• Dougie's Color Picker allows you to try non-dithering colors which you pick from a pallette. (This requires Java Script to work properly.)
• The Browser Safe Palette (BSP) page describes the Netscape Color Safe Pallette, discusses dithering, and provides both Java script (won't work in IE 3.02) and non-Java based image maps to aid in color selection.
• Web Pages That Suck: Learn Good Design by Looking at Bad Design uses examples to show what is good and what is bad. Don't use animated GIFs, don't use Java unless it is important to the site, do have content. This is must reading for all web designers.
• useit.com: usable information technology provides lots of good information on what works and what doesn't. The bi weekly Alertbox is paricularly good. I like
  • Why Frames Suck (Most of the Time)
  • How Users Read on the Web - a study of what works and what doesn't. Basically, content counts, use bullets, remove fluff.
  • Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design - I really agree with these.
• The Electronic Journal for Design, Typography & Graphics discusses Animated Gifs
• The Web Design Group has tutorials and a single page style guide description which is much easier to search than the W3C page.
• Server Generated Error Codes
• Hotwired is hosting various tutorials
  • Dynamic html - the first "lesson" is very wordy
  • Java Script
  • Cascading Stylesheets
• Delorie Software provides several useful tools.
  • The Backward Compatibility Viewer allows you to disable various features (HTML tags).
  • The Web Page Purifier automatically disables those HTML tags which are not supported in a specific HTML spec.
• Matt's Script Archive Contains a super collection of CGI scripts, including a Guestbook and FormMail.
• The Project Cool site provides a good general reference on html, cascading style sheets, java script, xml, and the like. Of particular interest, this page provides a summary of various style sheet tags and identifies which browsers they don't work in.
• This Advanced HTML Guide is pretty good.
• ASP - Server side programming for IIS 4.0
  ASP Webring | ASP 101 | ASP Forums - free downloads | The ASP Resource Index - tons of links | ActiveServerPages.com - tutorials and downloads
• Yale University provides their Web Style Guide book on-line. While I don't agree with everything they say, it is interesting to read.
• This very well written page explains why Style Sheets (CSS) are better than <font> tags. There are lots of examples.
• Chuck Musciano's Tag of the Week provides a lot of tutorials.
• This article on how to "Frameproof" Your Pages provides a one line JavaScript program that will prevent pirates from opening your page in their frame! I provide cut-and-paste code which includes a few comments explaining why this is in your code.
• For lots of information on web usability, check out the Usable Web: 741 links about web usability.
• Internet Explorer 5 reads favicon.ico (16x16 256 color) when a user bookmarks your site and it displays that icon on the users machine. Though this allows you to to customize your web presence, I would normally suggest advoiding cutesy junk like this. However, if you don't add this magic file to all your directories, then you will get lots of 404 errors in your error log. There is even a free java based Favicon.ico genreator. Notice that this gives web sites the ability to know when their site is being bookmarked. As a result, they can develop special cookies which basically invade your privacy. Additional links - Microsoft, HTMLGoodies.
• AOL access is not the same as Internet access. Pages are re-formatted, java script fails, and image quality is significantly reduced. For more information, see AOL Design Information.
• The free Apache Guardian will provide a personal touch to 404 errors. More important, this explains how to use .htaccess to redirect various errors with Apache servers. (On cpcug.org, individual users are not allowed to use .htaccess for this.) For additional info on .htaccess redirects, see the Apache web site.
• HTML Goodies explains how to use CSS to control page breaks when printing.
• The HTML Writers Guild provides a lot of useful information, including How to Set Rates FAQ
• Web Design Pricing and Salary Information has lots of links to related surveys and papers.
• Using other people's work - what is allowed? ThinkQuest provides guidance on what needs to be cited, how to document Citations and References, and a link to examples of what needs to be cited. I would like to add that references to on-line sources should also be clickable.
• Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Standards is an interesting document. It explains several of the decisions which affect the government's new FAR rules. Most of this is pretty dry, but some of it is very interesting. Specifically, Software Applications and Operating Systems contains sections on colors (besides the obvious color blind problem, a bright screen can prohibit some people from distinguishing individual letters), images, and flashing stuff (can cause seizures). There is also a lot of Web based info. Also see the Federal IT Accessibility Initiative site.
• It appears that Microsoft has developed a new way to make your system more user hostile - Smart Tags. Starting with IE 6 and Office XP, the browser searches EVERY displayed page and inserts its own hyperlinks to additional sites. That's right, Microsoft is modifying your creative work, and probably making money off any click throughs. This sounds like a basic copyright violation - creating a derivative work without written permission.

  You can add a metatag to each of your pages to disable some of this crap. (Yeh, some but not all.)

  This zdnet article demonstrates how dangerous and illegal this new technology is.

  As of 6-27-01, Microsoft has announced that Smart Tags will not be a part of IE 6, in part, because of "external feedback".

• The 5K is a contest to create a web site which requires only 5K of storage. Very interesting.

Various Internet Surveys

• Various Internet surveys - most links are hard to read because the background color is the same.
• Netcraft provides a survey of which servers are most popular. Try this to determine what server any specific site is running.
• Top 25 Sites by Unique Visitors
• GVU GA Tech surveys of internet usage. Has very interesting questions and good response analysis.
• CyberAtlas provides several news articles.

URL: http:// cpcug.org / user / clemenzi / technical / HTML_Examples / Links.htm