How to get rid of those funky question marks in your content…

April 25, 2008  | Tags: php, Webmaster stuff | Leave a Comment

Question posed recently on the Warriors Internet Marketing forum:

“I have a css/html template and when i add an article text and then view the page it displays all of the apostrophes and quotes as question marks. how do i fix this?”

Here’s the thing… That happens a lot when the original text came from something like an MS Word document. The problem could be unicode characters. What you *think* looks like an apostrophe or quote mark, really isn’t.

Simple fix if the problem is on a php page: 

<?php

function callback($buffer) {
  $unicode_array = array(
    "&#8211;" => "-",
    "&#8212;" => "-",
    "–" => "-",
    "&#8216;" => "'",
    "’" => "'",
    "&#8217;" => "'",
    "‘" => "'",
    "&#8230;" => "...",
    "…" => "...",
    "“" => "\"",
    "&#8220;" => "\"",
    "”" => "\"",
    "&#8221;" => "\""
  );

 $rbuffer = strtr($buffer, $unicode_array);
 $retstr = '';
 for($i=0; $i < strlen($rbuffer); $i++){
   if(ord($rbuffer[$i]) >= 126) $retstr .= '&#' . ord($rbuffer[$i]) . ';';
   else $retstr .= $rbuffer[$i];
 }
 return $retstr;
}

ob_start("callback");
?>

Paste the above code to the top of your content page… it can be before the opening html tag, or before your main content. What the function does is process all remaining browser output through the callback buffer function, cleans all the pesky unicode characters it finds, then displays the cleaned up content. Viola! No more pesky question mark characters displaying :-)

Hope this helps you out!

25995 DON’T BECOME A VICTIM OF ONLINE AUCTION FRAUD THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

October 18, 2007  | Tags: Online Life | Leave a Comment


With the holidays approaching, many consumers will be buying software online. However, not all consumers are getting what they pay for. According to a survey conducted by Forrester Research, one in five U.S. consumers who purchased software online over the past twelve months has experienced a problem.The Internet is full of “online pirates” selling counterfeit software to unsuspecting consumers. Many consumers are unaware of the dangers of shopping at unknown websites or auction.The Business Software Alliance is offering tips and an educational video on their website to help individuals avoid purchasing fraudulent software online. The video features interviews with a fraud victim and the former owner of a software piracy website sentenced to six years in prison. Consumers can also use the website to report personal incidents of Internet auction fraud. For more information, visit BSAcybersafety.com.

Source: MultiVu

Windows Movie Maker and YouTube

September 2, 2007  | Tags: Windows Movie Maker | Leave a Comment


http://live.pirillo.com - Wow. Pixie and Wicket sure were tiny the day we brought them home. Watching them in Windows Movie Maker reminds me of a question from a chatter recently. He wants to know how to convert a .WMM file into an .AVI file for use on YouTube.

Source: lockergnome

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