Thursday, March 28, 2024

Goodies to Go ™
September 15, 2003– Newsletter #250


Goodies to Go ™
September 15, 2003–Newsletter #250

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


Featured this week:

* Goodies Thoughts – Easy Photo Albums
* Q & A Goodies
* News Goodies
* Goodies Peer Reviews

* Feedback Goodies  
* And Remember This

 


 

Goodies Announcement

Just in case you missed
it before, 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 Photo Albums


When it comes to personal websites, one of the most popular
features you’ll find is the family photo album. And why not?! It makes absolute
sense. An album on the web can be seen by any member of the family, anywhere in
the world. We assume, of course, that they have access to the web — this is,
after all, the twenty-first century. Even folks without computers can usually
find a cafe or a library or even a friend where they can get access. If you’re
in Oshkosh Wisconsin updating your album and they’re in Yaounde Camaroon without
a computer, tell them to pop down to Ureds cafe or Ecotel cafe and check out
your pictures (how do I do that? — Google; they were the top two listed in the
Camaroon Cyber Cafe guide).

Another great thing (two things in fact) about web photo albums is that they can
be duplicated easily and they don’t deteriorate in time. We all know how to make
a back up of a web site — or if we don’t, maybe we should be learning really
quickly! Taking a book type album and making a couple of copies to keep in
different places is not so easy. Also, photos tend to fade and lose color over
time. They sell expensive, high grade paper and processing that can hold its
color much better, but usually only in professional labs. The processing and
printing you and I get will look purple and faded after a few years. Digital
pictures will look the same in a few years as they do now, maybe even better
with advances in printers, monitors and enhancement software.

On the down side, the process of building a web site out of folders full of
digital pics can be tedious. Even the most die-hard coding fan has been known to
turn a slight frown at the repetitive nature of the work involved. To make the
site workable requires resizing each picture, creating a thumbnail for it,
building index pages and linking them to each other and creating photo pages
with their links from the index pages. And don’t forget all the site navigation
to go along with it!

Want an inexpensive, easy way to do it all automatically? I thought so! While
one part of the fun of website building is the satisfaction that goes with
knowing how to do it all, there is also a lot of fun to be found in doing a lot
of it, easily and quickly! There are several products on the market that can
help you with this. Some have all sorts of sophisticated capabilities and
require extensive schooling just to understand their language — and of course,
they have a price tag to match. It’s in the "under fifty bucks" range that you
find the software we’re looking for. I did a couple of searches on the net and
found some solutions, including some shareware offerings. I’m a fan of the
principle of shareware, but when I am asked to make a recommendation, I tend to
look for the corporate support that goes along with a product that’s been on the
market for a while, with a viable business to back it up.

I wrote a review a while back about Jasc After Shot (see

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/toolbox/aftershot.html
) It has since changed its
name and has gone through a couple of releases. It is now known as Paint Shop
Photo Album 4, and right now its on sale at $38.00 for the download version (who
reads a manual anyway?!) Much of what I wrote still applies. It is still a very
easy to use and very capable product. For those of you that have been asking me
about such a tool, now’s the time to get it! A couple of the new features that
are very cool are the optimizer for emailing pictures and the video CD creator.
There are also lots of new retouching features.

If you don’t want to buy a commercial product at this time, try out some
searches for shareware offerings. There are some very smart programmers out
there.
 


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. I would like to add some simple password protection/security for a
couple pages I am creating that will contain some proprietary information
(directory) or to distribute material (formation lesson plans) yet not make them
available to the general public or visitors. Are there some simple security
techniques that you can recommend which would allow me to do this?

A. The easiest way to do this is to protect an entire folder. This way
you do not have to do any scripting for the protection. You will have to get
your host to set it up for you. Usually they offer this for free. They will then
give you access to a text file that you can change the password to the folder.
You can usually add as many passwords as you need by simply adding them to the
text file, saving it and then uploading it to the server.

Q. I’m having trouble with the css of my site navigation working across
both netscape and ie – this is what I have:
#leftmenu a {
padding : 2px ;
margin : 2px ;
margin-bottom : 0px ;
display : inline ;
line-height:17px;
width : 100% ;
font : 10px verdana ;
border : 1px solid #E6E6DC ;
text-decoration : none ;
}
#leftmenu a:hover {
color : #BCBCB2 ;
line-height: 17px;
border : 1px solid #BCBCB2;
font : 10px verdana ;
text-decoration : none ;
}
My site is at
http://www.fisherministries.com
  If you look at it in IE, it looks
fine, but in Netscape it doesn’t. Can I fix it?

A. Which version of Netscape are you viewing the site in? It looks like
it needs some minor tweaking to work in NN 6, but it’s probably not going to
work in NN 4.7 and lower (which has little CSS support).
You may want to experiment with tablesless layouts or try placing your
navigation menu in a list instead. A good resource for styling link lists is

http://www.alistapart.com/stories/taminglists/

Q. I would like to use CSS alone (no javascript) to put an image in the
background of a table element (td), and still be able to have text = appear over
the background image. I have been trying to find all references to
background-image, but most refer to body, and the others only replace text in a
td cell.=20 Can it be done?

A. The style for background images applies to most tags: body, p, div,
td, li, etc.
<table>
<tr>
<td style="background-image: url(image.gif);">
TEXT GOES HERE
</td>
</tr>
</table>
Alternately you can define the styles in an external style sheet: td {
background-image: url(image.gif); }
Two good resources for CSS are:

http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/

http://www.mako4css.com/

Q. I am looking for code that will allow me to transfer names across
different pages. If you could point me somewhere I would be grateful, thanks.

A. With JavaScript you can use cookies or pass the data through the URL
to the next page. Here are some links to tutorials that might help:

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/cookie.html


http://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/jspass.html


http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/send1.shtml


http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/cookie.shtml

 

 

 

 

Top

News Goodies


House Plans Wednesday Vote on Internet Tax Ban
[September 15, 2003] Legislation seeks to permanently extend
current temporary ban that expires on Nov. 1.

Click
here to read the article


 

White House Names Yoran as Cybersecurity Chief
[September 15, 2003] Bush selects Riptech co-founder and current Symantec
executive to implement administration’s National Strategy to Secure
Cyberspace.

Click here to read the article

 

 

PeopleSoft Showcases New Tools, Integration Plans
[September 15, 2003] Eager to draw attention away from Oracle’s
highly-publicized takeover attempt, the company shows off its joint J.D.
Edwards/PeopleSoft suite, EnterpriseOne.

Click here to read the article

 

 



Symbol Wins $23M ‘Wi-Fi’ Patent Suit
[September 15, 2003] A federal jury orders Proxim to shell out six
percent royalties on past sales of Proxim’s Open Air 802.11 and 802.11b
products.

Click here to read the article

 



 

Sony Ups Storage, IP E-Surveillance Ante
[September 15, 2003] The IP-based networked cameras provide economical
surveillance.

Click here to read the article

 

 

Motorola Enhances Set-Top Line
[September 15, 2003] The company licenses technology from Viaccess to help
cable and satellite operators offer pay-per-view and other services.

Click here to read the article

 

 

Microsoft Rings Up Partners For Smartphone
[September 15, 2003] The software giant looks to AT&T Wireless and Motorola
to make its GSM/GPRS smartphone dreams a reality in North America and
beyond.

Click here to read the article

 

 

Borland Targets C++ Developers with New Tools
[September 15, 2003] The software tools developer delivers a
development environment and application lifecycle management
suite for the C++ language; Borland claims strong support
from mobile apps developers.

Click here to read the article

 

Microsoft Launches Live Meeting, Boasts Office Integration
[September 15, 2003] The software giant debuts the latest iteration of the
PlaceWare Web conferencing service, now integrated with its Office System.

Click
here to read the article

 

 



IBM Launches RFID-Integration Tools
[September 15, 2003] Big Blue integrates data tracking tools into its
Websphere line of middleware as radio frequency tags start to catch on in
the nation’s supply chain.

Click here to read the article

 

 

 

 

 

 

Top


Goodies Peer Reviews


 

Every week a site selected each week 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/

I had a couple of email problems this past week, and along
the way I lost some of your feedback. I apologize, and ask
that if you sent me feedback last week, please resend it.

I am still getting notes about our changing email address.
The system we use generates a different "from" address as it
handles the (very large) number of address to which our
newsletters are sent. Some spam filters pick up theses
addresses as spam. If you can configure your filters to look
for the domain "internet.com" and always accept mail we
send, you will be able to get the newsletter through.
Unfortunately, when the Blaster worm hit recently, one of
its characteristics was to fake our address. Consequently it
has been added to a few spam lists. You should be able to
over-ride this in your software, however. It’s the price of
having such a famous address, I’m afraid!

Thanks again for all your feedback!

 


Windows Tech Goodie of the Week:

The Basics of .NET Tracing


http://www.asp101.com/articles/robert/tracing/default.asp

A standard debugging tactic when developing in ASP is to
use Response.Write statements to display troubleshooting
information to the screen. With ASP.NET this practice has
(thankfully) become obsolete as the result of a feature
called tracing.
 


 

 

Top
And Remember This . . .

On this day in…

1890 Agatha Christie Born
Mary Clarissa Agatha Miller, better known as Agatha
Christie, was born on this day in Torquay, Devon, England.
She got the Christie name from her husband, Colonel
Archibald Christie, upon their marriage in 1914. Agatha is
know as the Queen of Crime, not for bad social habits, but
for her prolific writing. Starting in 1920 with The
Mysterious Affair at Styles, she has penned 79 novels and
short story collections, creating amongst others, such
famous characters as Hercule Poirot and Miss Jane Marple of
St. Mary Mead. She also wrote over a dozen plays including
The Mousetrap, which opened in London on November 25, 1952,
and is now the longest continuously running play in
theatrical history. By the time she died, her books had sold
400 million copies in more than 100 languages. They continue
to be hot sellers.

Today was also the day that: in 1620 The Mayflower
sets sail from Plymouth England with 102 pilgrims on board;
1830 William Huskisson (England) became the first
person to be run over by a train; 1894 Japan beats
China at the Battle of Ping Yang; 1904 Wilbur Wright
makes his firts flight; 1916 the first tank was used
in a war – "Little Willies" at the Battle of Flers
Courcelette in the Somme, France; 1935 Nuremberg Laws
strip Jews of German Citizenship & adopt the Swastika as the
official Nazi symbol; 1949 The Lone Ranger premiers
on ABC-TV; 1961 Hurricane Carla hit Texas with 175
mph winds; 1965 "Lost in Space premiers; 1978
Muhammad Ali beats WBA Champ Leon Spinks; 1982 first
issue of USA Today published;

Born today were: in 53 the 13th Roman Emperor Trajan;
1789 author James Fenimore Cooper (1st major American
novelist); 1857 William Howard Taft (27th US
President); 1876 newspaper publisher Frank E. Gannett
(the Gannett Co. is the publisher of USA Today, btw);
1890
Dame Agatha Christie; 1904 King Umberto II
of Italy; 1907 actress Fay Wray (King Kong); 1916
actress Margaret Lockwood; 1927 comedian Norm
Crosby; 1946 film director Oliver Stone; 1946
actor Tommy Lee Jones; 1984 Prince Henry Charles
Albert David of Wales (3rd in succession to UK crown)




Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!


 



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