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Sausage Sizzler - Browsing and Buying |
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G'day Sizzlers!
A couple of weeks ago I bought a scanner, but not before checking
on-line for reviews of the many types of scanners available. I
purchased the Microtek Scanport 3000. You might think Microtek
"isn"t a good brand" or "it is a cheap piece of crap." After two
weeks, I have finally put it to the test. I am happy to say that
it has been fantastic for the simple tasks that I need it for.
I have used it to scan in some brochures that that were not
available in digital format. It also did a decent scan on a
picture too! If you aren"t convinced already, how about the low
cost of $29.95? (This price is after a CompUSA instant in-store
rebate of $10 and a mail-in coupon for another $10 off.)
I think it is pretty amazing to purchase all the hardware and
software you need to scan for $30! Pricegrabber couldn"t find
this model, so perhaps it is an exclusive through CompUSA. If you
are interested, here is the link.
I will be taking another trip in the near future and would like
to be prepared with some sort of "roaming" Internet access
account. I suppose dial-up would work, but I am not sure who to
sign up with. I will be traveling to Washington and California,
for sure, and possibly Oregon and Canada. If anyone has a good
suggestion that is "tried and tested," please let me know! What
is the best roaming access account available?
I am off to buy components for my new computer tonight. System
tweaks seemed to have taker over my world. My favorite sites are
www.cyberguys.com and www.tigerdirect.com. I have already
purchased a Romtec Trios Hard Drive Selector from
www.tigerdirect.com which will allow different operating systems
and environments on one machine. Since this is such a good deal,
I also bought one to send to Australia. Now the guys can have
one test machine with three separate set-ups on it. I will let
you know how it works when I have built my new system.
Keep on sizzling!
Nathan Allan
Sausage Sizzler Editor
editor@sausage.com
New Release - HotDog Professional 6.6
Our latest release of HotDog Profesisonal 6.6 is a free upgrade for registered version 6 owners.
Download it here:
ftp://ftp.sausage.com/pub/hotdog/hotdog6/hotdog66install.exe
Here is the fixed bug list for those of you who are interested:
http://www.sizzlerforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=460
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New Release - Flash and Graphics Web ToolKit - ONLY US$69.95 |
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Sympoll 1.1 PHP/MySQL FREE
http://www.ralusp.net/heterodox/sympoll.php
http://www.ralusp.net/downloads/sympoll/sympoll.zip
One of the reasons we feature PHP and MySQL in the Dynamic Tip
section is because it is a free and widely supported option for
creating dynamic web sites. Occasionally we will be putting in
some useful scripts that will speed up your development time.
The first of these is Sympoll, a customizable voting booth system.
Here are some of its requirements and features:
- Requires PHP and MySQL
- You can have any number of polls existing concurrently
- Individual polls can easily be embedded into any PHP or SHTML web page
- Creation and modification is through a administration web page.
- Cookies prevent users from voting multiple times
- Support for multiple option or single choice polls
See David's demo (the author of Sympoll) on his site.
Review by Nathan
Form Elements
We covered the most basic of the INPUT fields in the last issue.
It looks like this:
<input type="text" name="email" size="30" maxlength="50"
value="enter email address">
Text boxes are used for data like the users e-mail address,
postal address, and phone number, etc, etc. However, there are
other input types that can be used to solicit more specific
information. Two examples of this are RADIO buttons and
CHECKBOXes.
An example of the RADIO button type allows only one of your
choices to be selected. You can also pre-select one choice for
the user by using "checked" in the INPUT tag.
<input type="radio" name="gender" value="male" checked>
<input type="radio" name="gender" value="female">
This next example is the CHECKBOX type. Again you can give the
user multiple choices, but this time they will be able to select
more than one answer.
<input type="checkbox" name="hobbies" value="hiking">
<input type="checkbox" name="hobbies" value="biking">
<input type="checkbox" name="hobbies" value="stamp collecting">
With both of these it is the NAME the ties the selections
together. Next add some descriptive text next to the boxes, for
example:
Hiking <input type="checkbox" name="hobbies" value="hiking"><br>
Biking <input type="checkbox" name="hobbies" value="biking"><br>
Next issue, we will look at a few more. Until then, play around
with these!
Tip by Nathan Allan
Research-Desk Web 98/ME/NT4/2000/XP US$29.95
http://www.capitalintellect.net/rdwebhtm
http://www.capitalintellect.net/downloads/Research-Desk-Setup.exe
I have used this product off and on since it was released. To
start with I did not use all of its features. However, now that I
am really getting into it, I can see how this tool can replace
many others. This tool can replace MS Office, WinZip, and basic
FTP.
What I like about the Office view is you can create workspaces
that "tie Together" all of your different documents (say for a
project) together. Each time you open a "workspace" everything
you need (or tied together) opens up.
The zip utility has a nice clear and to the point view. No
amazing bells or whistles, just a good solid zip utility.
For browsing, Research-Desk acts as a new front-end for IE. I
love the tabbed windows. It can block pop-ups intelligently (it
won"t block ones that you have activated yourself) and even flash
(great for testing Web sites alternative flash pages). You can
also put "sticky notes" on the Web page and highlight text. The
final feature I found useful was the grammar and spell check for
Web forms.
Beyond all of those things, the support for this product is
great. I requested that they add a feature to allow CRTL-ENTER to
convert a word into a Web site address in the address bar, like
you can in IE. I didn"t realize how often I used this short cut
until it wasn’t there.
For a slick and to the point description of the features of
Research-Desk click here.
Review by Nathan Allan
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Inspiration
What inspires your designs? What motivates you? If you work for
a company updating the Web site or creating promotional items,
how do you stay excited about your work? If you work directly
for clients, how do you not become overwhelmed or avoid the
feelings of being drained of your own ideas brought on by heavy
workloads? How do you avoid repetition?
There are plenty of opportunities to experience both sides, which
is how I came up with the series of questions. At the same time,
I have myself working at two companies so I have a "varied" list
of duties. I get to take breaks and change gears which can be
quite refreshing, but sometimes it is beyond frustrating.
With one company, designing IS the company. The only chance to
avoid repetition there is to essentially sell my creative ideas
or solutions for various sub-projects. At the other company,
some clients are looking for basics. We may use a standardized
template and whip out a Web site for them, (yawn) but that kind
of stuff pays the bills.
I do many side projects. If I keep this up, pretty soon, I will
be like one of the Jamaican characters from the old TV show "In
Living Color." "How many jobs you got "mon?". "Me gots 2 job".
"2 Job?! 2 Job?! Why when I was your age I had me 7 job!".
Hopefully you have seen the show at least once and get the
picture!
As always, I am very interested in learning what you have to say.
http://www.sizzlerforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=513
Discuss your experiences with Bram Leland Scolnick
This week I have decided to combine the Spotlight and Designed
for Browsing sections. During the past week, one of the regulars
went off on a tangent about the current and ongoing list
development in the Designed for Browsing section. However, the
topic may not be a "tangent."
Along with the list and the horrendous quantity of "brain Farts"
I had with spelling (e.g. NAGviation) last week, a few very good
questions were raised:
Is the designer responsible for creating the content of the Web
site? Is the designer responsible for correcting misspellings in
the content? Does the content person have authority over the
designer or Vice Versa or are both equal and seen as teammates?
This is a very difficult call. Please pardon me for recycling
but I posted the following in the forums and I feel it is good
information for the newsletter too.
The questions asked were:
- Would you count the readability of the content itself as part of the Web design?
- Is it part of the Web designer"s responsibility to at least review or edit the client"s content?
- Should it be on a list for defining good Web design?
My response was this:
This is open to debate. Does the designer WRITE the content (if
so, he/she needs a darn good spell checker!!)? Usually not. At
one of my jobs where I am the designer I work with a VERY
talented VP of Content. She creates the content and I make it
look good!
With my other job I am a designer of all sorts. Our contracts
state clearly that we are NOT responsible for content, unless we
are being paid to write it.
However, there arises an issue.
We design Web, print, and more. If a Web site looks great, but
has a misspelling, is that our fault? Does it look bad for us?
Maybe, but maybe not. If we are printing a flyer or brochure and
it is a HUGE run, of course, we will spell check 5 times. Even
if we find errors, we do not make changes without customer
approval. We will also point out what we feel are errors and have
the customer sign off that they acknowledge "whatever" we are
pointing out.
From my point of view, NO, we are not responsible to WRITE or
CREATE the content. We are supposed to make it flow nice and
smooth, and not be boring to view (lots of text, no images or
colors to distract visually).
Here is another question: Is a Webmaster/designer the boss of the
content person, vice versa, or are they on the same plain?
Anyone care to comment?
Before I close, here is the list. I think it is almost done.
- Load time
- Browser Compatibility (W3C)
- Color usage
- Page layout
- Navigation
- Overall Design
- Use of images and text, and balance
- Accessibility
- Use of frames
- iFrames
- CSS, JavaScript, and DHTML
- Site Interactivity
- Copyright Infringement
- Grammar and Spelling
- A well-defined objective of this site
- "Search-ability"
- Content?
Discuss with Bram Leland Scolnick
P.S. (NAG-viation - the constant nagging of Bram by people in the
Sizzler Forums)
To read the Sizzler Forums you do not need to be a member.
However to take full advantage of this resource it will only take
you a few seconds to sign up!
- Go to: http://www.sizzlerforums.com
- Read the information and click on the REGISTER button
- Fill out the form
- You will receive an email that you simply reply to
- Hey presto! Your a fully fledged Sizzler Forums member!
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