Subscribe To EM Squared
Posts
All Comments
HTML5 - Article vs Section
The difference between HTML5 Articles and Sections can be a little confusing... unless you know this one important distinction: an Article is self-contained content, and a Section is a part of larger content.
This blog post explains the usage of the Article and Section tags. It also demonstrates how to use them: if you "view page source" in your browser, you'll see my usage of Article and Section tags in this post.
The Article
Article tags indicate self-contained content which could be copied and pasted into another page or context. For example, forum and blog posts are self contained. So a blog or forum page that displays several posts should contain several articles - one for each post. A home page or an about-us page might contain a single article.
This post contains a single article.
Articles inside other tags
Articles can go inside of sections. A blog page might have h1:"Articles about iPhones", h1:"Articles about Android", etc. Each of the sections would contain multiple articles.
Articles can go inside of articles. If a post on a blog is an article, comments on the post might be sub-articles.
The Section
A section is a piece of the larger content. For example, any time you have a heading tag (h1, h2, etc.), you can consider wrapping the heading and it's related content with section tags. The section wrapper indicates which part of the content the heading belongs to.
In this post, "The Article", "The Section", and "When do I use which tag?" are all h1's. I've wrapped the h1's and the corresponding text with Section tags.
Sections inside other tags
Sections can go inside of articles. A terms-and-conditions page has a single article (the terms and conditions), and that article might have many sections: h1:"Privacy", h1:"Cancelation", etc.
Sections can go inside of sections. For example, h1:"About Dogs" might be a section in an article about pets, and h2:"About Chihuahuas" might be a subsection in About Dogs.
In this post, "Articles inside other tags" and "Sections inside other tags" are h2's. I've wrapped the h2's and corresponding content with Section tags. The h2 section tags are inside of the h1 section tags.
When do I use which tag?
How do you know if the content is self contained (an article) or a piece of the larger content (a section)? You know because it's your content. By your choice to use article or section tags, you're telling readers how they should understand your content.
Joomla "rights" Meta Tag Fails W3 Validation
Since Joomla 1.5, Joomla developers have reported that Joomla renders the meta tag, <meta name="rights" content="your text here">, that the W3 Validator fails to validate. As near as I can tell, this issue has been closed by the Joomla team: http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEdit&tracker_item_id=26069
However, now as of Joomla 2.5 it's still not fixed. Not really. The "fix" requires that you leave the "Content Rights" field blank in the Joomla Global Configuration page. That's not a fix - it's a hack. There is no indication on the Global Configuration page that putting text here will produce an invalid meta tag. And why have the field at all if it's main function is to produce the meta tag? This field should still be used - it's useful info for your site and your theme - but it should NOT render an invalid meta tag. Period.
Here's how to fix it yourself
Until the Joomla team decides to address this easy-to-fix issue head on, there is something you can do.You could just tell your clients not to put any text in that field. But that's not very professional (it's what the Joomla team did). Or, you can add this code to your template to prevent the meta from rendering:
$doc =& JFactory::getDocument();
unset($doc->_metaTags["standard"]["rights"]);That removes the offending met tag from the list of meta tags to be rendered.
While you're at it...
As long as you're messing with meta tags, you can also add your own tags$doc->_metaTags["standard"]["geo.region"] = "US-GA";
$doc->_metaTags["standard"]["geo.placename"] = "Atlanta";Final Note...
This meta fix can easily be made into a plugin. You might try this yourself - it would be a great "starter" if you've never written a plugin before but want to learn how. If you need help with the plugin, feel free to contact me.What Happens to Your Company if You Lose Your Data?
Backups are more important than you ever imagined
Backups aren't something you do to improve your business a little. You do backups because without them, you risk going out of business!! Yes, they are that important.What would happen to your company if you lost your data? What if you lost all your email and your contact information? What if you lost your contracts and your accounting information? How long could you stay in business?
According to the research, you are very likely to go bankrupt and lose your business.
Strategic Research Institute:
Companies that aren't able to resume operations within ten days (of a disaster hit) are not likely to survive.National Archives & Records Administration in Washington:
93% of companies that lost their data center for 10 days or more due to a disaster filed for bankruptcy within one year of the disaster. 50% of businesses that found themselves without data management for this same time period filed for bankruptcy immediately.Research by Computer Economics:
American business lost more than $7.6 billion as a result of viruses during first six months of 1999."The Cost Of Lost Data", David M. Smith:
6% of all PCs will suffer an episode of data loss in any given year.Home Office Computing Magazine:
30% of all businesses that have a major fire go out of business within a year. 70% fail within five years.Mozy Online Backup:
Every week 140,000 hard drives crash in the United States.
OK, So what am I selling?...
Well... nothing. I'm going to suggest ways that YOU can do your own backups. But backups are a lot like your tax return: if you have a little training or experience, you can get by with doing it yourself. If you don't and you just "wing it", you can mess it up and risk very serious consequences.So these recommendations are for those that can follow them competently!! If you're not sure than you can, then my recommendation to you is to hire a professional. It won't cost much and you can't afford the risk.
Here are some general guidelines that make sense in many common business scenarios. Keep in mind that your business is unique, so this might not be the best solution for you.
What to backup
Here are common things to back up:- PCs and Laptops - either backup the entire hard-drive image, or backup the C:\Users directory (for Windows), or the /home directory (for Linux and Mac). Backing up the entire image is best. Then you'll be sure to have everything, and you can recover from a hard drive crash in about an hour, rather than after a day of having to re-install the operating system and all the programs. If you're unable to do this, backing up the user or home directory will most likely include your critical data.
- Servers - backup all of your companies shared files. If you run email services, backup your email. If you run a CRM, ERP, or other data-based applications, backup the databases. Note that depending on your database system, you should do a database dump or backup, rather than simply making a file-level backup.
- Clients info
- Vendors info
- Contracts and other legal records
- Financial and accounting records
- HR records
- And other info specific to your business like Inventory, etc.
How often to backup
- Backup your PC and laptop files at least once a day (if not continuously) to your server, to a jump drive, a CD, or DVD (or to offsite backup).
- Do a "bare metal" backup of your PCs and laptops once a month
- Do a differential backup of your file server once a day. The reason to do a differential backup is because it's quick and it doesn't take up much archive space.
- Do a full backup of your file server monthly.
- Do a differential (or incremental if you prefer) database backup at least once a day. For mission critical data, consider hourly backups or even data replication
- Do a full database backup at least once a month
Backup tools
- CloneZilla - an open source, Linux-based solution that will create an "image" of your computers hard drive. You can later restore this image to the same drive, or to a new drive in case your old drive is no longer serviceable
- Rsync - an open source, Linux-based solutions that you can configure to store only files that have changed. This gives you an easy way to mirror your data without having to copy all of your files all the time. That saves you both space and network traffic. Note that the rsync server runs on Linux and Mac, but there are rsync clients available for all 3 platforms (Windows, Linux and Mac).