Friday, March 29, 2024

Goodies to Go! Newsletter #315

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

 


Featured this week:

* Goodies Thoughts – The Ruler of the
Web

* 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 – The Ruler of the Web


I have talked before 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 that 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 the Golden Rules piece 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


Don’t Fear ‘OracleSoft’ Say Analysts
[December 13, 2004] UPDATE: Enterprises begin weighing the
pros and cons of Oracle’s J2EE database.

Click
here to read the article

 

More Open Source for Sun in 2005
[December 13, 2004] Solaris will be first, followed by other enterprise
applications, company execs said.

Click
here to read the article

 

 

 


JBoss Has Visions of JEMS

[December 10, 2004] The professional open source company wants
to be seen as more than just an app server company.

Click here to read the article

 

 

 

Networking, Security Integration Reaches ‘TippingPoint’

[December 13, 2004] Network equipment maker 3Com pays $430M
for intrusion prevention specialist TippingPoint in the
latest cross-sector deal.

Click here to read the article
 

 

 

Postini Extends E-Mail Boundaries
[December 13, 2004] Transport Layer Security service implementation claims
to be world’s largest

Click here to read the article

 

 

 

Centurion Swaps Education for Enterprise
[December 10, 2004] The company tries a different market with its latest
management and protection goods.

Click here to read the article

 

 



AOL to Restore Dropped Screen Names

[December 13, 2004] The company expects to reinstate 10,000 IM users by
end of the day.

Click here to read the article

 

 

 

If You’re Thinking of Online Shopping in NY, Nigeria…

[December 10, 2004] New York City and Nigeria top online retailers’ lists of
problem spots.

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:
 

A Look at WebCharts, a Free .NET Charting Control


Recently I discovered a free .NET charting tool from
Microsoft employee Carlos Aguilar Mares called WebChart.
This article provides a quick overview of WebChart,
demonstrating how to use it in an ASP.NET Web application.



http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/120804-1.aspx

 

 

*** AND ***

Server-Side Printing to a Networked Printer from ASP


A while back I wrote "Server-Side Printing from ASP" which
explained how to print plain text to a printer directly
connected to your web server. Since then, I’ve received
quite a few email from people looking to accomplish the same
task on a networked printer.



http://www.asp101.com/articles/john/serversideprint/network.asp

 

 

 

*** AND ***

Designing Role-Based Security Models for .NET


In this article, Michele Leroux Bustamante discusses
authentication, authorization and role-based security in
.NET. Along the way, he provides some best practices for
implementing role-based security in some typical .NET
application scenarios including rich clients, Web
applications, and Web services.


http://www.15seconds.com/issue/041208.htm

 

 

 

Top


 

 

 

 
And Remember This . . .

On this day in…
 

1989 Leona Helmsley Sentenced to Jail

Known as the "Queen of Mean" for the terrible way she treated
employees and vendors and the way she looked down on anybody less
wealthy than herself, Leona Helmsley was sentences to four years in
prison, 750 hours of community service and ordered to pay a $7.1
million for tax fraud. She became particularly disliked by the
public after quipping "only the little people pay taxes." Among her
tax offences, she had written off personal furniture as a business
expense, and had the empty boxes from hundreds of thousands of
dollars worth of purchases shipped from New York to Connecticut to
avoid the sales taxes. In his public reprimand, Federal Judge John
Walker said ""Your conduct was the product of naked greed [and] the
arrogant belief that you were above the law."

Today was also the day that in: 1577 Sir Francis Drake set
sail from England on a three year trip around the world; 1642
Dutch navigator Abel Tasman discovered New Zealand; 1774 400
attack Fort William and Mary in New Hampshire, starting the American
Revolution; 1843 Charles Dickens’ "A Christmas Carol" was
first published; 1903 Italo Marcioni of New Jersey received a
patent for the ice cream cone; 1903 the Wright Brothers
achieve the first successful flight, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina;
1920 the League of nations established the International
Court of Justice in The Hague; 1938 Los Angeles froze with a
temperature of 28F; 1951 Future British PM Margaret Roberts
Thatcher married Denis Thatcher; 1969 Arlo Guthrie released
"Alice’s Restaurant"; 1975 with Richard Prior hosting,
Saturday Night Live used a time delay for the first time; 1978
the first US coin to honor a woman, the "Susan B Anthony" dollar
was released; 1983 Martha Layne Collins was inaugurated as
Kentucky’s first female Governor; 1993 was the deadline for
the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Gaza — they didn’t; 1995
US Federal Court voted that cable companies in the US must carry
local stations;

Born today were: in 1818 first lady Mary Todd Lincoln;
1819
composer Edwin George Monk; 1835 composer (Little
Town of Bethlehem) Bishop Phillip Brooks; 1900 actor Norman
Foster; 1903 guitarist Carlos Montoya; 1906
soldier/explorer/conservationist Laurens jan van der Post; 1910
actress Lillian Roth; 1914 actor Samuel "Larry" K Parks;
1920
actor Dick van Dyke; 1929 actor Christopher Plummer;
1930 actress Genevieve Page; 1948 musician Ted Nugent;
1948 actress Kathy Garver; 1950 actress Wendie Malick;
1951 English actor Robert Lindsay; 1967 comedian Jamie
Foxx; 1973 actress Christie Clark;

 

 



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