Thursday, March 28, 2024

February 18, 2002– Newsletter #168


Goodies to Go ™
February 18, 2002–Newsletter #168

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


 
Announcement Goodies

Have you ever wanted to be an author?
Well, this may be your chance. We are looking for some beginning level articles
on ASP, Perl, PHP, Java and XML. In an effort to provide our readers with a
taste of other technologies we are looking for introductory articles to be
published later this spring.

If you have a short or multi-part article that you think would be of benefit to
beginning level web developers and designers then email us at
articles@HTMLGoodies.com.

 

 

Goodies Thoughts – So Much to Learn!

With the constant flow of new
technologies, updating your skills and learning new technologies can be a very
ominous task. The cornucopia of technologies can be even more intimidating to
someone that is just starting out. Where to begin?

Do I buy a bunch of books? Do I sign up for some college courses? Do I access
some web-based resources? Do I get professional training? What about web-based
training? Do I attend some technology related seminars? Do I join a user’s
group?

Yes.

All of the resources above will get you started and/or help you to better your
skills. Do you need to do all of that to learn? No,  not really. Everyone
learns in different ways at different rates. Choosing what’s best for you and
making the time to actually use the technology is the key.

So, what books should I buy? Well, books are a must with almost any technology.
I usually have at least 3 or 4 books on every technology that I use. I generally
purchase a couple of tutorial style books that walk you through learning the
technology. I will also always purchase a good reference book that I can use to
research the weird errors and problems that I inevitably find. There are a
wealth of tutorial style books available that will help you learn any technology
over the course of a day, a weekend, a week or whatever you like. As for the
reference books, I tend to lean toward the Wrox books (those are the ones with
the red covers) and some of the IDG series of Bible books.

So, what about college courses? College courses can be great for two reasons.
You get college credit for spending the time and effort. You get access to the
immense amount of college resources, i.e. computers, libraries and faculty. The
only drawbacks would be the cost and time it takes to complete the necessary
course(s). Many people simply don’t have the luxury of waiting an entire year or
two to get up to speed on some technologies.

Do I access web-based resources? Absolutely. There is a staggering amount of
information available on the internet. Take advantage of it but make sure you
test what you learn. As you know, just because it’s on the internet doesn’t
necessarily make it true or correct.

Do I get professional training? Professional training is often the quickest way
to learn about a technology. It is an intensive and focused way to learn. It has
one major drawback, however, it is usually insanely expensive. Many one week
intensive training courses can cost you upwards of $2,000 or more.

What about web-based training? This can be a good alternative to attending a
traditional professional training course. Web-based training courses are
typically presented in a couple of different ways. They can be implemented like
a sort of internet correspondence course allowing you to read lessons, do
exercises and email questions. They can also be in the form of a webcast which
is like watching a speaker at a conference. You will usually see slides and hear
live or recorded audio from the speaker. Generally, the biggest drawback to this
type of learning approach is the lack of interactivity with an instructor. This
type of training will definitely cost a lot less than your traditional
professional training, though.

Do I attend some technology related seminars? Technology seminars are a great
source for learning about new and upcoming technologies. They can also be a
great help for someone trying to decide what technologies to pursue. You will
definitely get a broad range of input and ideas from these events but, like
traditional training, technology shows and seminars can be quite cost
prohibitive.

Do I join a user’s group? User groups are probably one of the best resources for
developers. They provide a forum for developers to get together and discuss
technologies. User groups can range from general computer clubs that cover the
whole spectrum of computer technologies to groups that cover very specific
technologies. For example, I am helping to build a .NET user’s group in
Indianapolis. Most user groups are centered in larger cities so you might want
to start there and see what’s available in your area.

Just remember to take some time to see what technologies spark your interest and
then jump on in. If you are serious about becoming a professional developer you
may want to consider specializing in only a few related technologies. With new
technologies coming out all of the time, you may find yourself being more
marketable as a expert in a few fields rather than a "jack of all trades".

Whatever you choose for your technologies and methods of learning, good luck! It
can be a lot of fun!

Thanks for reading!

 

Quiz Goodies

How do you create a form for users to
log-in? The form would have a text box for the username and a text box for the
password.

Q & A Goodies



Q. How do you put music on a
page?

 

A. If you are wanting to have
some background music play while your page is being displayed you can use the
BGSOUND tag like this:

  <BGSOUND SRC="filename.wav" LOOP="-1">

This allows you to designate a file to be played (SRC) in either .wav, .au or
.mid format. You can control the number of times the music or sound is played
with the LOOP attribute. To loop infinitely set LOOP equal to "-1" like in the
example above.

There are other attributes available to you as well, such as volume and balance
controls. Be careful, though, background sounds are an Internet Explorer thing
that won’t be available on other browsers.

If you simply want people to be able to listen to some music files that you have
on your web you can use a hyperlink tag. Keep in mind your viewers will need
some kind of audio software available on their computer that will recognize the
file format you are making available.

 

Q. I have a scrolling message
in a textbox and would like to have  larger text scrolling across the
screen. I have consulted several JavaScript books but none seem to be able to
provide any information. Can you help?

 

A. The easiest way I can think
of is to use the String method of JavaScript to do this. Below is an example
using the document.write function.

  <SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
    <!– Hide from non-compliant browsers

    var testString = "This is a test string";

    document.writeln(

   
testString.fontsize(12).fontcolor(‘red’).bold().italics());

    Stop Hiding –>
  </SCRIPT>

If you copy this script into an HTML document in the <HEAD> section,  you
can see the result is a 12pt, red, bold, italic font.

*** This question was submitted to our Mentor Community. The answer was provided
by Chris, one of our JavaScript Mentors.

 

Q. Do you know where I can get
statistics on how often certain web browsers and versions, screen resolutions
and color depths,
and plug-ins are being used by the general web surfing community?

This would help me a lot in deciding what tags to use in my web pages and what
media I can offer. Thanks for your time.

 

A. I’ll bet you are wondering
why you are reading the same question again this week. Well, that’s my fault. I
had narrowed down the questions for last week’s newsletter and chose a question
that was asking about web statistics on their site. However, when I did my cut
and paste I put the question above in instead.

So, here’s a much better answer to the question. Hopefully, some of you got some
useful information out of last month’s question anyway.

There are several sites that provide some statistics on different aspects of the
surfing community at large. They can make for some interesting reading and help
you determine how you may want to implement your designs. Here are a few of the
sites:

   

http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat.htm

   
http://www.internetstats.com/

   

http://www.mediametrix.com/landing.html

 

News Goodies

Alright, this one is a stretch, but
did you know that NYC is bidding for the 2012 Olympic Games and they have
brought on a Silicon Alley venture capitalist to help promote the city?


Click here to read the article

 

Running a support center can be a
very expensive proposition for a business. Read about an upstart company that is
using new VXML technology to automate support systems.


Click here to read the article

 

Another .com bites the dust. This
time it is the online movie store BigStar.


Click here to read the article

Quiz Answer

This is actually a very simple form.
Coding the action after the user has entered the information is what can become
difficult.

Here is the form in its simplest state:

  <FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION="process.asp">
    <P>Username: <INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="username"

    SIZE="20"></P>
    <P>Password: <INPUT TYPE="password" NAME="password"

    size="20"></P>
    <P><INPUT TYPE="submit" VALUE="Login" NAME="submit">
    <INPUT TYPE="reset" VALUE="Reset" NAME="reset"></P>
  </FORM>

You can use 2 text boxes for the user’s input. The first is a standard text box
with the TYPE set to "text". The second text box is for the password, so the
TYPE is set to "password" which will mask the user’s input as it is typed.

The rest is just your standard form. Many developers will set the action to call
a special page to verify the user’s name and password. In the example above the
form calls an ASP page called "process" that contains the custom script for
verification.

 

And Remember This . . .

Did you know that America’s Uncle Sam
was actually a real person?

Samuel Wilson (a.k.a. Uncle Sam) was meat packer and politician from upstate New
York. He got his nickname during the War of 1812 when he stamped boxes of beef
and pork for the United States soldiers with a "U.S." Since U.S. was not an
abbreviation used at the time, jokes were made that U.S. stood for Uncle Sam and
the name stuck.

From the stamp the joke grew to encompass all government issued supplies and
some soldiers even began referring to themselves as "Uncle Sam’s men".

In 1820, the first cartoon of Uncle Sam appeared in a New England newspaper. At
the time he was clean shaven and wore a black top hat and tailcoat. Through the
years he has evolved into the red, white and blue character that we know today.



Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!



 



 

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