September 07

New Treatment for Link Contagion

Link Contagion in Office Live Small Business is when, for no apparent reason, a hyperlink ‘spreads’ linking other text, blank lines, images and even modules.  A telltale sign is seeing underlines where you haven’t underlined anything.  Sometimes it is hard to detect, a tiny, easily overlooked ‘rash’ of single underlines may appear in the blank lines between text, these might be the only sign.  At it’s worst it can turn an entire pages content into one giant link!

Previously, it has been difficult and frustrating to eradicate.  Deleting text and redoing it would sometimes seem to work only to still be there when the page was viewed, or I would find it had relapsed when I returned another day.  The best method I had was to, cross my fingers, hold my breath and find the very end of it on the page and hit backspace.  That did not always work.  Other times, much content would need to be removed before it cleared.  Sadly, sometimes the only cure was to overwrite the page and start fresh.

I had a sudden outbreak of Link Contagion a few weeks ago and for some reason, this time I remembered seeing an ‘unlink’ option in the hyperlink dialog box.  Since unlinking was what I wanted to happen, I decided it was worth a try.  I highlighted the infected linked content, clicked unlink and lo and behold it actually unlinked!  And. Stayed. Not. Linked.  My outbreak gave me opportunity to experiment some more, and highlighting just part of the infection, going to the hyperlink option and selecting unlink and Bam!, like magic, all the linking was gone!

I have not tested this treatment protocol in other sites, but it is definitely worth a try.  Let me know if it works!

5:42 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

July 19

From Here to There and Back Again

Finding your way around the web can be challenging.  There are many tools that can help.  Adding sites to your Favorites is one way to get to everything you need to, your website, mail, workspace and blog.  If you are like me, the Favorites becomes less of a quick reference since I end up with many many folders and links!  IE8 also gives you a Favorites Toolbar, where you can add whatever links you want.

Another tool I find very useful is the Windows Live Toolbar.  You can include links to your Mail, Calendar, Windows Live Profile.  I especially like the preview of the Mail and Calendar, I can check those no matter where on the web I am without leaving and go right to my inbox if I have a new message.  You can also customize and choose from a variety of buttons to ad.

Despite all the tools available, I still wanted an easier way to navigate between working on my website, checking mail, go to my workspace or blog, pop over to the OLSB Community to see what was new and then get back again.  And now I can with my new custom toolbar button for Office Live Small Business:

If you would like to add the button to your Windows Live Toolbar you can get it here:  Office Live Small Business Button.

1:31 PM GMT  |  Read comments(3)

May 17

Please Wait…

Too often, people post in the Office Live Small Business Community asking for help because a page won’t load or the site designer won’t.  There are a few things that can cause a lot of problems when using the Office Live page editor and avoiding them can save you some headaches…

Pasting code directly on the page

Despite the directions you may read in other places, you should avoid pasting code on your Office Live page.  At best, it won’t work.  It can wreak havoc on your site and cause your page to freeze.  At the worst, you won’t be able to open the Page Editor at all and will have to delete your page from the Page Manager.  You can still use html code on your site.  In the Page Editor, under Modules there is an HTML module.  Any code should be pasted in the module.

Pasting formatted text directly on the page

Another possible cause of sorrow.  Pasting formatted text (changing the font, color, size, ect) can cause an increase in the kb size, slow loading and possibly not loading at all.  Use the Office Live editor to type and format your text.  If you don’t want a work in progress to be seen by visitors, you can keep the page off of the navigation until you have finished it.  Click on Page Properties and remove the checkmark next to ‘show this page in the navigation bar’.  When you have it all done, go back into Page Properties and check the box to put that page back into the navigation.

If you really prefer to use something else while you write or don’t want to have to work online, use Notepad instead.  You can format the text after you paste it onto your page.

This may not be the cause of all problems you may encounter but by avoiding these things you and Office Live will exist more peacefully together.

3:53 PM GMT  |  Read comments(0)

April 30

Live Spaces Blog Module

If you are using the module on your Office Live Small Business website to display your Live Spaces blog you may have noticed that it stopped working this week.  Mine isn’t working either, the blog just isn’t displayed at all.  Many have asked about it in the Office Live Small Business Community.

I contacted Support about mine and they said they know about it and are diligently working to get it fixed, they don’t know how long it will be but expected it to be soon.  I’ve got my fingers crossed that it is easy to fix.

In the meantime you can put a little message on your site and provide a link directly to your blog.  A little inconvenient but it will allow your visitors to read it - which is the main point.

* This has been fixed and the Modules are working again.

5:23 PM GMT  |  Read comments(1)

April 16

Windows Live Writer Episode…I’ve lost track : )

I think I completed my tour of the right menu, so onward to the other areas of the screen.

On the bottom of the screen we have some information about whether or not the Draft has been saved on the bottom left, with the date and time it has been last saved.  On the far right is the name of the blog which is helpful if you have more then one (that also appears at the top of the right menu).  There are few things down there that are useful too.

The Edit tab is the one that is active when you are adding text and content.  Preview will show you what it looks like on your blog.  You can check how things will look and toggle back to edit.  Source shows you the text and some of the bits of code that magically make it work.

Set category allows you to choose and add the category you want your post to go under.  There are many default ones you can choose from or you can add your own.

On the bottom right is also Set publish date.  Clicking it brings up a calendar to choose a date from.  Your post can appear to be published on any date.  You can also change the time.  Today is April 16, I am going to change the publish date to April 17th and see what happens when I click publish…

Well, I got a message saying Posts on this blog service can’t be saved for future publishing. It will publish but will be available for viewing immediately.  Guess you get to read it today : )

There isn’t a lot on the bottom of the screen, so it looks like I am done.  The top menu bar has quite a bit up there, so I will leave that to next time.

6:23 AM GMT  |  Read comments(0)