the web site.

Click here for steps to get rid of the virus (look near the bottom of the page), or use the following instructions for Internet Explorer via Bot Crawl:

How To Remove Text Enhance (And Third-Party Malware)

Microsoft Internet Explorer:

Step 1: Clear browser cache load and cookies.

Step 2: Click the "Tools" button and then click "Manage add-ons."

Step 3: Under SHOW, click "All add-ons" or "Toolbars & Extensions" (depending on which version of IE you use).

Step 4: Select the Text Enhance plug-in from the list of software, and click disable. Possible Extension Names: Bandicam, BCool, Better Links, Bflix1.0, Browser Enhancements 1.0, Click 2 Save, Codec-V, CodecC, CodecC 1.0, CodecM, Codecv 1.0, Coupon Companion, Crossrider Web Apps, Deal Spy, Dealply, Deals Plugin, Downloadnsave, Facebook Dislike Button (extension, not actual button or link), Facetheme, Fantapper, Fast save, Flashblock, Freemind, Game Play Labs, Greasemonkey, Ilivid, I Want That, I Want This, Iminent, Installed Class, With Java plug-ins, Jlmp3, Media Plugin, Notepad, OneTab, Pando Media Enhancer, Premiumplay Codec, Privacy SafeGuard, Privacy SafeGuard 1.1, Protector by IB2.0.0.412, Rewardsarcade, RewardsArcadeSuite, SearchEnhance, Shockwave, SiteAdvisor, Splashtop Inc, SportHunter TV App, Startnow Toolbar, TheBflix, TheBflix5.0, TheBflix Class, Toad, Vid-Saver, Video File Download, Vuze, VMWare Player, Widgi Toolbar Platform, wxDfast, Xtendmedia, Yontoo, YouTube Plus and ZoomEx.

How to block the Text Enhance cookie: From the "Tools" menu of Internet Explorer, select Internet Options; select the PRIVACY tab and then click SITES. The "Per site privacy actions" window will be displayed. In the Per site privacy actions window, enter Text-Enhance.com in the address of web site field. Click BLOCK.

Restricted site option: Access: Tools(Alt-x) > Internet Options; select the SECURITY tab and click RESTRICTED sites. Click the "Sites" button and individually enter: Text-Enhance.com and Textsrv.com.

For more browser options, go to Bot Crawl.

 

Online advertisements are bad enough, but when you have malware forcing you to unwanted sites it is more than infuriating. It's especially frustrating when you spend a great deal of time designing and putting together an ad-free web page only to have adware hi-jinks forcing viewers to places they don't want to go. It also makes users and clients question the designer as if they are adding the links on purpose. Thankfully, our client fully understood what was happening once we explained it to her and did not hold us responsible.

Book Covers

Our latest e-book cover design:

Basque Flavors was a re-do of the original cover. We like the new one better, naturally!

The new book cover for Basque Flavors was designed around the "Bayonne: Arrivee des Marchandes de Sardines" woodblock print painted by Edouard Pingret (1788-1875). The original is currently on display at the Fonds Ancely, City Library of Toulouse (Bibliotheque Municipale de Toulouse). A photograph of the print was edited by Webs Divine to create the book cover template. The original artwork is in the public domain as it was published before January 1, 1923 and because the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or less. The work has been identified as being free of known restrictions under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights.

Visit our Book Cover Design page for more.

Logo Button Frenzy

Lots of new logos designed in the last few months… all for Food Fare's recipe pages.

• Basque
• Bread & Cookies
• English
• German
• Greek
• Madagascar
• Mexican
• Polish
• Scottish
• Welsh

Visit our Logos & Buttons page for more.

New Book Covers

Our latest e-book cover designs:

 

Both covers were designed for Food Fare.

Logo Goodies

Our newest logos and buttons, both of which were designed for author Deborah O'Toole:

Graphic logo advertising the fiction novel Celtic Remnants (soldier and flag imagery based on a photograph from archives on the Irish Republican News web site):

 

 

Button created for a recent promo for the fiction novel Mind Sweeper:

 

 

Visit our Logos & Buttons page for more.

Testing Tool

Good tester…

Google has a free service to test safe browsing by url. You can also check to see if your own web pages are infected by malware. Earlier, we tested a web page tagged as malware by Twitter which we knew was an error because we created the web page without such nonsense.

To test pages, replace url with your own web address following site=prompt as displayed below.

http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://shenanchie.tripod.com/FoodFare/scotland.htm

Very useful tool…

Newbie Web

Our newest client is Kate Jansky, who recently announced her candidacy for the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists (AANA) Director for Region 5.

The design is rather simple but elegant with blue, brown and cream accents. We also used hovering images for the main navigation menu, which change from dark blue to white.

The personalized contact form was created using Coffee Cup's Web Form Builder. We love the program, and just about any software Coffee Cup has to offer. Their customer service is excellent as well.

Document Services Et Al

Webs Divine also offers document services, such as personalized greetings with images. The greetings typically come in PDF format.

For more about our document services, click here.

Foggy Header

We designed a new header for the Collective Obsessions Saga last week:

 

Kudos to Smart Photo Editor for the community-contributed "fog" effect. It overlaid perfectly just underneath the cliff and lighthouse, which depicts the essence in the series of books written by Deidre Dalton.

Access Management Et Al

December has been a busy month for us, aside from personal holiday preparations. All of us at Webs Divine are looking forward to a purposely quiet New Years Eve celebration to recharge our collective batteries, and then it's back to work.

In early December, we created an access management system for one of our existing clients. It was a first go-around for us, but from start to finish it took about six days to complete the project. The Members Only feature of the project included organizing and tracking more than six hundred user names and passwords, which gives access to confidential documents and web pages.

To that end, we utilized Coffee Cup's easy-to-use Website Access Manager. The software program was indeed a blessing, and comes highly recommended by us.

Product description:

"When it comes to password-protecting members-only areas of your web site, .htaccess files are the way to go. Unfortunately, they are also complicated. Website Access Manager gives you all the power of .htaccess files with none of the confusion. Its workspace is easy to use, setting up members-only areas is fast, and you can protect as many pages as you want."

Coffee Cup's customer service department is a cut above the rest as well. Whatever questions we had were quickly addressed by a member of their staff.

Website Access Manager (WAM) tips:

• Because the .htaccess function only works with Apache and Apache-compatible servers, WAM comes with a tool to determine if your server meets the requirements. Your server should have PHP 4.47 or higher installed in order to use WAM.
• Before importing an Excel spreadsheet for correct use in WAM, the spreadsheet has to contain information placed in a certain order. The various lettered columns signify specific information fields in WAM, so the data must be provided accurately in order for the spreadsheet to import properly. For example, column A must contain the user's real name, column C their preferred user name, column D password and column F an e-mail address. The reason columns B and E are skipped is so that when information is imported it goes to the correct fields for the individual member. For example, if we added information to columns B and E, the data listed would go to the wrong fields once imported into WAM. For a list of all correct property fields, click here.
• If you are using an Excel spreadsheet to create a database in WAM, the document must be saved as a comma-delimited file (CSV).
• After importing an Excel spreadsheet into WAM, all user details should be in their proper fields. However, if user details change in the future (new address, new member, delete member, etc.), the fields can be edited inside the WAM program (as opposed to importing the Excel spreadsheet all over again).

 

As we went along creating our access management project earlier this month, we also put together a personalized step-by-step "user's manual" for our client. This is something we do for clients on request. Call it a back-up plan just in case the client has to take over maintenance of a site for one reason or another. In other words, we don’t like to leave folks twisting in the wind in case the unthinkable happens.

Apart from creating the new access management system, we were busy in December with two quarterly online newsletters (IENA and WANA), along with several book cover designs, logos and buttons.

We also acquired a new client in December, but must remain mum about their identity for the time being. The client will be running for a political office in February and wants a web presence established before he/she begins their campaign.

Excel/WAM Guide

Before importing an Excel spreadsheet (CSV) for correct use in Coffee Cup’s Website Access Manager (WAM), the spreadsheet has to contain information placed in a certain order. The various lettered columns signify specific information fields in WAM, so the data must be provided accurately in order for the spreadsheet to import properly. The list below displays the guideline:

A)   Real Name

B)   Title

C)   Username

D)   Password

E)   Website

F)    E-Mail

G)   Company Name

H)   Address 1

I)     Address 2

J)    City

K)   State

L)    Zip

M)  Country

N)   Phone

O)   Fax

P)   Language

Q)   Time Zone

R)   Note

S)   Expiration Date (uses local system date format)

Leave the lettered column blank if the information is not needed, but do not place incorrect information in blank column or it will throw off the placement when imported into WAM.

Click here for more information, or click here to return to "Access Management Et Al" blog entry.

 

Holiday Buttons

We have lots of fun creating holiday-themed logos and buttons. This is our latest:

The button will be used for the Christmas recipes at Food Fare next week.

To view more, go to the Logos & Buttons page of our web site.

No-Repeat Web Background

Adding a tiled image as a web background can sometimes cause a continuous repeat of the image, making the page look confusing and unprofessional. A simple code can fix the issue.

The above image is named "scrollcandle.jpg." In order to stop the background image repeat, use the following CSS code (placing the name of your image in the brackets following url):

<style type="text/css">body{ background: url(scrollcandle.jpg) black center no-repeat fixed; } </style>

Using the code will allow the background image to display as follows:

The properties of the code can also be adjusted to fit the background of your web page. For example, "black center" can be changed to color and alignment suited to your needs.

Click here to see a live sample of a no-repeat web background.

Historical Logo

Creating personalized logos and buttons can sometimes be a challenge, but they are also great fun. Historical Essays is our latest:

The intent was to create an "antique" feel to the logo to accurately depict the advertised content. Each essay in the five-book collection reached back into history to include Jack the Ripper, US Political Parties, Billy the Kid, Anne Boleyn and the Loch Ness Monster (for which we also designed the book covers).

For the logo we began with a black slate, inserted the essay covers in a row and then saved it as one new image. After applying various backgrounds (glow, saturate, grungy and parchment), the above image became the final logo.

The border style of the logo is known as "wizard's book," which can be found within the Smart Photo Editor software program.

Quick Forward

Forwarding pages are often used to re-direct people to a specific web page that has moved or for one reason or another, has been renamed.

We recently designed a forwarding page for a new client. She wanted the page to forward automatically, so we devised the following:

The snippet used to forward a page needs to be placed between the <head> and </head> portion of the html code:

<meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="5;url=https://www.advocare.com/110918645/default.aspx">

In the above code, 5 represents the number of seconds before the page forwards. You can change this to any length of time you prefer, such as 3 (for three seconds). The url (also bolded above) needs to be replaced with the exact web address of where you want the page forwarded.

It's as simple as that!

Rainee's Parade Photo Gallery

We recently completed a new photo gallery for the pet-related web site Rainee's Parade. A logo for the gallery comes as part of the package.

Constructing flash photo galleries is one of our specialties, and we love nothing more than creating special galleries for beloved pets as well as people and products.