Quick tip for webmasters

Now that you’re receiving the liners as they head off to the studio, you might have a slight problem preventing you from a simple copy-and-paste to the web. PDs like to write in all CAPS – which on the internet LOOKS JUST LIKE SCREAMING!!! So, you can retype the liner card – but that’s a lot of wasted effort.

Open the liner in Word. Hit Ctrl+A to select all of the text. Then go to the Word toolbar and select Format > Change Case. A box will pop up, and if you select “Sentence case” the entire document will be switched to normal capitalization. Then you just have to go back through and capitalize the proper nouns – a much smaller task than retyping the whole thing.

Fix the process

Quite often, the best fixes for keeping websites in tip-top share are not technical ones, but rather creating better processes. Simply emailing a liner card every time you print it will go a long way to keeping sites fresh.

However, you can throw technical solutions in the mix to make things even better. If you use a CMS (Content Management System) - your webmaster can enter the information days or weeks before it has to appear on the site, and your webserver will not publish it until it is supposed to be live. This way, content can be updated when it needs to be updated instead of when the webmaster is in the office.

A CMS is the best way to run a website, but it is complicated to set up and requires an investment in someone technically proficient enough to get it up and keep it running. I’ll write more about CMSs in the coming weeks.

As always, AllAccess has my “The Net Untangled Tip of the Day” each weekday and a column on Website Wednesdays. Next week, we’ll take a look at easy steps to keep your site fresh. So check back and together we’ll get our websites focused on keeping radio strong in this world of increasing competition.

Do you agree with me? Am I an idiot? If you have comments or any questions about radio websites – either general questions relating to the industry or the web or even specific (HTML, PHP, .NET, Javascript, etc.) questions, send me an email. I’ll answer your question quickly and maybe even use it for a future column.