Thursday, March 28, 2024

Goodies to Go ™
December 15, 2003– Newsletter #263


Goodies to Go ™
December 15, 2003–Newsletter #263

This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
 


Featured this week:

* Goodies Thoughts – The First Law
* Q & A Goodies
* News Goodies
* Goodies Peer Reviews

* Feedback Goodies  
* Windows Tech Goodies  
* And Remember This

 


 

Goodies Announcement

The new Beyond HTML Goodies book
is now available!

 

Go beyond the basics
and learn how the pros add and use dynamic HTML features and advanced
JavaScript techniques. Beyond HTML Goodies demonstrates dozens of new and
different features readers can add to their existing Web pages using HTML and
JavaScript. The book starts with simple text and image tips, such as adding a
clock to a Web page or causing text to appear when the mouse moves over an
image. It gradually builds to more complex tricks, including manipulating forms
or working with cookies behind the scenes. Throughout the book, readers enjoy
Joe’s snappy style and “to the point” discussion of each “goody” in the book.

 

http://books.internet.com/books/0789727803

 

 


Goodies Thoughts – The First Law


Last week I talked about the Three Golden Rules as related to
the world of computers and their users. This week I get a little deeper and will
disclose to you the First Law of Computing. Thanks, by the way, for all the
positive responses to last week’s piece — it seems that a lot of you relate to
the horrors I described! (In case you missed it, see

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/letters/262.html
)

As would be expected of a law, the First Law has a far more scientific sound to
it than do the Golden Rules. The First Law says: The probability of occurrence
of a given incident is inversely proportional to its possibility. During last
weeks discussion I mentioned Murphy’s Law; you’ll see that there’s some
relationship between them. Murphy’s law, however, "ain’t got nothin’" on the
First Law!

To translate the lofty sounding piece into ordinary English: basically what the
law is telling us is that the more impossible it is for some specific event to
occur, the more likely it is that it will, in fact, happen. Taken to its
extreme, this means that if something is completely impossible, then its either
already happening or its just about to. By way of example: "what happens if this
system completely fizzles out and nothing is left of it?" you are asked; and you
reply, "oh, that can’t happen because of this triple redundancy and that two
layer protection." The problem here is that your reply included "can’t", which
implies a near impossibility. By the First Law, the system will now completely
fizzle out and nothing of it will be left behind.

After I wrote that piece last week I decided to go over my backup procedures and
make sure they were all up to the mark. Having done so I walked away with a
certain feeling of pride and comfort. That was all it took! Not one, but two
separate systems immediately crashed with such serious problems that I was
thrown into full blown disaster recovery. Many thanks to the very capable
engineers at Microsoft who helped me — with their help and my backups the
recoveries were completely successful. It did, however, take a great deal of
time, eliminate most of a few nights sleep and cause far more anxiety than I
want to bear. It’s when your fairly sure that you’re OK that it’ll happen. I
can’t over-stress how important it is to protect your systems and consequently
protect all your hard work and all that history you’ve accumulated in them.

That being said, here are a few more things that you might want to take into
consideration:

First, think about the hardware. Is the computer located on the floor where a
water spillage would leave is sitting in a puddle, or where little Johnny would
crash into it with his little cart? Would it be better off on a couple of
bricks, back further under the table? Or, is it sitting on a table or desk with
the wires dangling behind it so that little Johnny (or big Johnny, come to that)
can snag them as they sail past on a mission, pulling the whole thing down onto
the floor? Also, is any of the hardware getting old and tired and increasing its
risk of failure? The cost of losing it unexpectedly can be a lot higher than the
cost of a planned replacement.

Do you have proper surge and lightning protection? Remember that the "25,000
insurance" offered by the manufacturer isn’t worth anything at all when it comes
to your programs and data. Select surge equipment based of quality and
reputation, not gimmickry. Remember also that a power surge, or lightning surge,
can come up ANY wire into the computer. That would include power, phone, cable
and network wires. Surge protection is available for all of these.

Do you have an adequate anti-virus protection? You need something like McAfee,
Norton, Trend or Panda with virus definition no more than a week old (update it
every week with its automatic update or manually.) I don’t recommend something
like "Joe’s Neato Anti-Virus".

Lastly, do you have proper anti-intrusion (a.k.a. "firewall") software in place?
While it may be arguable that it is impossible to completely block a hacker, you
can certainly make it difficult enough to keep out all but the most skilled, and
they may not feel like going to the effort needed just to get into your stuff.
This category would include getting completely up to date with your patches by
using Windows Update (or your Linux vendor’s update service.) Windows users
should visit http://www.microsoft.com/security/protect/ for some very helpful
advice on the basic steps needed to help in this area. Windows XP has a built-in
firewall which may be adequate for your needs if you turn it on and use it. If
you choose not to use a McAfee or Norton firewall (or another well-known
vendor’s product) but select one available on the net, make sure that you
research the product before you depend on it. You certainly don’t want to use a
"protection" product that is actually some hacker’s back-door!

I wish you the best of luck with your systems. Remember that following all
necessary precaution, proceed with caution rather than pride. It’s the best way
to avoid First Law violations!


 



Thanks for Reading!
 



– Vince Barnes


 

Top

Q & A Goodies


Questions are taken from submissions to our Community Mentors. You can ask a Mentor a question by going to

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/mentors
.



Q. My page has a background that is green down the left side, much like
HTML Goodies has a curvy brown strip down the side. I’d like my links that are
situated in the green area to show white, and the links that are situated in the
white area to be green. This is much like your HTML Goodies page, and I’ve
looked at your source but can’t figure out how to do it.

A. You can do it using style sheet commands like so:
In between the head tags define your commands:
<HEAD>
<STYLE TYPE="text/css">
A:LINK {COLOR: white;}
A.TWO:LINK {COLOR:green;}
</STYLE>
</HEAD>
Code the links in the green background like you normally do:
<A HREF="somewhere.com">Link</A>
In the white area use the two class like so:
<A CLASS="TWO" HREF="somewhere.com">Link</A>

Q. Is there an equivalent of ASP for Apache servers?

A. There is a third-party package that works with Apache. Check out
http://www.chilisoft.com.

Q. I have a side bar on the left and then the rest of the page is where
all the content goes. The side bar just has a navigation menu. I have it where
the page is one big table and the sidebar is one cell and the rest of the page
is a cell. Well my problem is… if there is a lot of information in the right
hand cell, then the stuff in the left hand cell gets right in the middle of the
cell so everything will be even. But I want that stuff to stay at the top of the
page, regardless of how much info is in the right hand cell. Is there a way to
make it where it doesn’t automatically center itself like that?

A. You need to add VALIGN="top" to the row or cell or both. This will
make all the contents stay at the top of the cell.

Q. I divided my page into two frame columns. My one problem is when I try
to return to my start up page, it reloads the navigation bar (the first frame)
again. How can this be avoided?

A. Try putting a target in that link of target="_top" this will reload
the whole page and avoid a frame within a frame

Q. I’m making a web page and my monitor is set to 1024×768, because I use
that resolution when I am working making graphics. When I use Adobe Go Live to
lay out a web page and then upload it, people running in different resolutions
see the page in a way different from how I want them to. I don’t want to have to
change the resolution of the monitor, constantly switching from my preferred
settings to 800×600 for html coding, so is there some way I can embed resolution
settings or some kind of viewing settings so that people will view the page the
way I see it and intend for it to be viewed, no matter what their resolution
settings are? If not, is there a way for me to redo it so that the resolution
settings won’t make a difference? Someone told me to render the page inside a
frame/table that’s 800×600 I tried to make a table but couldn’t get rid of all
the cells and rows.

A. The majority of people surfing the net today are still viewing with a
screen resolution of 800×600. (Although as history shows that it does change
over time – a few years back the standard was 640×480). I would suggest you
focus on targeting the majority of viewers. Although you don’t have to
necessarily change your resolution, just keep in mind that when creating your
tables and images they should be no wider than 780 pixels wide (I usually make
my tables no larger than 760 – but that is my personal preference). As far as
resizing your site to 800×600 that should not be a problem.
You can use our own Bob Conley’s JavaScript browser resize trick – I use it all
the time!
In your browser’s address bar type:
javascript:resizeTo(640,480)
Press your enter key and the screen will resize to 640×480. Save it to your
favorite places. Do the same with 800×600 and 1024×768 resolutions and save them
to your favorite places. Now you can click on the link in your favorite place to
resize your browser without having to change your settings. This way you can now
view the site that you are creating in the different settings and get an idea of
the site layout.

 

 

 

 

Top

News Goodies


BEA Continues to Woo Developers
[December 15, 2003] Furthering its commitment to Java
developers, BEA Systems Monday launched two programming aides
and a Web site tracking standards-based initiatives.

Click
here to read the article


 

 

Google Tweaks AdWords, Froogle
[December 15, 2003] Google has made changes to improve its advertiser
experience and brought Froogle into the Google.com search mix.

Click here to read the article

 



 

E-mail Marketing Firms Push Deliverability Offerings
[December 15, 2003] So-called deliverability services are popping up in
practically every e-mail service provider’s toolbox, as vendors rush to
prove they have what it takes to get marketers’ mail all the way to the
inbox.

Click here to read the article

 

 

Microsoft Retools Windows Division
[December 15, 2003] Microsoft is reorganizing its Windows operating system
group to form a new group called Windows Core Operating System Division (COSD)
within its platform group.

Click here to read the article

 

 

Internet Sales Tax Gains Ally
[December 15, 2003] U.S. Sen. Tom Carper of Delaware, which has no state
sales tax, has added his support to the growing movement in Congress to tax
online sales.

Click here to read the article

 

 

Attack Against SCO’s Web Site Continues
[December 15, 2003] A crippling distributed denial of
service (define) that began last week against software
company SCO Group continued in sporadic bursts through the
weekend, according to a company spokesman.

Click here to read the article

 

 



DoS Flaw in SOAP DTD Parameter
[December 15, 2003] Technology heavyweights IBM and Microsoft have
released fixes for a potentially serious vulnerability in various Web
Services products that could be exploited to trigger denial-of-service
attacks.

Click here to read the article

 

TI Unveils New Smartphone/PDA Chip
[December 15, 2003] Texas Instruments is heralding a new wireless
processor for smartphones or PDAs.

Click
here to read the article

 

 



Politicians Send Spammers Holiday Gift
[December 15, 2003] Politicians were in a giving mood this week as
Congress on Monday passed the Can Spam Act of 2003.

Click here to read the article

 

 

Fujitsu Looks Ahead with Faster Drives
[December 15, 2003] Fujitsu Computer Products of America Monday announced
its latest hard drive interface that runs at 3 gigabytes per second.

Click here to read the article

 

 

 

 

Top


Goodies Peer Reviews


 

Every week a site is selected for review. Each week,
reviews of the previous week’s selected site are chosen for
publication on the HTML Goodies website.

 

The current week’s selected site is published in Goodies To
Go and in the Peer Reviews section of the website. 
Current contact email addresses for submitting your site and
for submitting reviews are published in Goodies To Go.

If you would like to have your site reviewed, sign up for
the Goodies To Go newsletter in the Navigation Bar on the
left side of this page. 

For full details about this program, see

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/peerreviews

 

 

 

Top

Feedback
Goodies


Did you ever wish your newsletter was an easy two way communications medium?
Ploof! It now is!
If you would like to comment on the newsletter or expand/improve on something
you have seen in here, you can now send your input to:

mailto:nlfeedback@htmlgoodies.com

We already receive a lot of email every day. This address will help us sort out
those relating specifically to this newsletter from all the rest. When you send
email to this address it may wind up being included in this section of the
newsletter, to be shared with your fellow readers.
Please don’t send your questions to this address.
They should be sent to our mentors: see
http://www.htmlgoodies.com/mentors/

For those who are missing Peer reviews: we are once again
revising the Peer review program in the hopes of creating a
workable solution. The current plan is to move the new Peer
Review pages into place in the new year. All those who have
been selected for reviews in the past will be featured in
the new pages. The new method will make it much easier for
your peers to provide feedback and much easier for us to
handle the publication side of things. "Watch this space!"
It’s coming soon!!

 


Thanks again for all your feedback!
 

Top


 


Windows Tech Goodie of the Week:

 

Multiple Dropdown Lists Sample Code


http://www.asp101.com/resources/visitors/index.asp#multidropdowns

One of our visitors sent us an alternate method of dealing
with linked dropdown lists that pull their data from a
database. His solution uses ASP-generated, client-side
javascript to avoid making a round trip to the server to
fill the second list.

*** And ***

Leveraging MSMQ in ASP.NET Applications


http://www.15seconds.com/issue/031202.htm

Ever developed a Web application that requires extensive
processing? Ever had long running Web pages that often time
out in the browser? Greg Huber reveals a simple technique
that uses Microsoft Message Queuing (MSMQ) and the
System.Messaging framework to handle long running Web
processes.

 

 

Top
And Remember This . . .

On this day in…

1961 Holocaust Architecht Eichmann Sentenced to Death

Adolf Eichmann, the Nazi SS officer who organized Adolf Hitler’s
"final solution of the Jewish question," was condemned to death by
an Israeli war crimes tribunal on this day in 1961. Born in Soligen,
Germany in 1906, Eichmann convened the Wannsee Conference near
Berlin for the purpose of planning a "final solution of the Jewish
question," as Nazi leader Hermann Gvring described it. The Nazis
decided to exterminate Europe’s Jewish population. Eichmann
organized the extermination with horrifying efficiency. By the end
of World War II between three and four million Jews were killed in
his extermination camps, and another two million elsewhere. In 1957,
a German prosecutor secretly informed Israel that Eichmann was
living in Argentina. Agents from Israel’s intelligence service, the
Mossad, went to Argentina where they found Eichmann living in the
San Fernando section of Buenos Aires under the name of Ricardo
Klement.

Today was also the day that: in 1582 the Spanish Netherlands,
Denmark and Norway adopted the Gregorian Calendar; 1877
Thomas Edison patented the Phonograph; 1890 Hunkpapa-Sioux
Chief Sitting Bull was killed by the US Army at Little Big Horn;
1891
Canadian James Naismith invanted basketball; 1939
World Premiere of "Gone With The Wind" in Atlanta, Georgia; 1944
Congress gave General Eisenhower his fifth star; 1952
Christine Jorgenson was the first person to undergo a sex change
operation; 1964 Canada adopted the maple leaf flag; 1966
Walt Disney died at 65; 1967 the Beatles released "Christmas
Time is Here Again"; 1973 the American Phsychiatric
Association declared that homosexuality is not a mental illness;
1985
Sylvester Stallone and Brigitte Nielson were married;
1990
Rod Stewart and Rachel Hunter were married; 1995
Playboy goes back on sale in Ireland after 36 year ban; 1997
Walt Disney’s widow, Lillian Disney died at 98;

Born today were: in 1832 French engineer Alexandre-Gustave
Eiffel; 1882 cosmetics manufacturer Helena Rubenstein;
1892
oil magnate J. Paul Getty; 1906 novelist Betty Smith
(A Tree Grows in Brooklyn); 1933 comedian Tim Conway; 1939
vocalist Cindy Birdsong (Supremes); 1942 drummer Dave Clark
(Dave Clark 5); 1949 actor Don Johnson; 1951 Scottish
soccer player Joe Jordan; 1959 cricketer Rashid Khan; 1963
actress Helen Slater; 1968 actor Garrett Wang (Star Trek
Voyager);

 

 




Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!


 



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