Friday, March 29, 2024

Goodies To Go! Newsletter #352


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Goodies to Go ™

              
August 30, 2005 — Newsletter # 352

 

     This newsletter is part of
the internet.com network.

                 
http://www.internet.com

 

          Please visit http://www.htmlgoodies.com

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A Note about Email Filtering:
All Goodies To Go
newsletters are sent from the domain “internet.com.”  Please use this
domain name (not the entire “from” address, which varies) when configuring
e-mail or spam filter rules, if you use them.

 


Featured this week:

 

*   Goodies Thoughts – MIS IS IT
*   Q & A
Goodies
*   News Goodies
*   Feedback Goodies

*   Windows Tech Goodie of the Week 
*   And
Remember This…

 

MIS IS IT

 

Oh! How we love our acronyms!  In the days of yore, the people in the
computer department within a company used to call themselves the DP (Data
Processing) or EDP (Electronic DP) department.  After a while, however,
they became bored with those acronyms and decided to create some new ones.

 

Along came Management Information Systems, MIS, and then just Information
Systems, IS, and of course Information Technology, IT.  MIS is my favorite,
simply because it’s the easiest to play with!  For example, there is on
excellent training organization whose name is the MIS Training Institute. 
In fact, they really do have top quality training classes, but I just love that
name — I presume that having taken a mis-training class one would be more
mis-informed.

 

Another example of the use of this excellent to play with acronym is
provided by the Clerk of Courts in Polk County Florida, who provides a public
records search facility with a section that requires a login because it is for
mis-use only!  See for yourself: go to http://www.polkcountyclerk.net click
on “Public Records” and look at the bottom of the page.

 

Information Systems is not bad, except that it’s “is”.  Both words are
needed because if one used only the first, people would come up with all sorts
of questions, and if only the second, they may expect missiles or hot
water.

 

Information Technology is it (pun intended, of course!)  However, in
this case the first word may well be redundant.  Convergence is bringing
telephony, teleconferencing and security to the world of IP (Internet Protocol),
which travels over the network, which is under the auspices of IT. 
Photocopiers are also printers and scanners.  Everything is being sucked in
to the one black hole!  Why not simply call it the “Technology
Department”?

 

Much as I like this idea, it’ll never happen.  And why not? 
Because:
“Where do you work?”
“In T.”
It’s just not a satisfying as
IT.

 


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/

 


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

X                       
X
X   Please take note:    X

X                       
X
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We have had a number of people indicate that their email client programs
are interpreting code examples in this newsletter as actual HTML code instead of
text.  To overcome this problem and to enable everyone to read the
newsletter, there is a period after the “<” in each tag.  If you cut and
paste to try out code examples, please remember to remove the periods. 
Wherever we intend you to use “<.” in your code, the example will show
“<..”.  In this way, you will be safely able to use a global edit to
change “<.” to “<“.  Thanks to all of you for your patience with
this; if this technique creates an undue problem for you however, please let us
know via our feedback address (see Feedback, below).

 


*** This question was submitted to our Mentor
Community.
    The answer was provided by one of our Mentor
Volunteers

 

Q. I am fairly new to website design and need to design a site in FrontPage
2002 to sell a book. The book will be sent as an e-mail attachment after
customer has paid through our merchant account.  The order form when the
website is set up will go through to our bank merchant account on a secure
server and the e-mail should be automatically attached.  Could you direct
me to a tutorial somewhere that gives me information on how to do this?

 

A. I would buy a pre-bulit e-commerce application to handle this for you.
There are many out there, but it depends on what your server will support. I use
Active Server Pages(ASP). It runs on Windows servers. I also use a shopping cart
called VASP (www.vasp.com) and it handles
exactly what you are looking for. Others do also but I am familiar with that one
and can tell you that it is a very nice cart for the money. Another I would
suggest and is a bit cheaper is ClickCart(http://www.clicktech.com). This one I
believe handles eBooks but I am not 100% sure. Send an email to the Leo, the
owner and I am sure he can answer your questions.
 

 


*** This question was submitted to our Mentor
Community.
    The answer was provided by one of our Mentor
Volunteers
    
Q. I’m making a website with a
“fixed” background.  I can’t figure out how to make the picture fit the
browser perfectly on everybody’s system.  Is there a code I can place
inside my document to alter the fixed background to fit the browser?  My
site content will go into a smaller screen/box within the background so there is
no need for scrollers on my outside browser and my background image doesn’t need
to be tiled because it basically is my site.

 

A. You can use Cascading Style Sheets to fix a background image. The code
would have to be edited for your particular situation and image but here is the
code:
<.style type=”text/css”>
body {
background-image:
url(“/images/your_image_name.gif”);
background-repeat:
no-repeat;
background-attachment: fixed
}
<./style>

 

 

 


*** This question was submitted to our Mentor
Community.
    The answer was provided by one of our Mentor
Volunteers
    
Q. I am trying to figure out how to
make a check box on an HTML form checked by default.

 

A. If you want a check box to be checked when the page opens you can do it
without JavaScript like this:
<.input type=”checkbox” id=”ckbox”
checked>
With JavaScript you can set the checked property to true when the
page loads like this:
<.script type=”text/javascript”>
 
document.form_name.check_box_name.checked=true
<./script>
The above
will work if there is only one checkbox.  If you have multiple checkbox’s
with the same name then you have to specify itslocation in the array like
this:
<.script type=”text/javascript”>
 
document.form_name.check_box_name[0].checked=true
<./script>
The
above would set the first checkbox’s checked property to true.

 

 

 

 

 

*** This question was submitted to our Mentor
Community.
    The answer was provided by one of our Mentor
Volunteers

 

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.sun.com/software/chilisoft/index.xml

 

 

 


*** This question was submitted to our Mentor
Community.
    The answer was provided by one of our Mentor
Volunteers

 

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.

 

 

 


*** This question was submitted to our Mentor
Community.
    The answer was provided by one of our Mentor
Volunteers

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


News Goodies
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Katrina’s Path Wends Through Web
[August 30, 2005] The Internet is
giving the world a front-row seat into a powerful storm as it unfolds, and how
the gulf region is coping.
Read the article:
http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3531021

 


IBM Driving Efficiency For Cars
[August 30, 2005] Big Blue puts its
next-generation search technology in a software package for the automotive
sector.
Read the article:
http://www.internetnews.com/ent-news/article.php/3530931

 


Zotob Writer Had Busy Summer
[August 30, 2005] The ‘signature’ of
the alleged virus writer has been detected in more than half of August’s top 10
viruses, a security firm says. 
Read the article:
http://www.internetnews.com/security/article.php/3531056

 


NextWeb Makes Next Move
[August 30, 2005] The fixed-wireless ISP
snaps up a rival to enhance its California coverage.
Read the article:
http://www.internetnews.com/wireless/article.php/3531041

 


QLogic Dumps Drive Biz for $225M
[August 30, 2005] The storage
component maker sheds its hard and tape drive business to Marvell, opting to
focus on selling SAN gear.
Read the article:
http://www.internetnews.com/storage/article.php/3531001

 


L.A. Cracks Internet Warez Ring
[August 30, 2005] Dealer faces up to
three years in prison in California’s first criminal file-sharing case.
Read
the article:
http://www.internetnews.com/xSP/article.php/3531106

 


Stocks Stage Reversal
[August 29, 2005] Tech stocks led the way
higher Monday after Hurricane Katrina appeared to do less damage than feared.

Read the article:
http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3530891

 


WinFS File System Moves to Beta 1
[August 29, 2005] Microsoft
delivers a complete test version of its next generation file system months
earlier than expected.
Read the article:
http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3530831

 


VZ Wireless Slashes Broadband Price
[August 29, 2005] The carrier
hopes to entice voice subscribers to add data.
Read the article:
http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3530751

 


Intelsat Buying PanAmSat For $3.2 Billion
[August 29, 2005] Combined
satellite fleets expected to focus on advanced digital communications. 

Read the article:
http://www.internetnews.com/infra/article.php/3530771

 

 

 


 
 
 
Feedback Goodies

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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:

 


 

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 

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Performance Monitoring in SharePoint Portal Server 2003

 


 

This article helps you identify which are the critical performance counters
in a SharePoint Portal Server environment and explains how to monitor
them.
By monitoring performance regularly, organizations can recognize
performance trends as they develop and prevent problems before they get out of
hand.

 


*** AND ***

 


Stopping JavaScript Errors When Opening a LinkButton in a New Window

 


 

A previous article, Displaying Text in the Browser’s Status Bar When
Mousing Over a LinkButton, examined how to enhance the LinkButton control to
display custom text in the browser’s status bar when the link is moused
over.  In this article we’ll add additional code to the skmLinkButton
control examined previously so that it emits an href=”#” and the proper script
in the client-side onclick event.

 


*** AND ***

 


Database Multi-Sort ASP.NET Sample Code

 


 

This sample works just like a standard Database Sort sample except that it
adds the ability to sort by multiple fields just by clicking on the field
headings in sequence.  The script will sort on as many fields as you want
but it does remove duplicates to keep things logical.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


And Remember This …
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On this day in…

 

1983 First African American in space

 

With the launch of the space shuttle Challenger on this date in 1983, U.S.
Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Guion S. Bluford became the first African American
to travel into space. 
“Guy” Bluford was born in Philadelphia in 1942
and graduated from Penn State with a degree in aerospace engineering in
1964.  He got his wings as a pilot in the US Air Force in 1965 and flew 144
combat missions in Vietnam. In the 1970’s he received a master’s degree and
doctorate in aerospace engineering from the Air Force Institute of Technology
and was accepted into the U.S. astronaut program in 1979.  He was a mission
specialist on the 1983 mission (the eighth shuttle flight) and flew three more
shuttle missions after that one.

 


Today was also the day that in: Honolulu, Hawaii became a city; 1941
the Nazi’s Siege of Leningrad began; 1945 Hong Kong was liberated from Japan;
1961 JB Parsons was confirmed as the first African American US District Court
Judge; 1963 the White House – Kremlin hotline went into service; 1967 Thurgood
Mashall was confirmed as the first African American US Supreme Court Justice;
1979 President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a rabbit while on a canoe trip in
Plains, Georgia (US);  1989 Roman Polanski and actress Emanuelle Seigner
were married;

 

Born today were: in 1797 English author, creator of Frankenstein, Mary
Wollstonecraft Shelley; 1871 English physicist, discoverer of the nucleus of
atoms, Ernest Lord Rutherford; 1907 actor Fred MacMurray; 1909 actress Joan
Blondell; 1917 actress Julie Bishop; 1919 country singer Kitty Wells; 1927
clothing designer Geoffrey Beene; 1928 actor Bill Daily; 1935 singer John
Phillips; 1939 actress Elizabeth Ashley; 1950 actor John Landis; 1974 musician
(cousin to Jon Bon Jovi) Matt Bongiovi;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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