Web Page Stuff

© Brooke Clarke 2000 - 2007


Browsers

Back in 1994 there was only Netscape.  In 1996 Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer into Win95.  After a long court case the ruling was that not only was Microsoft a monopoly (which is legal) but also a predatory monopoly (which is not legal).  It was proven that Microsoft not only bundled it browser into Windows but also made changes to Windows to disrupt Netscape operation.  These changes even occurred during the trial.

Both Netscape and Internet Explorer have been through a number of versions and can run various plug-ins.  Firefox is another browser that's now available.

There is an attempt at standardization with the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) that has validators for various levels of html and other flavors of web authoring languages.  But Microsoft does their own thing.

What's a webmaster to do?  One approach is to only use very rudimentary web page features so as to be compatible with all of them.  But that's not practical for large companies that want/need the more advanced features that the more current authoring languages offer.

Another approach is to have the server detemine the brand and version of the browser and serve web pages tailored for it.  This is expensive since it requires writing many versions of the same web page.

Another approach is to pick a brand and version of browser and just support that one.  When trying to use the U.S.P.S. Clik-N-Ship label and postage printing option I got error messages when using IE 6.  Their response to my complaint was to use Netscape or Firefox.  Netscape 8.1 worked OK.  I stopped using IE 7 because there are wab pages I visit where it was not showing me all the information.

Web Page Link Maintenance

Xenu is a freeware program that will check the links on your web pages.  But there’s no users manual and the web support pages didn’t answer my question, which is how to check a single page.  If you run the program with all the defaults it seems to check anything and everything, making it extreamly difficult to work on fixing anything.
 
I have all my web pages on my hard drive with the exact file structure.  In addition I use relative addressing for all the links within my web pages, at least that's my intention, but when Netwscape Composer changes the file extension after every upload sometimes that always does not happen.  So it's possible to direct Xenu to a web page file that's local (on my hard drive) instead of asking it to work on the live version.  To do this just click on File\Check URL... or on the the very left icon that looks like a sheet of paper.  The Xenu's Starting Point window will open.  In this window click on Local File and browse to and select the web page  you want to check.

Then when you come back to the Xenu's Starting Point window the path to your web page will be in the top line.  Now clock on More Options...
The Xenu's Link Sleuthing Options window will open.  These settings work for me:
Parallel Threads = 1 - When this number is set to a higher numbe Xenu can be doing more things in parallel which speeds things up.
Maximum Level = 1 - This may have to do with how many levels deep it searches.  The problem is that if you have good conectivity between your web pages then it will be looking at all of them which is a bad thing if you're working on one page.  It's a good thing if you pages have no bad links and you want to check all of them quickly.
Apply to all jobs =checked - not sure what this does.
Ask for password or certificate when needed - not checked - not applicable to what I'm doing
Treat redirections as errors - checked, but no applicable
in the Report box only one of the first two entries can be checked, i.e. order the report by either links or pages.
The local links and orphan files are checked.

23 May 2007 - It's no longer working in LOCAL mode.  Don't yet know why.  A clue is that the report shows about all my web pages as orphans.

SPAM related

Geek Tools - whois to help find source of spam
Sam Spade - both on line and Windows tools for spam detective work

Search Engine Registration Pages:

Excellent Web publishing information is at Bruce Clay's web page. His add URL page has many search engines already linked.
DirectoryGuide - over 350 search engines where you can post your URL
MMG's WebStep TOP 100 -
The Submit Site -
SiteOwner.com - has Submit-it! - for some of the above sites & some page inspection features
PositionAgent - Free find your ranking
Design Tips for improved Search Engine results -
Search Engine Watch - home page
Search Engine Features Chart -
Checking Your URL -
Online Publicity Resources -
!Register It! - Web Site Garage - free 11 sites

AltaVista - posted 11/26/98
Excite  - posted 11/26/98  Netscape Web Directory = Excite
GoTo.com - paid listings only, unpaid provided by  Inktomi.com who makes an OEM search engine
Infoseek - posted 11/26/98
HotBot - posted 11/26/98
Looksmart - Go to one of the 13 areas and add URL in that area
Lycos - posted 11/26/98
Northern Light -
WebCrawler - posted 11/26/98
Yahoo! - posted:astronomy, sensors, RASS 11/26/98
Netscape - add a site
 

Finding Links to Your Web Page

AltaVista Home - enter      link:http://www.pacific.net/~brooke   then search

Web Tools

Meta Tag Tutorials -
HTML Reference Guide - Netscape
Extropia - free downloads of some web apps
Netscape Web Building -
Matt's Script Archive, Inc. - cgi-bin scripts
PLANET-PLG - @MailMan@ - web page change mailing list
Web Site Post Office - list server or just mailing list?
CompuServe Tools & Tips -
Sun - Java page -
AutoDesk - WHIP! - WHIP!® and DWF—A Primer - AutoCAD Internet Utilities 3.1 is a free upgrade to AutoCAD Release 14 - Lite & dwf -
Douglas E. Gray - Preparing Graphics for the Web -
Royal E. Frazier Jr. - GIF information -
Netscape General How to do it page - some free stuff & pay for more capability
coast - Webmaster
MarkUp Validation Service- checks web pages for W3C compliance

Prefix Words

When sending a email if you put the http:// in front of a web URL most mail programs will allow the recipient to click on the URL.
If on a web page you make a link with mailto: as a prefix to an email address the viewers browser will launch their mail program with the email address filled in.
When using a search engine to find links to your own URL prefix your complete URL with link:

mailto:<Place email address here>?subject=<Place subject line text here>&body=<Place body text here>
In the above replace the <> marks as well.

Free Software

Freeware web publishing site - free software of all kinds
Tucows - another freeware/shareware web site
Image Converter Plus by fCoder -

Viewing Japanese & ChineseWeb Pages

How to View Chinese/Japanese/Korean HTML with Netscape Communicator on US version of Windows 95 or NT - ie3lpkja.exe
Then set Netscape Communicator:
  When English is the language the web pages may not look correct and you will need to change back to For traditional Chinese use the ie3lpktw.exe font package.
How to View Chinese/Japanese/Korean HTML with Netscape Communicator on US version of Windows 95 or NT

TwinBridge has software that allows English Windows users to input and view Cinese, Japanese & Korean fonts.
It is available on Grant Ave. in San Francisco's China Town.

Misc Web Pages

www.cnn.com/online
Pacific Internet - Auction page -
Remark - read newsgroups on the net
Bruce Carter's Web Page Goodies - Search Engines -
Price Scan - a free web based price search
Netscape UnofficialFAQ - a lot of information about Netscape Browsers, Troubleshooting Chart
Netscape Help - the official help page
Compass - freeware program to sort bookmarks & do other things
25.How do I Get Rid of the Welcome to Netscape Messenger Page?  - go to item #25

Subscribe to a List server

These are also called reflectors.  Someone sends an email to the list server and it sends the message to all the subscribers.  It is very important to keep the first email that has directions about how to un-subscribe!  Usually there is an option to allow receiving only one big email a day instead of many seperate emails.

ONElist -
eGroups.com - start your own list server group - or join an existing one

Find a News Group

http://www.dejanews.com/home_if.shtml -
http://www.altavista.digital.com -

Search News Group

Deja News -
Yellow Pages for various Countries -
Japan Yellow Pages -
 

GSI Public Company Websites

A way to find a companies web page

SPAM

Netscape Filter

When in Netscape Messinger (Communicator 4.7) under edit\message filters  - you can setup a filter to send a repeated spam message into a "span" folder.  I am trying to use the reply to or from URL domain as the basis, but within the last week have not had and duplicates.

SpamCop

A place to report spam.

Email anti spam from and reply to addresses

You can modify your email address, for example from brooke@pacific.net to brookeNOSPAM@pacific.net.  The trouble is that if you are expecting a reply there is a very good chance that the sender will not notice the NOSPAM and waste his or her time as I have done.

Forward SPAN to the ISP

The ARIN Whois Database Search is a way to find out who sent the spam and then:
forward inline with the headers copied form the page source to - abuse@xxxsx, webmaster@xxxx hostmaster@xxxxx and postmaster@xxxx
usually one or more of these gets through.  The ISP will typically ban the person from using their system, but more importantly lets the webmaster know that they have a spam weakness that needs to be fixed.  I find most spam comes through a number of remailers and is not sent by an individual, although an occasional college student sends one (they must have bought the CD-ROM?).

Network Solutions -get a domain name, or get it through your ISP -  Who Is - a lookup service to find owner of domain name

CAUCE - Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email -

Virus or Hoax

A Virus is a very real thing (my C: drive was erased by one), but many of the "warnings" are hoaxes.  If you receive an email from someone you don't know or does not have your email address in the "to" field and it contains an attachment, you best just delete it and dump your trash.  I have always done this so my guess is that it came via a direct connection by means of StarBand (happened just after I started to try and use StarBand).
Symantec AntiVirus Research Center -
McAfee -
PC-cillin -
Dr Solomon - Virus Central -
AntiViral Toolkit Pro -

Hoax Debunking

Computer Security Technology Center - CIAC - Hoaxes
Computer Virus Myths -
Urban Legends and Folklore -

Mid Jan. 2001 I was hit by a virus that erased my C: drive - what to do?

I really hurts to loose thousands of hours of work when your C: drive is erased.  I could restore the critical stuff that I back up on a weekly basis, but it takes a long time to install all that software.  As a precaution I will be adding a D: drive with a manual switch in one of the power wires so that it will only work when it's turned on by me.  I will then just copy my entire C: drive to the D: drive and turn off the switch.

To get this to work:
(1) use a hot swap disk system like the Data Port DP2200A66 cartridge and frame from MegaHuas.  It has a key lock switch that electrically turns on and off the drive.  Most of the time the drive is plugged in but NOT turned on.

(2) once a week I:

In addition make a floppy and zip disk recovery set using Norton AntiVirus.  The Zip disk version allows booting directly into windows, the 7 disk floppy only version allows booting into DOS.

Personal Firewall by Symantec is a good idea if you have any always connected type internet service provided like StarBand, DSL or cable modem.

Connection Methods

Dial Up

I use this also.  Limited to 28 kbps because of the long phone lines, not the modem.

ISDN

I have an ascend P75 Pipeline single box solution.  This has been available for about a year here in the woods.

ADSL

Pac Bell is just getting around to supporting ADSL in my area.  I'm too far, they will NOT connect me with DSL!

Satellite

Direcpc -US & Europe - this is for downloading big files only.  Does no good for up loading and small files.
Gilat-To-Home -2-way, always connected, supposed to be very similar to DSL capability & pricing,  soming 4Q-2000?
StarBand - VSAT that I am trying to use
Pegasus Broadband - coming on line early 2001,maybe will be better than StarBand

Cable Modem

No cable, hence no cable modem for me.

Security

The always connected services above, (xDSL, Satellite, Cable Modem) leave you open to attacks.  This may have happened to me since shortly after starting to use the StarBand system my C: drive was completely destroyed, but it may also have been a virus on the Intuit Quicken 2001 Deluxe CD-ROM, or something else?

Symantec Email Proxy Deleted Message

This is the subject line in my incoming email when the Symantec Norton Internet Security program goes nuts.  What it did was delete the incoming email and replace it with this message.  The email is permanently lost, not quarantined!  This problem has been known at least back to 2002.  It wiped out over a hundred of my emails before I figured out that it was not an external spam email, but was coming from my own computer.  It was supposed to be fixed about 4 July 2004 on my computer by running live update, but yesterday 24 July 2004 it erased 4 emails before I could kill my mail program.  I have shut down Norton Internet Security and will shortly uninstall it.  Instead I'll use the program built-in WIndows XP.

If you are using Norton Internet Security you might want to uninstall it.

Also turn OFF email scanning.  Note that this is OK since if a virus is in an email it will be detected when it tries to move anywhere.  This is recomended by Symantec as part of the fix for this problem, see:
Message: "Symantec Email Proxy has deleted the following email messages. . ."
and
Turning on or turning off email scanning in Norton AntiVirus 2002/2003/2004

Shopping Bots

mySimon.com -
shopping.yahoo.com -
bottomdollar.com -
CNET - shopper -

FREE Internet access

Lycos

Web page Language translation
World: translation - by Alta Vista


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