The New WWW FAQFrequently asked questions about the World Wide Web, including security, viruses, privacy, creating web sites, and more. By the longtime editor of the original WWW FAQ.How do I center a new browser window on the screen- May 30, 2007 2007-05-30: You can center a newly opened browser window on the screen with the top and left parameters to the window.open JavaScript method... Now that you're familiar with window.open, you're ready to control the window's position as well as its size... There's a catch: not every browser is friendly to the width, height, left and top options of window.open... But what if the window we're asking for is bigger than the screen... The following simple web page opens a new 300x200 pixel...http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/creating/windowcenter.html What is streaming audio- May 30, 2007 2007-05-30: Streaming audio is audio (speech, music, et cetera) that plays back as it is downloaded... Streaming playback was invented to solve a problem: downloading an entire song or album takes time, and users get tired of waiting... Early audio players, like the first versions of the RealAudio Player, worked around this problem by using "metafiles." Rather than linking directly to the actual audio file, a website would link to a special "metafile." These were simply...http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/definitions/streaming.html What is MP3- May 30, 2007 2007-05-30: MP3 is the most popular format for audio (sound and music) on the Internet... Technically known as MPEG-1 Audio Layer 3, the MP3 format is a "lossy" format... Why are "lossy" formats useful... But MP3 can compress by a factor of ten to one without much noticeable loss... MP3 files can be compressed (shrunk) even more, but quality begins to suffer as the compression rate is increased...http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/definitions/mp3.html How do I add a print button to a web page- May 29, 2007 2007-05-29: "I want to add a 'print' button or link to my web page, to help users who are confused and don't know how to use their browser's print button... It's easy to add a print button... Here's an example of a web page with a JavaScript print button: Print Test Print Test I've tested this code successfully in Internet Explorer, Safari and Firefox... We can fix the problem by generating the print button itself with JavaScript... Of course, the user can just use her web browser's...http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/creating/printbutton.html How do I play a MIDI file on my web page- May 29, 2007 2007-05-29: General MIDI files (.mid files) are not the most popular way to distribute music on the web, and there are good reasons for that... But good General MIDI tracks do exist... By itself, MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) doesn't specify any standard instrument sounds... Unfortunately, Flash won't do MIDI... The param name="loop" element specifies how many times the song will repeat...http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/creating/midi.html What is the difference between a web browser and a search engine- May 17, 2007 2007-05-17: Web browsers and search engines both talk to web servers in order to retrieve web pages... For more information, see what is a web browser, what is a search engine and what is a web server...http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/definitions/browserversussearchengine.html What does 401 Unauthorized mean- May 16, 2007 2007-05-16: 401 Unauthorized (sometimes mislabeled as 401 Forbidden) is the HTTP status code produced by a web server when you don't have the right credentials to access the page or file you have asked for... For a complete list of standard HTTP status codes, see the W3 Consortium's website...http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/definitions/401unauthorized.html What does 403 Forbidden mean- May 16, 2007 2007-05-16: 403 Forbidden is the HTTP status code produced by a web server when you are not permitted to access a particular URL... Some websites are locked down so that only those on the local company or school network can access parts of the site... Sometimes webmasters try to set up dynamic web programming features like PHP or PerlCGI but fail to do so correctly... 403 Forbidden can appear in other situations at the discretion of the webmaster, so you may see it in scenarios other than...http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/definitions/403forbidden.html What is a CAPTCHA- May 8, 2007 2007-05-08: CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart... So, spammers create bogus Hotmail accounts to spam us with... Websites like Hotmail require people to type in these letters and numbers before they are allowed to apply for a new account... Computers can break 'em anyway..... Some humans can't break 'em...http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/definitions/captcha.html How do I make a transparent image- May 1, 2007 2007-05-01: Transparent images are useful when you are not certain of the page background color on which your image will be displayed, or you intend to display your image in front of a complex background rather than a single background color... Pull down the File menu... You now have a completely transparent image, to which you can add additional elements... Alpha Channel Versus 100% Transparency ... Advanced programs like The Gimp and Photoshop support the idea of an "alpha...http://www.boutell.com/newfaq/creating/transparent.html |