Goodies to Go ™
June 10, 2002–Newsletter #184
This newsletter is part of the internet.com network.
http://www.internet.com
Goodies Announcements
Well, this is not so much an
announcement as it is a correction. I had a real bone-headed moment in the last
issue regarding the quiz question. While MAXLENGTH is a great and useful
attribute, it is not an attribute that applies to TEXTAREA. Duh. It only applies
to simple text boxes with the INPUT tag.
A better example would have been
limiting the number of digits on a telephone number or postal code. At any rate,
make good use of MAXLENGTH in your forms where appropriate.
Thanks to those of you who wrote to
let me know I was a blockhead!
Goodies Thoughts – Paying to Use Pop-under Ads?
The publication of this
news was so amazing to me that I just had to air my thoughts on the subject.
Here’s the deal.
ExitExchange has recently filed for a patent on those Pop-under ads that you see
all over the web. Who knows, maybe some of you have even implemented a few
pop-under ads in your time.
For those of you that
may not know what a pop-under ad is, they are advertisement windows that are
launched when a visitor to your site leaves a page and/or ends a session. I’m
sure you have seen examples of the process with ads from orbitz.com and that
annoying little X10 camera. The idea is that they are much less obtrusive since
you only have to see them when you are finished with a page or session.
ExitExchange applied for
the patent back in February of this year. If it is approved it would give them
the right to collect royalties for anyone launching a new window underneath
another window. ExitExchange claims that the idea was "invented" by them back in
May of 2000.
As ludicrous as this
claim sounds, the most amazing part is that the odds are with ExitExchange. The
truth of the matter is that most patent claims are only reviewed for a matter of
hours before they are approved or denied. If no one challenges a patent claim
after the application has been published, odds are it will be approved. Believe
it or not, ExitExchange is also patenting the idea as it pertains to cell
phones, PDA’s, television, radio, etc.
That’s not the
interesting part, though. Once a patent claim has been approved, the
patent holder is entitled to fair compensation for the use of its patented idea
or product dating back to the day of application. In other words, if
ExitExchange’s patent is approved next year, companies like DoubleClick,
FastClick and NYTimes.com that use pop-under ads regularly will owe a hefty sum
in royalties to ExitExchange going back to February 14 of 2002.
The only way around the
patent would be to prove that you or your company had implemented a pop-under ad
prior to May of 2000. While this sounds simple enough, it would require dated
publicly published documentation in a journal, newsletter or the like. Easier
said than done.
I, for one, think this
is a patently absurd idea. (Sorry about the pun.) It is amazing to me that
someone could actually obtain a patent for such a simple common-sense idea. If
this patent is approved then what’s to stop someone else from patenting the
468×60 banner ad or the pop-out menus that we mentioned just a few issues ago?
If you are wondering if
this something that could effect you or your websites, it’s possible. You can
rest assured that ExitExchange will be focusing its efforts on getting revenue
from the bigger fish like DoubleClick and NYTimes.com. However, even the
smallest website would be legally obligated to pay royalties. If you own a site
that uses pop-under ads then you may want to keep and eye on this. If you
develop a site or sites that use pop-under ads then you will probably want to
write the owners of the site(s) to make them aware of the issue in order to
avoid any legal issues for yourself.
Thanks for reading!
Quiz Goodies
Here’s an IE only
question for you. How do you create a scrolling Marquee?
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 have a
question concerning buttons.
I would like to create a link or button in order to go back to the previous
page, no matter what page that is. Is there code for this? I know I could link
directly to individual pages, but I didn’t know whether there was special code
instead of doing this.
A. You can do it
using JavaScript. Works just like the back button on the browser. Here’s the
code:
<script
language="Javascript">
<!–
function button(location) {
top.location = location
}
//–>
</script>
<form>
<input type="button"
onclick="button(‘javascript:history.back(1)’)"
value="Back">
</form>
*** This question was submitted to our Mentor Community. The answer was provided
by Marty Bozeman, one of our HTML Mentors.
Q. I’m currently
building a site and am having difficulties. The majority of my site is built on
a table template, but I need to use a frame with a couple of the pages as there
is no alternative.
My problem is that with the frame pages I would like to return to a table page,
but the frame will only populate that part of the page and not reload the entire
screen with the table page.
Any suggestions on how I can make this work?
A. You need
to add target="_top" to the link which takes you back to the table page. This
reloads the entire window with the new page.
*** This question was submitted to our Mentor Community. The answer was provided
by Alex Newport, one of our HTML Mentors.
Q. I’ve
been presented with a problem from one of our clients (divisions). We have been
developing a new site for one of our divisions, they like what they’ve seen so
far, but just prior to launch date, they’ve asked us to redesign for a 1024×768
screen resolution. We’ve designed their new site (and all of our newer sites)
for a 800×600 resolution, and as a webmaster I don’t feel that designing any
larger is necessary or in the best interest of all users. I need to present
facts to back up my position. This is not a "battle" that I want to lose. I know
that there has to be stats out there to support that the majority of users have
a 800×600 setting, and also that designing a site to be any larger is going to
also slow download speeds. They are having a problem with the white space that
is left over at larger screen resolutions and they claim that all of their
potential clients will have their screens set at 1024×768.
Can you please point me to the appropriate case studies and any other areas you
think may help me build my case?
A.
As a designer, I can definitely sympathize – I also have clients that think they
know everything about the internet. In my business in particular I found that
many of them listen to people who have no idea what they are talking about
people such as friends, relatives, and the ever popular wannabe web designer
techies etc.
In any case, here are a few articles/reports that might help you prove your
case.
http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/stat_trends.htm
http://www.dreamink.com/design5.shtml
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
*** This question was submitted to our Mentor Community. The answer was provided
by Aida Guzman, one of our Web Design Mentors.
News Goodies
The source code for the Netscape 7.0
browser is now available. Now you can see how it all works.
Click here to read the article
Yahoo’s messenger software is still
having a tough time squashing all of its security bugs.
Click here to read the article
Sprint picks up the pace on some of
its DSL business services. Will it be fast enough?
Click here to read the article
Quiz Answer
A scrolling marquee is actually very
simple to implement for Internet Explorer. However, keep in mind it only applies
to Internet Explorer and will not work in Netscape.
Interestingly enough, the tag you
need is called MARQUEE. Here’s how it works:
<MARQUEE LOOP="10"
BEHAVIOR="alternate"
STYLE="COLOR:
#FFFF99; FONT-SIZE: 10pt;
FONT-FAMILY:
Verdana; FONT-WEIGHT: bold"
BGCOLOR="#800000"
This is my marquee
…
</MARQUEE>
Here’s an explanation of the
attributes that we used:
-
LOOP – allows you to set the
number of times your marquee will repeat. Leaving off this attribute will
cause the marquee to repeat indefinitely. -
BEHAVIOR – allow you to
determine how the marquee will function. Your choices are sliding, scrolling
and alternate which alternates between scrolling and sliding. -
STYLE – allows you to set
your font styles. Here we set the color, size, family and weight. -
BGCOLOR – allows you to set
the background color for the marquee itself.
In addition to the attributes we used
above, there are a few other useful attributes that you may want to consider:
-
DIRECTION – allows you to
determine the direction of the marquee’s scroll, right or left. -
HEIGHT – allows you to
specify the height of the marquee.
Here is an example of a working
marquee, that is if you are viewing this in Internet Explorer:
And Remember This . . .
This day marks two very important
dates in history for Italy. In 1940, Benito Mussolini led his country into war
on the side of Germany by sending troops to assist in the invasion of France.
Ironically, this date is also the day that Mussolini was overthrown in 1946 and
Italy officially became a republic.
Thanks for reading Goodies to Go!
