Goodies to Go ™
April 26, 2004–Newsletter #282
This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
Featured this week:
* Goodies Thoughts – Choosing Search
Engines
* Q & A Goodies
* News Goodies
* Goodies Peer Reviews
* 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 – Choosing Search Engines
If you want to promote your website to increase the traffic it
draws, and thereby increase the sales it can make, then the search engines are
the first place to turn. Achieving the best possible position in a search engine
results page, based on the searches people will make when looking for your
product, can be the single most important thing you do for your site. It can
make the difference between success and failure.
To obtain the results you seek often requires optimizing the pages on your site
for the mechanisms used by the search engines. The trouble here is that they
don’t all use the same mechanisms. This means that when your site is optimized
for one, it may not be optimized for another. Since you are going to have to
choose a "pecking order" for the search engines for which you will optimize your
site, I thought it would be useful to talk a little about the top search engines
so that you can better focus your attention on those that should give you the
best results.
Remember also that your top choice when optimizing should be the same as the top
choice people would make when searching. One great way to find out which one
that would be is to ask them! Start with the most obvious person. If you sell a
product, you do so probably because that product holds some interest for you.
Think about how you would search for it yourself — that gives you the first
answer to "how would a person who is interested in this product search the web
to find it?" Next, you probably have a group of friends who are also interested
in the same product. Ask them. Keep asking people, and keep good records of the
results you get — you are building yourself a valuable database.
In addition to the information you gather by this means, it is useful to know
which of the search engines are the most popular overall. Ranking the search
engines objectively is a bit difficult, but there are plenty of somewhat
subjective rankings available to provide some guidance. It is also worth noting
that some of the more famous names in search pages don’t actually have their own
searchers, but use one of the other engines services instead. America Online and
Yahoo are both good examples of this (they are both powered by Google.)
Top of the list is most probably Google. Google also provides search results to
AOL, Netscape (which is owned by AOL) and Yahoo. Sites that pay for position on
Google will also wind up in searches conducted by AskJeeves, Lycos, Hotbot and
Teoma.
Alltheweb and Inktomi contend for the next slot. Alltheweb (which is owned by
Yahoo — interestingly enough) gets its paid position responses from Overture
(which is also Yahoo owned) as do Yahoo, MSN and Altavista. Inktomi (which is
now also Yahoo owned) provides the search services of MSN and Hotbot and
provides backup search services to Overture (another Yahoo company.) It is
likely that Yahoo will be switched over to us Inktomi search very soon, at which
point Inktomi’s position on this list will be raised.
The next contenders for the list of top searches are Teoma and AskJeeves. These
two are really one. Teoma is owned by AskJeeves and powers AskJeeves. As I
previously mentioned, sites paying for position on Google also get into the paid
position slots on these two search facilities.
Lastly, I should mention Open Directory and Looksmart. These two are human
compiled directories, meaning that teams of people have evaluated the results
you obtain from searches powered by these engines. Optimizing for these two may
therefore be quite different from other optimizations. Open Directory is the
provider of optional features on Google, AOL, Lycos and Netscape searches.
Looksmart provides is own main and paid position search results.
Clearly, the selection of two or three engines as the focus of your
optimizations can get you better positioning on a very large portion of all
searches being conducted by web users. That’s good news for us!
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 have a Feedback form and have managed to get it to open the e-mail
programme in order for the viewer to e-mail their feedback to me, but the
problem I am having is to get the SUBJECT line to state "FEEDBACK".
A. If you want the subject line to be filled automatically you need to
add "?subject=FEEDBACK" to the MAILTO link like this:
mailto:info@Your_Site.com?subject=FEEDBACK
Change FEEDBACK to anything else if you want something different!
Q. Could you please tell me how to link one page to a specific point on
another page? Also, how do I link the top of one page to the bottom of the same
page?
A. If you want to link to a spot on a particular page you can use the
NAME ANCHOR. For instance if you had a long page and wanted to give the user an
easy way to get back to the top after reading the article you would place this
in the HTML near the top after the <BODY> tag:
<a name="top">
At the end of the article you would place this code:
<a href="#top">TOP</a>
That creates a link to the top of the page. If you want a link to a certain area
on another page it is done in a similar way. On the page you want to link to you
place the NAME ANCHOR in the spot on the page you want to jump to:
<a href="jump">Jump Here</a>
On the page you are coming from, the link would look like this:
<a href="#jump">Click here to Jump</a>
Here is the tutorial from the HTMLGoodies site:
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/pagejump.html
Q. How do you get your brower reset because I have no status bar and no
scrollbar?
A. You could provide a link like this to reload the document:
<a href="javascript:window.location.reload()">Refresh</a>
When the link is clicked on it would refresh the page.
[If you wish to restore the browser status bar (in Internet Explorer) click
"View/Status Bar"
Q. I am working with a button on my page:
<STYLE>
.start {font-size: 8pt; color:#ffff00; background:#cc3333}
.end {font-size: 8pt; color:#cc3333; background:#ffff00}
</STYLE>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="javascript">
function highlightButton(s) {
if ("INPUT"==event.srcElement.tagName)
event.srcElement.className=s
}
</SCRIPT>
The above is placed above </head>
Then the <FORM></FORM> lines are placed where I need them to be below <BODY>
<FORM NAME=highlight onMouseover="highlightButton(‘start’)" onMouseout="highlightButton(‘end’)">
<INPUT TYPE="button" VALUE="Hot Computer Deals Of The Week!" onClick="location.href=’http://www.tigerdirect.com/email/kb/promo.asp?ID=1671’">
</form>
I would like the button to start out as it appears for onMouseout="highlightButon(‘end’)"
When the page loads, it is the standard grey default size button. Using
<STYLE></STYLE> I now have some control over the button size by specifying
font-size: 8pt; Of course, nothing happens until the cursor is passed over the
button.
I tried some [ onload= ] ideas that didn’t work. Is there a way to control the
initial appearance of the button?
A. I added a class attribute to the INPUT tag. I just used one of the
classes you had already set in your styles, but you can create another one. The
javascript helps with the changes.
<form name="highlight" onmouseover="highlightButton(‘start’)" onmouseout="highlightButton(‘end’)">
<input class="end" type="button" value="Hot Computer Deals Of The Week!" onclick="location.href=’http://www.tigerdirect.com/email/kb/promo.asp?ID=1671’"
/>
</form>
I’m not sure which version of HTML you are using… I’m used to writing in XHTML
1.0, so I’ve made the tags lowercase and added a / to the end of the INPUT.
Q. I currently have a couple of javascripts that are used throughout my
website. One for a date and another for rollovers. Can these two be placed onto
one external js page with a single link to it, or should each be on separate
pages with its own individual link?
A. Yes you can place both scripts in one ".js" file and point to it this
way:
<script src="myscript.js" language="JavaScript"></script>
One thing you will have to be careful of though is that if both scripts use
variable names that are the same one of them will have to be changed or you will
have a conflict. If you are already using them both on the same page then this
should not be a problem.
News Goodies
‘Critical’ Windows Hijack Flaw Reported
[April 26, 2004] Researchers warn that the boundary error
vulnerability could cause a buffer overflow and lead to system
takeover.
Click
here to read the article
IBM Takes Nano Chip Design for a ‘Spin’
[April 26, 2004] A collaboration with Stanford could lead to reconfigurable
logic devices, room-temperature superconductors and quantum computers.
Click here to read the article
HP: Trim the Fat with Efficeon Blades
[April 26, 2004] The computer and printer maker highlights new slim and low
power server offerings as part of its ‘consolidation’ mantra.
Click
here to read the article
FTC Appeals Rambus Dismissal
[April 26, 2004] The U.S. government looks to reverse a court
decision it claims allows the DRAM manufacturer to collect as
much as $3 million in royalties.
Click here to read the article
Calient Networks Positions for VoIP
[April 26, 2004] The photonic switch maker adds to its
latest financing round as carriers eye VoIP and
fiber-to-the-premises rollouts. .
Click here to read the article
Study: Increase in Security Training Paying Off
[April 23, 2004] After dragging their feet on the spend, organizations see
their investments in security training pay off, CompTIA finds.
Click here to read the article
‘Osama Captured’ e-Mail is Malicious Trojan
[April 23, 2004] The ‘Osama Bin Laden Captured’ e-mail hammering your in-box
today will attempt to download a Trojan if the embedded URL is clicked.
Click here to read the article
Rights to JPEG Patent Questioned
[April 23, 2004] A wholly owned subsidiary of Forgent takes digital file
format providers like Adobe, Apple, HP and Xerox to court.
Click here to read the article
Wall Street Shifting to On-Demand Model
[April 23, 2004] Merrill Lynch’s On-Demand Index signals investors are
getting ready for pay-as-you-go software — or at least learning how to
value them as stocks.
Click here to read the article
DOJ Strikes at Global Online Piracy
[April 23, 2004] Coordinated international raids seek to dismantle
syndicates distributing pirated material.
Click here to read the article
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
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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
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those relating specifically to this newsletter from all the rest. When you send
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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
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/mentors/
For those who are missing Peer reviews: we are once again
revising the Peer review program in the hopes of creating a
workable solution. The current plan is to move the new Peer
Review pages into place in the new year. All those who have
been selected for reviews in the past will be featured in
the new pages. The new method will make it much easier for
your peers to provide feedback and much easier for us to
handle the publication side of things. "Watch this space!"
It’s coming soon!!
Thanks again for all your feedback!
Top
Windows Tech Goodie of the Week:
Wireless Home Automation Using .NET and X10
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/040413.htm
Learn how to use .NET to communicate with the X10
Firecracker Home
Automation System through a PC’s serial port. Then build a
mobile Web form
to access all X10-enabled appliances from a wireless device.
*** AND ***
Phone Number to Text Phrase ASP Script
http://www.asp101.com/resources/visitors/index.asp#phonetxt
Here’s a fun little script that will print out every
possible word that
your phone number might spell. While I didn’t get anything
as cool as
GoFedEx or PickUPS, I did find out that my number spells the
gems JUXXEMS,
KTYYENS, and LUXYDOS.
Top
And Remember This . . .
On this day in…
1986 Explosion at Chernobyl Causes World’s Worst Nuclear
Disaster
An explosion blew the top off the nuclear power station and
Chernobyl in the Soviet Union. The explosion was caused by the
graphite tips of control rods that were being reinserted into the
reactor to prevent a meltdown after an experiment went terribly
wrong. Not knowing too much about the physics involved in reactors,
a group of electrical engineers were experimenting with water pumps
and the reactor’s turbine. To enable their experiment, they had
disconnected the reactor’s safety and power regulation systems. They
then ran the reactor at such a low power level that the core became
unstable. Attempting to power it up again, they removed too many
reactor control rods. They decided to reinsert about 200 control
rods at once in an effort to avoid a meltdown. The graphite tips on
the control rods exploded before the control rods’ absorbent
material could enter the core. The explosion threw 50 tons of
radioactive material into the air where is was carried on currents.
The contamination that resulted was four times greater the sum of
the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. An estimated 5,000
citizens have died as a direct result of the accident. Many more are
seriously ill. Millions of acres of forest and farmland in Northern
and Eastern Europe were contaminated. Sheep as far away as Wales
remain un-cleared today.
Today was also the day that in: 1478 the Pazzi conspirators
attacked Lorenzo & Giuliano de’Medici, killing Giuliano (have you
seen the movie "Hannibal"?); 1514 Astronomer Copernicus first
observed Saturn; 1564 Playwright William Shakespeare was
baptized; 1928 Madame Tussaud’s Waxwork Museum opened in
London; 1948 the XP-86 "Sabre" jet prototype officially broke
the sound barrier; 1954 a nationwide (US) test of the Salk
Polio Vaccine began; 1962 The first UK satellite, Ariel 1,
was launched (on a US rocket — was also the first international
payload on a US rocket); 1964 Tanganyika and Zanzibar unite,
forming Tanzania; 1968 students seized the administration
building at Ohio State University; 1977 Studio 54 opened in
New York; 1981 $33 million was stolen from a Tucson Arizona
bank in the largest bank robbery in US history; Rod Stewart was
mugged and his $50K Porsche stolen; 1984 President Ronald
Reagan visited China; 1986 Body builder/actor/California
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger married Maria Shriver; 1994
262 people died when a Taiwanese A-300 Airbus crashed in Nagoya,
Japan; 1996 a four day auction of Jackie Onassis property
ended having taken in $34.5 million;
Born today were: in 121 Emperor of Rome Antonius Marcus
Aurelius (Marcus Antonio Verus); 1711 English philosopher
David Hume; 1785 Haitian bird watcher and artist John James
Audubon; 1886 "Mother of the Blues" singer Ma Rainey
(Gertrude Pridgett); 1895 Hitler’s deputy Fuhrer Rudolph
Hess; 1900 seismologist Charles Richter; 1904 Jazz
pianist William "Count" Basie; 1906 Actress Gracie Allen (Mrs
George Burns); 1910 film director Tomoyuki Tanaka (Godzilla);
1927 comedian Jack Douglas; 1961 Chinese actress Joan
Chen (Chen Chong);
Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!
