My Rants
- Flash is Evil
- Okay, so Flash is not really evil. Macromedia Flash is a multimedia technology
that allows web designers to add animation to web pages. Now, according to
Macromedia's sales hype, "Macromedia Flash MX is the solution for developing
highly visual interactive content and applications that deliver breakthrough
experiences with significant return on investment." So what's the truth?
- Frames are Evil
- Frames are a method of constructing a web page where the "page" displayed
in the web browser is composed of multiple actual pages. The file
that pulls these individual frames together and describes how they
are laid out in the browser window is called a frameset. If you've been surfing
the internet for any length of time, you've no doubt seen framed pages before.
- How to Avoid Search Engine Suicide
- So much has been written on the topic of search engine optimization that
it can be a bit overwhelming. Do a Google search on the exact phrase "search
engine optimization" and, as I'm writing this in November of 2004, Google
will return a result set consisting of 6,130,000 matches!
- JavaScript Menus - Good or Evil?
- Let me begin by saying that any pop-up menu on a web site requires JavaScript
in order to function. However, there are different ways of implementing
that pop-up menu functionality. Our discussion here relates to the difference
between a menu that is entirely done in JavaScript as opposed to
a menu that simply uses JavaScript to reveal or hide page content. The difference
is important!
- Popup Menus
- I know you've seen them. The menus that, when you pass your mouse cursor
over something, a menu drops down with a number of different links.
They seem to be all the rage right now and, in some cases, they are an appropriate
method for site navigation. However, depending on how they are implemented,
there can be problems.
- Pop Up Windows
- Okay, I know, you're just waiting for me to say something like pop up
windows are evil. Some people do feel that way. They contend that, if they
want something opened in a new window, they will right-click the link and
choose "Open link in new window".
- Spans are Evil
- Are you still using tables for page layout? If you use an authoring tool
like Macromedia Dreamweaver, a very good tool by the way, you can easily
fall into a trap. Dreamweaver makes it very easy to lay out a page using
a feature called "layout view". When you use layout view, you simply
use the mouse to "draw" tables on the page. It allows a huge amount
of flexibility in designing your page and allows you to place elements
wherever you want them.
- MS Windows Resources
- Okay, so you've got this fancy 2GHz Pentium IV with 256Mb of RAM and Windows
98. Still, applications seem to be running out of memory. They run
slow, or you may receive the dreaded "Unable to create control" message,
or worse yet the entire operating system freezes up. What the heck
is the problem?
- Using Mailto in a Form Action
- FAQ #6,384,279: What's the easiest way to send a form's results to an
e-mail address? Answer: Just use mailto in the form's action attribute.
