Why do you NEED this tool?
In a nutshell, spam bots roam the web looking for email addresses posted on web sites. Using this tool will allow you to encrypt them and keep them from easily being harvested. Web Email Cloaking Utility runs under Windows 98/98se/NT/2000/XP.
There are several web sites that will allow you to enter an email address and generate the 'cloaked' HTML for you. The downsides to this approach are: Problem #1. You enter your email address into a web site and press a button... How do you know your email address isn't being captured into a database and being sold to spammers.
Solution: My utility keeps your email address in a local database on your computer that only you can access. There is absolutely no spyware in my utility. Please see my other web site at http://www.firewallreporting.com and you can see that my main focus in my business is helping you to maintain the security of your computer. Problem #2. the web sites I have seen that do this, (and I have seen quite a few) do not generate Javascript email cloaking code which is far more secure against the spambots.
Solution: My utility generates character encoded HTML OR Javascript. Your choice. Problem #3. the web sites do not allow you to use multiple email addresses for TO:, CC: and BCC: as needed nor do they allow you to use an image as a link or provide alternate text for the email image link to allow screen readers for visually impaired surfers.
Solution: My utility allows this very easily. Problem #4. the web sites do not allow you to manage the email links on your web pages, especially if you have multiple sites with multiple page and multiple email addresses.
Solution: My utility was developed expressly for this purpose because I got tired of only being able to 'cloak' one email address at a time and then if I needed to do another address or change the link text it was just too tedious to deal with a web site.
The spambot enemy! Posting an email address on a web site for people to contact you is a great way to maintain contact with your customers and visitors to your web site... well, at least it used to be.
Once the spammers started employing spiders to crawl through web pages, harvesting email addresses from them, things were a little less rosy. The email inboxes for millions of web masters started filling up with useless SPAM which has resulted in many millions of dollars in lost productivity caused by the time it takes to manage the email received from their web sites.
Using my email cloaking utility, the email addresses may be cloaked using two different methods, as you desire:
Why do you want THIS tool?
There are several other solutions available on the Internet that will allow you to cloak your email address on web pages. The problem with most of these tools is they are not designed for use by people who maintain web sites for a living. They are only useful for someone who has one web site and one email address. There is no way to manage multiple email addresses for your paying web clients.
So I decided to write one for myself. But I didn't want it to be like all of the other tools. I also needed to deal with an unlimited number of email links on a multitude of web pages. In other words, I wanted it to be really useful to people and make this task MUCH easier.
Web Email Link Cloak Utility stores each of your email address into a database for easy retrieval later should you need to change the link. You can store an unlimited number of email addresses and within each entry you can also keep track of what page you have it hosted on. Retrieving the record is a snap. You can sort by the name of the link, the email address itself or the host page name.
Screenshot of database listing of email addresses
As a web developer with several sites and multiple email addresses, I quickly grew tired of the 'single-mindedness' of many of the email link cloaking tools available. Not a single one I tried would encode an ENTIRE email link which included a CC, BCC, Subject Line and body text that could be sent from a web site to the web master. Why do you need the rest of these fields? Simple. It's a LOT easier to set up and customize auto responders and other email routing methods if you use different email addresses for different functionalities.
Also, several of the tools I tried would only create text based hyperlinks.
Web Email Link Cloaking Utility allows you to create text links with a user-specified (that means you) string of text to display, as well as linking to a graphic on the web page (or anywhere on the web for that matter) and also allows for the display of alternate text for those people who would rather have graphics capabilities turned off in their browsers. This is especially handy for blind computer users who rely on text to speech screen readers to browse the web.
This image link functionality is available in Java script or HTML format.
Allows you to keep track of To:, CC:, BCC:, Subject and Body fields in an email address as well as provide for text display and graphical image links. There is also provision for storing the URL of the web page where the link will reside, which makes it incredibly easy to manage your web based email links.
Screenshot of web email link entry form using HTML output
Here's a test window with a graphical link which is displayed in real time from the web. (this requires a live Internet connection) If you want to use graphics that are stored on your local hard disk you simply use file:////path/filename.ext to reference the location. (you will need to be sure to change this URL to a live Internet link when you are ready to deploy the encrypted link.)
Screenshot of web email graphics link real-time test using HTML output
You can output specially formatted HTML links or Java script for use in the web page. Using Java script provides the maximum in flexibility since spam bots will completely skip over the code. Special java script variables are dynamically defined that will allow you to place multiple email addresses on the same page.
Screenshot of web email link entry form using java script output
Screenshot of web email graphics link real-time test using java script output
It's EASY to use!
Step 1. Enter a link name (which must be unique), your email address information, link text (or a URL for an image link with alternate text if desired) and then select whether you would like to generate encoded HTML or Javascript and press the Generate Link button. If you have multiple email addresses to encode, be sure to enter the URL of the web page upon which they will reside. This makes it easy to manage them later on. Step 2. Click on the Test Email Link button to open a small browser window containing the link you just generated and then you can click on it to test that it works properly. It should open a new message in your default email client. Step 3. Click on the Copy Link to Clipboard button to copy the entire link to the Windows Clipboard once you are satisfied the link is displayed and working properly. (You can also highlight the entire text in the link display and press CTRL-C to copy it to the clipboard). Press OK to save your entry. Step 4. In your favorite HTML editor (directly in the HTML code), paste (CTRL-V) the encoded HTML or Javascript into the location where you would like the email address to appear. That's it!
5/18/2005 - 2.0 Modified the encoded HTML and Javascript generation routines to handle invalid characters in the TO:, CC: and BCC: email fields as well as the encoding of special characters in the subject and body,
5/26/2004 - 1.5 Modified Javascript routine to handle spaces better in Subject and Body portions of the link.
5/21/2004 - 1.4 Added some error checking for the Link Name entry field to eliminate characters that are invalid in Javascript variable names. Only A-Z, a-z, 0-9 and _ are allowed.
5/2/2004 - 1.3 Modified parsing routine for email addresses to provide better support for email clients that do not conform to the RFC 822 mailto: specification. (The Bat! - www.ritlabs.com) With this change you can also enter a first name and last name prior to the email address such as Ben Brady . You will have to put the < and > into the field surrounding the email address. Using this method allows the email client to 'personalize' your message with the recipient's first name.
4/29/2004 - 1.2 Modified web browsing library to enhance stability and provide better HTML browsing capability when testing email links or previewing images.
4/6/2004 - 1.0 Initial Release
FAQ:
Q. This is a nice utility. Why is it free? A. Well, I am an older programmer who is disabled. It's pretty tough to find work at my age because most companies want to hire the kids getting out of college because they can get them on the cheap. They don't have families, mortgages and all of the other expenses that come with age. Even though I haven't been able to find a programming job in a few years now, I still love to program. So, I decided that in order to keep my skills up, I would write some (what I think) are useful utilities and provide them for free.
Q. If the utility is free, why do you ask for a donation? A. It's quite simple. Whenever you give away something for free on the web, there is a cost associated with it. Since I am unemployed and disabled (but I can't collect disability) I simply have to ask that you assist me in shouldering the burden of distribution. If you use the utility, and you like it, please make your donation.
Q. If the utility is free, what kind of technical support do I get? A. You get the same level of commitment that is provided to our customers who have purchased our very popular firewall log reporting and analysis tools, only you don't have to pay what they have paid to get it. Since I am here at home all day (and most of the night) the most things I get to do (besides spending time with Rita) are to answer email questions and watch TechTV, other than writing code. Just with your questions and I'll be glad to answer them.
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