I ran across another way to encode your email address to hide it from robots. Here’s the link to The Enkoder Form.

This tool uses javascript to encode and looks like a better solution than SpamStopper, which I mentioned earlier.

The Enkoder is available either as a web form or a Mac OS X application!

And, it’s free!

You should have Safari installed on your Macintosh already, but there are a few other browsers available:

• FireFox
• Opera
• Camino

I had been using Safari for viewing my website development until I found a little add-on for FireFox: FireBug

FireBug is a little development addition which allows you to view much, much more than just code and the final page. If you are adding or using CSS (cascading style sheets) on your pages, you will find exactly which CSS parameter or parameters are styling a particular element of a web page by showing the entire cascading parameters, including showing which has been overwritten. You can quickly select any element of a page, right click selecting Inspect Element, and see everything about that element.

If you need to see how other site pages are created, you can sneak a peak with only one click.

In addition, FireBug displays a little area at the bottom of every page showing any page errors with a red X or no errors with a green check mark.

If you use FireFox and do web design, I strongly suggest using FireFox with FireBug.

Since we are reformatting the site, we thought we might pass on some tips you can use for your own site.

The following definition is found at WikiPedia

“Internet bots, also known as web robots or simply bots, are software applications that run automated tasks over the internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human editor alone. The largest use of bots is in web spidering, in which an automated script fetches, analyses and files information from web servers at many times the speed of a human. Each server has a file called robots.txt containing rules for the spidering of that server that the bot is supposed to obey.”

Among other things, the “bots” read the underlying code used to create web pages (the raw file). So what does this have to do with E-mail addresses? Some “bot” owners collect addresses to be used by spammers. So, it is not a good thing to had your address <i><b>out there</b></i> for the picking…

We really need to have an e-mail address available, especially for anyone doing business on the Internet. Here’s a little trick you can do to somewhat hide your address:

Instead of using MyName@MyDomain.com, use this:

& # 7 7 ; & # 1 2 1 ; & # 7 8 ; & # 9 7 ; & # 1 0 9 ; & # 1 0 1 ; & # 6 4 ; & # 7 7 ; & # 1 2 1 ; & # 6 8 ; & # 1 1 1 ; & # 1 0 9 ; & # 9 7 ; & # 1 0 5 ; & # 1 1 0 ; & # 4 6 ; & # 9 9 ; & # 1 1 1 ; & # 1 0 9 ;

What the heck is that? It is “MyName@MyDomain.com” encoded. (I had to add spaces between each character to make keep it from being displayed as text.)  I used SpamStopper to generate this link. SpamStopper is a free application

Look around and you will find a lot of web stuff…

Last time, I mentioned a program Enkoder, which is both a web page and an application. If you notice we have many DuPage AUG addresses handy on the right panel on each page. If you look closely, we made changes today.

The addresses visually describe what the address would be described, such as Webmaster at DuPageAUG dot com. This is so a spammer can’t copy and past it.

Behind the scene, one would think that the address is hidden in code because clicking on any of the addresses will open up your mail program with a new outgoing message with all the correct information (try it!). But this is not the case.

Here’s what the code looks like for the Webmaster:

<script type=”text/javascript”>
/* <![CDATA[ */
function hivelogic_enkoder(){var kode=
"kode=\"oked\\\"=rnhg%@*,+*lqmr,1h+uvyhuh,1**w+olvsh1rg@nghnr_>n%gr@h%___,>"+
"**,=04wkqjohh1rg+nDwdufkh1rgBnwkqjohh1rg?n+l{.h@rg\\\\n00,0+lDwdufkh1rg.n4"+
",l.w+uDkd1fghnr.@~{5,.@>l4,k0jwhq1oghnr?+>l@3+lru>i**{@_>_____%{_@hgr0\\\\"+
"00fnh,r+ugkFpduF1rqiujVl.w>@5{@;f43.f,i?>+0ll6w,h+rDugkF1dgfnhfr,@.~>.wlqk"+
"ojhhr1?g>n@l+3rl>u*i{*_@_____%________>_A/(Dg5Bsui&zuj&M[GkmgV{J&zg&xkzygs"+
"hk]D(bxkzygS&hk]&knZ(bCkrzoz&(b4kzoyhk}&M[GJ&knz&z{uhg&txkitui&g&k|gn&OCzi"+
"kph{yEsui4m{gkmgv{jFxkzygshk}@uzrogs(bClkxn&gB(.kzox}4ztks{iuj_@_____%____"+
"____g_nh_r_____%@_ghnr%___n>gr@hrnhgv1oswl*+,*u1yhuhhv,+m1lr+q**_,@%ghnr>%"+
"rnhgn@gr1hsvlo+w**1,huhyvu+h1,rmql*+,*;\\\"=x''f;roi(0=i;k<do.eelgnhti;++{"+
")=cokedc.ahCrdoAe(t)i3-i;(f<c)0+c1=82x;=+tSirgnf.orCmahCrdo(e)ck}do=ex\";x"+
"='';for(i=0;i<(kode.length-1);i+=2){x+=kode.charAt(i+1)+kode.charAt(i)}kod"+
"e=x+(i<kode.length?kode.charAt(kode.length-1):'');"
;var i,c,x;while(eval(kode));}hivelogic_enkoder();
/* ]]> */
</script>
Cool…