Category: Pastor Tim's CleanLaugh Site

Monday, 18 July 2011 22:20

Often, after reading a joke on my site or in one of my humor lists, people e-mail me and ask,

"Pastor Tim, what's a Goober?"

To satisfy many people's curiosity, I've got a picture of one here.

Yes, you guessed it - that's me (a few years ago, lol). We've all been Goobers at one point or another in our lives by doing things that looked like we had disconnected from whatever intelligence we possess.

Goober is a term that I substitute into jokes that feature blondes, terms of ethnicity, and the like. That way we can laugh without having to risk hurting someone.

Contrary to what some have accused, my using the term Goober is not a slur against people lacking in intelligence. It's just a way to laugh at ourselves and the silly things we sometimes do (even though some goober jokes feature things so stupid nobody would do them).

So when you see Goober in a joke have a laugh - maybe even at yourself.

Category: Pastor Tim's CleanLaugh Site

Tuesday, 29 March 2005 18:23

The jokes I use on the CleanLaugh site are, for the most part, floating around on the net, source unknown.  For that reason, I can neither give nor deny permission to use them.  That decision is up to you.

However, in some cases I have known the owner of a joke and received their permission to use it.  In these instances you will see a copyright notice and maybe their e-mail address at the end of the joke.  Please contact the owner directly to get permission to use the joke (and please do mention you saw it on the CleanLaugh site).

Category: Pastor Tim's CleanLaugh Site

Thursday, 17 March 2005 06:40

The pictures I use on the CleanLaugh site are, for the most part, floating around on the net, source unknown.  For that reason, I can neither give nor deny permission to use them.  That decision is up to you.

However, in some cases I have known the owner of a photo and received their permission to use it.  In these instances you will see a copyright notice on the photo itself and either their e-mail address on the photo or a link to their web site near it.  Please contact the owner directly to get permission to use the picture (and please do mention you saw it on the CleanLaugh site).

Category: Advertising

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:36

We try very hard to ensure that the Google ads that appear on the Cybersalt sites are family safe, but sometimes one sneaks through the cracks. There is, however, something that both we and you can do to fix that.

The first thing you can do is e-mail us about the ad you saw. Give us a short description of it and be sure to include the site address that appears in the ad (not the page it is on). Once we receive your e-mail we can block ads from that site from appearing on our sites.

A second thing you can do is take a step to help clean up the net. Google wants to know about ads in their system that violate their ad content policies so they have set up a system where you, the surfer, can report violations to them. To go to that page click here.

Thanks for any help you can give to help us fulfill our mission to be salt and light on the internet for Jesus.

Category: Virtuemart

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:39

Log in to the back end of your Joomla! site, and then go to the VirtueMart control panel:

components>virtuemart>list payment methods

Select the "PayPal" method and then ensure that check box next to "active" is checked.

Next, under the "configuration" tab, enter your paypal payment e-mail in the appropriate field.

Also, note that this is the same area where you can turn off the PayPal test mode (otherwise known as a sandbox).

Category: Virtuemart

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:38

Go to your product you want to be FEATURED and under the PRODUCT STATUS tab enable the ON SPECIAL checkmark.

Your guess as to why it doesn't just say "featured" is as good as my guess.

Category: Virtuemart

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:38

To use Canada Post's Sell Online^TM Shipping Module in Virtuemart you will need a Canada Post Merchant ID.  Here are the steps to obtain one.

First, sign up with Canada Post for a VentureOne Preferred Small Business Client account (it's free).

Once you have your VentureOne account #, send an e-mail to sellonline@canadapost.ca, requesting your account be registered on the Sell Online Server.  Be sure to include the following fields with your relevant information filled out afterwards:

CUSTOMER / VENTURE ONE NUMBER:
COMPANY NAME:
ADDRESS:
CITY:
PROVINCE:
POSTAL CODE :
MAIN CONTACT:
TELEPHONE NUMBER:

The sellonline@canadapost.ca e-mail appears to be managed manually by a human, so it may be a business day or so (based on Cybersalt's experience) before you receive an e-mail back with your Retailer ID for the Sell Online server.  That e-mail will also contain instructions for setting up the rest of your shipping profile with Canada Post.

Category: Working On Your Site

Saturday, 23 March 2013 20:10

JotCache is a great extension that helps Joomla sites - especially large ones - run quickly and deliver faster page load speeds.  This video will tell you more.

Category: Working On Your Site

Tuesday, 12 June 2012 21:26

Joomla comes with a built in media manager that's pretty basic but effective for uploading and organizing the media you use in your articles. 

Category: Working On Your Site

Tuesday, 12 June 2012 20:42

Some of our clients ask us to get their site installed and going so they can continue to design it themselves.

This tutorial demonstrates to such clients how they can edit the template CSS when the changes they wish are not options available in the template admin area.

Category: Working On Your Site

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:43

Here's a video tutorial that will show you how to log in to the Joomla administration area of your web site. It also features a brief look at navigating the admin area too.

Category: Working On Your Site

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:44

There are a number of situations where one wants to see where the module postions are on their Joomla! site.  Here's a quick tip on how to do that.

In your browser's address bar, enter the URL of your site and then add "index.php'tp=2"  (no quotations marks).  What you have typed should look somethign like this:

www.yourdomain.com/index.php'tp=2

Category: Working On Your Site

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:44

Anytime you put your e-mail address on a web site, you make it available for anyone to visually read it with the naked eye. Of course, that's why you would put it on a web page in the first place!

The real danger of having one's e-mail address on a web site is the software that spammers use for making their lists of addresses to send spam to.  Basically, their software visits web pages and scans and records any e-mail addresses it finds.

However, if you are using an updated version of Joomla 1.5 you can put your e-mail address in an article and not worry about your address being "farmed" in the manner described above.  This is due to a trick that Joomla does to hide e-mail addresses in the code that spammer-scanners look at.

For instance when I type my e-mail address "webmaster@cybersalt.org", Joomla "encodes" my address to look something like the following highlighted code:

var prefix = 'ma' + 'il' + 'to';
var path = 'hr' + 'ef' + '=';
var addy92644 = 'tim' + '@';
addy92644 = addy92644 + 'cybersalt' + '.' + 'org';
document.write( '<a ' + path + '\'' + prefix + ':' + addy92644 + '\'>' );
document.write( addy92644 );
document.write( '<\/a>' );
//-->\n </script> <script language='JavaScript' type='text/javascript'>
<!--
document.write( '<span style=\'display: none;\'>' );
//-->
</script>This e-mail address is being protected from spambots.
You need JavaScript enabled to view it
<script language='JavaScript' type='text/javascript'>
<!--
document.write( '</' );
document.write( 'span>' );


The above cuts the spammer's scan short and let's real people see your address. A real person might send you stuff you don't want, but a spammer can't be bothered to read every web page visually.

There is one caveat to mention in all of this. If you put your e-mail address in some other parts of Joomla (let's say a module or some component like the FAQ component I am useing to anwer this question) your address can appear on a scan. So it's still good to use Joomla's contact form for letting new people get in touch with you. They won't see what your address is until you reply to them from your e-mail program.

Category: Working On Your Site

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:45

If you want to stop the "writen by . . . ." credit on your whole site, simply go the article manager in Joomla and in the top right corner of Joomla you will see a "parameters" button.

Click on that and you will end up in the area where you can change the global settings for many things on your site - including the "written by" credit.

Category: Working On Your Site

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:45

Here's a video tutorial that will show you how to log in to the Joomla administration area of your web site. It also features a brief look at navigating the admin area too.

Category: Working On Your Site

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:46

Here's a video tutorial that will show you where to put your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) info in Joomla.

Category: Working On Your Site

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:47

This tutorial shows you how to upload pictures and how to insert pictures into Joomla articles.

On all of our Joomla sites we use JCE Editor because of it's user friendliness, advanced feature options, and it's ability to easily reconfigure the arrangements of the tool icons. Consequently, this tutorial will be of little help to you if you are seeking to learn to use Joomla's default image inserting tools. If you would like help getting JCE set-up and running on your Joomla install, contact us.

Category: Help Us Build Your Site

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:42

We really like the Joomla templates that Rockettheme.com makes, so much so that we buy a yearly membership to their template club and use them in 99% of my projects.

If Cybersalt is working on developing a web site for you then you've probably been sent here to pick out a template to be used as a base template for your site.  Excellent!  Just keep one thing in mind: Rockettheme really loads up its demos with content to demonstrate the great number of module positions in their templates.  So if all the templates look way more busy or cluttered than you have in mind for your site don't worry.  Just concentrate on the colors and styling you are looking for.  From there we'll make it look as busy (or not) as you want it to.

Also, Rockettheme.com is developing some pretty awesome new features for their templates so the newer the template you go with the better!  Of course we'll do what we can with anything you pick out.

No worries!  Here are some basic instructions to help you in your quest.

• First go to the template demo section of the Rockethemes web site: http://demo.rockettheme.com

• Next, locate the drop down bar which is located in the middle top of the page.

 

• Click on the drop down bar and you'll see a list (by release month) of the available templates to preview.  By selecting any given month, that month's template will be displayed for preview.

 

• Remember that each Rockettheme Joomla template has a number of preset styles to check out.  Look under the Features menu for a link that will take you to where you can see the styles available.  Once the different styles are displayed you can click on each one for a better look at each.

 

Category: Help Us Build Your Site

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:41

Yes!

We use templates from RocketTheme for the Joomla sites we build for our clients (we have a membership that lets us do so).  Use the following link to go to their site and check them out and see which template you like the most for your site. Then, let us know which one it is and we'll customize it for you.

One note - the good folks at RocketTheme have their demo templates jam packed with something in every module position.  So don't worry if you think they all look really busy or cluttered.  Yours doesn't have to be that full.  Just look for the colors and basic graphics that you like the best.

Keep in mind too, that each template has a number of different color schemes with it.  You can view them under the "Features > Style Variations" link in each template.

To view the different templates, just use the "month/template name" drop-down at the top of the page at http://demo.rockettheme.com

 

Category: Help Us Build Your Site

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:41

An excellent question!  When Cybersalt is building a site for you we know how to build it, but there are some things that can only come from you to assist us in setting up a page that is ready for search engines to find your site and refer traffic to it.  Here are a bunch of them.

Site Title

In the very top left corner of your screen (as you read this) you will something that looks like:

Where you read "The Cybersalt Site - Clean Humor, Inspirational Writing, Web Design and Hosting" is where the site title of your site will appear.  Having your site title appear in that location is nice for aesthetics, but your site title plays an even bigger role for your web page.  It is one of the factors that some search engines use in determining whether or not to display your site to people searching for what your site has to offer. For that reason you want to have a title that contains some of the big things that your site is about.  We could have just put "The Cybersalt Site" but the better detail of what we do have means we are more likely to show up in some searches.

So we need you to tell us what your site title should be.  Don't make it too long (there are other things below that allow for more words) but do make a big punch with a few words.

Site Description

If you found coming up with a title was hard because you needed to keep it short, you'll feel better about coming up with your site's description because this time you get to write a whole paragraph.  The site description has become one of the major ways that some of the biggest search engines examine and categorize your site for matching up with the searches that their users are doing.

When you write the description of your site remember to use good grammer, proper capitalization and grammer, and try not to repeat the same words over and over.

For instance:

"The ABC Dog site is dedicated to providing current news and information to help dog lovers.  As loving pet owners, people who care for canines will appreciate our articles on healthy diets for puppy and adult dogs, the do's and don'ts of home grooming and pampering, the medical care of pets, as well as many other dog related topics.  We even have a gallery of funny dog pictures!"

is better than:

"ABC Dog site is about dogs and the stuff dog people want to know.  Laugh at our pictures."

You get the idea.  So, write a paragraph that describes your site and send it to us.

Site Keywords

If you were looking for the information on your site, what phrases would you type into a search engine?  Those words are your keywords.  So if you have a site that sells stuff to boaters in River City your key words might look like the following:

"boats River City British Columbia, River City BC boat repairs"

Again, you get the idea.  Notice that each keyword phrase is separated by a comma and a space.  Google is currently paying no attention to keywords but Bing still does - but only 2 phrases.

Page Description and Keywords

These are the same as their site equivalent above, but this time you are focusing on the content of each individual page on your site.

Get a Gmail.com Address

Gmail is Google's free e-mail site.  People with a gmail.com address have access to some webmaster tools that help Google know that their site exists and that Google should spider it (scan it) so people using Google can find their site.

If you already have a Gmail address, please tell us what it is and your password so we can log in and set your site up with Google.  If sending us your password creeps you out, or if you don't have a Gmail address yet, you can create a new address with Gmail at https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount.

Category: Policies

Friday, 08 July 2011 15:40

The mission of Cybersalt Communications is to be Cyber-Salt in the Cyber-World, just as Jesus explained that God's children are to be the salt of the earth.

Category: Policies

Monday, 11 December 2006 05:48

Hi. I'm Pastor Tim Davis - a real life pastor of a real life church.

In September of 1998, I innocently started an e-mail list for sending jokes to my family and friends. Somehow other people began to find my list and join online.

I thought that was pretty cool so I started to try to grow my list. Eventually it (and other lists I started) grew to point where they began to generate enough e-mail traffic to make some internet providers wonder if I was a spammer. Of course I'm not.

My pledge to you (whether you are an internet provider or a potential subscriber) is that I will not sell, trade, or giveaway the addresses of my subscribers to anyone. Furthermore, I do not add anyone to my e-mail lists unless they have first requested to be added. I also have a confirmation system in place to confirm their requests also. I even personally handle mail sent to me asking for help to be removed from my lists.

To help my mail be delivered to those who have requested it, please whitelist
the domain www.cybersaltlists.org, my main sending address posts@cybersaltlists.org, and my bounce management address bounces@cybersaltlists.org.

The following are other domains I solely own. They also fall under this anti-spam policy:

www.cybersalt.org
www.cybersalt.net
www.asleepinchrist.org

- Pastor Tim

Category: Policies

Monday, 11 December 2006 05:49

Pastor Tim and Cybersalt Communications do not sell, loan, or give away the e-mail addresses of those subscribed to newsletters and lists hosted by our site.

So be assured that you can subscribe to any of the lists on our site without having to worry about your e-mail address being vulnerable to abuse or misuse.