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Reply
 Message 1 of 16 in Discussion 
From: Mike (Blakey)  (Original Message)Sent: 4/9/2002 1:41 PM
 
A question to those "computing  nurds" out there and there seems to be a few ...
 
I'm thinking of updating my "Unofficial Web Site".
 
It is a bit slow and clumsy so I'm thinking of revamping it.
 
 
I have been led to believe that using Frames is "bad Karama" would you surporst this notion?
 
I've also heard a little about Style sheets - is this the way to go ..?
 
Any recomendations on good books on the subject of web design for a novice like myself  ???
 
Would learning a bit of java be useful  - some people nod wisely and tell me that Pearl is the way forward .....
 
Mike
 


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Reply
 Message 2 of 16 in Discussion 
From: MSN NicknameLaurieBoothSent: 4/9/2002 2:14 PM

Mike,
I bought the book "Sams Teach Yourself HTML in 24 hours" It has 24 chapters lasting (would you believe) one hour each.

I'll let you be the judge as to how good the book is, by visiting the following.

www.microlearn.fsnet.co.uk is where I do all my testing.

www.captainpugwash.org.uk is where I am trying to make money, it uses framesets, you can buy books & video's from the section "Books & Things".
I've made this site simple to keep in charater with Pugwash.
One thing you might find interesting on the Pugwash site is that you can switch on & off the Captain's theme tune. I've been told by expert web designers that it is impossible to do this, when somebody tells me it can't be done, I do my best to do it !!!!
All The Best
Laurie


Reply
 Message 3 of 16 in Discussion 
From: BriSent: 4/9/2002 11:55 PM
Mike
 
Apparently the intelligensia would have you believe that style sheets are the way to go, and who am I to argue, they probably are..
 
There was some fuss about frames a while back because a lot of browsers didn't support them - most do nowadays however, but it depends on how seriously you want to take the situation when a non-frames browser hits you, and whether they complain to you loudly enough. Good manners dictates that you maintain a non-frames version of your site in parallel, but who the heck can be arsed.
 
One thing I have noticed about frames is that it's not easy for users to bookmark the page they're looking at, as the 'anchor' page (not necesarily the home page) seems to retain its URL at the top.. Unless I've done something wrong with my site, for my lad's youth footie team http://www.bengeotigers.org.uk if you want to take a look - it uses frames and 'new windows' extensively.
 
All personal preference I guess.
 
Personally, if I could get MS Frontpage to do what I want with what it thinks are Shared Borders, then I wouldn't have gone for frames at all. Why Frontpage? I can't afford to buy Dreamweaver or GoLive!, and I had FP 98 lying around because MS gave it to me for nothing a few years back when they registered me as a developer. Has its foibles but it is fairly usable.
 
(And it does do frames and style sheets!)
 
Bri
 
 

Reply
 Message 4 of 16 in Discussion 
From: BriSent: 4/10/2002 12:04 AM
Mike
 
Forgot also to mention about the programming languages...
 
The two you mention, Java and Perl, are essentially poles apart. Java runs on the users computer whereas Perl (almost always) runs on the web server.
 
Whilst Perl is still a very popular server-side language and is probably as near to industry-'standard' as 'standard' gets in the web (and Unix!) world, I would suggest that you look at PHP for that sort of thing instead (just search Google for it). Far more powerful and has SQL database support built-in.
 
Similarly, I doubt whether anything you want to do on your web site would warrant learning full-blown Java. You'd almost certainly be better off learning JavaScript instead, which is similar but think of it as a Java 'Lite' to over-simplify it. You can't do everything with JavaScript that you can do with Java (things like those fancy rotating banner ads for example) but an awful lot of that sort of thing has been written by people already and is freely available on the web, licence-free.

Reply
 Message 5 of 16 in Discussion 
From: Mike (Blakey)Sent: 4/10/2002 1:30 PM
Thanks ....

Reply
 Message 6 of 16 in Discussion 
From: MSN NicknameLaurieBoothSent: 4/11/2002 11:20 AM
Mike,
I write my Pugwash site to suite 800x600 as 80% of my visitors are using this, I average 100 visitors a week.
All The Best
Laurie
www.captainpugwasg.org.uk
www.microlearn.fsnet.co.uk

Reply
 Message 7 of 16 in Discussion 
From: OverlordSent: 5/26/2002 5:18 PM
Have a chat with Rick - he does this for a living.

My advice (and I have only visited sites, not built any - yet) would be to avoid Java - corporations often block or strip out Java stuff from sites visited by staff from their work machines (ours does). So you end up with links not working and bits missing from pages. Fish4homes links don't always work for example.

Also don't do pop-up windows - they are a serious pain in the arse.

IIRC Rick says its still best to avoid frames as many people aren't using IE6 (or 5) or similar genre browsers so they aren't supported.


Reply
 Message 8 of 16 in Discussion 
From: Mike (Blakey)Sent: 6/14/2002 12:24 PM
 
 
Yahoo, where my "Unofficial Quantock School Web Site" is hosted (the site I use as a internet sign post to this community), keeps trimming the amount of band-width I'm allowed.  Recently by the end of the month I quite often exceed my allotment.
 
Anyone got any band width they don't really use that I can put a few of the School Group Photos on. I'm not sure if this asking this is a serious breach of internet protocol ???
 
I'm not even sure how often these big-ish pictures (about 300 K each) are looked at, I don't really know how much of a dent  it might put in your own bandwidth allotment ...
 
I'm not keen to move my site from Yahoo (despite it's crappy banner adds) because at the moment I have a pretty good listings on all the major search engines.
 
If no one write back I'll take it as a NO - BUGGER OFF !!!
 
Mike

Reply
 Message 9 of 16 in Discussion 
From: MSN NicknameLaurieBoothSent: 6/14/2002 1:34 PM
Dear Mike,
I've got 2.1MB left on my Freeserve you can have 1Mb of it if that is enough.
Be Seeing You
Laurie
PS I'm not getting all the postings, I've just got your Web posting but not the summer ones about bottoms can you explain this or am I going loopy ?.
Laurie
Work 01453-764475
Home 01453-750395
Mobile 0771-3343-534
www.microlearn.fsnet.co.uk
www.captainpugwash.org.uk

Reply
 Message 10 of 16 in Discussion 
From: Mike (Blakey)Sent: 6/14/2002 4:06 PM
The site can get a little glitchy about sending all the postings on the site - I tend to just go to the  "recent messages link" on the home page - and see if there are any new links,
 
Mike

Reply
 Message 11 of 16 in Discussion 
From: MSN NicknameLaurieBoothSent: 6/14/2002 4:36 PM
Mike, ( I got that message)
I didn't relise I might not be getting all the postings, sorry to anyone I should have replied to. In future I'll go to new messages on the site (bit of a drag though)
Be Seeing You
Laurie
Work 01453-764475
Home 01453-750395
Mobile 0771-3343-534
www.microlearn.fsnet.co.uk
www.captainpugwash.org.uk

Reply
 Message 12 of 16 in Discussion 
From: D Brown (Yank)Sent: 6/16/2002 2:19 AM
Regarding web site storage if you would like I can give you a web site
from my cobalt raq4 system. I can be reached at [email protected]
You can transfer the whole site to my server and I can host it no prob
Let me know. Duncan Brown (Yank)

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike (Blakey) [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 4:24 AM
To: Quantock School old Boyz and Girls
Subject: Re: Web Design

-----------------------------------------------------------

New Message on Quantock School old Boyz and Girls

-----------------------------------------------------------
From: Mike (Blakey)
Message 8 in Discussion

Yahoo, where my "Unofficial Quantock School Web Site" is hosted (the
site I use as a internet sign post to this community), keeps trimming
the amount of band-width I'm allowed. Recently by the end of the month
I quite often exceed my allotment. Anyone got any band width they
don't really use that I can put a few of the School Group Photos on. I'm
not sure if this asking this is a serious breach of internet protocol
??? I'm not even sure how often these big-ish pictures (about 300 K
each) are looked at, I don't really know how much of a dent it might
put in your own bandwidth allotment ... I'm not keen to move my site
from Yahoo (despite it's crappy banner adds) because at the moment I
have a pretty good listings on all the major search engines. If no
one write back I'll take it as a NO - BUGGER OFF !!! Mike

-----------------------------------------------------------

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Reply
 Message 13 of 16 in Discussion 
From: D Brown (Yank)Sent: 6/16/2002 7:28 AM
Keep the yahoo website and just autoforward to the cobaltraq is 1 gig
enough?
[email protected]

-----Original Message-----
From: Duncan [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Saturday, June 15, 2002 6:19 PM
To: 'Quantock School old Boyz and Girls'
Subject: Re: Web Design

-----------------------------------------------------------

New Message on Quantock School old Boyz and Girls

-----------------------------------------------------------
From: D Brown (Yank)
Message 12 in Discussion

Regarding web site storage if you would like I can give you a web site
from my cobalt raq4 system. I can be reached at [email protected]
You can transfer the whole site to my server and I can host it no prob
Let me know. Duncan Brown (Yank)

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike (Blakey) [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, June 14, 2002 4:24 AM
To: Quantock School old Boyz and Girls
Subject: Re: Web Design

-----------------------------------------------------------

New Message on Quantock School old Boyz and Girls

-----------------------------------------------------------
From: Mike (Blakey)
Message 8 in Discussion

Yahoo, where my "Unofficial Quantock School Web Site" is hosted (the
site I use as a internet sign post to this community), keeps trimming
the amount of band-width I'm allowed. Recently by the end of the month
I quite often exceed my allotment. Anyone got any band width they
don't really use that I can put a few of the School Group Photos on. I'm
not sure if this asking this is a serious breach of internet protocol
??? I'm not even sure how often these big-ish pictures (about 300 K
each) are looked at, I don't really know how much of a dent it might
put in your own bandwidth allotment ... I'm not keen to move my site
from Yahoo (despite it's crappy banner adds) because at the moment I
have a pretty good listings on all the major search engines. If no
one write back I'll take it as a NO - BUGGER OFF !!! Mike

-----------------------------------------------------------

To stop getting this e-mail, or change how often it arrives, go to your
E-mail Settings.
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Reply
 Message 14 of 16 in Discussion 
From: Mike (Blakey)Sent: 6/17/2002 12:13 PM
Duncan,
 
Thanks for the offer - WOW a whole gig - I'm not even sure it is even possible to use a whole gig on a web site !!
 
I'm a little tied up at the moment - but I'll definitely be touch. If possible, I might start by moving a few images over, see how that works out - then think about the rest if you are still happy with the notion.
 
Again thanks for the very generous offer.
 
Mike

Reply
 Message 15 of 16 in Discussion 
From: Mike (Blakey)Sent: 7/4/2002 1:12 PM

There is this nice berry tree outside of my flat, however the greedy birds from the garden are after them �?this makes me angry.

Now I hear that a shinny CD hung from a piece of string will scare the blighters off. It seems crazy, but I also hear that these birds are particularly scared of this suspended CD if it contains a burned version of "adobe photo shop" or other programs that have ‘gif�?editors on them.

It’s a shame that I don’t have such a burned CD along with verification codes �?but never mind.

If you have a burned version of this program (and no bird problem) - I strongly suggest that you do ***NOT*** send it to me at the following address:

Mike Blake

Chemistry Department

University of Exeter

Exeter

EX4 4QD

Thanks for letting me vent my feelings


Reply
 Message 16 of 16 in Discussion 
From: MSN NicknameLaurieBoothSent: 7/4/2002 2:24 PM
Mike,
You were having problems with the Internet, which services to use etc. so I have put together some Q&A's that I use on my customers.
Q. What, exactly, is the Internet?
A. The Internet is a worldwide network of university, government, business,
   and private computer systems.
Q. Who runs it?
A. A 13-year-old named Jason.
Q. How can I get on the Internet?
A. The easiest way is to sign up with one of the popular commercial"on-line"
   services, such as Prodigy, CompuServe, or America Online, which will give
   you their program disks for free. Or, if you just leave your house
   unlocked, they'll sneak in some night and install their programs on your
   computer when you're sleeping. They really want your business.
Q. What are the benefits of these services?
A. The major benefit is that they all have simple, "user-friendly"
   interfaces that enable you-even if you have no previous computer
   experience-to provide the on-line services with the information they need
   to automatically put monthly charges on your credit card bill forever.
Q. What if I die?
A. They don't care.
Q. Can't I cancel my account?
A. Of course! You can cancel your account at any time.
Q. How?
A. Nobody has ever been able to find out. Some of us have been trying for
   years to cancel our on-line service accounts, but no matter what we do,
   the charges keep appearing on our bills. We're thinking of entering the
   Federal Witness Protection Program.
Q. What if I have children?
A. You'll want an anesthetic because it really hurts.
Q. No, I mean: What if my children also use my Internet account?
A. You should just sign your house and major internal organs over to the
   on-line service right now.
Q. Aside from running up charges, what else can I do once I'm connected to
   an on-line service?
A. Millions of things! An incredible array of things! No end of things!
Q. Like what?
A. You can ... ummmm ... er ... uh ... OK! I have one! You can chat.
Q. Chat?
A. Chat.
Q. I can already chat. I chat with my friends.
A. Yes, but on the Internet, which connects millions of people all over the
   entire globe, you can chat with total strangers, many of whom are boring
   and stupid!
Q. Sounds great! How does it work?
A. Well, first you decide which type of area you wish to chat in. Some areas
   are just for general chatting, and some are for specific interest groups,
   such as Teens, Poets, Cat Lovers, Religious People, Gays, Gay Teens Who
   Read Religious Poetry to Cats, and of course Guys Having Pointless
   Arguments About Sports. At any given moment, an area can contain anywhere
   from two to dozens of people, who use clever fake names such as "ByteMe2"
   so nobody will know their real identities.
Q. What are their real identities?
A. They represent an incredible range of people, people of all ages, in all
   kinds of fascinating fields from scientists to singers, from writers to
   wranglers, from actors to athletes - you could be talking to almost
   anybody on the Internet!
Q. Really?
A. No. You re almost always talking to losers and hormone-crazed 13-year-old
   boys. But they pretend to be writers, wranglers, scientists, singers, etc.
Q. What do people talk about in chat areas?
A. Most chat-area discussions revolve around the fascinating topic of who
   is entering and leaving the chat area. A secondary, but equally
   fascinating, topic is where everybody lives. Also, for a change of pace,
   every now and then the discussion is interrupted by a hormone-crazed
   13-year-old boy wishing to talk dirty to women. To give you an idea of
   how scintillating the repartee can be, here's a re-creation of a typical
   chat area dialogue (do not read this scintillating repartee while
   operating heavy machinery):
 LilBrisket: Hi everybody
 Wazootyman: Hi LilBrisket
 Toadster: Hi Bris
 Lungftook: Hi B
 LilBrisket: What's going on?
 Toadster: Not much
 Lungftook: Pretty quiet
 (LONGISH PAUSE)
 Wazootyman: Anybody here from Texas?
 LilBrisket: No
 Toadster: Nope
 Lungftook: Sorry
 (LONGISH PAUSE)
 UvulaBob: Hi everybody
 Toadster: Hi UvulaBob
 Lungftook: Hi Uvula
 LilBrisket: Hi UB
 Wazootyman: Hi U
 UvulaBob: What's happening?
 LilBrisket: Kinda slow
 Toadster: Same old same old
 Lungflook: Pretty quiet
 Jason56243837: LilBrisket, take off your panties
 LilBrisket: OK, but I'm a man
 (LONGISH PAUSE)
 Wazootyman: UvulaBob, are you from Texas?
 UvulaBob: No.
 (LONGISH PAUSE)
 Lungftook: Well, gotta run.
 Toadster.- 'bye, Lungflook
 LilBrisket: Take 'er easy, Lungster
 Wazootyman: See ya around, Lung
 UvulaBob: So long, L
 (LONGISH PAUSE)
 PolypMaster: Hi everybody
 LilBrisket: Hey, PolypMaster
 Toadster: Yo, Polyp
 UvulaBob: Hi, P
 PolypMaster: What's going on?
 LilBrisket: Not much
 Toadster: Pretty quiet
 UvulaBob: Kinda slow ...
   And so it goes in the chat areas, hour after riveting hour, where the
   ideas flow fast and furious, and at any moment you could learn some
   fascinating nugget of global-network information, such as whether or not
   PolypMaster comes from Texas.
Q. I've heard that people sometimes use Internet chat areas to have
   "cybersex." What exactly is that?
A. This is when two people send explicitly steamy messages to each other,
   back and forth, back and forth, faster and faster, hotter and hotter,
   faster and faster and hotter and harder and harder until OHHHH GODDDDDDDD
   they suddenly find that they have a bad case of sticky keyboard, if you
   get my drift.
Q. That's disgusting!
A. Yes.
Q. Could you give an example?
A. Certainly:
   <explicit dialogue deleted>
Q. Aside from chatting, what else can I do on the Internet?
A. You can join one of the thousands of forums wherein people, by posting
   messages, discuss political topics of the day.
Q. Like what?
A. Mike Blakey
Q. There's a forum for Mike Blakey?
A. There's a forum for everything.
Q. What happens on these forums?
A. Well, on the Mike Blakey forum, for example, fans post messages about
   how much they love Mike Blakey, and other fans respond by posting
   messages about how much they love Mike Blakey, too. And then sometimes
   the forum is invaded by people posting messages about how much they hate
   Mike Blakey, which in turn leads to angry countermessages and vicious
   name-calling that can go on for months.
Q. Just like junior high school!
A. But even more pointless.
Q. Are there forums about sex?
A. Zillions of them.
Q. What do people talk about on those?
A. Mike Blakey.
Q. No, really.
A. OK, they talk about sex, but it is not all titillating. Often you'll find
   highly scientific discussions that expand the frontiers of human
   undestanding.
Q. It is a beautiful thing, the Internet.
A. It is.
Q. What is the "World Wide Web"?
A. The World Wide Web is the multimedia version of the Internet, where you
   can get not only text but also pictures and sounds on a semi-infinite
   range of topics.  This information is stored on "Web pages," which are
   maintained by companies, institutions, and individuals.  Using special
   software, you can navigate to these pages and read, look at, or listen
   to all kinds of cool stuff.
Q. Wow! How can I get on the Web?
A. It's easy! Suppose you're interested in buying a boat from an Australian
   company that has a Web page featuring pictures and specifications of its
   various models. All you have to do is fire up your World Wide Web
   software and type in the company's Web page address, which will probably
   be an intuitive, easy-to-remember string of characters like this:
 http//:wwwfweemer-twirple.com/heppledork/sockitomesockitomefee##$.fie/fo/fum
Q. What if I type a character wrong?
A. You will launch U.S. nuclear missiles against Norway.
Q. Ah.
A. But assuming you type in the correct address, you merely press Enter,
   and there you are!
Q. Where?
A. Sitting in front of your computer waiting for something to happen. It
   could take weeks. Entire new continents can emerge from the ocean in the
   time it takes for a Web page to show up on your screen. Contrary to what
   you may have heard, the Internet does not operate at the speed of light;
   it operates at the speed of the Department of Motor Vehicles. It might
   be quicker for you to just go over to Australia and look at the boats in
   person.
Q. Does that mean that the World Wide Web is useless?
A. Heck no! If you're willing to be patient, you'll find that you can
   utilize the vast resources of the Web to waste time in ways that you never
   before dreamed possible.
Q. For example?
A. For example, recently I was messing around with a "Web search engine,"
   which is a piece of software that lets you search all of cyberspace -
   millions of documents for references to a specific word or group of
   words.  You can find pretty much everything that anybody has ever written
   on the Internet about that topic; it's an incredibly powerful research
   tool.
Q. That is truly beautiful.
A. Yes. And it's just one teensy little piece, one infinitesimally tiny
   fraction, of the gigantic, pulsating, mutating, multiplying mass of stuff
   out there on the Internet. Sooner or later, everything is going to be on
   there somewhere. You should be on there, too.  Don't be afraid! Be like
   the bold explorer Christopher Columbus, (E-mail address:
   ChrisCol@nina,pinta&santamaria.ahoy) setting out into uncharted waters,
   fearful of what you might encounter, but also mindful of the old
   inspirational maritime saying: "If you don't leave the land, then you'll
   probably never have a chance to get scurvy and develop anemia, spongy
   gums, and bleeding from the mucous membranes." So come on! Join me and
   millions of others on this exciting CyberFrontier, with its limitless
   possibilities for the enhancement of knowledge and the betterment of the
   human race! Wazootyman is waiting for you.
Laurie

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