Goodies to Go ™
August 11, 2003–Newsletter #245
This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
Featured this week:
* Goodies Thoughts – A Host of Options
* Q & A Goodies
* News Goodies
* Goodies Peer Reviews
* Feedback Goodies
* And Remember This…
Goodies Announcement
Just in case you missed
it before, 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 – A Host of Options
I have spoken about this subject before, so for those of you who have been with
me for a while, I apologize if I sound a little repetitive. The reason for
addressing the subject again is the large number of inquiries that I keep
getting asking for help with selecting a website hosting company. There truly
are thousands of choices out there and some are bound to be a whole lot better
than others. Selecting the best you can find can be a difficult task, especially
if you’re not really sure what to look for.
The first thing to do is to write down a list of features that you will need.
Once you have the list, you can use it to locate only those service providers
that can offer all the features you need. I’ll show you how that is done later.
To help you along, here is a list of key features with a brief explanation of
each for you to use as a checklist.
Windows Server vs UNIX Server
Here’s a hot button! The Windows aficionados will tell you NT is the only way to
go while the UNIX aficionados will say the exact opposite. ASP calls for
Windows; "shell" CGI scripts and Telnet Access call for UNIX; FrontPage
extensions seem to work better on Windows most of the time; PERL CGI works great
on either, but is almost always available on a UNIX system and must be added to
a Windows system – bear in mind though, that there may be differences with
regard to available email services.
Adult Content Allowed.
This speaks for itself. If it’s what you need you should check to see if it’s
ok. Most service providers are reluctant for obvious (and some not so obvious)
reasons.
Backups
This would be a concern if your content or databases are updated by site
visitors. If you are the site update person, then you can make your own backup
when you make changes.
CGI Forms
There are various software solutions that can provide special form handling
capabilities. If you have designed your site to use one of these then you
already know what requirement you have of your service provider. If you haven’t
done so, then you probably don’t need this! If the service provider you look at
offers it, however, take a look at it because it might be something pretty
useful.
CGI Access
This usually refers to UNIX Shell scripts, but also includes PERL. If you have
any doubts here, check out our PERL & CGI Primer.
Credit Card Processing
If you are going to doing some e-commerce and need credit card processing,
chances are that you will get your software interfaces from your processing
company. There may be some hosting service providers, however, who are set up
with a processing company to help you painlessly establish your on-line merchant
processing capability. If this is something you think you would need, add it to
your list.
Database Support
This may be very important. If you need a database backend, support is
essential. You will need support for the specific database system you intend to
use, for example, MySQL, Microsoft SQL Server, Access, Oracle, etc. There are
frequently special requirements of the host system that only the system
administrator can set up.
Email Support
If you intend to use CGI scripts or other mechanisms to send email from within
your web pages you will need your host service to provide support for the method
you intend to use. Note that the email capabilities you see in FrontPage can be
configured to use pretty much any SMPT (mail) server and that "off the shelf"
PERL and CGI scripts frequently assume that sendmail (a UNIX based mail server)
is available on the system where the script is running. You need to check these
details carefully.
FrontPage Extensions
This is obviously essential if you intend to use the facilities of FrontPage or
any other program designed to use the FrontPage extensions. Note that the fact
that you use FrontPage to create pages does not necessarily mean that the host
must have the server extensions in place. That depends on the features that you
have used or intend to use. For more about FrontPage, click here.
There are other things that you will want to keep your eyes on. For example, the
type of internet connection the host is using is important. Ideally it should be
big (a single T1 is not considered "big" anymore!) and redundant (meaning that
there is more than one path from the host to the internet). If you don’t have
Domain Name Service (DNS) from anywhere else you will need your host to provide
that also.
By now you should have your checklist in hand. Now go to The List of Web Hosts (
http://webhosts.thelist.com ). The List includes all the best service providers
in its database and lets you search according to your needs. Your best bets will
be found under either Personal Hosts or Business Hosts. When you look under
these headings you will see check boxes that you can use along with your check
list to search The List’s database. You may still come up with quite a few
providers to choose from, but your list will have been culled from the thousands
of service providers out there, thereby saving you from a great deal of
aggravation.
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 am sometimes having a problem with software programs that download
themselves without invitation. this seems to occur most frequently if I am
looking for a piece of music that I can incorporate into my web page. e.g. for
photo albums. The most difficult was a programme called gator or something
similar. It made such a fuss with my firewall software that I ended up having to
re format my hard disk. No uninstall prgram came with this invasive software.
The program was like a large virus. It was everywhere. Needless to say, I try to
be very careful about what I search for, but I wonder if there is some software
that I can obtain to prevent trash like this from invading my computer. Just so
you know, I have received help from the mentor community in the past and have
always found it to be all the right stuff.
A. I am not sure if this is what you meed but it may help:
http://security.kolla.de
This is a free application that will allow you to monitor and stop applications
from loading onto your computer. It will also search for any on your machine and
delete them.
[See also the lead piece in this newsletter in the archive:
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/letters/232.html – Ed.]
Q. I need a well designed homepage that will attract people. Can you give
me some good ideas?
A. Make a flow chart of the information you want to give your visitors
and list topics in order of inportance such as what you offer, contact, ect. You
want a homepage that gives the most important information in a heading to catch
the readers eye and then directs them to details. This details can be located on
another page that the home page links to. Design the home page so the user does
not have to scroll to see the main content. The page should load fast so keep
the large graphic images down. There are ways you can break up the squareness of
a page so everything is just not in square blocks. You can creat a banner or a
side bar with a graphics program such as Adobe Image Ready or Paintshop Pro.
Optimize it for the web. the whole site should have easy navigation and a
familiar theme such as the same navagation on all pages, company logo etc.. Put
your navigation links where they can be easily seen, on the side or top of the
page. Your page should have a discriptive title that reflects words used in the
heading and first paragraph on the page.
[See also
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/nontechintro – Ed.]
Q. Is there a way of centering a picture or text in the middle of the
page, compared to <center> which puts it only on top?
A. Below is the code needed to center text on the page. If you are using
a nested table or have other cells in a table and you want it in the middle you
can add this to the cell tag:
"vAlign=middle". That sets the verticle alignment to the middle of that cell.
<html>
<head>
<title>Centered</title>
</head>
<body>
<div align="center">
<center>
<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%" height="100%">
<tr>
<td width="100%" align="center">
<center>This is centered on the page.</td>
</tr>
</table>
</center>
</div>
</body>
</html>
[There’s more about alignment here:
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/align.html – Ed.]
Q. URL – www.resortbay.com — Designed on Frontpage. I’ve never done a web
site before and am truly a beginner in all aspects. I don’t know anything about
HTML and assumed Frontpage would take care of it all. My problem is the site
works fine with IE but is a disaster with Netscape. When you click on a link, it
takes you to a broken up page. The starting page is a little messed up but the
images show up. Also, a frames page I created doesn’t show up at all on
Netscape. HELP!
A. FrontPage, although a fairly nice HTML editor if used properly, is not
a cure all for websites. It is getting better with every release. But that is
not actually your problem. I viewed the source code and it looks like the page
was originally done using MS Word and then copied and pasted over to FrontPage.
Open the page with FrontPage and take a look at the HTML code. You should see a
lot of grey text. There is a lot of Vector MarkUp Language (VML). This is used
by Word to position images and text on the page. While it make the transition to
FrontPage and can be viewed using IE, it will cause problems with most other
browsers. At this point, my suggestion is to start over using just FrontPage.
All of that code is not needed and just bloats the page. Next thing to do is to
read through HTMLGoodies.com and learn about the browser differences and
compatibility. Learn about and start using style sheets. You will thank me
later!
{See also
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/articles/frontpagep1.html – Ed.]
News Goodies
eBay Invokes Trademark on Google Keywords
[August 11, 2003] The Internet auction giant flexes its legal muscle to
get Google to stop selling keywords bearing its trademarks.
Click
here to read the article
Universities, ISPs Fight RIAA’s Subpoenas
[August 11, 2003] While two Boston academic institutions manage to fight off
recording industry subpoenas demanding information about their students,
ISPs large and small are concerned about onerous legal requirements from
RIAA subpoenas..
Click
here to read the article
SCO Group Claims IP License Purchase
[August 11, 2003] The company claims it has a big Fortune 500 fish as its
first customer and more than 300 inquiries about its controversial
Intellectual Property License for Linux.
Click here to read the article
Microsoft Reveals Greenwich Pricing
[August 11, 2003] As Microsoft’s Live Communications Server (formerly
Greenwich) nears its release to manufacturing, the company details server
and client access license pricing.
Click here to read the article
IBM Takes Over LEGO’s Infrastructure Biz from HP
[August 11, 2003] Big Blue inks a multi-year deal to consolidate LEGO’S
worldwide computer network down from 230 HP computer servers into 34 IBM
on-demand systems.
Click here to read the article
HyperTransport Gains More Marquee Members
[August 11, 2003] IBM, EMC, LTX, Media Fusion, National Semi, Network App
and TI join the technology consortium to help standardize chip-to-chip
communications.
Click here to read the article
Real, Sprint Push Mobile On-Demand Audio
[August 11, 2003] The $4.95 a month offering will shuttle on-demand audio
clips to Sprint’s PCS Vision cellphone subcribers.
Click here to read the article
eBay Accounts for Lawsuit Loss
[August 11, 2003] The auction giant shaves $30M from Q2 results after a
patent verdict against it was upheld last week but says it will appeal.
Click here to read the article
Sun Beefs Up its Support for x86
[August 11, 2003] Seeing the power of persuasion that fueled
its Linux strategy, the company assembles an advisory board
to help it with its non-SPARC chip policy.
Click here to read the article
New Ask Jeeves Campaign Sidelines Butler
[August 11, 2003] The multi-media campaign emphasizes its buffed-up
search technology rather than its natty butler.
Click here to read the article
Every week a site selected each week 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.
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If you would like to have your site reviewed, sign up for
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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:
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
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/mentors/
Many thanks to all who are sending in their calendar
implementations. (See last week’s newsletter — it can be
found at https://www.htmlgoodies.com/letters/243.html — just
in case you missed it.) I am still taking submissions, so if
you haven’t sent in yours yet, there’s still time! I will be
publishing a few in the near future.
Thanks again for all your feedback!
Windows Tech Goodie of the Week:
Porting Unmanaged Legacy C++ Applications That Interact with
DB2 Mainframes into .NET/C#
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/030729.htm
Recently there has been a sudden increase in new development
projects for migrating existing C/C++ applications written
on the UNIX/Windows platform to .NET. This article
demonstrates how to manipulate and expose raw data received
from mainframes into well-defined managed C++ interfaces
using the facilities and features provided by the .NET
Framework and managed C++.
Top
And Remember This . . .
On this day in…
1996
Internet Explorer Released
This is the day that Microsoft entered the Browser arena and
started the "Browser Wars". Internet Explorer was offered
and provided free access to (then) subscription sites such
as Hollywood Online, ESPNet and SportZone as enticements to
lure the net surfers in. A little later, Netscape fought
back with their Version 3 which promised access to sites
that also were to be subscription sites, such as the New
York Times. The wars were on. Today, Netscape belongs to AOL
who sold Netscape Online ISP services in areas where America
Online might not have gone over too well. Netscape Online
closed in June of 2002. Today Internet Explorer accounts for
about 75-80 percent of all web browser use.
Today was also the day that: in 1866 the world’s
first Roller Rink opened in Newport RI; 1962 the
Beach Boys released "Surfin’ Safari"; 1965 six day
riot started in Watts section of Los Angeles; 1968
"Apple Records" started; 1989 Voyager 2 discovers two
partial rings around Neptune
Born today were: in 1921, author Alex Haley; 1933,
televangelist Jerry Falwell; 1946, writer Marilyn Vos
Savant (world’s highest IQ, according to Guinness); 1950,
Apple Computer co-founder Steve Wozniak; 1953
wrestler Hulk Hogan; 1955 singer Joe Jackson;
Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!
