I've been spending my time getting TLOC ready for publishing with InDesign. I've taken one part, extracted all of the graphics files, saved them in ChemDraw, exported them as EPS files, and imported the document into InDesign. I then manually replaced each low res structure with the corresponding EPS file. What really made this doable in a practical sense was to use Quickeys. I created scripts that would go through MS Word, find the structures, copy them, paste them into ChemDraw, and save them. This took about 1.5 hrs (I was away). When I came back, it was done. I created another script to open each file and then save at as the EPS file. That took about an hour. I struggled with creating a script that I could use to put the files into InDesign. I didn't really attack this with the idea of using a script. As a consequence, I partly made it more difficult than it needed to have been. (I just realized this now.). I ended up creating another script that would let me place each file where it needed to be and scaled it into the graphics box. This was part script and part manual. I did that in a few hours. So, I did most of the heavy lifting in much less time than I first imagined. More importantly, by using scripts, it save me a lot of trouble matching content. Whew.

While that task in being worked on, I really need to get back to remedying parts of my website. My Google ads aren't generating the specific click through rate I would hope for. Read More...

The back side of marketing "The Language of Organic Chemistry" is to convince visitors of its value. In order to do that, the website needs to rank reasonably high on Google's "organic" index. (This rates a combination of links, hits, and ??. Academic sites are rated more highly than commercial sites due to their greater gratis.) I have been checking this periodically and still find my website fairly low on their organic index. The path to improvement is to improve my content. As content can attract visitors and links, so will the organic index.

I have screen shots of nearly every page of "The Language or Organic Chemistry". My current project is to link those screen shots with the Table of Contents and the Index. The other side of this is to place metadata also into the pages (or perhaps to create individual .pdf pages) so Google can link directly to individual pages. In that way, if someone wants to find the mechanism for the Swern Oxidation, the link could take them directly to it. It is interesting that the Swern oxidation has the highest click through rate of my keywords. It doesn't provide the most impressions, but it does give the most hits.

I need to provide more opportunities to link to mechanisms (good content) in order to improve my Google organic rating.

I think I am arriving at acceptable web content. I did receive a question about putting some sample pages up. I had started doing that around Christmas, but I had wanted a more sophisticated way of doing it than just a string of pages. Read More...

Using RapidWeaver, I have succeeded in creating a basic website. I have two linked sites, one at CurvedArrow.com which has a sub-site phpBB forum dedicated to an organic chemistry forum. Read More...