MasterQuiz Step by Step Software review

Over on the IbD site (www.intuitivebydesign.com) I’ve been piddling around with MasterQuiz – Website Quiz Generating software. The “What you know about Who you know” quiz has some fun info that you may not have known about some of todays popular Search Industry pro’s, and an ABC’s of SEO quiz is here.

Installation was a snap – as expected. Instructions were clear and concise, and no surprises were encountered – unless you count the one bonehead instance where I forgot to actually UPLOAD a required file before attempting to run it – which was so obviously a ‘swiss-cheese-brained operator’ error that it doesn’t count anyway. 🙂

But I digress. I’ve only just scratched the surface with this one, but here’s a quick rundown on creating a simple 3 question quiz. This is only an outline – detailed information is in the MasterQuiz Control Panel and manual.

Create a Quiz – this is a simple, 4 step sequence in the MasterQuiz Control Panel –

1.Answer questions to name the quiz (ours is Step by Step), set cookie duration, specify required entry fields if any, and customize the submit button text (ours just says ‘sendit’)

2.Type in the first quiz question, then the corresponding answer choices – specifying either a Numeric or Right/Wrong Score Value for each, and selecting how answers will be displayed (radio, checkbox, dropdown or select box) Repeat for each question. In our quiz we are using a numeric score and only two possible answers per question.

3. This is a long page, but it’s because of all the options available in MasterQuiz. There’s only 1 (one) required item – ” The URL of a default results page…”. If you want to use them – other options include settings for:

• Emails – up to three emails may be sent whenever a quiz is submitted.
• Results Display – In this section, you can specify what information should be included in the quiz results and, set the formatting for the results page(s).
• Databases – Optionally, up to three databases may be updated whenever a quiz is submitted.

4. Completing this page is optional. Here you can set the quiz form’s look and feel – ie what fonts- colors-sizes, etc. If you want to do all style/design/formatting after your quiz is generated, you can just leave all the fields on this page blank.

All that’s left is to click the ‘Generate Form’ button – and the MasterQuiz Generating software does it’s stuff. You’ll see a preview of how your quiz form will look, and all the code, text, etc. needed to add the quiz to your website – cut-n-paste easy.

Of course there’s other options, that I didn’t cover here, but you can see how easy it is to use MasterQuiz.

Ready to take our little quiz? It’s just 3 easy questions about what we covered above – no tricks, I promise.

http://www.intuitivebydesign.com/masterquiz-step-by-step-review.html

The Server Snooper

previously published in the weekly Possibilities ezine

When you want to know what type of server your competitors use for their domains, or your friend across town, who you gonna call?

Bontrager, of course.

Simply point your browser to their http://bontragercgi.com/Server_Snooper.php web page. At the Server Snooper page, type in the URL of the domain in question.

It will generate a short report of information. Some of the information may be things you never knew was available.

It’s a great research tool, or a time waster, depending on how you look at it.

Since playing with this new tool, I’ve found that some servers provide more information than others do. Some information is consistently provided. Other information only sometimes.

You can tell whether or not a redirector is in place by typing a URL of a web page that does not exist. If the resulting information includes a 307, 302, or 301 status code, it is evidence of a redirector.

Sometimes servers will report the date a web page was last modified. (How often do your competitors update their web pages?)

With some servers, you’ll get the last modified date only for static pages. Pages containing SSI or PHP code might not be considered static, as they can be modified on the fly. If a certain server won’t report even for static pages, try typing in just the domain name. You might then get the last modified date for the default page, even though the default page file name was not provided.

Don’t know the operating system your web site is running on, and you wonder whether or not your web site can run the Master Series scripts? Simply type your domain name and see what your server reports.

If the “Server” line says Unix or Linux, or mentions a common Unix or Linux distribution, like FreeBSD or Red Hat, your site qualifies.

Developers and programmers, use this tool to see information your web pages and scripts are actually sending to web browsers.

How To Read the Server Snooper Report

For reference, we’ll use this report from the server at URL http://www.bontragercgi.com/

HTTP/1.1 200 OK  Date: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 21:27:19 GMT  Server: Apache/1.3.34 (Unix) mod_fastcgi/2.4.2 [...]  Last-Modified: Sun, 13 Aug 2006 07:18:16 GMT  ETag: "73c54a-22a3-44ded238"  Accept-Ranges: bytes  Content-Length: 8867  Connection: close Content-Type: text/html

The first line of the Server Snooper report contains the HTTP version the server is using (usually 1.0 or 1.1) and the status code of the server’s reply.

If the web page exists at the URL you provided, the status code will be “200 OK.” Some other status codes you might see are “301 Moved Permanently,” “302 Found,” “307 Temporary Redirect,” “403 Forbidden,” “404 Not Found,” “410 Gone,” and “500 Internal Server Error.”

After the first line, the rest of the lines are name/value pairs separated with a colon character.

The Date line has been on every report I’ve obtained. It is the date and time the report was provided, usually expressed in Greenwich Mean Time. While you already know what time it is, and don’t need that information, programmers can use the Server Snooper report to calculate the difference between their server’s clock time and that of the remote server.

More interesting to you, probably, is when a Last-Modified line is on the report. The date/time on that line can be subtracted from the date/time on the Date line. The result is the number of days, hours, and even seconds that have elapsed since the document was last modified.

When the above Server Snooper report was obtained, the time elapsed since the document’s last modification was 14 hours, 9 minutes, and 3 seconds.

Most, but not all, reports have a Server line. In the above Server Snooper report, the server line was cropped to fit within established ezine margins for articles.

If you’re curious what the entire Server line was, type http://www.bontragercgi.com/ at the Server Snooper page.

The Server line sometimes contains little information and sometimes a lot. Usually, there is enough information to determine what operating system the server is running on.

The ETag line, when present, is a series of characters between quotation marks that represent the latest version of the document. This can be used by software for sending conditional GETs (conditionally requesting a document). If the ETag is the same as the current document, the current document is not provided again. This can be used by RSS readers, for example, to eliminate unnecessary downloads.

Between the Accept-Ranges line and the Content-Length line, you know that the document is 8867 bytes long.

After the document was sent by the server it closed the connection (Connection line). And the type of document that was sent (the Content-Type line) is text html.

Not all possible data lines are in the above example report. As you use the Server Snooper, you’ll see others.

The Set-Cookie line, for example, reveals what cookies are set prior to a page loading. (Cookies set after a page loads will not be revealed in the Server Snooper report.)

As you now understand, the savvy snooper can sometimes find out a lot about the server any domain is hosted on.

Will Bontrager
2006

The $79 PayPal Multi-Product Ecommerce Solution

Finding a good, easily implemented, customizable, multi-selection capable, PayPal enabled shopping cart solution for under $100 is a miracle in and of itself…but with this solution there is an even bigger bonus – you get the famous multi-form, multi-function, multi-tasking MasterFormV4 software with all it’s built in Anti-Spam security!

Check it out HERE –> http://dlperry.com/79-dollar–paypal-ecommerce-so.html

Republished, As Promised….

If you missed last weeks Possibilities, never fear — the article has been permanently republished here –> http://www.dlperry.com/create_alt_adsense_ads.html

–dlp

How Can I Increase Traffic to My Website?

This is a question that I see daily. While each website is different, and will require different solutions for specific situations, there are many things that can be applied to virtually ANY website that will boost traffic to the site.

Below are some of the most useful and recommended things that can be done to increase traffic, as well as help target traffic.

• Create and submit a proprietary Google Sitemap and siteindex file — In addition to being an excellent way to keep Google up to date on your sites activity, this will also provide access to Googles’ stats, diagnostics and tools to help you increase visibility. Google also accepts standard RSS feed submissions through your domains Google Sitemap account.
• Create and selectively submit RSS feeds. These standard xml feeds should include a Sitemap feed as well as targeted topic feeds. One example might be a targeted feed containing links to your “Products” data sheets. If you’re the DIY type, a Free RSS Sitemap Template is available here.
• Join and actively but intelligently participate in related forums. Avoid submitting posts ‘just to get your name on the board’, but DO actively monitor a select few forums and submit useful, appropriate posts, responses, articles, etc. – carefully following individual forum rules.
• Implement responsible, targeted ‘Social Bookmarking’ at services such as del.icio.us, digg and furl.
• Offer an informative email newsletter. This newsletter can contain items such as; an informative weekly/monthly/quarterly article on a specific relevant topic; detailed information on and links to a featured product or service. Include links and verbiage from your website in this newsletter. Recipients for your newsletter will include:
  • Anyone who has contacted the website and/or requested additional information
  • Direct Subscription Requests via a secure (anti-spam) online, double opt-in Subscription form.
  • ** IMPORTANT** This newsletter MUST include active and functional one-click un-subscribe capabilities, and ALL un-subscribes should be automatic, immediate, and strictly honored.
• Syndicate your content. Anything on your website that is of informational value to visitors looking for your product, information, advice and/or services could be syndicated. This can be done manually, or via software such as Master Syndicator and Master Syndication Gateway – designed to manage multiple syndicated items. A good DIY article is available here –>“Roll Your Own” Content Syndication
• Review, rework and refresh your keywords/phrases. Take an honest look at your targeted keywords/phrase(s). Do they accurately reflect what a real-life searcher would type into a search engine in order to locate products or services such as yours?
• Review, rework and refresh your content. Be sure to intersperse targeted keywords and phrases in the content of each page. Optimize content to insure your targeted keyphrase(s) are the first thing a bot sees. You can check your current site here –>http://www.dlperry.com/what_search_engine_spiders_see.html
• Review, rework and refresh your tags. Go over your site and source code with a fine-toothed comb to insure your site is making optimum use of tags. Be sure ALL your images have relevant and appropriate names and <img alt> tags. All <name> tags should also be appropriate and relevant. Comments within the source code should be limited or non-existent. If comments are necessary, avoid placing them at the beginning of a page or paragraph as much as possible, and avoid using targeted keywords/phrases in the comments themselves.
• Of course, anything you can implement that facilitates easy, open communication between you and your site visitors is always recommended. A simple, basic Contact Us form may be all that you will need, and MasterFeedback is a great free formhandler for that purpose. However, frequently a more robust solution is desired — , and MasterFormV4 is the answer. This popular form handing software can perform a multitude of tasks and functions – it is the most versatile multi-function Form Handler on the internet today.
• Take a look at some of the software, scripts and tools available for information and ideas that will apply to your website –> http://www.dlperry.com/enhance_website.html and http://www.dlperry.com/professional_cgi_scripts.html

This is not an all-inclusive list, but it’s a good start. Each of these suggestions can be implemented individually, however some perform best when used in conjunction with each other.

I hope this helps.