Goodies to Go ™
September 6, 2004–Newsletter #301
This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
Featured this week:
* Goodies Thoughts – More Hurricane
Trouble
* 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 – More Hurricane Trouble
First off, I want to apologize for this newsletter being
somewhat off topic, and somewhat abbreviated. The trouble is, I’m beset with
another hurricane — Frances, and the second in three weeks!
As I write, Frances is barreling towards our east coast — that is, the Atlantic
coast of Florida. Three weeks ago, Hurricane Charlie hit our Gulf Coast (the
Gulf of Mexico, or western coast of Florida) and came right over my head here in
Central Florida (Orlando).
I wrote at that time about the importance of making back-ups (see
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/letters/298.html) but now I have another
interesting observation for you to consider.
There’s a nasty anxiety that goes along with preparing for a hurricane’s strike
– even immediately after having come through one without too much damage. When
preparing for the storm, we put all our important papers into a bag, put the bag
in a plastic box & put the box in the trunk of the car, sitting snugly in the
garage (we hope!) All the most important items in the house get similar
treatment. My back-ups are in my briefcase, also in the car.
The trouble with this is the thinking that goes along with it — these extra
important things are treated this way because we are aware of the possibility
that everything else might be destroyed. Talk about distressing!
It strikes me that those who don’t take their backup needs seriously might, in
part, be avoiding this unpleasant thought. I believe, however, that there is one
way to avoid it without having to compromise safety and security.
The only reason we have to think of these things in the first place is because
we lack confidence in the normal routine. If we made to normal routine as solid
as a rock, which is what it should be anyway, then we wouldn’t have to worry
about it as a potential disaster looms. Essentially, we would be ready for the
disaster at all points in time. This is the way is really should be.
This thinking applies as much to all the most important things in your home as
it does to your computer system. If you kept copies of things in the house and
the originals in a bank vault, for example, things would probably be a lot
safer!
Now that I’ve been lecturing you about this for a few weeks, I think it’s time
for me to practice what I preach!
Best of luck to all!
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’m trying to design a personal portfolio site and need to have people
click on my thumbnails to see larger images in a new window… easy. However I
found a site that makes it hard for people to save/steal copyright materials- it
makes the new window close when it is clicked on… I can’t figure out how to do
this.
A. You could use the onClick event in the body tag. Of course they can
still steal your images because the images have to be downloaded to your PC for
your browser to display them. The body tag would look like this:
<body onClick="window.close()">
This will only work if the window was opened using the JavaScript window.open
command.
Q. This is a question based around HTML and Java. Firstly, how do you
specify a constant width for a drop down menu, and secondly, how to you change
its colours?
A. This is more of a HTML/CSS question, but you could use a style tag in
the select tag to specify that. Here is an example:
<select name="sel" style="width:80;color:red;background-color:yellow">
<option value="yes">Yes</option
<option value="no">No</option
</select>
This example would limit the select (dropdown) to 80 pixels, the text will be
red and the background color of the select will be yellow.
Q. I’m trying to create a sort of mouseover-driven context-sensitive help
system for my website. The basic idea is that you mouse over a set of services
(system checkup, basic service, advanced service, etc) and a window pops up
telling you what it is you’re going to be paying for. I can get windows to pop
up quite neatly…it’s getting them to go away again that’s having me in fits.
Is there any way to do something like:
onMouseOut="window.diediedie(‘popup’);return true"
and have it actually work?
A. You might want to take a look at this script. It is very flexible and
looks great.
http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex5/popinfo.htm
Q. My website uses frames and I was wondering if there was a code (which
I was gussing 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).
News Goodies
IBM Donates Voice Code to Apache
[September 13, 2004] UPDATED: Partners such as Avaya are
looking to build speech apps that can run on anyone’s platform.
Click
here to read the article
IBM Debuts Power5 Server Line for Linux
[September 13, 2004] The Linux-only server line is geared to hit
the entry-level sweet spot for customers seeking an alternative
to Unix..
Click here to read the article
CA Overhauls Key Storage Management Line
[September 13, 2004] The newer versions are positioned to better compete
with rivals EMC, Veritas.
Click
here to read the article
Digital Evolution Buys Flamenco Networks
[September 13, 2004] Another company finds itself consumed by
the hotly contested market for Web services management software.
Click here to read the article
Nortel Embraces Virtual Enterprise
[September 13, 2004] A slew of upgrades using SIP-based help
workers collaborate no matter where they are.
Click here to read the article
RFID Makes Its Mark
[September 13, 2004] A standard marking system will identify smart tags at a
glance.
Click here to read the article
Thriving in Redmond’s Shadow
[September 10, 2004] UPDATED: ISVs hope to prosper in the spaces between
Microsoft’s big feet.
Click here to read the article
Court Bounces Pa. Online Child Porn Law
[September 10, 2004] Pennsylvania measure ruled a violation of
constitutionally protected free speech.
Click here to read the article
Population Explosion!
[September 10, 2004] ClickZ Stats has updated its list of the global online
populations, with some new figures for the number of Internet Users, Active
Internet Users, and other data.
Click here to read the article
A Virtual Work-Around The RNC
[August 27, 2004] With a swath of downtown NYC closed to traffic and
gridlock on the horizon, workers plan on taking their business to the
Internet.
Click here to read the article
Every week a site is selected for review. Each week,
reviews of the previous week’s selected site are chosen for
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They should be sent to our mentors: see
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For those who are missing Peer reviews: we are once again
revising the Peer review program in the hopes of creating a
workable solution. The current plan is to move the new Peer
Review pages into place in the new year. 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!"
It’s coming soon!!
Thanks again for all your feedback!
Top
Windows Tech Goodie of the Week:
Tuning Up ADO.NET Connection Pooling in ASP.NET
Applications
http://www.15seconds.com/issue/040830.htm
Connection pooling increases the performance of Web
applications by reusing active database connections instead
of creating a new connection with every request. This
article shows how to monitor the connection pool, diagnose a
potential problem, and apply the appropriate fix.
*** AND ***
Sort Data Table by Heading ASP.NET Sample
http://www.asp101.com/samples/db_sort_aspx.asp
Last week we brought you a classic ASP sample that allowed
users to sort data from a database by simply clicking on the
heading of the field they wanted to sort by. This week we’re
back with the code to accomplish the same task using ASP.NET.
Top
And Remember This . . .
On this day in…
1522 Magellan’s Ship Circumnavigates
the Globe
Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!
