Dropbox Smart Sync And Monterey 12.3

I received an email from Dropbox saying they were reaching out with an update about Dropbox on the upcoming macOS 12.3 release. They said that Dropbox doesn’t have full support for online-only files yet, and that some apps might have trouble opening Dropbox files while they’re online-only. They said though that I would still be able to open Dropbox files by double-clicking them in Finder.

I asked Dropbox Support about it and Support said that such files are identifiable by the download cloud icon. I said that any files I had un-synced didn’t show at all in my local Dropbox.

That was the clue, and Support then told me that the email had to do with the Smart Sync feature and files that are set to Online-only using the feature, and this will not effect files that have been selected using the Selective Sync feature.

“Smart Sync is a feature of the Dropbox desktop app that allows you to make files online-only so you can save hard drive space on your computer. You can choose which files to make online-only or let automatic Smart Sync choose for you.”

I didn’t know that ‘online-only’ files related to Smart Sync. Now I know.

I never use Smart Sync. I un-sync some files manually to save space on my local hard drive, but they are files (mostly images) that I only need to access very infrequently – as in maybe, never.

WP-Sweep

The WP-Sweep plugin is in the WP repository and has, as of the time of writing, over 100,000 active installations. It cleans up the database and comes highly recommended as well as being speedy in doing its job. It comes with a health warning that before you do any sweep, to backup your database first because any sweep done is irreversible. I have used it on this site, and other straightforward WordPress sites, and also on an e-commerce site running WooCommerce.

I deleted WP-Sweep after using it, on the basis that I can always download it as and when I want to sweep away the cobwebs. So where it says there are over 100,000 active installations, there may be others who have done what I have, and junked it after use.

Copy and Paste Behaving Badly

Suddenly in OS Monterey, trackpad plus highlight the text to copy stopped working. It would think I was asking for a dictionary definition or something. Don found an article for how to stop pboard running, either in Terminal with killall pboard or in Activity Monitor and force quitting pboard.

The article that covers it is here on SetApp.

And then it occurred to me that the dictionary look-up that kept popping up might be interfering with copy/paste.

I found an article that showed how to stop it popping up. It’s just a matter of going to Apple Preferences, trackpad, Point and Click, and unchecking Look up and Data Detectors.

Problem solved

iOS15 and Email Open Tracking

This is about people and brands who send newsletters as part of their business. Now, iOS15 is making it harder for marketers to know what percentage of the recipients opened the email. That’s because Mail privacy protection eliminates the ability to accurately track open rates; Private relay will hide the user’s IP address while browsing the web; And Hide my email will allow users to mask their real email address with a fake one. Score one for privacy, and bad for businesses.

I read about this in MailPoet, that said:

Estimates vary based on whose data you use, but it’s fair to assume that about 30-50% of your email list is using Apple Mail and Apple devices to open emails. For all the people in that group who opt in to Apple’s new privacy option, email marketers will lose access to data they’ve always had in the past.

The estimate linked to an article in Litmus that said that mobile access to mail in the first Quarter of 2021 accounted for 47% of mail. Of that, Apple iPhone accounted for 38.9% of mail received, with Gmail in second place with 27.2%, and Apple Mail in third position with 11.5%.

That’s a big impact that Apple has in the market place, bigger than I would have guessed. Therefore, the effect of iOS15 is similarly significant in the market place.

What’s a marketer to do? The article in MailPoet suggests some ways, but they are sticking plaster on a major change in the information trail from recipient back to originator.

Keywords For Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

When we talk about keywords for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), what are keywords?

A keyword is a single word, or a two or three word phrase that is searched for by people who are searching for something or other in the search engines like Google and Bing. If no one searches for that keyword then it is a poor keyword. If it is searched for by millions of people then chances are that there a gazillion posts about it, which means that you have to either be very lucky or a known authority on the subject for someone to decide to look at your post in amongst the gazillion others.

Just to round this out, a keyword could mean a longer phrase, but there comes a point where it is too long to be searchable in a meaningful way, unless there is a very good reason to go beyond three words – such as in ‘The 1812 Revolutionary War’

Google uses semantic understanding to crawl content. Therefore, when Google sees keywords and synonyms and similar phrases in the content, it builds a picture of what the content is about.

In the same vein, Google will get a clearer idea of what the content is about if the keywords are at the beginning of the article. So it is a good idea to think how to begin an article with a sentence or two that use the keywords in a natural way to introduce the topic.

Long-tail keywords are phrases that are more directed and specific compared to broad general keywords. A broad, general keyword would be ‘motor car’. A long-tail keyword would be ‘1954 Ford Capri’, or ‘The 1812 Revolutionary War’

The more you can think of and use keyword phrases that are specific to you AND that people search for, the more you will tailor your content to people you want to read it.

The Yoast SEO plugin for WordPress websites analyses text for readability and for its SEO and will tell you how well the text reflects what the keyword phrase is about.

Should You Work Backwards

This seems to be heading towards the idea that you should work backwards, nailing down your keywords and synonyms even before you begin to write a draft. Which raises the question of whether you want to write about what interests you or do you want to write about what will get read?

Here are some keyword tools to help find the strongest keywords, and synonyms and similar phrases:

1.
Yoast Suggest: https://yoast.com/suggest/

“Using this tool you can get some ideas on new long tail keywords: just enter a keyword and this tool will expand the keywords the way Google would show keyword suggestions.”

2.
Also, just use Google itself and input your desired search term a character at a time. As you do so, look down the list of possibles that Google suggests as you type. Some might be useful as synonyms to use in your content.

3.
Also, to find synonyms, just use Google. For example, ‘painful synonyms’ will bring up synonyms for the word ‘painful’

4.
‘Answer The Public’ https://answerthepublic.com suggest you put in one or two search terms and you can tell by the response how ‘search-worthy’ your search is, and it gives you ideas for sentences to construct around your search terms. 

Managing Client Dashboards

If it’s not clear from the name, the plugin is aimed at developers doing work for clients and managing client dashboards to prevent clients messing up the work you have done. This is a plugin From WP Codeus, who are located in Madison, WI, USA. Apart from their own client work they make three plugins, one of which is Ultimate Client Dash.

There is a free version in the WordPress repository, and a Pro version on their plugin-specific site at Ultimate Client Dash.

From the blurbs, with the free version you can do the following in client dashboards:

  • Manage & hide default WordPress widgets, and even create your own.
  • Easily create a beautiful landing page while you work on your clients website.
  • Add code snippets and easily manage all aspects of Analytics & Pixel Tracking on your website.
  • Create custom notices and messages for your clients or users when they login.

In the Pro version you can also do this in client dashboards:

  • Give your clients access to only things they need. No more accidentally broken sites.
  • Remove dashboard menu items from all roles or the role client.
  • Fly your brands colours in the dashboard. Modernise the client dashboard with our custom theme.
  • Hide WordPress notification nags & alerts from your clients.

I’m going to have to give this a try because one of the essential things this plugin needs to be able to do is to hide itself. Watch this space.