Sent: 25/02/2010
easisites newsletter#19 February 2010

Hello All,

The subject of this newsletter is big data.  Lots and lots of it...

We've always been under the impression that you could enter any amount
of data into any "freestyle text area" on your easisites website.

In theory there are no limits.  Indeed, the people at W3C, who set the
standards for web pages, say there are no limits.

In practice, however, there are.

We've now discovered that the Browser developers (Internet Explorer,
Firefox, Google Chrome, Safari, etc.) all impose a data limit to avoid
crashes when handling too much.  Older browsers cope with less, newer
ones more, and currently they hover around the 60 kilobyte range.

That's still a lot of data (over 3000 lines of the stuff), but one of
you (at least) has managed to reach the end of the browser data
allocation.  So...

If you have a lot of data in one "freestyle text area" and you find
that you cannot add any more (ie you try to add some more when editing
your site, but it doesn't appear when you Preview or Publish), we now
know why.

In the very unlikely event that this does happen to you, simply use
another text box - either, the other text box on the same page, or a
text box on a different page.

And...

===
If you do have many lines of data on your page, you might like to add
the occasional "back to the top" link which your web visitors can
click and be taken, er, back to the top of that web page.

Here's how to do it:

<a href="#top">back to the top</a>

And...

===
If you have a lot of data on your page(s), it is always a good idea to
keep a copy of that data.

The simplest way to do this is to keep text files for each "freestyle
text area" you want to back up.

 * Go into edit, using your password.
 * Hover your mouse over the text area you want to save.
 * Right click and Select All.
 * Right click and Copy.
 * Open your Notepad or WordPad program (All Programs > Accessories).
 * Right click and Paste.
 * Then save that text document - where you can find it (eg as
"Website_1.txt" in a file named "Website").

Then, if for any reason you lose the data on that page, you can simply
go back into edit, open the text document for that page, copy and
paste the lot into the appropriate text area.

If you update the data on that page, remember to update the text file.

NB: If you want to back up the data in two text areas (left and right)
on any page, you will need to do the above for both and save each as
separate text documents (eg as Website_2left.txt" and
"Website_2right.txt").

I even made a video, which you download from here.

www.4shared.com/file/220428030/b7fee5b1/Back-up.html
=====

Your feedback, as always, would be welcome. Any comments or questions,
please get back to me.

Best Wishes.

Regards,

--
Glyn Debnam
Director
Ekos Consulting Limited
www.easisites.co.uk
Telephone 01622 716591
Ekos Consulting Limited is a company registered in England and Wales
with Company No. 3793888
VAT No. 724 7815 20