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How not to import your site styles from previous versions of NOF

If you want to import entire sites from previous versions of NetObjects Fusion to the newest NOF 9.1, just follow these migration instructions. However, what if you only want import site styles?

Well, here’s how you should NOT do it for versions prior to NOF 8 (unless you don’t want to work with your older version of NOF anymore). I have been using NOF 7 and now wanted to use some of my site styles for NOF 9 too. I didn’t want to import (migrate) entire existing sites at that time. So, I simply used the Style > Add Site Styles Source command to point NOF 9 to the NOF 7 site styles directory.

Bad idea. Using this procedure, NOF 9 leaves the site styles where they are, but transforms them into its new format. This means NOF 7 couldn’t read them anymore and my existing sites looked broken in NOF 7. Unfortunately, when I realized this several days had passed since I had used the Add Site Styles Source command. Therefore, it took me some time to figure out what had happened (first, I wrongly assumed NOF 7 and NOF 9 had problems running on the same machine, which is not the case).

After discovering that NOF 7 couldn’t use the site styles anymore because of the modifications NOF 9 had made, I simply removed the site styles location from NOF 9 and restored the files from my backups. To use them in NOF 9, I made a copy outside the NOF 7 directory tree and included them again in NOF 9. As expected, everything looked fine again in NOF 7.

Netobjects Fusion now produces code that validates

One of the things I’ve been doing while not updating this blog was looking for a web editor to replace the ancient NetObjects Fusion 7.0 still used (together with heavy “post-processing”) for some of my most important websites.The programs I had planned to have a closer look at were NetObjects Fusion 9, Nvu and Dreamweaver.

Concerning the first candidate, I had the impression that many features I didn’t really need had been added while no improvements had been made to the code quality, so I heavy-heartedly discarded NOF 9 and started to learn how to use Nvu.

Standing for “new view” and supposedly pronounced “n-view” (not “envy you”), open source Nvu claims to be “a complete Web Authoring System […] to rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver”. As I eventually found out, this statement is only true if you compare Nvu to the very first versions of these programs. Not only does Nvu have severe limitations when it comes to using server side script languages like PHP, it is also a very buggy piece of software, making it useless for simple tasks, too. With no bug fixes released since version 1.0, Nvu is dead by now. However, there’s an unofficial bug-fix release called KompoZer, which I didn’t have a closer look at because I’d already wasted too much time.

In fact, at that point I had to stop my “research project” to continue working on my company’s web shops and back office systems. I didn’t even have the time to write a rant about Nvu on this blog. 😉

The next step would’ve been Dreamweaver and indeed I got as far as installing the MX 2004 version which came with a 1&1 webhosting account. That’s when I decided to have another look at the NetObject’s homepage and the NOF 9 newsgroups. I was pleased to find out that a significant update for NOF 9 had been released and even more pleased when I read that all code generated by NOF 9 now meets W3C HTML 4.01 transitional standards. At that point, I couldn’t resist to buy the upgrade. I’ll try to post an in-depth review in a few weeks, but the first impression I had was very good. It seems that the makers of NOF listened to what the users had to say and that NOF is still very much alive.

Don’t have billions to give to charity?

Don’t despair, we can’t all be Warren Buffets. Instead, think about it this way: There are about 6,6 Billion people living on this planet. If everybody just gave you 10 US$, you’d have 66 Billion US$ and could make Buffet look rather poor.

OK, so you tried that, sent 10 US$ to 5 people on that list you received by email and nobody ever sent you any money? Too bad, but that’s not really my point. Instead, I was trying to illustrate that small actions by many people can have an enormous impact, too (I know, Gandhi probably said it more eloquently). Which leads us to We Are What We Do, “a new movement inspiring people to use their everyday actions to change the world”.

Sure, something like only filling your kettle with the water you need won’t get you in the news, but it’s a start.

421 Too many SMTP sessions for this host

This is not the message I wanted to get after sending an important e-mail to a supplier in Taiwan. To make things worse, this isn’t a message I received when connecting to my (e-mail) provider’s mail server. Instead, the mail server itself received this message when trying to relay my e-mail to Hinet, where my supplier has his account. Maybe somebody at Hinet had a brilliant idea of how to reduce SPAM (“let’s not accept more than 8 e-mails per month from other mail servers”) or their server was having temporary problems and nobody could be bothered to check if the error message sent together with error code 421 made sense. In any case, my e-mail wasn’t getting through.

Other than sending a fax, the solution I found was to connect directly to the mail server at Hinet (ms12a.hinet.net) from my e-mail software, thereby bypassing my provider’s mail server. On this illustration from Wikipedia, this would mean drawing an arrow from “Alice’s MUA” directly to “mx.b.org”. My first attempt failed (“relaying denied”) because I had forgotten to remove my own address from the BCC field. Since Hinet’s server (at least this one) isn’t an open relay, it only accepts e-mails for its own users (*@hinet.net). After I fixed this, sending the e-mail was no problem (and it actually arrived, too).

Luckily, it was easy to add an alternative mail server in my e-mail software (Becky!). Still, this wasn’t the first time I had experienced problems communicating with business partners in Taiwan who were using Hinet and I’m sure I’m not the only one. I’m really wondering how many potential deals were never concluded because of Hinet’s poor performance.

Corrupted ZIP file?

I was very happy today to discover that one of our suppliers had high-resolution product images available for download. Since taking good product pictures is not done in a snap, this had the potential to save me lots of time. Unfortunately, after downloading the 30MB ZIP I received the following error message when trying to open it: “The Compressed (zipped) Folder is invalid or corrupted”. Downloading the file again didn’t make a difference. Sure, I could’ve asked the supplier to provide me with an uncorrupted file, but I knew this would take a while.

That’s why I went looking for software which might be able to fix the ZIP file. I quickly found two affordable programs: Zip Repair Pro and Advanced Zip Repair. Unfortunately, the trial version of Zip Repair Pro only repairs files up to 5 MB. Not wanting to spend 29,95 US$ to find out whether or not the ZIP file could be repaired, I gave Advance Zip Repair a try. This software uses a different approach: It will try to repair the file and show a report, but it won’t output the fixed file unless you register (29,95 US$). Repairing the ZIP file I had downloaded was no problem for Advance Zip Repair. However, seeing the report it became clear to me that the file didn’t contain the images I needed anyhow. 🙄

Click thumbnail to see the repair report:

Nevertheless, since only the last file was not completely recoverable I became curious and gave WinZip 10.0 and 7zip a try, too. Both programs are “regular” un-zip applications and not meant to be used for repairing ZIP files. Indeed, both were unable to open the archive (“Cannot open file: It does not appear to be a valid archive”).

Now please excuse me while I uninstall everything again…