Thursday, March 28, 2024

Goodies To Go! Newsletter #351


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Goodies to Go ™
August 23, 2005 — Newsletter # 351
 
This newsletter is part of the internet.com
network.
http://www.internet.com
 

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Featured this week:
 
*   Goodies Thoughts – Truly Mobile Phone

*   Q & A Goodies
*   News Goodies
*   Feedback Goodies
*   Windows Tech Goodie of the Week 
*   And Remember This…
 
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Truly Mobile Phone
 
One of the great advantages of web design, if you can make a career of it,
is that it really doesn’t need you to be at any particular geographic
location.  At one point I would say that I could work anywhere, but I have
some very literal friends.  I then changed to say that I was constrained to
the Earth.  I now say I have to be on Earth’s surface, or close to it, or in
the International Space Station.  That seems to satisfy them!
 
If my livelihood is derived from web work and other Internet based
activities I can enjoy a lot more freedom than most other careers would
normally provide.  I can, for example, grab my notebook computer with its
Verizon Wireless Broadband connection, forward my office phone to my cell
phone and head over to one of Florida’s beaches.  I find myself a nice shady
table and settle down for a day’s work, together with a smattering of the
usual beach enjoyment!
 
I carry spare batteries for both the phone and notebook, and using the
inverter in the car I can charge either should I need to.  During last
year’s hurricanes I also invested in a portable generator with a silenced
motor (which made it a whole lot more expensive than most generators, but to
me — definitely worth it!) which fits nicely in the back of my pickup and
can afford me a days electricity for anything I might need.  Freedom of
movement is wonderful!
 
As a human, I of course enjoy this freedom immensely, but want more!  I
would like to do the same thing, but substituting, say, a beach in Bulgaria
for the Florida beach.  I know of a lovely hotel on the Black Sea near Varna
with high speed Internet available, so I am set as far as that goes.  The
only trouble come with the phone.
 
My cell phone is a "global phone" as they call it, and works just fine in
Varna.  The trouble comes when the bill arrives!  Convenience is not cheap. 
If I was to conduct a few normal business days there even allowing for the
shortened day (due to time zone differences and overlapping) I could easily
spend more on the phone than on the hotel and air fare!  Technology to the
rescue.
 
A while ago I switched my home office phone and my home personal phone onto
Voice Over IP carriers.  This is where they provide telephone service
delivered to me over the Internet (IP being Internet Protocol.)  I have a
little box which connects to the Internet via a standard ethernet port and
talks to the VOIP carrier.  The unique identifier in the box tells the
carrier what phone number(s) to deliver to me.  The other side of the box
has ordinary phone jacks into which I can plug a standard (in my case US
standard) phone.  When somebody calls my number, my phone rings and we
chat.  The quality is outstanding, easily matching old-fashioned telco
phones — almost all of the time!  The better the quality of the Internet
connection, the better the quality of the call.
 
The real beauty of these little boxes is that they work the same way no
matter how, or where, they are connected to the Internet.  They do need
broadband, but given that they don’t care whether they are in Tampa, Daytona
or Varna.  Somebody calls, the phone rings and we chat.  They are calling my
normal number and the Internet brings it to me.  No long distance, no
roaming, no "Global Access" charges, just chat.  It is a truly mobile phone!
 
Now, armed with my mobile office, Varna — here I come!
 
 
 
 
 
Thanks for Reading!
 
 
 

– Vince Barnes
 
 
 
 
 
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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. Is is possible to place a cell that provides scrolling capabilities into
a specific location within a table?  I have information that I wish to place
in the cell, but do not want to enlarge the height of the page.
 
A. What you are looking for is an inline frame. The problem that you will to
look out for is that inline frames are only recognized by Internet Explorer
4.0 and above and I think Netscape 6 and above. Here is a tutorial on inline
frames:

http://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/inlineframes.html
 
 
 
.
 
Q. I am having trouble with using named parameters in JavaScript code.  For
example, in this simple mathematical code:
var number : integer = cos (30);
document.write (" the Cosine of 30 Degrees is " + number + " ")
This is where I’m trying to calculate the cosine of 30 degrees and have made
a rule that the "number" variable must always be an integer.  However, when
I attempt to run this code, I get the error message in Netscape: [missing
";" before statement] in the line of code "var number : integer = cos(30)".
I always get this type of message whenever I try to set any variable to
always be an integer or string.  What am I doing wrong?
 
A. Unlike other languages you cannot specify if a variable is a string or
integer in JavaScript.   Here is an example of how it would be done.
<hmtl>
<head>
<title>Test</title>
</head>
<body>
<script language="javascript">
  var number = Math.cos(30);
  document.write (" the Cosine of 30 Degrees is " + number + " ");
</script></body></html>
And here is link to a tutorial on the Math object:

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

    
Q. This code is supposed to display the date like this, Friday 1st August
2003, but instead of showing 1st, 2nd and 3rd, it displays 1th, 2th, 3th.
I’ve tried everything I can think of to fix the problem. What do you think?
<SCRIPT>
newdate = new Date()
var wday = newdate.getDay()
var day = newdate.getDate()
var month = newdate.getMonth()
var year = newdate.getYear()
if (day == 1)
 { var dayex = "st" }
if (day == 2)
 { var dayex = "nd" }
if (day == 3)
 { var dayex = "rd" }
 else
 { var dayex = "th" }
// End of day extension
if (month == 0)
 { var month = "January" }
if (month == 1)
 { var month = "Febuary" }
// above code repeats for month indexes 2-11
// End of months
if (wday == 0)
 { var wdayex = "Sunday" }
if (wday == 1)
 { var wdayex = "Monday" }
// above code repeats for day of week indexes 2-6
// End of week day
document.write(wdayex + " " + day + dayex + " " + month + " " + year)
</SCRIPT>
 
A. I would recommend that you leave it off.  You would have to either use
either a series of if statements to check each day of the month or do some
string manipulation to check the last digit of the day variable to determine
which extension to use.  As your code is currently written you will always
default to "th" if the day variable is anything other than "3".  That is
because this if statement:
if (day == 3)
 { var dayex = "rd" }
 else
 { var dayex = "th" }
says that if the day is not 3 then it sets the dayex variable to "th",
overriding your previous if statements.
[You could also initialize it to "th" then change it to "st", "nd" or "rd"
for values of 1, 2, 3, 21, 22, 23 or 31 – Ed.]
 
 
 
 

   
Q. I’m making a web page and for the menu I’m using a (menu.js) file to be
included into the page through javascript. However, this is not
working. I don’t know why because I’ve got it to work before. I’ve tested it
on geocities.com and also offline on my web browser.
(Another question, could the include file be in the form menu.txt or must it
be .js?)
Here’s the code:———-
menu.js
————
document.write("<ol>
<li><a href="i.intro.html">Introduction</a></li>
<li>Functions of the Nervous System</li>
<li>Components of the Nervous System</li>
<li>Comparison Between Humans and Other Organisms</li>
<li>Diseases that Affect the Nervous System</li>
<li>Interaction of the Nervous System with Other Body Systems</li>
<li>Conclusion</li>
<li>Bibliography</li>
<li>Glossary</li></ol>
<h2>Links According to Component</h2>
<ol><li>Neurons</li>
<li>Central Nervous System</li>
<li>Peripheral NervousSystem</li>
<li>Senses</li>
<ul><li>Sight</li><li>Hearing</li>
<li>Smell</li><li>Taste</li>
<li>Touch</li></ul></ol>");
————
i.intro.html
————
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"
"http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<meta name="author" content="Jeffrey Bridgman">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;
charset=shift_jis"<meta http-equiv="content-style-type"
content="text/css"<meta name="robots" content="none"<link
href="bio.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet"<title>The Nervous
System</title</head>
<body>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript"
src="include/menu.js"></script>
<p class="bnav">&lt; Home | Next &gt;</p>
</body>
</html>
 
A. I believe the problem is with the link you have in the document.write()
statement.  You cannot have double quotes within double quotes.  Change
those to single quotes and see if that works.  Like this:
<a href=’i.intro.html’>
 
 
 
 
 
Q. I was curious about shopping carts and wondering what type programming
was need to created these.
 
A.  Shopping carts are written in different languages and use different
technologies. You server type will determine what you can use and cannot
use. I use Active Server Pages(ASP) and for that I need to host on a Windows
server. A UNIX server will support PERL and PHP. There are JavaScript carts
but I have never used them. The shopping cart features will tell you if it
updates the product amount.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
News Goodies
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VoIP Equipment Overtakes Traditional Lines
[August 23, 2005] In-Stat’s research says cites comfort level with VoIP and
converging voice and data departments for the move from traditional
telephone networks to digital
Read the article:

http://www.internetnews.com/stats/article.php/3529481
 

Verizon, Yahoo To Offer Cut-Rate DSL
[August 23, 2005] The carrier and Internet portal will offer $14.95 service
to pressure dial-up and cable providers.
Read the article:

http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3529351
 

U.S. Ordered to Clarify Online Casino Rules
[August 23, 2005] Washington has until April to explain apparent
inconsistencies in online betting ban. 
Read the article:

http://www.internetnews.com/ec-news/article.php/3529386
 

Bells Tolling For Standalone Portal Plays?
[August 23, 2005] Analysts weigh in on BEA’s acquisition of Plumtree and the
market for standalone portal players.
Read the article:

http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3529511
 

Call for Vendor-Neutral E-Copyright
[August 22, 2005] Tim Berners-Lee speaks out against plan to require IE
browser to file electronic copyright.
Read the article:

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3529241
 

AMD Looks to Crash Intel’s Party
[August 23, 2005] Challenges market leader to a ‘Dual-core Duel.’
Read the article:

http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3529266
 

Trademarking Linux: Some Pay License Fee, Some Don’t
[August 22, 2005] UPDATED: Red Hat doesn’t pay the license, Novell claims it
does. Bruce Perens thinks all commercial distros should.
Read the article:

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3529246
 

WiMax Trials Spreading With Airspan
[August 23, 2005] The network gear maker teams with the U.K.’s first
commercial ISP for six months of testing.
Read the article:

http://www.internetnews.com/wireless/article.php/3529296
 

Microsoft Confirms Ship Date For VS 2005
[August 22, 2005] Redmond product team in bug triage mode as release date
nears. 
Read the article:

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3529226
 

IE Workarounds For Zero-Day Exploit
[August 22, 2005] A potential zero day issue emerges as Microsoft issues an
advisory about Msdds.dll that could cause IE to crash. 
Read the article:

http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3529086
 
 
 

 
 
 
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 helps 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 for all your feedback!
 
 
 
 
 

Windows Tech Goodie of the Week 
***********************************
 
SQL Server 2005 XQuery and XML-DML – Part 3
 
This article is the third and final installment of Alex Homer’s series
covering the new XML support in Microsoft SQL Server 2005. In it he covers
updating the contents of xml columns, comparing traditional XML update
techniques with XQuery, and using XQuery in a managed code stored procedure.
 
 

*** AND ***
 

Simple Web Log ASP.NET Sample Code
 
This is the ASP.NET version of our web logging script that will let you add
news links or other little entries to a section on a web page. The section
is displayed by including a text file in the page that displays the entries.
You add new entries to the include file by simply filling out a web form.
 
 

*** AND ***
 

Encrypting Sensitive Data in a Database
 
If you want to encrypt the contents of your tables, you’ll need to do it
yourself. There are a variety of techniques; the one we’ll be examining in
this article is how to use code in the .NET layer to encrypt the sensitive
data before writing it to SQL Server and how to decrypt it back to its
plain-text form when reading the encrypted content from SQL Server. Read on
to learn more!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
And Remember This …
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On this day in…
 
1913 Cars Allowed into Yosemite
 
This day in 1913 was the first day that automobiles were allowed into
Yosemite National Park in California.  Before that time visitors, who
usually arrived in the area by train, took stagecoach tours of the park. 
The National Park Service had to design a comprehensive, high quality park
raod system to accomodate the public motor traffic.  The date marked a
fundamental change in the Parks Service, as designers worked hard to create
an environmentally friendly system of raods that would "lie lightly on the
land".
 

Today was also the day that in: 1617 1st one-way streets were
established (London); 1833 Britain abolished slavery in colonies;
700,000 slaves freed; 1904 the automobile tire chain was patented;
1919
"Gasoline Alley" cartoon strip premiered (in Chicago Tribune);
1963
the Beatles released "She Loves You" in the UK; 1979 Bolshoi
Ballet dancer Alexander Godunov defected in NYC (apparently he was Godenov
for the US) (sorry!); 
 
Born today were: in 1754 Louis XVI of France; 1912
dancer/actor Gene Kelly; 1913 orchestra leader (brother to Bing) Bob
Crosby; 1930 actress Vera Miles; 1934 actress Barbara Eden (&
how many of us dreamt of Jeannie?!); 1940 actor Richard Sanders;
1947
musician Keith Moon; 1949 actress Shelley Long; 1951
Queen Noor of Jordan; 1970 actor River Phoenix;
 

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