Friday, March 29, 2024

Goodies to Go! Newsletter #313


Goodies to Go ™
November 29, 2004 — Newsletter # 313

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


Featured this week:

* Goodies Thoughts – Easy Does It, Every
Time

* Q & A Goodies
* News Goodies
* 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 – Easy Does It, Every Time


One of my favorite notions, when it comes to the world of
programming and web page building, is the idea of being my own best friend. I’ve
talked about it many times in different contexts, and today I’m talking about it
again, this time inspired by another personal experience that made me smile at
myself.

Last week I talked about the Thanksgiving holiday that we celebrated here in the
US last Thursday and I mentioned that it is a family event. That being so, we
elected to visit family at the other end of this rather large nation, and
because of everything we wanted to take with us, we chose to drive. This put us
on the road for many, many hours in each direction.

As Murphy’s law would have it, when we were just about in the center of nowhere,
a call came in on my cell phone from a client. "I forgot to mention this
earlier," he apologized, "but we need you to make a change on our site. Since
I’m late telling you, it’s now an emergency. Can you take care of it right now?
I’m sure that you can — can’t you?"

Despite all popular sayings to the contrary, a lack of planning on the client’s
part does indeed constitute an emergency on my part! But this is where my own
planning makes me my own best friend.

The site in question doesn’t really need anything fancy, in terms of Flash,
major graphics or the like. This site is for selling products. Since it’s not
entirely necessary, I avoid it like the plague. The essentials are: easy
navigation, a short path (minimum clicks) from start to the desired product; an
accurate, brief, easy to read description of the product with a simple picture
(photograph); a user friendly shopping cart and a short path to checkout. There
are no bells, whistles or fancy showcasing of my creative talents on this site!
The site showcases the product it is intended to sell, and that’s it.

All this simplicity makes the site easy to use, but it also makes it very easy
to maintain. Since there is nothing particularly fancy required in the site,
there is no need for an extensive or fancy software toolset to maintain it.
Since it’s hosted on a Windows platform with the FrontPage Extensions installed,
I can "Open" the website with FrontPage, live on the server and make the changes
directly into it. I don’t need a local copy f the pages to be changed before I
start making the changes.

I keep my laptop lean and mean — there’s no data kept in it. I don’t need it.
With my Sierra card (110K average access – not too shabby), with my wife driving
and with FrontPage, my "emergency" was taken care of in about twenty-five
minutes. One cell phone call and my client was a happy camper! "I knew you would
be able to do it," he said, which tells me he won’t plan any better next time
either!

I’m a big fan of simplicity and the "KISS" principle, especially when it comes
to websites. This story is an example of why.

 

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.
How do I lose the blue line that appears round an image when I make it a
link?

A. In the IMG SRC tag add this:
border="0"

Q. Is there any way to place text on top of pictures?

A. Here is the link to see how that’s done:



http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/textonimages.html

Q. I am constantly creating files (pdf or word) files that I need to show
to many co-workers. Instead of having to email everyone everytime I finish a
file, I would like to upload the file to my server and have them view the list
of files online and download the ones they want. These files need to be password
protected as different people in different departments should only see files
pertaining to them. Here was my idea, create a bunch of password protected
folders on a server – one for each department, and I will upload the file to any
folder that should be allowed to view these files. Two questions: 1) I put the
files in a folder, but when I try to view the folder in a browser it tells me I
don’t have permission to access this folder (I assume because I never created an
index file). How can I set it up that I should be able to view a list of files
that are in the folder? 2) how can I create a page that will allow me to upload
files to folders using a browser?

A. I believe you are correct in that you do not have an INDEX file for
the server to show when you try to access the folder. You could create an INDEX
file with the links to the documents for downloading. I am assuming that you
have already password protected the folder? An even easier way would be to use a
password log in feature for your pages. The application would allow users to
sign up themselves and you would control which group the user should be in and
only the documents or files you allow each group or person to view. There is a
nice web application called ASPLogin. It has to run on a server that supports
ASP. For example, to make a document available to all users in a group called
‘management’, members of a group called ‘administrators’ and a user called ‘fred’
(who may or may not be in either of the groups), you would add the following
code to the top of the document:
<%@ LANGUAGE=VBScript %>
<%
Set asplObj=Server.CreateObject("ASPL.Login")
asplObj.Group("management")
asplObj.Group("administrators")
asplObj.User("Fred")
asplObj.Protect
Set asplObj=Nothing
%>
Any other group or person trying to see that document will not be allowed to see
it. It is a pretty slick application You can take a look here:
http://www.asplogin.com

To create a page to allow you to upload documents would call for some scripting.
This all depends on what type of server you site is hosted on. If it is a
Windows server then it will support Active Server Pages (ASP).

Q. In JavaScript Primer 28, the script does not work with my browser,
Internet Explorer 6.0. I believe that it has to do with nesting loops within
loops, but I am not sure. There is a note that some Internet Explorer browsers
will not display the code. What part of the JavaScript code is not working?

A. Not sure why it does not work in IE, but here is a modified version
that works using the setTimeout method to control the fliping of images.
<html><head>
<script type="text/javascript">
var num=1 img1 = new Image (150,150)
img1.src = "0.gif" img2 = new Image (150,150)
img2.src = "1.gif" img3 = new Image (150,150)
img3.src = "2.gif"
function startshow()
{
num=num+1
if(num<4)
{
document.mypic.src=eval(‘img’+num+’.src’)
anim=setTimeout(‘startshow()’,3000)
}
else
{
num=0
clearTimeout(anim)
document.mypic.src=img1.src
}
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<center>
<img src="0.gif" name="mypic" border=0 alt="My Image">
<br>
<a href="JavaScript:startshow()">Display animation</a> </center> </body> </html>
Also here is a brief explanation of setTimeout:
setTimeout, a method of the window object, basically delays the execution of a
function or statement until the specified time has passed. The basic syntax of
this function is:
setTimeout("expression", delaytime)
"expression" is the function/statement you want delayed, and delaytime is the
delay time, in milliseconds.
I also use clearTimeout to stop the animation once it reaches the end of the
images array.

.

Q. I am looking for a code to use to swap an image to the homepage each
time the page is reloaded.

A. Here are some links to some scripts that might do the trick.



http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/cut118.shtml


http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/cut144.shtml

 

 

 

 

Top

News Goodies


SBC, FCC Joust Over VoIP Tariff
[November 29, 2004] The regional telecom responds to
comments made by FCC Chairman Michael Powell.

Click
here to read the article

 

Sun Eyes SevenSpace for Outsourcing
[November 29, 2004] The cash acquisition aims to help Sun’s managed services
offerings support rival systems.

Click
here to read the article

 

 

 


New Browser Flaw Out

[November 29, 2004] And for once, Internet Explorer isn’t the
only vulnerable one.

Click here to read the article

 

 

 

SCO Site Cracked
[November 29, 2004] UPDATED: The company was hit twice over
the holiday weekend, though these attacks were a bit more
subtle.

Click here to read the article
 

 

 

Big Blue Opens Doors to Real-Time Software
[November 29, 2004] IBM’s new technology center is designed to help
customers wrap their fingers around autonomic computing.

Click here to read the article

 

 

 

A Sun Ray in Every Home?
[November 29, 2004] Sun looks to enterprise customers to fill out its
desktop vision on the consumer side.

Click here to read the article

 

 



RSS: Feed Me the Money
[November 26, 2004] XML syndication strips ads from online content. For
self-supporting bloggers, that’s a problem.

Click here to read the article

 

 

 

Oracle Stages a Proxy War
[November 25, 2004] The company gears up for a March battle as it eyes four
alternatives to replace a stubborn PeopleSoft board.

Click here to read the article


 

 

Marqui Product Placement in Blogs
[November 24, 2004] The communications service provider reaches out to
bloggers trying to support themselves.

Click here to read the article

 

 

 


Brits Get Replacements for Phony XP

[November 24, 2004] Microsoft UK takes a new step in piracy
fight.

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/

Thanks again for all your feedback!
 

 

Top


 


Windows Tech Goodie of the Week:
 

Database Edit ASP.NET Sample


http://www.asp101.com/samples/db_edit_aspx.asp

This sample shows you how to use the ASP.NET DataGrid’s
built in editing capabilities to edit records in a database.
It also includes some basic Try…Catch…Finally style
error handling to prevent people from entering text into the
integer fields and vice versa.

 

 


 

Top


 

 

 

 
And Remember This . . .

On this day in…
 

1948 Australia’s First Car Unveiled

With Australia’s Prime Minister Ben Chifley among the 1,200 or so in
attendance, the first car manufactured entirely in Australia was
unveiled on this day in 1948. Although its official designation was
the 48-215, it was known as the Holden FX. General Motors – Holden
Automotive had accepted the Australian government’s 1945 challenge
for Australian auto parts makers to produce an all-Australian car.
The FX was their response, and proved to be a great success, selling
over 100,000 cars in the first five years of production. General
Motors Holden Automotive produced several more very successful
models, including the Torana and Commodore, enabling their Lion and
Stone emblem to be exported around the world, as well as selling
well at home. In 1994 the company officially adopted "Holden" as its
company name. Their success continues today.

Today was also the day that in: 1877 Thomas Edison
demonstrated the phonograph; 1916 the US declared marshal law
in the Dominican Republic; 1944 John Hopkins hospital
performed the first open heart surgery; 1945 the Yugoslavian
monarchy was abolished as the country declared itself a republic;
1947
the UN general assembly partitioned Palestine between Arabs
and Jews; 1951 First underground atomic explosion, at
Frenchman Flat, Nevada; 1961 Mercury-Atlas rocket carried a
chimp ("Enos") into orbit; 1963 The Beatles released "I Want
to Hold Your Hand"; 1964 the Roman Catholic Church in the US
replaced Latin with English; 1968 John & Yoko Lennon released
their first album "Two Virgins" in the UK; 1971 the first pro
golf championship at Walt Disney World in Orlando Florida; 1987
Korean Air Boeing 707 en route to Seoul disappeared off Burma, 115
on board were all lost; 1994 Russia bombed Grozny, the
capitol of Chechnya;

Born today were: in 1803 color shift discoverer Christian
Doppler (Doppler Effect); 1832 author Louisa May Alcott
(Little Women); 1849 English diode inventor Sir Ambrose
Flemming; 1932 actress Diane Ladd; 1933 author Dr.
David Reuben; 1933 blues singer John Mayall; 1940 jazz
musician Chuck Mangione; 1949 comedian Gary Chandling;
1955
Canadian comedian Howie Mandel; 1959 actor Charles
Grant; 1960 actress Cathy Moriarty; 1961 actress Kim
Delaney; 1963 actor Andrew McCarthy; 1968 musician
Jonathan Raleigh Knight;

 




Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!


 



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