Goodies to Go ™
June 2, 2003–Newsletter #235
This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
Featured this week:
* Goodies Thoughts – A Thousand Mile
Journey
* 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 Thousand Mile Journey
There’s an old Chinese (I believe) proverb that says (roughly translated) that a
thousand mile journey begins with one step. It seems so obvious, but it’s so
hard to remember when you’re about to embark on such an expedition and you are
considering the magnitude of the whole task. Of course the lesson is that you
will never get anywhere unless you take that first step, and once it’s taken,
you’re on your way.
How many times has a web developer decided to create a website, started to
ponder all the wonderful things that they will include on the site, and then
spent so much time trying to figure out how it will all fit together, and which
technology to use for which part of the site, that in the end, they give up
without taking that first site? More often than you might expect, judging by the
email I receive! So today, I thought I’d talk just a moment about the process of
getting started on a new web adventure.
You, my reader, I am sure, have already started at least one web project, so
this advice is not necessarily intended for you directly. Instead, it’s intended
for those friends of yours. You know the ones! The ones that tell you that they
are starting a website but talk about it in such a way as to hint to you that
they know you do websites, and it’s so hard to get started, and they haven’t got
any budget but you’re a really good friend!
The Non-Technical Introduction (see https://www.htmlgoodies.com/nontechintro/ )
provides some useful background information and advice, and walks you through
the necessary logistical steps; but when it gets down to doing the design —
right down to the actual "doing" of it, how do you take that first step? Answer:
take it! An example might provide a little insight into what I mean. Suppose you
are to design a website about your house. Grab a piece of paper and a pencil and
(here goes:) write "My House." Excellent! You’ve started! Now let your
imagination go: hmmm… a picture of my house might be nice, so, draw a box and
write "picture of my house" in it. Now add some more information: write "My
house is a fairly ordinary house, in the middle of a row of other, fairly
ordinary houses." Now illustrate that point: draw another box and write "picture
of row of houses" in it. Continue: "But my house is very special to me." And so
on — you get the idea. Once started, momentum will quickly allow the creation
to come into being. Once the ideas are down on paper, you can rearrange them,
add to them, improve the aesthetics, divide ideas into groupings (new pages or
sections) and so on. Momentum builds rapidly!
Just a little aside: avoid putting "under construction" or other such corny
lines on your site. There are two type of website: dead ones and those that are
still being worked on. Every worthwhile website is "under construction"!
Now, when that friend comes to you again, full of hintings, point them to HTML
Goodies’ Non-Technical Introduction and tell them that the secret to starting a
web site, even one the size and scope of Yahoo.com or Microsoft.com, is entirely
contained within one simple instruction. Start!
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. The site I’m having problems with is:
http://www.angelfire.com/mn2/jimmysite/cd/home.html The site has 0
borders all around and is a single table split into four cells, one for the
eagle logo, one for the title, one for nav, and one for body. If you resize your
browser to the skinniest it can get, the content in the two right cells moves
over and overlaps the left cells. This is because I have table set at 100%, I
believe. If I set the table to a fixed pixel amount it wouldn’t display well on
other screen resolutions (ex 800×600). Is there any way I can allow the content
in the two right cells to move when browser is resized, but NOT to move
into/overlap the left cells? A website that has what I’m talking about is
www.gamefaqs.com, notice how when you resize your browser to make it skinnier it
DOESN’T overlap into the navbar, whereas on my site it does overlap.
A. It looks like you have used absolute table sizes. Try using
percentages. This may give you the effect you are looking for. I tried viewing
your site in the three major resolutions and it looks fine. I don’t think you
will have to worry about someone viewing your site like you’re talking about.
None of the major browsers are set to view in a tall narrow (skinny) resolution.
This would probably never affect the site. Take a look at this tutorial:
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/tbl.html
Q. I have
created a form on my computer building site that allows you to configure which
components of a computer you want to purchase. How do I have an updating total
at the bottom of the page that shows my customer how much the current total is?
Also once I have this total how would I add a $70 shipping cost to it
automatically? And finally I would like to submit the customer’s choices to me.
At the moment I have an HTML form that opens up your e-mail and attaches the
form to the e-mail (so when people send me an order it comes attached to an
e-mail). Is there a way to just have them type in their e-mail address and hit
submit and have it transmit to my e-mail without having to make them open their
e-mail up and send an e-mail? I have used HTML quite a bit and am unsure as to
how to do this stuff, so I am assuming that it is JavaScript. I know very little
JS
A. You are going to need a bit more than JavaScript. JavaScript is a
client side scripting language. You are going to need some processing on the
server. That is going to take some PERL, PHP or ASP. Basically what you need is
a shopping cart. There are many shopping carts but you need to know what your
server supports. If you are using Microsoft FrontPage and have FrontPage Server
Extensions installed on your server you can use that to send the form. It will
not do any figuring of the shipping for you though.
http://www.code4u.com — this is site has many links that may help you find what
you are looking for.
[You might also want to check out the Goodies Thoughts in these Goodies To Go
newsletter issues:
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/letters/225.html
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/letters/226.html
– Ed.]
Q. Re. the HTML Goodies tutorial on making JavaScript keystroke
recorders; I want to make it so the keystrokes lead the client to another page,
but I can’t find anything on any way to do that in JavaScript without opening
another window; I just want a keystroke link, and I can’t find it ANYWHERE!
A. Using key strokes to go to another page can be difficult and confusing
to the average person.
Q. I just finishing a webpage using background images in my table cells.
I set my background color to black and my background image is texture of color.
So here is my problem… the people who asked me to do their website want to be
able to print it for themselves and for students who visit the website. I just
discovered that the File/Print command in Explorer stays black where it’s
supposed to have a background image. It is really ugly when you print it. In all
the 5 years since I’m doing webpage its the first time that someone has asked me
to have a better rendering for printing. I haven’t found anything on that
subject so far, so if you have any ideas of how to fix this I will be very
grateful.
A. I believe you do not have control over what the user is printing in
this case. To print a background color or image the user has to have their
browser set to print them. By default the browser will be set up to not print
the background color or images because they impair readability or consume large
amounts of toner or ink.
In Microsoft Internet Explorer:
Select Tools and the select Internet Options.
Click the Advanced tab.
Scroll down to the section labeled Printing and mark the box labeled Print
background colors and images.
Try Reprinting the page.
I am not sure how it is done in Netscape.
Q. How would I make my own computer game with JavaScript?
A. Here is a link to some JavaScript games:
http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/cutindex22.shtml
News Goodies
Microsoft: Mission to ‘Jupiter’ Rolls Ahead
[June 2, 2003] The software giant gives a name to the first phase of its
‘Jupiter’ e-business Web services suite and releases the first
beta.
Click
here to read the article
E-mail Virus Getting ‘SoBig’
[June 2, 2003] Anti-virus firms are reporting 30,000 interceptions in 84
countries.
Click
here to read the article
HP Hooks Into Andreesen’s Opsware
[June 2, 2003] Hewlett-Packard turns to data center automation software
to upgrade gaps in its data center suite.
Click here to read the article
On-Demand Arrives at Electrolux
[June 2, 2003] Big Blue signs on another major client for outsourcing
services, and ‘by the drink’ computing too.
Click here to read the article
Tarantella Buys New Moon
[June 2, 2003] Two server-based computing runners-up join forces to take
on the industry leader, Citrix Systems
Click here to read the article
Borland, Microsoft Move Closer on Databases
[June 2, 2003] The two competitors put differences aside to push a new
environment on the .NET Framework.
Click here to read the article
NetIQ Rolls Out WebTrends Search Tool
[June 2, 2003] The leading analytics company will now offer clients a tool
to measure the effectiveness of their search marketing.
Click here to read the article
Software On-Demand, Pricing by the Byte?
[May 30, 2003] FEATURE: Not everyone in the tech world is convinced that
software providers will have an easy time offering applications ‘by the
drink’ or that companies are ready to buy technology ‘on demand.’
Click here to read the article
Tech, Media Giants Launch New Relationship
[May 30, 2003] ANALYSIS: In a settlement that officially
declares their browser wars over, Microsoft and AOL Time
Warner launch a new era of collaboration whose implications
are only starting to reverberate.
Click here to read the article
Lindows.com Nabs New Customer in Japan
[May 29, 2003] The desktop Linux advocate boasts a new
partnership aimed at putting Linux on the desktop in Japan,
and also assures customers that it has nothing to fear from
SCO.
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
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If you would like to comment on the newsletter or expand/improve on something
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Please don’t send your questions to this address.
They should be sent to our mentors: see
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Last week, I just got the newsletter finished — all
assembled and ready to go — when my machine froze! Since
the subject matter concerned using "a little careful
thought", Murphy’s law prevailed, of course, as I had not
yet clicked "save". Having a deadline to meet, I immediately
panicked. What else is there to do? As rapidly as possible,
I reconstructed the newsletter, retyping those pieces that
at time existed only in my head. In my haste, I forgot that
I had spell checked Goodies Thoughts after including it in
the newsletter, not before as usual. Consequently you got to
see my spelling errors, and wrote to let me know! Thank you,
and oops, sorry! It’s actually one of those little
curiosities of the English language that allows dependance
or dependence interchangeably, but only allows independence.
I am in the habit of using dependance and so commonly carry
it into its negative form. Spell checkers know better, but I
often miss it. Thanks again to all of you who wrote in — I
am truly glad to know that you read every word!
By the way, you might be interested to know why my machine
froze. "Windows Update" had recommended a new video driver
for my card and I had downloaded and installed it. I had
nothing but trouble until I used the "roll back driver"
feature to replace it with the older version. Once the old
one was back in place, the problems stopped altogether. I
suggest that you make sure you keep a copy of a driver in a
known location before you replace it with new one. I would
have pulled all my hair out by now if I didn’t have the old
one back in place!
Top
And Remember This . . .
On this day in…
1953 Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of the United
Kingdom
In London’s Westminster Abbey on this day fifty years ago,
Elizabeth Windsor was officially crowned Queen. Millions of
spectators watched the procession as the 27 year old
Elizabeth and her husband, 30 year old Philip Mountbatten,
Duke of Edinburgh, former Prince of Denmark and of Greece.
They didn’t care that it was raining (of course!) Did you
know she was a truck driver? During the Second World War,
she was a Second Lieutenant in the Women’s Services and
trained as a truck driver and repairer. Congratulations on
your Golden Jubilee, Ma’am!
Born today were: in 1840, writer Thomas Hardy;
1930, astronaut Pete Conrad; 1933, movie director
Barry Levinson (Rain Man [Academy Award 1988] Disclosure,
Jimmy Hollywood, Good Morning VietNam, The Natural, Toys,
Diner, Bugsy, Avalon); 1941, actor Stacy Keach;
1941, musician Charlie Watts (drummer, Roling Stones);
1944 musician, composer Marvin Hamlisch; 1948,
actor Jerry Mathers; 1955, actor, comedian Dana
Carvey ;
Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!
