Goodies to Go ™
May12, 2003–Newsletter #232
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Featured this week:
* Goodies Thoughts – Spy Games
* 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 – Spy Games
By now we have all (hopefully) heard of the unfortunate side-effects of
downloading such software as Kazaa onto our systems. Hmmmm…. I know that you
know all about it, but this guy over here says he hasn’t heard, so please bear
with me while I explain it to him.
I don’t necessarily mean to pick on Kazaa; it is just one of hundreds of sites
(and other offerings) to offer one thing and include another. The "other" thing
in these cases can be "adware", "spyware", "keyloggers", usage trackers and a
variety of other, similarly intentioned, uninvited guests and undesirables. In
case that doesn’t fully clarify it; "adware" are programs that put up
advertisements of other messages on your screen when you least expect, or want,
them. "Spyware" programs monitor your activity as you cruise the web, or do
other things on your computer, and report your activities back to ad companies
so that they can deliver advertising to you that is specifically targeted to
your tastes; although they could also sell this information for all sorts of
purposes. "Keyloggers" are similar to spyware, except that they usually keep a
lot more detail. This detail might include any passwords you type in, and even
screen shots of pages you visit or programs you open. Feel a little
uncomfortable yet? This information may be stored locally on your machine to be
read by someone else who has physical access to the machine, or may even be
transmitted to a remote location for retrieval by who knows whom! Usage trackers
are also similar to spyware, but usually use cookies to transfer information
about your web browsing activities from one site to another. The "other"
category includes "Trojans" (which might, or might not be detectable by
anti-virus software) that could do a variety of unpleasant things, or "dialers"
which rip you off by causing you to (unknowingly) call a number that charges you
by the minute, with the amount ripped from you showing up in your phone bill.
Okay! Now that we’re so paranoid that we could easy give up web surfing
altogether, let’s hastily say that there are things we can do to protect
ourselves. Thank goodness; and thank Patrick Kolla in Bochum, Germany, also!
Patrick is the author of "Spybot Search and Destroy". The name seems to say it
all, and in this particular case it pretty much does! This program searches for
spyware and all the above mentioned intruders, and offers a variety of things to
do about them, including destroying them!
My system sits behind a pretty well configured firewall, has up to the minute
(actually, update checks daily) anti-virus software from Symantec (Norton
Anti-Virus 2003) and Panicware’s wonderful Pop-Up Stopper Pro & Companion
software to block pop-ups and messenger ads (see
http://www.panicware.com). I don’t
download music onto it, and have never signed into Kazaa or the like. Still,
when I downloaded and ran Spybot S&D it found two pieces of tracker software in
my machine. A good friend of mine (who had used Napster and Kazaa at one time or
another) found more than ninety. When he removed them all, he noticed a marked
improvement in his browser’s performance. There are things that count as
paranoia — this isn’t one of them! In my humble opinion, everybody who uses the
web, as every web developer does, should download this software and run it
periodically on their system.
To get it, go to http://security.kolla.de
and download it. Patrick doesn’t sell it, it’s free. He does suggest that if you
like it you contribute to the cause so that it can be properly maintained in the
future. Personally, I would highly recommend making a contribution because I
think his work, and his results, are very well worth it.
When it comes to computer systems, it’s safety first, then backup, backup and
backup!
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. Every so often when using cookies and things are not working as
expected, I go into my cookies file on my XP computer and open the cookies file
to what is really there! I am sometimes a little confused as although the format
seems to be user name @ web address, minus the last extension (eg default@www.jiveoholic.org),
sometimes there is a [1] or [2] as well. Sometimes there several such cookie
files. Why does this happen and is there a way of purging these cookie files
from the web page that generated them?
A. I suspect that the multiple cookies from the same site are different
pages that are placing cookies on your XP. The only way you can delete them is
to go to TOOLS > Internet Options and then click on the Delete Cookies button.
Of course this will delete all cookies which you may not want. There is also
software that can do this for you. You could also delete them manually, but that
could get rather tedious.
[Check out Pop-up Stopper at http://www.panicware.com – the Pro and Companion
versions can do this for you automatically as you close your browser – Ed.]
Q. I would like to have two functions occur when a button is pushed. This
is how I have it written:
<.INPUT TYPE="button" VALUE="Submit" onClick="send()" onClick="openindex()">
You probably know that only the first event happens. How do I make the other
occur at the same time?.
A. You can perform more than one function with one event such as the
onClick by separating them with a semicolon. Try Changing your code to this:
<.INPUT TYPE="button" VALUE="Submit" onClick="send();openindex()">
Q. I found a script that disallows the right clicking to "view source"
which is great.. however is there another code that disallows the ability to
click on the "Source" option under the View Toolbar?
A. There is no way to stop them from viewing the source using the "view
source" option.
Q. I want a mouse rollover where I will have a table with a picture and
the mouserollover will change the picture to text with the picture in the
background.
A. You can do a simple tooltip by using the "TITLE" property on the image
text like this: <.img src="pic.gif" title="My Picture"> . If you want something
more involved then here is a link to some search resultes I found at
Internet.com:
http://search.internet.com/cgi-bin/search.webreference.com?method=mainQuery&numresults=0&batchhits=25&IC_Summary=1&IC_SortBy=&DB12=WebRef&query=tooltip
Q. How can I create a menu in the menu frame on the left side of a page
with several submenues that open and close when you click the upper level, just
with standard HTML and JAVA-Script, that runs on all Browsers?
A. Unfortunatley they are complicted because of the amount of code that
is needed to handle the different browsers. Here are a couple of links to some
scripts that will work with frames and are highly configurable. I believe the
instructions are quite good also.
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex1/hvmenu/index.htm
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex1/topmen4/index.htm
Both of these can be set to display horizontally or vertically.
News Goodies
‘Fizzer’ Worm Squirms Across the Web
[May 12, 2003] Anti-virus experts are monitoring a new mass-mailing worm
spreading itself via e-mail address books and the Kazaa P2P
network.
Click
here to read the article
Verizon Plans to ‘Wi-Fi’ Pay Phones
[May 12, 2003] The telco giant plans to build 802.11b-compliant ‘hotspot’
extensions of its broadband service in New York, using existing pay phones
as the distribution vehicle.
Click
here to read the article
Alleged Web Scammer Settles With SEC
[May 12, 2003] 20-year-old raised more than $100,000 by falsely
guaranteeing double-digit returns on three websites and through
approximately 9 million spam e-mails.
Click here to read the article
Nvidia Retakes 3D Speed Crown
[May 12, 2003] Putting the slot-hogging, deafening-cooling-fan FX 5800 Ultra
behind it, Nvidia Corp. unveils the GeForce FX 5900 Ultra — a graphics
accelerator with a range of improvements.
Click here to read the article
Cisco Woos Cable Operators
[May 12, 2003] The telecom gear maker intros a new router for cable
companies looking to bolster revenue with voice and data services.
Click here to read the article
JetBrains Adds IDE to JBoss Community
[May 12, 2003] The company’s IntelliJ IDEA integrated development
environment for the Java platform will now be integrated with JBoss Group’s
application server offering.
Click here to read the article
ING, AOL Sign $30M Marketing Pact
[May 12, 2003] The three-year cross-marketing deal for ING’s new personal
finance Web site tests AOL’s new resolve to use its online and offline arms
together.
Click here to read the article
Inteq Unveils New Management Portal
[May 12, 2003] Still bullish on the market for outsourced management
services, the Bedford, Mass.-based MSP announces a new version of
InfraPortal (its Web-based tool that offers a consolidated view of a
company’s entire IT infrastructure).
Click here to read the article
Microsoft Patches .NET Passport Hole
[May 8, 2003] UPDATE: Software giant could be facing a major
fine by the FTC after it acknowledged a password-stealing
security flaw in the .NET Passport that has since been
patched.
Click here to read the article
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They should be sent to our mentors: see
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A few readers have written in to point out that the
JavaScript menu shown in the last two weeks newsletters may
not work in Netscape 6.2 or 7. I have not yet had a chance
to check this out, but I will and will let you know what I
find out. Thanks to those who wrote in to let us know.
We get a couple of notes a month about our use of "<." in
code, and suggesting the use of < and >. The reason we
don’t use these is that while the look just fine in an email
program that is interpreting the html, they look exactly as
they are in every other email program (that is, the majority
of email programs). In addition, since they would both
require to be edited out and replaced with the actual
symbols for the code to become functional code, there would
be two global edits needed instead of one. Thanks for the
suggestion — it shows me that you’re paying attention and
thinking! Hopefully, you can see that there is a method to
our madness!
Top
And Remember This . . .
On this day in…
1841 Hitler backs Iraq’s Rashid Ali
Two bombers were flown from Germany to Iraq on this day in
1941 by order of the "Fuhrer", to help Rashid Ali al-Gailani
in his fight against the British. Ali had earlier overthrown
the pro-British government of Prime Minister General Nuri
al-Said, cut off the British oil pipeline and sealed off the
British airbase at Habbaniya. Hitler send the planes and
also sent arms through Syria to Iraq, because of his delight
at the problems Ali was creating for the British. On May 12,
he also sent Major Axel von Blomberg to act as a liaison
between Iraq and Germany. Unfortunately for him he arrived
in the middle of an air battle between the Iraqis and the
British and was killed by a stray round. By the end of May,
the British prevailed and Iraq surrendered. The British
re-established the 1930 cooperation pact and Iraq became a
valuable resource to the British and American forces in the
Middle-East. In January of 1942, Iraq became the first
independent Muslim State to declare war on the German Axis.
Born today were: in 1820, Florence Nightingale;
1907, Actress Katharine Hepburn; 1925, Baseball’s
Yogi Berra; 1929, music composer Burt Bacharach;
1936, TV Journalist Tom Snyder; 1937, comedian
George Carlin; 1948 singer Stevie Winwood; 1962
actor Emelio Estavez
Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!
