CHRISdotTODD

We push our writers to always front-load their titles and paragraphs not just because we think it's a good idea, but because studies back up the technique. Jakob Nielsen posted a great article, " First 2 Words: A Signal for the Scanning Eye ," where he goes into the details of his research in this area. Jakob starts with reminding us how our customers have many lists to read, err scan -- it's not just search results. Search result pages List of current and/or archived articles and press releases Product listing Table of contents Question lists on an FAQ page Bulleted and numbered lists, checklists, etc 11 characters is used as the baseline measure the number of characters a user actually reads when looking through a list (link text). The test is to see just the first 11 characters and see if you can predict what's behind the link -- what will you get when you click. The best link text has these characteristics. Plain language Specific te

As we know, readers on the web don't really read, they scan and skim articles, and won't read anything that's long form. With the Hemingway Editor , you can improve your writing by making it more "bold and clear" -- make your writing standout so your audience actually reads it. The Hemingway Editor is going to give you feedback and input on the following: Sentences that are too hard to read Simpler alternatives to words and phrases Unnecessary adverbs Use of passive voice Readability score The Hemingway Editor also has other helpful functions: Basic formatting Import from Word Export as HTML Character count It's free to use online, or a mere $10 for the app version.

It's 2016 -- if you're not texting, you've fallen behind. I text my family, I get appointment reminders via text, and text is being used for 2-factor authentication. At my company there are several different communications apps, from Yahoo Messenger, to Slack, to HipChat. They each work well, but only texting is guaranteed to reach the person I want to talk to. With that being said, texting can be difficult from my phone if I have multiple conversations going on, or I have a lot to share. Fortunately, I've found a great solution. Whenever I'm at a computer, PC and Mac (I have both), I can use MightyText instead. MightyText works with Android phones and Google Chrome browser. Not only can I type faster using MightText, I get notices from my phone on my computer screen. I no longer need to take my phone out of my pocket to see alerts or respond to text messages. It also as the added benefit that I can easily attach any image that I can access from my computer

It's been a year since I've posted, and only once in 2015... how time flies! I was sharing with a friend my favorite podcasts and thought I could share here. Daily Tech News Show  (DTNS) -- I've been following the host, Tom Merritt for 10 years. He's excellent. If you only have time for 1 podcast, this is the one. Serial  -- Spin-off from This American Life (below). There have been 2 seasons. Each is a story. I would highly recommend listening to both seasons.  This American Life  -- Big variety; some better than others. The host Ira Glass is excellent.  TWiT  -- This is a network of Podcasts. The quality varies. The founder, Leo Leporte should be recognized as the person who pushed podcasts to be more mainstream. I've been to their studios in Petaluma, CA. Try these: This Week in Tech. This was the original show that started the network. Tech News Today. Started by Tom Merritt (DTNS). The Tech Guy. Syndication of Leo's radio show. Security Now. De

VLOOKUP is a quick and easy way to return a value from a bunch of rows, by matching a single value. But once you need to match two values, all of sudden things become a bit more difficult. One solution is to concatenate the two cells in the source and lookup tables. Another is to leverage INDEX and MATCH. = INDEX ( E2:E1000 , MATCH (1,( C:C = A2 )*( D:D = B2 ),0),0) When entering this formula, because it's an array formula, you must enter it by using CTRL - SHFT - Enter , instead of just Enter . Here's how this works: The MATCH syntax is MATCH (lookup_value, lookup_array, [match_type]) where match type is 0 = exact, 1 is less than, and -1 is greater than. When the match occurs, it will return the relative position of the match within the range. In our MATCH formula, it's looking for an exact match to 1 (lookup_value = 1). If the value of A2 is found in column C, a value of 1 is returned, otherwise, a 0 is returned. Likewise for the value of B2 in column D.

I recently had to brush up on my CSS skills to develop a solution where two buttons would appear side-by-side unless the viewport was less than 480 pixels, in which case they should then display stacked. Through a bit of research, I found a couple of solutions. When I tried to implement the solutions as presented, the buttons didn't appear side-by-side, but instead on separate rows -- I'm sure something I must have overlooked, but nevertheless, I, therefore, came up with my own modified solution. My particular example used 3 columns -- the middle just for space, which could be done with padding and/or margin. The key is using "@media." By default the widths of the columns were all set for 100% -- configured for stacking. When the screen was 480 pixels or larger, using "@media" the widths are adjusted 45%, 10%, and 45%. If you're not sure what each of these CSS properties does for you, try searching "css [property]" such as " css clear

Yes, you heard that right! If you're a Comcast customer and you rent a cable internet modem from them, then it has a separate wireless channel that other Comcast customers can use. This means as a Comcast customer, you can surf the Internet from any neighborhood where Comcast has an install base. While in theory I like the flexibility as a Comcast customer to get WiFi anywhere ( Xfinity WiFi Hotspots ), in practice I'm not too pleased. Why I'm not pleased. I pay Comcast to have their Internet service, which enables this capability. I pay another $8 to rent their modem, which is also required for this capability. I was never asked; my account was opted-in. If I have an issue with my connection, I have to hold a long time (typically), and if something is wrong at my end, I have to pay for them to correct, yet again Comcast benefits from my service working. If you live in an apartment complex, Comcast advertises your apartment complex on the list of available hots

With the release of Firefox 29, the Status Bar workaround no longer worked. I don't recall when it stopped displaying, but now there's no option. I found a handy add-on that brings back the Status Bar, Status-4-Evar , so my other add-ons display again.

Ever copy a webpage of data into Excel, and it brings along a bunch of hyperlinks? Of course, it isn't practical to remove each hyperlink manually. Fortunately, there are a couple of options to perform a bulk removal of hyperlinks. Note that I'm using Excel 2007 in my examples. OPTION 1 Select the cells that contain hyperlinks. On the Home tab, in the Editing section, click the Clear drop-down arrow. Click Clear Hyperlinks . I have found in some cases that the Clear Hyperlinks option isn't available. In those cases, use option 2 below. OPTION 2 Use the following macro: Sub NoMoreHyperlinks() ActiveSheet.Hyperlinks.Delete End Sub For those of us that need a reminder on how to create macros, here's a more detailed process. Press Alt-F8 to display the Macro dialog box Enter a new macro name (such as "NoMoreHyperlinks") in the text box just below "Macro name:" - This will change the Create button from an inactive to activ

I'm always looking for shortcuts to reduce the time I spend moving the mouse. My company just sent this email with a few helpful Outlook shortcuts, and therefore I'm sharing them with you... Outlook 2010 Shortcuts Ctrl + E will help you find a message or other item. Ctrl + Alt + R will reply to an email with a meeting request. Ctrl + Shift + A will create an appointment. Ctrl + Alt + F will forward an email as an attachment. Ctrl + Shift + M will draft a message from any Outlook view. Outlook 2011 for Mac Shortcuts Shift + ⌘ + K will send all the messages in your outbox. Shift + ⌘ + O will display all unread messages in your inbox. Ctrl + ⌘ + C will check recipient names in an open message. Ctrl + 2 will flag an item for follow up for “tomorrow;” Ctrl + 3 will flag for “this week;” Ctrl + 4 will flag for “next week”.