The Web Developers Users' Group met on February 27, 2004, at 3:00 PM in the Parliamentary Room, PSU 313.

Announcements from the Web Advisory Committee

Sara Clark, Missouri State Web Coordinator, mentioned the following updates from the Web Advisory Committee:

• The Web Advisory Committee has recommended a domain name in case the name change to Missouri State University is approved. The domain name is http://www.missouristate.edu/
   
• The Missouri State site index now includes majors and minors. This provides a link for each major and minor to the corresponding area on the Majors and Minors web site.
   
• The Missouri State homepage now displays a message when the University is closed.
   
• The home page will be changing to accommodate links to the Long-Range Plan and Giving web sites.

Template changes

The process of obtaining the Missouri State web templates has changed. Developers now submit a request form to have the templates uploaded to their web sites. This change is to eliminate common template problems. The template request forms and information on the templates are available at the Web Templates site.

Missouri State search engine presentation

Sara Clark gave a presentation on how the Missouri State search engine works and on how to ensure that a site is listed for best results. For more information view her Search Engine Presentation Notes

Pop-up utilities

The group discussed using programs to eliminate pop-up banners from web pages. It was mentioned that many of these pop-ups come from ad-ware programs which are silently installed on computers and not directly from the web site being viewed at the time. The group suggested various utilities and programs to help alleviate pop-up banners such as:

• Ad-Aware - a program that removes ad-ware and spy-ware programs from the computer
   
• Google Toolbar - a utility for Internet Explorer that eliminates pop-ups among other nice features
   
• Using alternative browsers such as Mozilla, Opera and Phoenix which are not as susceptible to IE specific pop-ups.

Suggest a topic

The Web Developer Users' Group is interested in new topics to be discussed and presentations for our meetings. Submit your topic recommendation or ideas through the Suggest a topic page.

Next meeting

The next WDUG meeting will be held in the Parliamentary Room, PSU 313, on March 30, 2004, at 11:00 AM.