Goodies to Go ™
October 20, 2003–Newsletter #255
This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
Featured this week:
* Goodies Thoughts – In The Dragon’s
Lair
* 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 – In The Dragon’s Lair
The usual routine involves me typing out a new lead piece for
this newsletter each week. This week is a little different. This week will be a
great opportunity for those of you who enjoy finding typographical errors. I
have no intention of using a spell checker or grammar checker on this piece this
week. In fact, I have no intention of typing anything, or even of touching my
keyboard! That’s right! This week I am dictating the entire piece into a voice
recognition program. I want to show you what can be accomplished with such a
program, and how far this kind of technology has progressed.
I just got my hands on a copy of Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 7. I am amazed
at what this program can do and how easily it can be used, even by a complete
novice such as myself. I installed this program about two hours ago. Over the
past two hours, I have been going through the voice training and learning my way
around the navigation and features of the program.
The ability of this program to recognize my voice, is very impressive. My accent
is not an easy accent for a program to understand. I have lived a part of my
life in Europe and a part of it in the United States. Consequently, I have what
I call a Mid-Lantic accent. Some of my speech sounds are American and some of
them are European. This program seems to learn faster than I do. The voice
training took approximately ten minutes and the program is already doing an
extraordinary job of understanding me. The remainder of the two hours has been
spent by me learning to navigate in the program, to speak without mumbling or
stuttering and to dictate in a consistent fashion. You can see for yourself the
results.
I have tried using voice recognition programs in the past but have given up
because the voice training was too arduous, navigation was too difficult or
correcting errors was too complicated. It simply seemed that typing was just
easier. I would have to say that is no longer the case. I believe I will spend
considerable time with this program, and that it and I will become friends. As
time goes by I will certainly get to know it better and I believe that it will
get to me better. Isn’t that what friends do? I will refrain however from giving
it a name like Bertie or Sheila and referring to him or her. It already has the
name Dragon, and I like that and can refer to it as "it".
"Wow! Vince is certainly rambling this week," you may be saying to yourself, but
take a closer look at the complexities of some of the things that I have been
saying and consider again the fact that I am not touching the keyboard this
week. Each and every thing you see, words, punctuation, formatting and all are
being put into the computer by voice alone. I promise you that I am not touching
my mouse or my keyboard to make any corrections, to insert any punctuation, or
to change any formatting.
I know that there are some people who are excellent typists. I am not one of
them. For me typing is a time-consuming labor. Talking, however, is something I
can definitely do! I believe that as I improve my dictation skills, I will be
able to save a great deal of time with this program. If you, in your web
development work, or even in your day life, spend much time typing, then you too
might save some of that valuable time with this program. Not only that, but it
is actually a little bit more fun to use a microphone than the keyboard!
Just to show off a little, now that I have gained more confidence, I would like
to include a sentence that uses the words to, two, and too, as well as the words
for and four, for no other reason than to show that they can be used together
with no context to guide the selection of which one will be used when. I remind
you, I opened the box that this program comes in two hours ago! I hope that you
are is impressed with it is I am!
By the way, for those of you who do like looking for typo’s, I have looked and I
can see nun. <g> (Still no keyboard!)
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. (Question was posed as a JavaScript question) How do I (or can I at
all) use a button in frame A to send the page in frame B to a specific E-mail
address?
A. Unfortunately JavaScript cannot send HTML emails. You will need to use
a Server Side language such as Perl, PHP or ASP. The best you could do with
JavaScript would be to send a link to a Page, but in your case that would not
work as you want them to build the document and then send it.
Q. I have volunteered to create a web site for a science fair at our
local elementary school. I have just begun to write html, and find it really
easy. I would like to know if you could recommend any good html editor, that at
least had syntax checking and , I guess style sheet support. I want to keep it
simple, so others who follow me in coming years will be able to maintain the
site without having to learn something complicated.
A. Ease of use, inexpensive, style sheet support and I think the next
version, 2003 might even have syntax checking, I would suggest FrontPage 2003,
about $170. I have read a lot of very good reviews and it looks very promising.
It will be available October 21st. Some would argue that FrontPage is for
amateurs. I have used it since FrontPage 98 and have been very happy with it. It
gets better with every version and from what I have been reading FP 2003 has it
all. It is a WYSIWYG editor as well as an HTML editor. You can choose either or
both at the same time with the new version. I have used Dreamweaver, about $400
and it is a great editor but the price is far greater than FrontPage and the
learning curve is greater, in my humble opinion. If you are looking for a very
nice editor that has everything you are looking for (no WYSIWYG) you can try
CoffeeCup HTML Editor –
http://www.coffeecup.com – about $50 and lifetime upgrades. I own it and use
it also. very nice editor but not all of the bells and whistles as the others.
For a free HTML editor with no WYSIWYG you can try 1st Page Editor –
http://www.evrsoft.com I
have never tried it but have heard good things about it.
Q. My website uses frames and I was wondering if there was a code (which
I was guessing uses JavaScript) that refreshes a page/frame automatically every
X minutes?
A. If you want to reload a document in one frame frome another you could
do this:
<script language="javascript">
function doReload()
{
parent.framea.location.reload()
setTimeout(‘doReload()’,60000)
}
</script>
Then start it by using the onLoad event in the body tag:
<body onload="setTimeout(‘doReload()’,60000)">
This would reload the document in the frame named "framea" every 60,000
miliseconds (1 minute).
Q. My question is so basic that I can’t find an answer in any of the FAQs
or books I’ve read. What’s the difference between .htm and .html, and it’s other
variants. Can you do more with one than the other? What about old file handling
routines that still enforce the 8.3 file naming convention?
A. There is really no difference in the file names. The only issue that
might cause a problem is if the server the site is on is set up to default to is
.html extensions and you name yours .htm it could cause a problem. I think most
hosting servers are set up to default on either. They usually tell you their
default extensions somewhere in the help files for setting up a web page.
.
Q. How do I make three tables all on the same line with a space between
them?
A. You make one large table at 100 percent width and a border of zero,
with one row then add your three tables in the large tables <td>
tags. Play around with the <td> widths to get the size you need. You
can add a couple <td> tags with the code which is just a blank
space to make some space between the 3 tables. Here is a example of
the code:
<table summary="large table" align="center" width="100%" border="0"
cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr>
<td width="30%">
<table summary="Menu Table" width="100%" border="1" cellspacing="0"
cellpadding="0">
<tr align="center"><td>Menu</td></tr>
</table>
</td>
<td width="5%"> </td>
<td width="30%">
<table summary="Main Table" width="100%" border="1" cellspacing="0"
cellpadding="0">
<tr align="center"><td>Main</td></tr>
</table>
</td>
<td width="5%"> </td>
<td width="30%">
<table summary="New Menu Table" width="100%" border="1"
cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
<tr align="center"><td>New Menu</td></tr>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
News Goodies
Task Force Deploys IPv6 Pilot Network
[October 20, 2003] Dept. of Defense hopes to complete
transition to IPv6 for all inter and intra networking across the
DoD by FY 2008.
Click
here to read the article
IBM, Adobe Lock in Partnership for Document Services
[October 20, 2003] IBM will bundle Adobe document services across its
software brands, beginning with DB2 Content Manager, to bolster its content
management capabilities.
Click here to read the article
Symantec Purchases SafeWeb
[October 20, 2003] Deal adds a SSL-based VPN solution to its product
portfolio.
Click here to read the article
Monster To Debut Networking For Job Seekers
[October 20, 2003] Wanting to build on the popularity of it job search site,
the company nabbed Classmates.com’s president and started its own service.
Click here to read the article
iTunes Throws Down An iGauntlet
[October 20, 2003] Apple’s marketing finesse will let it out perform Napster
and MusicMatch, that is until Microsoft gets more involved, say analysts.
Click here to read the article
Intel, iAnywhere Lend a Hand to Wireless Developers
[October 20, 2003] The companies are offering a new Wi-Fi
toolkit aimed at fueling wireless application development.
Click here to read the article
MailFrontier Holds The Line Against Phishing
[October 20, 2003] The Palo Alto, Calif.-based messaging security firm
debuts its new Matador consumer app as a filter for fraudulent e-mails.
Click here to read the article
Another Microsoft Patch, Another Masquerade
[October 20, 2003] Another virus posing as a patch from Microsoft, which
never issues security patches via e-mail, is actually a Trojan Horse,
experts warn.
Click
here to read the article
EarthLink Tunes in Radio Shack
[October 20, 2003] Quickly and cheaply expanding distribution, the ISP
will sell through 5,000 of the retailer’s U.S. stores.
Click here to read the article
Bill Aims to Curb Patriot Act Powers
[October 20, 2003] Legislation would limit authority for ‘sneak and peak’
warrants that allow FBI to search individual computer files without prior
notice.
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
Go and in the Peer Reviews section of the website.
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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/
Many thanks for the great response to our development
project idea. It is heartwarming to see that so many of you
are willing to share your talents with your peers. Over the
next few days, I will be in touch with each of you, as we
get this project underway. Everyone can look forward to
seeing the results of this project on the website soon.
(This message is repeated from last week — just in case you
missed it!) For those who are missing Peer reviews: we are
once again revising the Peer review program in the hopes of
creating a workable solution. 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!"
Thanks again for all your feedback!
Top
Windows Tech Goodie of the Week:
Classic ASP Barcode Generator
http://www.asp101.com/resources/visitors/index.asp#barcode
This script will generate Code39 (or Code 3-for-9) barcodes.
You’ll find these barcodes on staff and student ID badges,
video rental cards and so on. Now you can generate and use
them on your own.
** and **
SVG Developers Start Your Engines
http://www.15seconds.com/News/News.asp?News_Id=542
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has announced a series
of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) competitions that will be
held over the next few months.
Top
And Remember This . . .
On this day in…
1973 Sydney Opera House Opens
On October 20th, 1973 the Sydney Opera House was opened and
dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II of the UK. The famous building which
dominates Sydney Harbour took fifteen years to build and cost $80
million. It was designed by Danish architect Jxrn Utzon. The
building incorporates several auditoriums and hosts 2 million+
visitors annually at 3000+ performances, the first of which was the
Australian Opera’s production of Prokoviev’s War and Peace.
Today was also the day that: in 1803 the US Senate ratified
the Louisiana Purchase; 1818 the 49th parallel was
established as the border between the US and Canada; 1905 the
Great General Strike began in Russia; 1911 Roald Amundsen
started out for the South Pole; 1930 British White Paper
restricted Jews from buying Arab land; 1947 the House
Un-American Activities Committee opened hearings into alleged
Communist influence in Hollywood; 1964 150 arrested in
rioting at a Rolling Stones concert in Paris; 1968 Jacqueline
Kennedy and Aristotle Onassis married; 1973 William Shatner
and Marcy Lafferty married; 1977 Charter plane crash killed
three members of rock group Lynyrd Skynyrd; 1983 IBM PC-DOS
2.1 Released; 1988 in a crackdown on the IRA Britain ended a
suspects right to remain silent; 1991 actress Lisa Hartman
and country singer Clint Black married;
Born today were: in 1632 English architect (and astronomer)
Sir Christopher Wren; 1823 English author Thomas Hughes (Tom
Brown’s School Days); 1859 philosopher John Dewey; 1889
actress Margaret Dumont; 1911 actor Will Rogers Jr.; 1913
French film director Jean-Pierre Melville; 1925 columnist Art
Buchwald; 1931 NY Yankees slugger Mickey Mantle; 1932
actor William Christopher; 1934 actor Martin Landau; 1935
actor Jerry Orbach; 1946 US news anchor Connie Chung; 1950
actress Finola Hughes; 1953 singer Tom Petty; 1958
Yugoslavian pianist Ivo Pogorelich; 1967 actress Susan Tulley;
Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!
