Goodies to Go ™
July 22, 2002–Newsletter #190
This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
Goodies Thoughts – Photography and the Web
These days almost everyone that owns
a computer has either a scanner or a digital camera or both. Now, taking and
sharing photographs via the web or email has never been easier.
Those of you that own a digital
camera know how wonderful it is to be able to take bunches of photographs and
never have to worry about the cost of processing or waiting for your photographs
to come back. If you don’t own a digital camera yet and are thinking about
getting one, here are some quick tips for digital camera shoppers:
Megapixels – The more
the merrier. Simply put, the more Megapixels per image the camera has, the
better your resolution (and the bigger the memory card needed). It makes a big
difference when you want to print off those larger sizes like an 8×10. Get as
much as you can afford.
Memory – There are
several different types of memory media out there. Make sure that the media for
the camera you choose is readily available. Some cameras even accept multiple
types of media. Also, remember to get at least a couple of memory cards when you
buy your camera. You may think it will be easy to just upload your photographs
each time you use your camera. In reality, though, that won’t be as easy as you
might think.
Batteries – Examine
carefully the kind of batteries required for the camera. If the camera requires
one or more of those expensive lithium batteries, you can quickly go broke
keeping you camera operational at $10 to $20 per battery especially if you use
the flash and the built-in view screen frequently. You will find a camera that
accepts rechargeable batteries a big plus.
Uploading – When you
are looking for your new camera be sure to get a demonstration on how the camera
uploads to your computer. Some cameras are as simple as plugging in a USB cable
and taking the images directly off of the camera just like you would an external
hard drive. Others may require you to use special software or even special
hardware to move your images to your computer.
Those are the most important
elements. The rest is pretty much personal preference. Things like zoom,
auto-focus, date/time stamping and red-eye reduction all depend on your needs.
(By the way, red-eye reduction is usually just a gimmick. Red-eye is caused by
your flash reflecting off the retina of the person that you are photographing.
To eliminate the red-eye effect, the camera’s flash would have to be
significantly above or to the side of the lens.)
Whether you take digital images
directly off of your camera or scan them in, there are some things to consider
before just dropping them onto your website:
Size – The size that comes directly from your camera is usually
not going to be the size that is ideal for the web. For example, my digital
camera captures an image that is 2240 pixels by 1680 pixels at 72 dpi (i.e. dots
per inch) which is way too large for practical web use. Translated into inches,
that would be about 31 inches by 23 inches. Once you have your digital image be
sure to reduce the image to a size that is ideal for your purposes. When I put
pictures up for my family on my personal website, I usually make the image size
something around 4 inches (288 pixels) by 6 inches (432 pixels) at 72 dpi.
Resolution – The
standard resolution for the web is 72 dpi, however, that is not the ideal
resolution for printing. Most digital cameras will output your images somewhere
between 72 and 150 dpi. In talking about size above, we kept everything in
standard video resolution at 72 dpi. If you want to make a much sharper image
available for printing you will want to bump up the resolution on your image to
at least 300 dpi. This will make for a much better printable image. Keep in
mind, it will also make for a much larger file to download (at least 4 times
larger).
Thumbnail – In order to
make the viewing process much easier for your web visitors, you will probably
want to always make a smaller thumbnail version of all of your images. This will
allow the visitor to quickly and easily "thumb" through several images on a page
to find the one or ones that they would like to see larger. Generally, thumbnail
images are between 100 and 150 pixels wide but there is no set rule for this. Do
whatever works best you.
File Format – The file
format that you choose to save your digital images in greatly determines the
file’s size. Most digital cameras will output their images in either TIFF or
JPEG format. While TIFF files have a great quality of resolution, they are
definitely not the most efficient format for web viewing. Digital photographic
images on the web are almost always in JPEG format. JPEG’s are the best for
photographs because of their ability to accurately display the millions of
colors that can be present in a photograph while at the same time compressing
the image data to keep the file size as small as possible. Other file formats
like GIF’s and BMP’s are best suited for graphics and artwork that don’t require
high color standards.
Obviously, in order to make all of
the changes talked about above you will have to own some sort of image
manipulation software. If you are using Windows, the pre-loaded Paint software
package will take care of most of you basic needs like resizing and saving to
different file formats. If you need something that allows you to make more than
just basic modifications then you might consider a consumer-oriented package
like Adobe’s PhotoShop Elements or Microsoft’s Picture It!. If you need still
more power then the mother of all photographic software should be your choice,
Adobe’s PhotoShop.
In the next issue we’ll take a look
at some different ways that you can display and arrange your images.
Thanks for reading!
Quiz Goodies
On a web form, what’s
the biggest difference between check boxes and radio buttons?
Read answer below.
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 looked all
throughout the site, and I couldn’t seem to find an answer to this question.
I have a page with frames, and I wanted to know if there is a way to make a
link, open one .htm file in one frame, and a different .htm file in another
frame.
A. Try this code:
<a href="" onClick="parent.frames[0].location=’blah.htm’;
parent.frames[1].location=’blah2.htm’;">
0 and 1 are the names of the frames.
*** This question was submitted to our Mentor Community. The answer was provided
by Eric Ferguson, one of our HTML Mentors.
Q. I have the
book HTML Goodies but I am trying to find out a situation I have come across but
not mentioned in your book or anywhere else I can find.
I wish to know how to incorporate WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER or REAL PLAYER within my
own design.
I have seen it on many sites but have no idea as to how to go about it.
A. Take a look at
this tutorial:
https://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/videoembed.html
You might also try
checking the web site for the player that you intend to use which in your case
is Microsoft. Each player embeds in HTML quite differently, so it’s important to
always check the media player’s documentation.
Q. I’m a novice
web designer, and am making a website for a relative’s business. He wants a
simple form submission page where he will receive the name, email and phone
number from interested applicants. I’ve gleaned from the HTMLgoodies form
tutorials (https://www.htmlgoodies.com/tutors/forms.html)
everything on how to make a good form, and put my own email address in to test
it. However, I get a series of alerts I don’t understand.
Is it possible that certain automatic email configurations on my computer are
keeping me from seeing this work properly, and that it would work fine on
someone else’s computer? If so, do you know how I can re-configure this?
A. The alert you
are getting is normal when you use the mailto:email@me.com to email the contents
of a form. It is the browser’s security settings that perform this. The only way
to get around this is to use a server side application to email your form.
Another thing you
need to correct is to add enctype="text/plain" to your form tag like this:
<form method="post" action="mailto:username@yahoo.com" enctype="text/plain">
If you don’t do that then when you receive the email the message will be
garbled.
*** This question was submitted to our Mentor Community. The answer was provided
by Jim Young, one of our JavaScript Mentors.
News Goodies
Window’s Media Player 9 hasn’t been
released yet but Microsoft is sure talking it up. Is it going to be as good as
they say? (This is for the guy that asked the question above about embedding
Windows Media Player.)
Click here to read the article
Want another perspective on using
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) in your web designs?
Click here to read the article
The House passes a bill making
cyber-crime a bit tougher to get away with.
Click here to read the article
Quiz Answer
No, it’s not that one is round and
the other one is square. The key difference between check boxes and radio
buttons is that radio buttons can be grouped while check boxes cannot.
What does it mean to group?
Let’s say that you have some wooden
chairs for sale. You have a web form that you are using to accept orders. Your
chairs come in 3 different stained finishes – oak, cherry and walnut. You want
anyone ordering to be able to choose only one finish style. That’s where radio
buttons come in.
If you group a set of 3 radio buttons
together with the finishes listed next to them, the person ordering your chairs
will only be allowed to choose one option. Here’s the HTML for the scenario
above:
<P><INPUT TYPE="radio"
VALUE="Oak"
CHECKED NAME="Finish"> Oak</P>
<P><INPUT TYPE="radio" NAME="Finish"
VALUE="Cherry"> Cherry</P>
<P><INPUT TYPE="radio" NAME="Finish"
VALUE="Walnut"> Walnut</P>
The TYPE="radio" attribute defines
the form element as a radio button. The VALUE attribute gives each button its
own unique value so that you can determine what the user’s selection was later.
The NAME defines the grouping which, in our case, is "Finish". By requiring a
group name, HTML gives you the ability to make as many different radio button
groupings on the same page as you like. Lastly, the CHECKED in the first line
defines that particular radio button as the default.
And Remember This . . .
Today marks the date in 1587 when
British settlers arrived at the New World. They landed on Roanoke Island just
off the coast of Virginia. When they landed, they expected to find an already
established settlement by a group that preceded them but there was no one.
Several years later a third group of settlers arrived on the island only to find
an empty settlement. To this day no one has ever figured out what ever happened
to Roanoke’s lost colony and probably never will.
Coincidentally, this day also marks
the date that a boat full of settlers on the Mayflower set out from Holland for
the New World in 1620. Fortunately for them they landed in Massachusetts instead
of Roanoke Island, Virginia.
Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!