Goodies to Go ™
January 31, 2005 — Newsletter # 322
This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
Featured this week:
* Goodies Thoughts – The Right Info
* 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 Right Info
It bothers me to no end when people put out guff in the name of
"good information". I, myself, might put out a bunch of info that you don’t
necessarily agree with, but I put it out honestly, without the intent of
persuading you to buy my product or to send your business to someone who will
give me kick-backs, and I try to keep it balanced.
What’s raised my hackles this week is the amount of uninformed Microsoft
"bashing" that I have recently read.
Microsoft is big and thick skinned enough that they don’t need the likes of me
to defend them; neither is that my intent. It’s the "uninformed" part that gets
me.
For example, I read in one place the statement that "xyz OS is better than
Windows." A statement that broad cannot possibly be valid! Is a steak knife
better that a butter knife? Like the OS, it depends on what you want to use it
for! The "better" software is often the version with which the user is most
familiar. There’s no point in having software that can do wonderful things if
you have no idea how to make it do those things. Is a Rolls Royce better than a
Chevy? Not if affordability is your first criterion!
When comparing software (or hardware, come to that) it is important to first lay
out the circumstances for the comparison. What is its intended purpose? What
constraints are there on its application? Will training be required? Are there
fiscal requirements it must meet? Questions of this sort are essential for there
to be validity in the comparison.
"This is better than that" is nonsense and should be replaced with "under these
circumstances, and for this intended purpose, this is a better choice than
that."
Thanks for Reading!
– Vince Barnes
Q & A Goodies
Questions are taken from submissions to our Community Mentors. You can ask a Mentor a question by going to
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/mentors.
Q. I was looking thouroughly through the website, and could not find a
template or basic layout for a page. For example so I can have my main page
written on the right and a column on the left with links and such. And also how
I would make, or get different styles of these.
A. If you are looking for a template do a search in google for "web
templates". You will find a ton of sites that offer them. Some are even free.
Q. How do I get rid of the .html tag at the end of my site addresses so
that nobody has to type in the .html at the end. Currently on my site the
homepage works fine however, any other pages need the .html to make them come
up. Homepage: www.truckingnz.com An internal page as an example
www.truckingnz.com/jakstrucks.html I would like to have it as www.truckingnz.com/jakstrucks
A. You need to have the file extension for the browser to process the
page correctly. What you are seeing without the file extension is a folder, not
a web page. For instance in your example you could create a folder and name it "jakstrucks".
In that folder you would place the page(s) that belong in there. The first page
you want people to see you would name "index.html". This is called a default
page. Most folders are set to recognize the "index" page as the default. So when
someone visits the URL "www.truckingnz.com/jakstrucks" they would automatically
see the default page. If you type either http://www.truckingnz.com/index.html or
http://www.truckingnz.com you will see the same page because "index.html" is set
as the default page.
Q. I’ve put some background music on some of my webpages using this code:
<BGSOUND SRC="filename.mid" LOOP="1">
As I’m aware that not everyone likes music while they’re browsing, I want to
offer the option to turn the music off. I’ve searched the web and found various
codes that are supposed to open a small on/off bar which people can use to turn
the music off but none of them actually show the on/off control, they just show
a bar but with no on/off. I’m using basic HTML on the site so don’t know if
that’s got anything to do with it. Is there a HTML code that will let me offer
this on/off option?
A. This tutorial should explain exactly what you want:
http://www.wdvl.com/Multimedia/Sound/Audio/include.html
Q. I have a question about frames. There’s nothing wrong with how the
frame looks, but if you find a certain spot where the border of the frame would
be, you can click/drag it and make the site look odd. I’m wondering how to lock
the frames so you can’t drag them at all. Here’s the code..
<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>A Girl Named Craig</TITLE>
<META content="text/html; charset=windows-1252" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META content="MSHTML 5.00.2614.3500" name=GENERATOR>
</HEAD>
<frameset>
<frameset rows="35%,65%" frameborder="0" framespacing="0" border="0">
<frame name="title" src="title800600.html" scrolling="no">
<frameset cols="30%,70%" frameborder="0" framespacing="0" border="#BAD8F2">
<frame name="weekly" src="weekly800600.html" body scrolling="no">
<frame name="mainpage" src="mainpage800600.html">
</frameset>
</frameset>
</frameset>
</html>
A. You want to tell the browser not to allow resizing of the frame. In
the FRAME tag you should place this NORESIZE="yes". That will prevent the user
from resizing your frames. For a complete "frames" tutorial take a look at this
section on the HTMLGoodies website:
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/fram.html
News Goodies
MSN Launching New Search Tuesday
[January 31, 2005] Microsoft’s MSN division is to announce
switchover to home-grown search tech, internetnews.com has
learned.
Click
here to read the article
SBC, AT&T Seen as Prototype For Telecom’s Future
[January 31, 2005] Executives say the industry needs a combination like a
Baby Bell with Ma Bell to survive competition.
Click
here to read the article
Google, Amazon Highlight a Busy Week
[January 31, 2005] Investors will get a close look at two of the
biggest Net names this week..
Click here to read the article
Windows XP SP2 Said at Risk From Heap Overflow
[January 31, 2005] A report from Positive Technologies
illustrates how to bypass MSFT XP SP2.
Click here to read the article
AOL, Time Warner Strike New Broadband Deal
[January 31, 2005] America Online and Time Warner Cable join forces to
provide customized broadband offering.
Click here to read the article
Symphoniq Reveals Truth About Web Site Tracking
[January 31, 2005] Symphoniq claims measurement at the browser offers
TrueView picture of e-commerce performance.
Click here to read the article
EMC Ups Ante With Data Back Up Software
[January 31, 2005] The information systems concern refreshes its enterprise
and SMB back-up software.
Click here to read the article
More Mobile Phones to Speak Linux-Java
[January 28, 2005] MontaVista Software looks to Switzerland for a Java
partner.
Click here to read the article
Weak Passwords Leave Win MySQL Vulnerable
[January 28, 2005] Got a weak-password habit? If you’re not running the
latest anti-virus scanners along with MySQL, you could have a bot problem.
Click here to read the article
Riding on Open Code, Bagle Worm Returns
[January 27, 2005] The worm is flooding inboxes again.
Click here to read the article
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Thanks again for all your feedback!
Top
Windows Tech Goodie of the Week:
Alternating Table Row Colors Sample Code
Sometimes when you’ve got a table with a lot of data in it,
it can get hard to tell which rows are which when you get to
the end of a row. That’s why you see a lot of that old wide
dot matrix paper that alternates between white and green…
it makes following a row across the paper easier. Now you’ve
got the same thing for lines of data on the screen.
http://www.asp101.com/samples/altcolors.asp
*** AND ***
Populating ASP.NET Form Validators from XML
In large web applications, maintaining form validation
criteria can become quite a chore. This article, by Robert
Walling, will take a detailed look at a validation class
that enables you to store these details in an accompanying
XML file in order to make managing them much simpler.
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/050112.htm
*** AND ***
A Code Template for a Pageable, Bi-Directional Sortable
DataGrid
Any ASP.NET developer that has had to display database data
on an ASP.NET page is likely familiar with the DataGrid Web
control. This article examines a template for building an
ASP.NET page with a pageable, bi-directional sortable
DataGrid.
http://aspnet.4guysfromrolla.com/articles/011205-1.aspx
Top
And Remember This . . .
On this day in…
On this day in…
1804 British Vice-Admiral William Bligh’s fleet reached Curagao;
1851 Gail Borden announced the invention of evaporated milk;
1871 Millions of birds flew over western San Francisco,
darkening the sky; 1874 Jesse James and his gang robbed a
train at Gads Hill MO; 1928 Scotch tape was first marketed by
the 3-M Company (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing); 1950
President Truman revealed that he ordered the Atomic Energy
Commission to develop the hydrogen bomb; 1953 Hurricane-like
winds flooded the Netherlands drowning nearly 2,000; 1964 US
report "Smoking & Health" connected smoking to lung cancer; 1971
"My Sweet Lord" by George Harrison hit #1 on UK pop chart; 1990
The first McDonald’s in Russia opened in Moscow, world’s biggest
McDonald’s;
Born today were: in 1797 composer Franz Peter Schubert…….
; 1872 novelist Zane Gray; 1903 actress Tallulah
Bankhead; 1911 bookseller Christina Foyle; 1915
Orchestra leader/trumpeter Bobby Hackett; 1921 actress Carol
Channing; 1921 actor John Agar; 1926 English actress
Jean Simmons; 1937 actress Suzanne Pleshette; 1946
musician Terry Kath (Chicago); 1951 English musician Phil
Collins; 1956 English musician John Lydon (Johnny Rotten);
1959 actor Anthony LaPaglia; 1971 actress Minnie Driver;
Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!