FAQ's

Hi, I'm new to this online class stuff and I don't know if we are supposed to log on at a certain time on a certain day or is this work at your own pace, just as long as we turn our homework in. Thank you.

You can log on and work whenever it is convenient for you. You can work at you own pace as long as all work is turned in every week, however its probably not a good idea to wait till the last minute to do the homework.

What kind of test is the final?

The test will be given on-line. The questions are fill in the blank and true false. There will be about 30 - 40 questions. The questions are similar to those in the book at the end of each chapter. You can take the test any time during the last week of class, but you must reserve a time to do so. You will have about 1 hour to take the test. There is a practice test that you can take at the Shelly and Cashman web site http://www.scsite.com/html3e/learn

How do I download the sample files?

Double click on them, then click on Save. Save in a folder on your home computer where you can find them.

Do you want us to turn in print  outs  of the projects along with the assignments?

No, Please no printouts.

How do I view the sample files after I download them?

For the sample files from my web site you need a copy of pkzip or winzip, free at www.pkzip.com or www.winzip.com. Use file open and extract to unzip them. The contents depend on the chapter. See my updates.

What about the files from the Shelly and Cashman web site?

The zip files from Shelly and Cashman are "self extracting" files. All you have to do is double click on them and you should see a dialog box that asks you where you wish to save them. I recommend a subfolder of the one you are using for your homework. See the instructions on the insideback cover of your textbook for more information.

Can I do my homework on a Mac?

Yes, as long as the files are text files with ".htm" extensions. They should be readable by MS-Notepad and a browser like Firefox, Safari or Internet Explorer. Text editors like TextEdit should work provided you save your code as plain text (on a Mac, if the ruler is showing, you are not typing in plain text). You will have to have access to a drawing program like MS-Paint that can create .gif or .jpg files. You may need to use a PC to download the files from the Shelly and Cashman web site. Check with the DVC computer lab if you dont have access to a PC elsewhere.

Do you want us to keep all our projects and turn them in on the day of the final? Or do you want each project on a weekly basis?

You should turn in homework on a weekly basis if possible. Technically, the last dates to turn in work is the end of the fourth week and last day of finals but waiting till the last minute, is not a good idea. You should e-mail me the homework before then starting on the second week. I will give you credit if its OK, otherwise I'll let you know what changes you should make and you can turn it in later. Be sure you have a backup of all work on your home computer.

I am having the hardest time trying to figure out how to send my work to you. Can you please help me and let me know how I do it?

To send in your homework you attach it to a WebCt e-mail. When you compose a message you should notice two buttons on the bottom of the screen: "Browse" and "Attach File". Browse lets you locate and select the file on your computer that you want to attach. After selecting the file click on "Attach file" to actually attach it. You can only attach one file at a time, so I recomend zipping the files when you have more than 2 or 3 to send at one time.

What's the first assignment? How do I do it?

Project2.htm also known as "Campus tutoring service" is the assignment in project(chapter) 2. Type it in using MS-Notepad as instructed by the book. Testit by viewing it in your browser. To view your page use File|Open Page |Choose File from the menu bar or type the path into the location box on the locationtoolbar. Does it look the same as on page 31 of your book? If not check your source code over and make corrections.

Do we pretty much have free reign on our personal website. I mean can we have it in any color etc? Or should we mainly keep to what you sent us?

Your web site can be on any topic. You must follow the overall design and each page must use the tags used in the corresponding chapter of the book. Be sure and use the file names I indicate.

I can't see the graphics on my web page! What's wrong?

You could have one of the following problems.
When your web pages and graphics both reside in the same location DO NOT use a pathname to reference the graphics in the SCR= parameter,just use the file name. In other words, if the graphics and web pages are going to be in C:\xyz\abc, DO NOT put <IMG SRC=C:\xyz\abc\mypic.gif >just put <IMG SRC=mypic.gif > . On the other hand, if the graphics are going to be in one folder and the web pages in another, you need a pathname to the graphics.
Remember that if you have a reference to a graphic like <IMG SRC=mypic.gif > and the file name on the disk is Mypic.gif, this may not work either. They have to be spelled exactly the same.
Finally, make sure you really do have a copy of the graphics file.

I specified a Chaucer font in my <FONT> tag but it is not taking effect . What do I do?

If the font is not installed on your computer, Windows will try and find a similar font. If you are not satisfied with this substitution, you should look for something similar, in this case a cursive font and use it instead. You can check your installed fonts by using MS-Word and looking at the fonts list or by going into Control Panel from Start then click on Settings and opening Fonts. To see a fonts style, right click on the name and click on Open. Using "styles" can also help with this problem (see chapter 8). Remember, their are potentially millions of viewers for your web site. The more unusual a font style, the less chance that they will actually see it. If you want to guarantee that people will see text in a particular style, convert it to a graphic in Paint and display it with the<IMG> tag.

I have gotten to where I am supposed to be able to click on the sample link that takes me to the second page to continue inthe chapter and I can't get it to come up...Helpppppp

No Problem. Check the spelling on your links. Make sure the file name is exactly the same as the file name on your disk. This includes use of capital letters ( my suggestion: don't use any). Also, if the files are in the same directory or on the same disk DON'T include the drive or directory names(aka: the "Path name"), only the file names.
Finally use "DOS" file names. File names should only be eight characters long with a three character extension, i.e. ".htm" not ".html" and no blanks, dots or other special characters. So called "Long" file names, used in Windows, won't work on many web servers, though they may work while you are testing your pages at home.

What are "Tags"?

Tags are the things that go in the < >'s , such as <HTML>, <FONT> <UL> and so forth. Sometimes these are called HTML codes, instructions or commands.

By the way, .bmp graphics files work when you said .bmp doesn't work with html. What kind of teacher are you anyway?

Like students, not all browsers are created equal. What works on one may not work on another. To be sure your graphics are viewable on the widest range of browsers, use .gif or .jpg files for graphics and make sure your code conforms the the HTML standard.

In the TEXTAREA command the book shows us how to display COLS and ROWS. How do you limit the amount the user can input?

Sorry you cant really limit the amount people type in.

I have a question on tables . If i create a table, say 3 rowsand 3 columns, with a border and have an empty cell, how do i get it to draw the border around the empty cell?

An empty cell wont display unless something is in it. To create an empty cell that displays borders and background colors, insert a <BR> tag.

How do I create a zip file?

Zipping a group of files is a two stage process. First you create the zip file, then you add the files to it. The procedure below is for Pkzip, Winzip is similar.

Open Pkzip then click on File, and New. Enter the name of the zipfile you want to create, for example: ch2files.zip.

You should now see the "Add Files Dialog" box. Select the drive and folder with the file that you want to zip. Select the files to zip using the "Add Files" button. Click on OK when done.

Attach the zipfile to an e-mail in WebCt and send it to me.

I do not understand the purpose of using the NOFRAMES tag to point to the altindex.htm file

NOFRAMES is used by old browsers that dont support frames. All you have to do is insert the following code after the last </FRAMESET> and before </HEAD>

<NOFRAMES>
<A>Href=altindex.htm>Your browser doesnt support frames. Click here to go to our alternate home page</A>
</NOFRAMES>

You told me I had a bug in my code, but my web page displays OK on my computer.

Internet Explorer users should double check to make sure that you have a "/" on your closing table tags. IE will ignore the error, BUT other browsers (incuding mine) won't. Be sure and check your source code before sending me your assignments.

Can I make my border that goes around the image a specific color?

Not that I know of. You have to either put the border in the graphic itself, or make a table with one cell that has the graphic in it and set the BORDERCOLOR param of the table.

I was wondering why we use .htm instead of .html?

In "The Old Days" when real programmers used UNIX, the extension was html. Along came MS-DOS and it got shortened to .htm, since DOS and early versions of Windows only allowed three letter extensions on file names. Today you can use either extension. What you should NOT do is use Windows long file names. Most web servers are still UNIX and dont recognize them.

I was trying to receive the information from my form and I got an attachments called postdata.att and I don't have any application associated with this file. How do I view it?

.ATT files are text files. You can open them with Notepad. To understand the output look at the handout on Processing Form Data.

I have a question about my own personal Web site. I do not want "random Joe's" being able to view the details of my life online. I am building a site just for my friends that are up in Seattle to keep in touch with them . How do I get a logon/password incorporated into my opening page, justlike the WebCT site?

There are two ways you can deal with this problem: The hard way and (my preference) the easy way. First the hard way. Take this class, then take Javascript and then take PERL where you will learn how to set up a database on the server with your friends names and passwords. You can then create a login form that they can fill in and when they click on the forms submit button, the information will be sent to a PERL program ( that you have written) which will look up the information in the database and , if there is amatch , Download the appropriate web page.

Now, arent you glad you asked?

Oh, the easy way? Upload the page you want your friends to see. DO NOT put any links to it from your homepage, and send your friends the exact webpage name ( and path, if any ) including the "htm" extension. Only people knowing the page name will be able to access it. For example, if I have apage called "hidden.htm", you could access it at my Netcom web site by typing in the url: "www.netcom.com/~rmstewar/hidden.htm" . Since I dont have anylinks to that page, and I havent told anyone else the name, only you and I can see it.

Try it.

Where do I find the sample files for the exercises in the book?

To download Shelly and Cashman files go to:

http://www.scseries.com

or

http://www.course.com/shellycashman/default.cfm

click on student downloads and enter the ISBN . Then click on "student downloads" Then download the file listed under "data files for students"

What tags do you use to indent text at the begining of a paragraph?

Sorry there is no way to set an indent in a paragraph except by using "styles". You can use blank characters to indent or to separate items. Remember that HTML ignores extra blanks that you insert with the space bar on your keyboard so you have to use the HTML blank character which is &nbsp;

What is the code you use to make it so no one can right click and copy pictures or text off of your page? I have seen only a handful of Web pages that has this feature and I want it on mine!!!

Can't be done in HTML. You must use Java or Javascript to disable this feature in your browser.

On the tags, sometimes after the equal sign the value is in quotes, and sometimes it isn't. I don't understand when we use quotes and when we don't.

Under older versions of HTML, there was no real rule, either worked on both browsers. The new rule is to always use the quotes. While most browsers will work most of the time without them, It would be good to get in the habit of using them where appropriate.

I have the incredible opportunity to go overseas in just a few weeks, I could RUSH thru the rest of the assignments to finish before I leavewhich would not be the maximum atmosphere for LEARNING. So, I am wondering, if I could repeat the class and use the lessons I have already completed.Please let me know if this is a workable option. Thanks!

Yes we can do that. We want on-line courses to be as flexible as possible. If you feel you cant finish for whatever reason, I will let you resubmit your work the following session for credit. You will have to drop the first session and enroll in the next class.

I am having trouble viewing my work as a web page. I was able to view the page as I was creating it and see my changes as a web page as I went along. What could be going wrong? When I drag my html/notepad document over to the Internet Explorer GUI, webreshome opens in IE with only my html coding showing. Help

Disregard my last e-mail. I found that my wife had changed some of the setting on my internet browser. I fixed them and everything is coming out okay.

I have a question and I didn't find the answer in our book. When looking at webpages, why do some end with .html and some end with .htm? Is there a difference?

Today there is really no difference. In the "Old Days" (pre 1990) ".htm" was used with DOS and Windows computers which only allowed 3 letter extensions and ".html" was used with UNIX computers which allowed longer extensions on file names.

I don't suppose you could change the syllabus background color to white or give us different print options. I print with greyscale and it uses up all my black ink and if I leave it alone I have a solid wall of green. Sorry I'm so frugal but ink cartridges are expensive.

On my printer ( an HP 5550 ) there is an option for turning off printing the background color. Try going to "Print Setup" in the File menu of your browser, and look for a check box that says something like "Print background" and deselect it.
You can also try saving the page, them opening it in MS-Word and turning offthe background color, then printing it from Word.

Hi I cant seem to get the pages to open in the assignment for Chapter 5. Everything looks just like the book.

Check and make sure that you dont have a Pop Up blocker on your browser. If so turn it off, while you are testing your work

I couldn't test submitting a form via email. I tried, but it opened up an email from me to me and didn't have any content in it.

Not all browsers support the mailto feature. Some versions of IE will, Older versions of Netscape will and Mozilla will open an e-mail window filled in with your form data.

I'm having a problem sending you the two files for the first assignment. I winzip the two files in a winzip folder. When I double-click the zip file, it shows only the text file but not the image file. What is my problem??? Does have to do the way I zip the files?

Try this:
Open the Zip file in Winzip.
Click on "Actions" on the menu bar at the top then..
Click on Add and find the missing file.
When you see the missing file in the list Click on.
"File" and "Close Archive".

Instead of a free website on Geocities, we'd like to have a domain with our company's name (i.e., www.widgets.com). Do you know of the best place to do this? Do we need to register the name somewhere? I presume that we need to rent webserver space somewhere to do this?

Yes, The way to start is to find an ISP ( Internet Service Provider) like Earthlink, SBC, or one of the many local independent outfits. Your ISP will give you web server space and should help you register your domain names. You should also check and see if they will let you run CGI scripts and what kind of set up they have for e-mail. Different ISP's charge different rates depending on what you want, so shop around.

How do you eliminate the white border between the different frames? I thought when you specified border="no" that eliminated the space.

Put frameborder="no" in the fameset tag.

How can I extract the book files on my Mac? Mac's dont "do" .exe files

If you can't find a PC to use to extract the files, try this on your Mac if you have the Stuffit utility program. Simply change the suffix from .exe to .zip and double clicking on the file will decompresses it.

How do I zip my files on an Apple

To create a compressed file, either Control-click on the file and choose Create Archive (which is Apple-speak for “make a compressed ZIP file”). Or you can click on a file, then go to the Action menu (the button that looks like a gear up in the Finder window’s toolbar), and choose Create Archive from there. Either way, it quickly creates a new file, with the file extension “.zip.” This is the compressed file. You can also compress several different files (like three, for example) into one single archive file — just Command-click (or Shift-click contiguous files) on all the files you want included, then choose Create Archive of X Items from the Action menu. A file will be created named “Archive.zip” (that’s it!). By the way, if someone sends you a ZIP file, don’t sweat it — just double-click it and Tiger will automatically decompress it.