Goodies to Go ™
March 10, 2003–Newsletter #223
This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
Featured this week:
* Goodies Thoughts – Goodies Peer Reviews
* 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 – Goodies Peer Reviews
From the Land of Plenty, Peter Mole suggested it, we asked you, you responded with an absolutely overwhelming “yes” and so here it is! Welcome to the Goodies Peer Review! We didn’t want to waste any time bringing this into being, since it seemed such a popular idea. That’s the “why”, which leaves the “who”, “what”, “when”, “where” and “how”.
First, the “who”…
There are so many puns available based on “The Who” and “Who’s on first?” that I will leave you to make up as many as you would like for yourself, and won’t even mention them myself. In this case, “who” would be you. This is a peer review process, where you will submit site addresses, you will review each other’s sites, submit your reviews, and learn from each other’s wisdom.
Next, the “what”…
Goodies Peer Review is your opportunity to have your site reviewed by your peers – other Goodies To Go readers and HTML Goodies visitors. As you do, you’ll not only get the benefit of their insights and observations, you’ll be getting some great publicity and exposure for your site! A lot of people all over the planet use HTML Goodies, so you can expect a rise in your visitor rate! Everybody, whether their site is picked or not, gets to benefit from looking and the site being reviewed and reading the comments of the reviewers.
“When”…
Every week! There will be (currently) one site selected each week for review. Each week, three reviews of the previous week’s selected site will be chosen for publication on the HTML Goodies website. The site will hold the last ten sites and their associated reviews. After the tenth week, the site will drop off the bottom.
“Where”…
The URL of the site will be right here in Goodies To Go, in a new “Goodies Peer Reviews” section. The three reviews will be published in the Peer Reviews section of the HTML Goodies website.
And finally, “how”….
If you would like to have your site reviewed, you must submit your URL (website address) to revusubs@htmlgoodies.com — if you use any other address, it will not be considered. The Subject of the submission must be the URL you are submitting. Anything else, and it won’t be considered. The body of the message is irrelevant, and can be left blank. Your submission will remain in the pool of potential selections for two weeks. After two weeks, you will have to resubmit to get back into the pool. A URL will be selected at random and we will look for the email address from which the submission came to be on the home page of the site. It does not have to be displayed, and does not need to be a “mailto:”! It can be in a meta tag, under author (see https://www.htmlgoodies.com/letters/210.html for information on Meta Tags.) We need this to verify that the actual author submitted the site for review. If it’s not there, we’ll select another URL.
The address of the selected site will be published in Goodies To Go and readers will be invited to write and submit a review. We are looking for reviews to be around 500 words. The email address for reviews will be published in Goodies To Go along with the first selected URL. We will read as many of the reviews as we can and will make our selection based on our personal preferences. I can’t be very definitive about what we will be looking for, as it is going to be totally subjective! I can tell you that derision will not be looked on very favorably. Be constructive and helpful. Remember that the objective is to help both the author of the site and all those who read the reviews. If you see something that doesn’t work very well, say why it doesn’t work and offer a suggestion for improvement. Also, spell checkers and grammar checkers will help – the editors don’t want to have to work too hard!
The new section of HTML Goodies is being added today, and may be there by the time you read this.
Lastly, let me thank Peter Mole once again for his excellent suggestion. He sent me a note the other day, saying that he was surprised that I actually read his email! I try to read them all, Peter, but I can’t always reply to them all.
Submit your URLs now! Let’s get the ball rolling!
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 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 read through the tutorials on FORMS. I want to know how, when people
click the SEND button, do I send mail automaticcally instead of it opening up
OUTLOOK?
A. (Version 6 Browsers don’t support email forms. – Ed.)
You are going to need some server side coding for this to work. And it depends
on what your server supports. Most hosting packages support some kind of script
to send email from a web form. Most free hosting sites do not. It all depends on
what your server supports. If your server supports Active Server Pages (ASP)
then you can use ASP to send email. If your server supports CGI or PERL then you
can use that to send email.
Q. Is it possible to link directly to an Inline Frame, so that when I
click a hyperlink on the main page, only the contents of the Inline Frame
change?
A. Just give your Iframes names and then in your link code add the link
target name like so:
<.IFRAME NAME="iframe2" SRC="iframe2.html" ALIGN="" HEIGHT="" WIDTH="">
<.a href="somepage.html" target="iframe2">Your Link Here<./a>
Q. I want to build a site where people can download documents (.pdf)
where do I start?
A. You want to build a site where people can download PDF documents…is
a little broad. Do you want to know how to build the site? Do you want to know
how to offer the files for download? Do you know HTML? Are you familiar with
building websites at all? We can certainly help you with these different aspects
but we can’t take you step by step through this email. We are only here to help
with the areas in which you get stuck. If you are just starting out then the
first place to start is here: http://htmlgoodies.earthweb.com/primers/primer_1.html
To allow people to download PFD files or any other file, just create a link to
that file. If the person has the program to read the document it is possible
that it will open right from the web. To avoid this you can either place the
file in a ZIP file or tell the user to right click and choose "Save target
as…"
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.
Q. I have been working on trying to come up with a better
menu for my index page. I used Sothink DHTMLMenu to generate
one. I have it working, but it takes quite a while for the menu
to load. What is my problem?
A. I can’t see your menu, but I can make a couple
guesses. You have a bunch of images that need to load to make
the menu work. The browser looks for them when you do your
mouseover, which means calling the server and asking for the
image, and repeating the process for each image. My first guess
is you could fix your problem with a preloader, so the images
are already in the browser cache. Here’s an example of a
preloader:
// preload images
var an_image1 = new Image(151,37);
an_image1.src = "images/navigation/options_home_over.jpg";
var an_image2 = new Image(151,37);
an_image2.src="images/navigation/easement_over.jpg";
var an_image3 = new Image(151,37);
an_image3.src="images/navigation/mutual_over.jpg";
This is a JavaScript that declares a variable as an image and
specifies the size so the browser doesn’t have to figure it out,
and then give the variable a value consisting of a URL.
My second guess is that your images are large and taking a long
time to download. Keep them small, like 3k each, or even
eliminate them if you can.
Get rid of the "best viewed at" message. No visitor will change
their screen setting just for your site, nor take the blame for
he site not working at their screen setting. You just have to
make it work at different sizes.
News Goodies
New Online Smut Prohibition Bill Introduced
[March 10, 2003] Rebuffed by the courts for its previous efforts to ban
online child pornography, Congress tries again to get it right.
Click
here to read the article
Financial Carrot for PHP Developers
[March 10, 2003] A Grant Program has been launched offering financial
incentives to developers who create open-source projects related to PHP (but
not necessarily written in PHP).
Click
here to read the article
Microsoft Launches Second Office Beta
[March 10, 2003] The applications in Microsoft’s Office suite are
sporting new names as the software titan moves to put data interchange at
the heart of its office productivity platform.
Click here to read the article
Contiki Bringing New Life to 8-bit Systems?
[March 10, 2003] A computer networking researcher unveils a new operating
system and desktop environment that makes it possible to surf the Web from
an 8-bit system.
Click here to read the article
License Swap: AT&T Wireless, U.S. Cellular
[March 10, 2003] Deal covers more than 15 states and will give AT&T
Wireless a presence in most major cities.
Click here to read the article
Google in Search Deal with Disney Sites
[March 10, 2003] The company will provide both algorithmic and paid search
for Go.com, Disney.com, Movies.com, and FamilyFun.com.
Click here to read the article
Massive UT Hack Leaks SSN Data
[March 6, 2003] Officials at the University of Texas at Austin admitted a
massive ‘deliberate attack’ breached its computer system and exposed
personal data of approximately 55,200 individuals.
Click here to read the article
NVIDIA, ATI Release Dueling Graphics Chips
[March 6, 2003] The two largest graphics chipmakers square off at a Gamers
conference in the Silicon Valley with their long-awaited GeForce FX and
RADEON processors.
Click here to read the article
eBay Spawns New Feeder Business
[March 5, 2003] AuctionDrop lets those who are either pressed for
time and/or computer-challenged sell their goods — for a fee — on
the giant auction site.
Click here to read the article
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/
We have been getting a lot of mentor questions in the
feedback mailbox recently. Please note that when you sent
your questions to the feedback mailbox, they do not get to
the mentors and won’t be answered. Neither can they be
forwarded because this loses the reply capability that the
mentors’ maillist needs. Please check which mailbox you are
sending to before you click "Send"! Thanks!
As you can see by today’s main topic, feedback mail is read
and is acted upon!! Keep right on sending it in! And don’t
forget to submit your site’s URL for a Goodies Peer Review –
check the lead article for instructions and send it on in!
Thanks again for all the compliments. You really keep my
spirits up!
Top
And Remember This . . .
On this day in…
1969 Ray Pleads Guilty
On this day in 1969 James Earl Ray plead guilty to the
assasination of American civil rights leader Martin Luther
King Jr. King was shot while he stood on the balcony of his
hotel room in Memphis Tennessee on April 4th, 1968. The
rifle, fingerprints and eye witnesses all implicated Ray. He
was arrested on Jume 8th 1968 in London Airport by Scotland
Yard detectives while attempting to fly to Belgium. By
pleading guilty, Ray avoided execution in the electric
chair, and was instead sentenced to 99 years imprisonment.
And In 1876, on this day, Alexander Graham Bell
called by telephone to his assistant, Watson, who was on
another floor of Bell’s Boston home, and said, "Mr. Watson,
come here, I want you." Later in the year he called from
Boston to Cambridge, Massachusetts. A little later on the
‘phone system was used for the very noble purpose of carying
the internet all over the world! Hurrah!!
Born today in 1940 was martial arts expert and actor
Chuck Norris. A Happy Birthday also to Queen Elizabeth II of
England’s son, Prince Edward, who was born in 1964.
Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!