Goodies to Go ™
August 23, 2004–Newsletter #299
This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
Featured this week:
* Goodies Thoughts – Blog, blog, blog!
* 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 – Blog, blog, blog!
Here in the US it is a common practice to refer to an unknown
person, or an unspecified person as John Doe (and of course, his female
counterpart, Jane Doe.) Although this use originated in England (from the 15th
to the 19th centuries, John Doe was a legal fictional character standing
specifically for the plaintiff in a dispute over title to real property; Richard
Roe was the name given to the defendant) the ubiquitous Fred Bloggs appears to
have taken John Doe’s place in the UK much of the time. I’m frequently amused by
his presence in "how to" examples provided with software – it’s a sure indicater
of the software’s country of origin! But it’s not Bloggs I wanted to talk about;
it’s Blogs.
As many of you will know, the expression "blog" is a contraction of "web log"
which is basically a series of relatively short postings concerning whatever
subject to log’s administrator deems appropriate. A simple, personal example
would be a journal wherein the admin (presumably the owner/author of the log)
can post records of their activities and thoughts as time goes by.
From this humble beginning, however, many things can come! A blog can have a
group of users, some of whom can add things to the blog, while others can only
view and one or more of whom are administrators with power over everything. This
provides an excellent means for a group of individuals who are connected in some
way, such as a club, a team or a neighborhood association, to keep in touch with
each other and stay up on local news.
Another wonderful capability of a blog is ‘syndication feeding". What this
refers to is the ability for items that are posted to a blog to automatically
generate a feed to other sites, or to special news readers or even hand-held
devices, and notify people that there is new stuff to be seen (or even to simply
show it to them.) There are several mechanisms used for this, including RSS,
ATOM as well as other APIs (Application Progam Interfaces) in various stages of
development.
All this sounds great and wonderful, but there has to be a downside, right? For
example, how difficult is it to start a blog? How skilled do you have to be to
run it? How much does it cost? Ok — It’s not hard: if you can read, know what a
keyboard and mouse are (& I think that’s pretty much every one of you!) and you
have two minutes to spare, then you can get the whole job done. Those same
skills are what you will need to keep it going, and it’ll cost you nothing — in
fact you can earn money off it!
Although there are many other options for you to chose from, I’m going to
describe only one for now, and it’s one of the simplest. Go to http://www.blogger.com
create an account for yourself, chose a template, chose a name for your blog
(for example, I chose htmlgoodies, which gives a URL of http://htmlgoodies.blogspot.com
) Now click the "save" button and you’re done. Go ahead and add a post to it!
Now that you have your blog up and running, you can explore the options
available to you in Blogger (btw – Blogger was fairly recently taken over by
Google and is now one of their offerings.) I mentioned that you might even be
able to make money with your blog: if that interests you (and why wouldn’t it?)
check out
http://www.blogger.com/knowledge/2004/08/theres-adsense-in-my-blog.pyra If you
get a lot of traffic to your blog, this could be quite lucrative!
Now that your blog’s up, send me the URL (to nlfeedback@htmlgoodies.com ) & I’ll
put a notice up on the htmlgoodies blog (for the first few I receive) to let
other readers know you’re there.
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. Is is possible to place a
cell that provides scrolling capabilities into a specific location within a
table? I have information that I wish to place in the cell, but do not want to
enlarge the height of the page.
A. What you are looking for is an inline frame. The problem that you will
to look out for is that inline frames are only recognized by Internet Explorer
4.0 and above and I think Netscape 6 and above. Here is a tutorial on inline
frames:
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/inlineframes.html
Q. I am having trouble with using named parameters in JavaScript code.
For example, in this simple mathematical code:
var number : integer = cos (30);
document.write (" the Cosine of 30 Degrees is " + number + " ")
This is where I’m trying to calculate the cosine of 30 degrees and have made a
rule that the "number" variable must always be an integer. However, when I
attempt to run this code, I get the error message in Netscape: [missing ";"
before statement] in the line of code "var number : integer = cos(30)". I always
get this type of message whenever I try to set any variable to always be an
integer or string. What am I doing wrong?
A. Unlike other languages you cannot specify if a variable is a string or
integer in JavaScript. Here is an example of how it would be done.
<hmtl>
<head>
<title>Test</title>
</head>
<body>
<script language="javascript">
var number = Math.cos(30);
document.write (" the Cosine of 30 Degrees is " + number + " ");
</script></body></html>
And here is link to a tutorial on the Math object:
http://www.javascriptkit.com/javatutors/math.shtml
Q. This code is supposed to display the date like this, Friday 1st August
2003, but instead of showing 1st, 2nd and 3rd, it displays 1th, 2th, 3th. I’ve
tried everything I can think of to fix the problem. What do you think?
<SCRIPT>
newdate = new Date()
var wday = newdate.getDay()
var day = newdate.getDate()
var month = newdate.getMonth()
var year = newdate.getYear()
if (day == 1)
{ var dayex = "st" }
if (day == 2)
{ var dayex = "nd" }
if (day == 3)
{ var dayex = "rd" }
else
{ var dayex = "th" }
// End of day extension
if (month == 0)
{ var month = "January" }
if (month == 1)
{ var month = "Febuary" }
// above code repeats for month indexes 2-11
// End of months
if (wday == 0)
{ var wdayex = "Sunday" }
if (wday == 1)
{ var wdayex = "Monday" }
// above code repeats for day of week indexes 2-6
// End of week day
document.write(wdayex + " " + day + dayex + " " + month + " " + year)
</SCRIPT>
A. I would recommend that you leave it off. You would have to either use
either a series of if statements to check each day of the month or do some
string manipulation to check the last digit of the day variable to determine
which extension to use. As your code is currently written you will always
default to "th" if the day variable is anything other than "3". That is because
this if statement:
if (day == 3)
{ var dayex = "rd" }
else
{ var dayex = "th" }
says that if the day is not 3 then it sets the dayex variable to "th",
overriding your previous if statements.
[You could also initialize it to "th" then change it to "st", "nd" or "rd" for
values of 1,2,3,21,22 or 31 – Ed.]
Q. I want to have a small window open when someone clicks a link on my
page. I don’t want a full size window, just a small one. Can JavaScript do this?
A. Since you will probably have more than one link on a page you should
set up a function in your head section of your document that will be used by
multiple links. You can pass the html page you want to load in the window to the
function when the link is clicked on. With window.open() you can set the
width, height, postion and other attributes. Here is an example:
<script language="javascript"> function OpenWin(linkid)
{ NewWin=window.open (linkid,"newwin",config="width=200,height=250,location=no,status=no,directories=
no,toolbar=no,scrollbars=no,menubar=no,resizable=no,top=30,left=30");
NewWin.focus()
}
</script>
The variable "linkid" contains the page you want to load. This was passed to the
function when the link was clicked on. Then in the body section of your document
your link could look like this:
<A HREF="javascript:OpenWin(‘somepage.html’)">Apples</A>
You would wrap the link around the word that you want to click on for more info.
The HTML Goodies site does have a tutorial on window.open()
(see
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/jsp/hgjsp_11.html and
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/primers/jsp/hgjsp_12.html — Ed.)
Q. I’m looking for resources for designing pages that easily compatible
with a wide variety of browser types. I use Macromedia DreamWeaverMX which does
offer some hints for making my pages more easily accessible to a wide range of
people but I’m curious if there are any online or
>print resources out there that specifically address issues like the use of
certain tags and possible alternatives, the formating of text and pictures, etc.
A. Here are a couple of sites that I use for browser compatibility:
http://www.netmechanic.com/browser-photo/tutorial.htm
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/reference/browser_chart
http://www.anybrowser.com
I get quite a bit of information from the first link, Netmechanic.
News Goodies
Cisco Buys IP Platform Maker
[August 23, 2004] The network gear giant pays $200M for
technology that helps service providers manage VoIP and other
services.
Click
here to read the article
IT Services The Place To Be
[August 23, 2004] The IT services sector got a boost from
analysts on Monday, even if the endorsements were a little on
the lukewarm side.
Click here to read the article
iPass Takes Flight with Boeing
[August 23, 2004] iPass must think the only way to go is up — in the air
that is — as it signs on in-flight wireless provider Connexion by Boeing as
its latest Wi-Fi partner.
Click
here to read the article
Scrubbing Content Metadata
[August 23, 2004] Updated Workshare software removes hidden data
from Word documents, e-mail.
Click here to read the article
Security Outsourcing to Soar
[August 23, 2004] Enterprises will contract out 90 percent
of security operations by 2010, Yankee Group predicts.
Click here to read the article
Macromedia Rolls New Flex Builder Tool
[August 23, 2004] The Web graphics software maker re-launches its
development tool designed for building presentation layers and to be more
compliant with J2EE.
Click here to read the article
Spam, DoS Headed VoIP’s Way
[August 23, 2004] Spam over Internet Telephony (SPIT) and DoS attacks could
make IP telephony as vulnerable as e-mail.
Click here to read the article
Cisco Ties Microsoft CRM to Your Phone System
[August 23, 2004] Cisco Systems today announced plans to integrate its
IP Communications platform with Microsoft CRM. The goal is to provide an
affordable way to give everyone in the company a single view into complete
customer data.
Click here to read the article
A Day in The Life of a Spammer
[August 20, 2004] FEATURE: Bulk e-mail providers are getting lumped into the
same category as scammers and porn peddlers, says one marketer in this look
at a scourge of the Internet.
Click here to read the article
AOL Awards Omniture ASP Deal
[August 23, 2004] Analytics provider says contract with AOL is helping to
lift concept of software as service.
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
Go and in the Peer Reviews section of the website.
Current contact email addresses for submitting your site and
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If you would like to have your site reviewed, sign up for
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left side of this page.
For full details about this program, see
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/peerreviews
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/
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!!
Many thanks to all of you who sent in your messages of
concern and wishes for my family and myself following
Hurricane Charley. I am happy to report that we are starting
to get back to "normal" — the debris is almost all gone
from my yard, the patch work on my roof is holding up most
of the time (we’ve had thunder storms everyday since the
hurricane!) There are many in our area who are much worse
off than I, and I wish all of them the best of luck and hold
them in my thoughts.
Thanks again for all your feedback!
Top
Windows Tech Goodie of the Week:
Middle-Tier Hosting for Client/Server Communication
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/040812.htm
There is broad-reaching debate about .NET Remoting, Web
services, Enterprise Services, and DCOM. It is a debate
about the best technology to use when implementing
client/server communication in .NET. Rocky Lhotka shares his
thoughts on the issue while offering clear explanations of
basic application architecture terminology.
*** AND ***
ASP.NET URL Rewriting and Caching Engine
http://www.asp101.com/articles/matteo/urlrewriting/default.asp
A simple idea for content management turns into a great
little script via lots of trial and error in this article on
ASP.NET URL rewriting.
Top
And Remember This . . .
On this day in…
1913 Cars Allowed into Yosemite
This day in 1913 was the first day that automobiles were allowed
into Yosemite National Park in California. Before that time
visitors, who usually arrived in the area by train, took stagecoach
tours of the park. The National Park Service had to design a
comprehensive, high quality park road system to accommodate the
public motor traffic. The date marked a fundamental change in the
Parks Service, as designers worked hard to create an environmentally
friendly system of roads that would "lie lightly on the land".
Today was also the day that in: 1617 1st one-way streets were
established (London); 1833 Britain abolished slavery in
colonies; 700,000 slaves freed; 1904 the automobile tire
chain was patented; 1919 "Gasoline Alley" cartoon strip
premiered (in Chicago Tribune); 1963 the Beatles released
"She Loves You" in the UK; 1979 Bolshoi Ballet dancer
Alexander Godunov defected in NYC (apparently he was Godenov for the
US) (sorry!);
Born today were: in 1754 Louis XVI of France; 1912
dancer/actor Gene Kelly; 1913 orchestra leader (brother to
Bing) Bob Crosby; 1930 actress Vera Miles; 1934
actress Barbara Eden (& how many of us dreamt of Jeannie?!); 1940
actor Richard Sanders; 1947 musician Keith Moon; 1949
actress Shelley Long; 1951 Queen Noor of Jordan; 1970
actor River Phoenix;
Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!