Saturday, November 2, 2024

Goodies to Go ™
December 16, 2002– Newsletter #211


Goodies to Go ™
December 16, 2002–Newsletter #211

This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
 


Featured
this week
:

* Goodies Thoughts – I Never Met A Tag I Didn’t Like!
(Part 2)
* Q & A Goodies
* News Goodies
* 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

I Never Met A Tag I Didn’t Like! (Part 2)



Last week, I started discussion of META tags,
covering the nature of META tags and taking a look
at the NAME variety. This week, I continue by taking
a look at the HTTP-EQUIV variation. These are the
META tags that have an HTTP-EQUIV attribute. If you
missed last weeks newsletter, you can find it in the
archive at

https://www.htmlgoodies.com/letters
.

HTTP-EQUIV META tags allow the web page developer to
add the equivalent of HTTP header information into
the web page itself. The browser can then access
this information at the time the page is read. The
server may also use it when the document is being
sent. The format of this tag involves the HTTP-EQUIV
attribute being set to the header type, while the
CONTENT value provides the header information
itself. As an example: <META HTTP-EQUIV="Expires"
CONTENT="Tue, 31 Dec 2002 23:59:59 GMT"> sets the
expiration date for the document to be the last
second of this year, GMT (Greenwich, London.)

Some of the header equivalents available are as
follows:

Expires
As in the example provided above, this tag provides
an expiration date for a document. If a browser has
a copy of a requested page in its cache, it will
show that copy unless it has expired. If you, for
example, update your page every day and want your
visitors always to see the new version, you could
set the expiration to midnight each night. The next
day, their browser would request a fresh copy of
your page.

Pragma
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Pragma" CONTENT="no-cache">
This tells the browser not to store this page in
cache in the first place. If you are doing this for
security purposes, please remember that just because
you have sent the instruction to the browser, does
not mea it will follow it. There may be browsers
that don’t implement all the rules. Providing this
tag may help, but is not a guarantee.

Refresh
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="10;URL=http://www.displaysecond.com/page2.html">
Known as Client-Pull, this tag instructs the browser
to fetch another page after a specified number of
seconds. In this example, the browser will go to
www.displaysecond.com/page2.html after displaying
the current page for 10 seconds. A value of zero for
the seconds will send the browser to the second page
right away. Used creatively, this could provide a
means for changing displayed content every few
seconds. You might, for example, have a frame or
iframe in which a series of pages invoke each other
every five seconds, somewhat like a banner rotation.

Window-target
<META HTTP-EQUIV="Window-target" CONTENT="_top">
This specifies the named window for the page and is
most commonly used, as in this example, to prevent a
page from being displayed within another framed
page. Using JavaScript for this purpose may actually
be a better way of accomplishing this. There is a
discussion of the necessary code at

https://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/yesnoframes.html

.

PICS-Label
<META http-equiv="PICS-Label" content='(PICS-1.1
"http://vancouver-webpages.com/VWP1.0/" l gen true
comment "VWP1.0" by "author@authorsdomain.com" on
"2002.12.16T12:34-0800" for "http://www.authorsdomain.com/"
r (P 2 S 0 SF -2 V 0 Tol -2 Com 0 Env -2 MC -3 Gam
-1 Can 0 Edu -1 ))’>
Did you get that? The PICS-Label, Platform for
Internet Content Selection, is a mechanism for
rating pages for content filtering purposes. It
involves a labeling system that can be identified by
content filtering software to ensure that only
suitable content finds its way, for example, into
the classroom of a children’s school. There is too
much involved with this tag for discussion in this
newsletter, but I can point you at
http://www.w3.org/PICS for more information. There’s
also a free PICS-Label generator service at

http://vancouver-webpages.com/VWP1.0/VWP1.0.gen.html

.

Before closing, I should mention where on a page the
META tags should appear. They belong in the head of
the page, between the <HEAD> and </HEAD> tags,
before the <BODY> tag.

There are a couple of useful META tag resources that
I would also like to point out:
in WebDeveloper.com there is

http://www.webdeveloper.com/html/html_metatag_res.html

and in the Web Developer’s Virtual Library,

http://wdvl.com/Authoring/HTML/Head/Meta/Resources.html



Thanks for Reading!
– Vince Barnes

Top

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 copyrighted pictures on my
website. I have disabled the right-click, so no
one can save the picture that way, but then
there’s that LOVELY little Windows XP toolbar
that pops up that allows you to save from there.
Can you help me get this toolbar disabled?

A. By Windows XP toolbar, do you mean the
browser toolbar? Yes, it’s possible to load a
window without it, though not remove it from the
current window. Even then, the keyboard
shortcuts will still work, and there are other
ways around it too. Not only are you fighting a
hopeless battle using technical means to make
saving images tough, but as someone who uses the
right click menu frequently I always resent
having it taken. It’s not good to annoy your
visitors. Since technical means won’t work, try
two non-technical protections. One is to put a
big copyright notice over the graphic. The other
is to display just a small version on the web
site, and ask anyone who wants the bigger
version to contact you. Otherwise, the only way
to prevent copying is to not put an image on the
web at all.

Q. I’m having trouble with adding spaces
on my website. I usually use Internet Explorer
6.0 for the internet. As was suggested, I also
downloaded Netscape Navigator 7.0. When I view
my site in Internet Explorer the space code "&nbsp"
doesn’t show up as those letters, but as a
space. But, in Netscape the space code "&nbsp"
doesn’t show up until the very last time it is
used.

A. The space codes in the problem area
are not followed by a semicolon, whereas the
spaces in the areas that are working have the
required semicolon — "&nbsp;". Add the missing
semicolons and you’ll get spaces instead of
code.

Q. I want to add a link on my pages that
would allow my visitors to go back to the last
page they were looking at, no matter which page
it was (like the "Back" button, but a
hyperlink). How do I code this?

A. You can use a piece of javascript that
works just like the browsers back button. Code
it like so:
<a href="javascript:history.go(-1)">Go Back</a>

Q. Do you use href to open a link in a
new window?

A. Yes you do. You add the target="blank"
for a new window. Code it like so:
<a href="http://www.somewhere.com"
target="_blank">Somewhere</a>


Q.
My server supports CGI, PERL, PHP & MySQL,
but not ASP. What is the easiest way to add a
shopping cart capability with credit card
processing capability?

A. You can buy a shopping cart that will
run on what your host supports. First check with
your host to make sure that they allow uploading
a shopping cart. Then take a look at this site:
http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Shopping_Carts/
It has a lot of pre-built carts that will run on
a server that supports PHP. They seem fairly
inexpensive. Before you buy one, make sure it
has everything you are looking for and if
possible, see if they offer a demo for you to
try.

Q. I’d like to do is create a template
(basically a header and footer) so that I can
update the top and bottom of all my webpages by
only altering one file for each.

A. You can use SSI to include a page at
the top and a page at the bottom, if your server
supports this. Take a look at this tutorial:
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/beyond/asp.html
About half way down the page it explains SSI and
include pages.


 

 

 

 

Top

News Goodies


eBay Bidding Bye Bye to Billpoint
[December 16, 2002] Making good on its $1.5
billion PayPal acquisition, the auction giant will
soon phase out its original P2P payment service.

Click
here to read the article

 


AOL Wins Legal Round Against Spammers
[December 16, 2002] ISP wins a legal round
against CN Productions, a long-running nemesis
notorious for sending pornographic e-mails to AOL
members.

Click
here to read the article

 




IE Continues to Gain in Browser Wars
[December 16, 2002] Metrics show that Internet
Explorer, already the dominant player by far,
continues to gain share in the browser wars. But the
numbers may not be all that accurate.

Click here to read the article

 




HotBot Redesign: Four Search Engines in One
[December 16, 2002] After a period of benign
neglect, Terra Lycos intros a new HotBot, featuring
an ad-free homepage and the ability to query FAST,
Google, Inktomi and Teoma from a single interface.

Click here to read the article

 

 



Super Bowl Ads: Some Suit Up, Some Don’t
[December 13, 2002] After the dot-com frenzy of
1999 and 2000, Internet and technology firms will
have a lower profile during the commercial breaks of
this year’s game.

Click here to read the article

 



 

Virus-to-E-mail Ratio Grows Worse
[December 13, 2002] The e-mail security firm finds
one virus in every 212 e-mails in 2002 (one virus
every 3 seconds), a dramatic increase of the one
virus per 380 emails last year.

Click here to read the article

 

 



Microsoft Unveils New Web Service
[December 12, 2002] The software giant raises
the curtain on MapPoint .NET 3.0, with new
location-based features and expanded street-level
data.

Click here to read the article

 

 

 

 

Top

Feedback
Goodies


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.

 

I’m still getting some feedback from a couple of
newsletters ago – the one concerning hacking. (If
you missed it, you can find it in the archive —

https://www.htmlgoodies.com/letters
) The ongoing
feedback is almost entirely from those who would
like me to understand that "hackers" are the good
guys, "crackers" are the bad guys. Folks, I do get
it! The problem is that to the general population
there is no such distinction. To most people
"crackers" either go with cheese or live in the
southern states! To the general population, the term
"hacker" has come to refer to those types who try to
break into computers and who may disrupt the normal
operation of those computers.

There was a Q&A item last week regarding the
changing of a table cell’s content from a hyperlink
elsewhere on the page. Peter Breyfogle points out
the the provided solution has difficulties in IE5,
and offers this alternative solution (thanks,
Peter):
If you give a cell a named anchor you can access it
with cellname.innerHTML="New Stuff" thus:
<table border=1><tr>
<td><a href="#magiczone" onclick="magiczone.innerHTML=’Look
here now!’">Click to change something.</a></td>
<td><a name="magiczone">Pretty boring over
here.</a></td>
</tr></table>
 

 

 

 

Top
And
Remember This
. . .

On this day in…

1789: Bill Of Rights Becomes Law
The first ten amendments to the Constitution of the
United States of America became law on this day in
1789. Together, these ten amendments are known as
the "Bill of Rights". Earlier that same year, in
September, the first Congress of the United States
passed twelve amendments to the constitution and
sent them to the states for ratification. On this
day, Virginia became the tenth of the fourteen
states to ratify ten of the twelve amendments. This
provided the two thirds majority required for the
Bill of Rights to become law. The Bill of rights was
based largely on the English Bill of Rights of 1689
and Virginia’s Declaration of Rights written by
George Mason in 1776. Of the two remaining
amendments, one involved the population system of
representation and has never been ratified. The
other, which prohibits changes to Congressional
Members pay until after an election, was finally
ratified over two hundred years later, in 1992.

1951: "Dragnet" Previews
The television detective series, which had been a
poplar radio show since 1949, ran from January 1952
until 1959. It is being revitalized and will be back
on your screens very soon!

1966
: Walt Disney died.

1998: Disney Exec Testifies Against
Microsoft.
In the famous anti-trust suit against Microsoft, a
Disney executive testified on this day that
Microsoft agreed to provide a link to Disney in
Windows only after Disney agreed to create content
that could only be viewed in Microsoft Internet
Explorer, causing Disney to scrap an earlier
agreement with Netscape. Microsoft had been accused
of unfairly leveraging its dominance in the
operating system marketplace in order to gain
advantage in the browser world.

 

 



Thanks for reading
Goodies to Go!


 




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