Goodies to Go ™
August 2, 2004–Newsletter #296
This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
Featured this week:
* Goodies Thoughts – Whose is the
Website?
* 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 – Whose is the Website?
Have you ever watched a fine jewelry maker working with minute
details to create a beautiful piece of jewelry? It’s remarkable thing to watch.
Using gas powered flames and a series of tools they bend and manipulate gold,
platinum and other precious metals into intricate shapes and patterns that also
happen to be strong enough to hold very valuable stones in place, showing off
their beauty, but also ensuring that they won’t be lost. It’s quite a skill, and
it amazes me how much they can produce in a fairly short amount of time.
It occurs to me, however, that they might need a little more time if they also
had to mine their own gold, refine it and form it into usable shapes, such a
ropes and rings. And then, what if they also had to mine their own stones? The
stones come from a different part of the world than does the gold, so their
mining efforts are liable to take quite a lot of time! The task may be such that
the jewelry maker would be able to produce so few pieces that their work would
never reach the same height of quality that it would if they practiced the
actual jewelry making task exclusively.
"All very interesting," I hear you say, "but isnt this newsletter about web
design?" Why, yes it is! This illustration points out one of the grave dangers a
web developer such as yourself faces on a daily basis! Please allow me to
explain.
You are most probably a member of some group or association. Perhaps you are
involved in you home owners association, your kids (or your own) sports league
or the scouts and guides. Perhaps its a civic group or a local chapter of a
social organization. Whatever it may be, sooner or later somebody in the group
will find out that you can build websites. The word will spread like a wild fire
and soon enough, they’ll be all over you: "Oh! It’s so great that you know how
to do that stuff! We all know nothing about computers. Now you can create our
website. And maintain it for us." Then the real stuff kicks in: "And say
everything we want to say on it, even though we won’t tell you what that is. And
you’ll have to attend every meeting, every committee meeting and every
sub-committee meeting so that you’ll know what going on and can put it on the
news section – we did mention we want a news section, didn’t we?" Yep, you get
the picture — your life is no longer your own. Your initials are now "w3v" (www
victim!)
Here’s the deal: gold miners mine the gold, refiners refine it, manufacturers
turn it into rope, rings and wire, then the jeweler gets hold of it and turns it
into jewelry. In your group, the officers, committee members, historians and
especially members of the news committee (if there isn’t one, suggest they
create one) mine, refine and write news and information. Then it’s passed to the
webmaster (that’s you, only now you have some life left!) who wields their craft
and turns this refined and reworked information into a useful and informative
website.
It’s not that you’re unwilling to do your part, it’s that your willing to do
your part; only! The website belongs to the entire group — and that’s who
should be participating in it. If the jeweler is expected to mine their own gold
and diamonds, chances are, they’ll only make one piece of jewelry, and it wont
be anything particularly special.
Here’s my recommendation: Print out this article, fold it neatly and put it
somewhere safe about your person. The moment you hear the words Oh! It’s so
great that you know how to do that stuff!" whip it out, had it to the speaker
and tell them they have to read it before uttering another word!
Of course, if you’re to be paid by the hour, that’s a different story entirely!
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. How do I create a hyperlink
that has no line underneath it?
A. In your style, define your links as:
a { text-decoration: none; }
Q. I need to set the background to ivory for the cells within my links
table and also to center text within each cell, make font size 8 points, and
change text to uppercase. Here is the html code:
<table id="links">
<tr>
<td>
<a href="#">Home Page</a>
</td>
<td>
<a href="#">Tickets</a>
</td>
<td>
<a href="#">Events</a>
</td>
<td>
<a href="#">Tour</a>
</td>
<td>
<a href="#">Contact Us</a>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
and here is my css sheet:
body {background-image: url(back.jpg)}
b {color: blue}
a {text-decoration: none; color: black}
a: hover {color: red; text-decoration: underline}
#links {width: 100%; border-bottom: solid red 3px; center center;
font-size: 8pt; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
text-transform: uppercase}
td {background-color: ivory; center center; border: groove red 5pt}
#calendar {float: right; border: groove red 10pt; width: 75%}
th {background-color: lightblue; font-family: Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif;
border: solid blue 1px}
.prev {border-style: none; background-color: white}
.next {border-style: none; background-color: white}
A. Your css should look something like this:
#links {
width: 100%;
border-bottom: solid red 3px; }
#links td {
background-color: ivory;
font-size: 8pt;
font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
text-transform: uppercase;
text-align: center;
border: groove red 5pt; }
I moved the text and font properties to the TD of the table instead. If you want
to center something, use the "text-align: center;" definition for your style.
Q. I love the Dual Image Flip effect. Instead of buttons I’d like to put
plain old links. I don’t know how to do this and if I change a thing, it won’t
work. Please help! Also, I need help on putting the image in one place, and
placing the text in another. I have a square box that I need to put the image
flip in.
A. Here’s what you want:
<html>
<head>
<title>Image Flip</title>
<script language="JavaScript">
function flip(img,imgn)
{
document.images[imgn].src=img
}
</script>
</head>
<body>
<a href="somepage.html" onmouseover="flip(‘1.gif’,’pica’)" onmouseout="flip
(‘0.gif’,’pica’)">Mouse Over Me</a>
<img src="0.gif" name="pica" border="0"></a><br>
</body>
</html>
As far as placing the picture it depends on how you have your square box
defined. You could use a table to position the image or even layers such as
<div> or <span> in combination with the style tag.
Q. I’m trying to set up an email form. How do I send form data to an
email address instead of a file? My email form just brings up outlook; how do I
get it to send email directly? When I get data to me email address it is in an
attachment with an ".att" extension — what is this and how do I read it? How do
I get my email form data to be formatted as text instead of being full of stuff
like "1=on&2=on&3=Better+Management"?
A. To get rid of the .att extension (and formatting problems) add enctype="text/html
to the form tag like so:
<form action="mailto:somebody@somewhere.com" method="post" enctype="text/plain">
NOTE, HOWEVER:
Version 6 (and above) browsers do not support email forms (action="mailto:…
etc.) Instead, it is necessary to use CGI scripts (PERL, CGI Shell Scripts, PHP
etc.) Alternatively, if your server supports FrontPage extensions, there is a
"WebBot" in FrontPage that automatically handles sending form data to an email
address (as an option to, or in addition to saving it to a file.)
[See also
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/articles/emailforms1.html – Ed.]
Q. When I run the following script it returns the correct day, year, and
time. However, the month returns as the previous month, e.g. this month,
December (12), is shown as November (11) (my computer does have the correct
date.)
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
RightNow = new Date();
document.write("Today’s date is " + RightNow.getMonth()+ "-")
document.write(" "+ RightNow.getDate() + "-" + RightNow.getFullYear() + ".")
document.write("You entered this Web Page at exactly: " + RightNow.getHours() +
" hours")
document.write(" "+ RightNow.getMinutes() + " minutes and " +
RightNow.getSeconds() + " seconds")
</SCRIPT>
A. I have run into this before. The solution is to:
1. Add the following code immediately after RightNow = new Date(); in your
function:
newMonth = RightNow.getMonth() + 1;
2. Next change the line that returns the month to:
document.write("Today’s date is " +newMonth+ "-")
[See also
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/letters/214.html – Ed.]
News Goodies
Three-in-One Virus Zapper Released
[August 2, 2004] Microsoft’s latest virus removal tool helps
disinfect systems impacted by the recent Mydoom, Zindos and
Doomjuice worm attacks.
Click
here to read the article
Linux’s Patent Risk
[August 2, 2004] A patent review of the OS uncovers 283 patents, a third of
which are held by Linux-friendly corporations.
Click here to read the article
Yankee: Web Services Gaining Momentum
[August 2, 2004] Microsoft and IBM lead the adoption of standards and
technologies for next-generation computing.
Click
here to read the article
IBM Servers Intro New Intel 64-bit Chip
[August 2, 2004] With an eye on increasing its Intel-based
server market share, IBM trots out a slew of new computing
products.
Click here to read the article
IBM Gives the Penguin a Boost
[August 2, 2004] Big Blue expands resources for its 64-bit
computing architecture on Linux, gets a helping hand from
Novell and Red Hat on its reseller program.
Click here to read the article
Digital Harbor Docks Ontology for SOAs
[August 2, 2004] The software maker uses ontology rules to tie disparate
applications together.
Click here to read the article
Search Versus Search in Silicon Valley
[August 2, 2004] The Jupitermedia conference plays to the high stakes and
high hopes of search engine marketing.
Click here to read the article
Beehive Enjoys Endorsement Windfall
[August 2, 2004] BEA officials say they’re finally seeing a payoff for
putting code in the wild.
Click here to read the article
Google Open for Bids
[July 30, 2004] The search provider goes live with its IPO site.
Click here to read the article
Broadband Battles Bring Benefits
[July 30, 2004] Consumers see high-speed access rates drop as cable and DSL
companies look to lock-in subscribers.
Click here to read the article
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If you would like to comment on the newsletter or expand/improve on something
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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:
Random Image ASP.NET Sample Code
http://www.asp101.com/samples/random_image_aspx.asp
Sometimes it’s useful to be able to display a randomly
selected image on a web page. Realizing that everyone’s
situation is a little different, this sample gives you not
just one or two, but three different ways to display a
random image using ASP.NET.
*** AND ***
Accessibility Improvements in ASP.NET 2.0 – Part 1
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/040727.htm
Alex Homer highlights some of the new ASP.NET 2.0
accessibility features.
These features make it easier for visually impaired users to
view and navigate Web sites and provide better support for
alternative types of browsers and user agents.
Top
And Remember This . . .
On this day in…
1934 Hitler Became F|hrer of Germany
German Chancellor Adolph Hitler became the absolute dictator of
Germany, taking the title of "F|hrer" (Leader). In 1933 German
President Paul von Hindenburg made Hitler Chancellor, hoping the
having a cabinet position would calm his zeal. Hindenburg
underestimated Hitler’s intentions and audacity. Hitler used the
burning of the Reichstag building (Parliament) as an excuse to bring
about a general election. His friend and Nazi ally Hermann Goering
used the police to suppress the Nazi’s opposition in the election,
so that they won a majority. Citing the dangers facing Germany,
Hitler used the Enabling Acts to take on the power of Dictator. He
used this position to arrest and eliminate the rest of his
opposition, and when Hindenburg died on August 2, 1934, he combined
the office or President with that of Dictator giving himself, as
leader of the Third Reich, absolute power in Germany and taking the
title "F|hrer". He promised Germany that the Third Reich would last
a thousand years. It lasted eleven.
Today was also the day that in: 1375 the first roller skating
rink was opened (in London); 1798 Admiral Horation Nelson
defeated teh French in the Battle of the Nile; 1832 the
Illinois militia, with 1,300 men, defeated the Sac an Fox indians in
the Battle of Bad Axe River, Wisconsin, ending the Black Hawk War;
1909 the US army took their first delivery from the Wright
Brothers and created the Army Air Corps; 1934 the Hatch Act
was passed (US) prohibiting political activity by federal employees;
1965 reporter Morley Safer sent back the first report from
Vietnam to indicate that the US was losing the war; 1979
"Gilda Radner Live From New York" opened on Braodway (I was there on
your closing night, Gilda, & I’ll not forget you.); 1989 NASA
confirmed Voyager 2 had discovered three new moon of Neptune;
1990 Iraq invaded Kuwait; 1991 Hedy Lamar was arrested in
LA for shoplifting;
Born today were: in 1696 Ottoman Sultan Mahmud I; 1754
architect and Washington DC designer, Pierre Charles L’Enfant;
1905 actress Myrna Loy; 1914 actor Gary Merrill; 1916
actress Beatrice Straight; 1922 actor Carroll O’Connor;
1926 department store mogul Betsy Bloomingdale; 1932
Irish actor Peter O’Toole; 1934 actor Albert Hall; 1939
singer Edward Pattern (Gladys Knight & the Pips); 1942
musician Garth Hudson (The Band); 1944 actress Joanna
Cassidy; 1955 actress Roberta Wallach; 1960 actress
Patricia Kotero (Apollonia); 1973 actress Kia Goodwin;
Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!