Print this Page...please
I've seen a few different ways to make an "Print this Page" script. This one from "4 Guys from Rolla" shows a simple method that could easily adapted to most sites: How the 'Print this Page' Script Works

And here's a way to do this with a Javascript Print Ready Page Script on About.com.

People are basically...Good or Bad?
It's the age old question, if given the chance, are people basically good or bad? Well, when it comes to user input on a web form, the author of this article warns us to expect the worse: Encode User Input Before Outputting it to a Page - Or Else!

And for those that just want to jump straight to the November 2003 Cumulative Security Update: 824145 - MS03-048: November 2003 Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer

Enjoy!

10 Reasons not to surf the web...

Seriously though, if this keeps up, people will just stop looking at web pages, especially with Internet Explorer. I heard some some talk about this on IRC and now it's in the news: 'Critical' IE Security Warning Released

It just gives us that develop web sites a bad name.

Something new, not necessarily blue...

Ever wanted to add a comments section to your Blogger page? Here's one way of doing it if you are hosting on IIS: blogcomments, an ASP based commenting system for weblogs

I have tested blogcomments on this site and it is easy to setup and utilize. Give it a try and leave a comment.

Updated May, 2004 - Sorry, I removed this example of blogcomments in favor of the new comment system being implemented by Blogger. More to come on that topic.

I came across this page recently...some of these are no-brainers, but all are pretty important things to keep in mind when working with CSS. I've found it helpful.

CSS Crib Sheet

Automate your CSS

Using different style sheets to match the reader's browser could help fix some design flaws and make your site appear more consistant. Of course, you have to know what browsers support which CSS rules. Unfortunately, not all of the web browsers like to place nice with the W3 standards (I'll resist naming any one particular company).

Displaying Stylesheets Dynamically

Page hit counters made simple

It never ceases to amaze me how many little "easter eggs" there are hidden in Internet Information Server. For example, I was reading up on how to implement a hit counter in ASP. There are lots of ways involving writing to a text file or a database. Who would have guessed that IIS 5 has a Page Counter Object? Apparently there's little documentation on it, but it is found in the IIS Resource Kit.

To read more, check out this article by 4guysfromrolla.com: Recording Page Hits with Microsoft's Page Counter Object

Free stuff!

For all you Visual Basic .NET coders out there, Microsoft has released a free resource kit. I've ordered mine on CD, so it will be a few days before I can post any comments. But, there's also a download option for those that need instant gratification: The Visual Basic .NET Resource Kit

End of an era?

On the heels of media ownership battles at the FCC, the "ownership" of certain segments of the Internet may be the next target of debate: FCC policies threaten Internet

Fool me twice, shame on me

Ok, I'll admit, a long time ago I clicked on a link that was in an e-mail message and that led to a web page exploit that took advantage of a security hole in Internet Explorer 5 (hangs head in shame).

Now there's a flurry of new e-mails crafted to look very much like it came from Microsoft and supposedly has a security patch as the attachment. Well, of course, that attached file is infected (the one I got contained the 'Swen' virus).

What really tips it off to me is the poor grammer and lack of proper capitalization in the body of the message. I mean, really, would a large corporation like Microsoft send out such a poorly written message?

How to Tell If a Microsoft Security-Related Message Is Genuine

Subnetting Class-C IP addresses in a home network
Network security has become a large concern for even the avid home internet user. With more and more wireless routers and broadband connections out there connecting to the internet there is one thing that you can do to help isolate your private computers from the internet and still allow them to access the web. All you need are two standard home-use routers. I prefer the Linksys ones but any that are configurable for NAT will do.

Subnetting :)

Take a look at this network page from TCPIPPrimer.com to help you split up your current Class C network into 4 separate networks (Daryl says 2 but with this configuration, you can do 4), each isolated from each other yet all accessible to the internet.

http://www.tcpipprimer.com/routing.cfm

How to set up multiple domains on an IIS server with only one IP address.
Try this tutorial, down and dirty, very easy explaination on how to set up multiple webs when you have only one IP address and are running IIS 4 or 5.

http://www.iisanswers.com/Top10FAQ/t10-hostheaders.htm

Mini-tutorial on DOM
While experimenting with some JavaScript, I wanted to create a button that would change the background color of a web page. The result is a good example of the "Document Object Model" that most new designs are based on today. Using the "onClick" function of the button, the new hexidecimal color code is passed to the browser. Adding an inline style to the button code, the button's color matches the color the background would be changed to.

Here's the page: Changing Background Colors

Read, learn, code
Another good site with plenty of tutorials on PHP and graphic design: Olate - Tutorials, Articles and Scripts

Look ma, no tables!

Unless you've been on the moon the last couple of years, one cannot help but notice the trend towards using CSS rather than the <table> tag in page layouts.

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to do a three column page layout using style sheets and a little Javascript: Exploring the Limits of CSS Layout

Publishing made easy

Here's two content management systems (CMS) that are either free or low cost:

CityDesk: Desktop Content Management

eZ publish Open Source Content Management System (CMS)

And an article that tells you all about eZ publish: eZ publish 3.1: Take It For A Spin

Perl for the masses

Here's an excellent online course that also covers security issues when using CGI: Ovid's Web Programming Using Perl

Big Brother is just around the corner

And I'm not talking about the TV show. George Orwell may have been off by 20 years, but I think what he predicted is soon to be reality.

FBI targets Net phoning: "if broadband providers cannot isolate specific VOIP calls to and from individual users, they must give police access to the 'full pipe'--"

For those that ever wondered about this question: What Is a DLL?

Web Matrix update

The popular (and free) ASP.Net development tool has been enhanced with J#.Net and now has support for connecting to MS Access databases. Along with several bug fixes, the newest version is available here: ASP.NET Web Matrix Project

Have a Tech question?

Found an excellent tech message board with answers to lots of those strange little problems that crop up: TechSpot OpenBoards

Another web exploit

There's a little "bug" that effects every version of Windows since Win98 and allows a malicious web page to execute code. Of course, we all know what havoc this can play on your computer. The most nefarious method is to send the malicious page via e-mail after which some e-mail clients will preview the page and let the code execute.

Here's the link to Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 814078 with instructions on how to patch your system: Flaw in Windows Script Engine May Allow Code to Run

Here's an interesting tutorial from SitePoint which even includes source code: Create Your Own Guestbook In ASP.NET

ASP.NET 101: PostBacks

So, let's go down the .NET path and explore some of the new things that are available. First off, designing and posting to web-based forms has taken on a new dimension. You can write code to add function to your page and simply post back to the orginal .aspx page. At the same time, let's introduce the asp:panel tag. Rendered by the .NET server as a DIV, you can call each panel by it's ID attribute inside your code.

In this first example, let's make a simple form to collect a user's information. When the form is submitted, we will hide the original form and replace it with a new asp:panel containing new HTML created with the newly gathered data. So, make the first panel visible like so: asp:panel id="panelSurvey" runat="server" Visible="True" and further down the page, make the second panel hidden asp:panel id="panelAfterPost" runat="server" Visible="False".

In our VB code, we will simply swap the Visible attribute:

script runat="server"

	Sub Button_Click(sender as Object, e as EventArgs)

		If Page.IsPostBack then

		panelSurvey.Visible="False"

		panelAfterPost.Visible="True"

		End If

	End Sub

/script

Try out the page here or view the source code.

Everything you'd ever want to know about registering domain names: Domain Guru

WHOIS your daddy?

Ok, I think that I've overused that line. But hey, this is an interesting article on building your own lookup tool using C# - Build a WHOIS Lookup in ASP.NET

Site Updates
Nobody really complained, but the Archive section was not formatted very well and, as a result, was not being indexed for searches. I've corrected this little oversight and thus you can use the search tool to glean through the old posts.

.Net Starter Kits

An interesting set of tools designed for .Net. The Community Starter Kit will have a website up and running for you in no time. It includes polls, a discussion forum, a picture gallery and more. Check it out, along with the others at http://www.asp.net.

Custom Fit your Popup Script

Here's an interesting tutorial for scripting a popup window that dynamically resizes to the dimensions of a banner .GIF or .JPG image. It also introduced me to the built-in JavaScript function resizeBy(): Resize a Popup to Fit an Image's Size

SPAM!

Ok, just when you think you've got e-mail SPAM under control, the weasels figure out a new way to get at you. I got to experience it first hand about a week after I got the new web server running. It didn't take long for those pesty "messenger service" boxes to start popping up on the server's desktop.

Originally intended for administrative messages over the local network, Microsoft has the messenger service "on" by default when you install. This leaves a specific port open that SPAM lords can now scan for. If found open, they will send advertisements to your machine.

Although I don't endorse (or have even tried) the software this site offers, they do have some information and tutorials on how you can shutdown this new "loop hole" that SPAMMERS are exploiting: Stop Messenger Spam

Style Sheets for Accessibility

I've got a project where I need to add a "text-only" section to an existing web site. The best idea would be to use style sheets to control the font-sizes that each user can adjust to make the pages more readable. Here's an article on how to do just that: Build User-Controlled Style Sheets for Greater Accessibility

Got .NET?

I asked that question a couple of months back and now we can say "yes we do" here at randompsycho.org. So get ready for a whole bunch of posts about ASP.NET and C#. So lets dive into the Top 5 .NET Newbie Questions and Answers.

Fine tune your Server

So, you've set up your first web server with IIS. What next? Here's some tips: ASP 101 - Ten Ways to Make the Most of IIS

Actually, tweeking this spiffy little feedback form has been educational. After gettting the basics to work, I wanted to validate the form to check for empty fields (don't you just hate those e-mail with nothing in them?).

As one would expect, there's lots of tutorials on that subject, using either JavaScript or VBScript. Here's one using the VBS:
ASP Form validation

Since I mentioned the e-mail form that I added to this site, here's a tutorial on how to use the free JMail component with IIS:

How to send email using JMail from Active Server Pages (ASP)

Build it and they will (not) come?

As the randompsycho.org web server gets upgraded to the .NET framework this weekend, I ponder the question: "Is the web design world ready for .NET?" I personally will be making an attempt at learning asp.NET and C# and therefore will be blogging more posts on the topic.

Your comments are welcome. I even stuck in a spiffy feedback form in the lower right-hand corner.

Poll results: Not yet for .NET?

Cool web tricks

Ever see one of those pages with the cool popup box when you mouse-over a link? Not just the little trick that Internet Explorer does if you include the "title" attribute to an "a" anchor tag, but a real popup box with a caption and colors, etc. I tried searching Google for it, but never got the right combination of keywords to find such a creature.

Well, I finally tracked it down and it's a free JavaScript anyone can use: overLIB

OOP: The web of the future?

Things have come a long way from simply learning some HTML and then using FTP to upload files on a Unix server. This article is part of a series on how to get up to speed with the new big thing, ASP.NET:

Object Oriented C# for ASP.NET Developers

Here's a good article for those of you that use Dreamweaver:

Customize Dreamweaver to Your Needs

If you're a web developer working on a government contract, you've had to heard of Section 508 by now. Here's some some good reading on the topic:

Tips for managing Section 508 testing

Hosting your own with Linux? The latest version of Red Hat offers a new GUI interface:

Easily configure Red Hat 8 and Apache

Newbie 101

I stumbled on this site quite by accident. Includes a "free" area that covers the basics and they sell a companion book and CD-ROM.

PageTutor.com: HTML Tutorials & Javascript

Everyone needs a program for making thumbnails of their favorite photos, right? The bonus here is this one is free:

Easy Thumbnails Software

More JavaScript Tricks

Anyone with feedback or a guestbook as part of their web site could benefit from client side form validation. The article is also a good introduction to using this in passing form values to your function:

Form Validation on the Client Side