Newsletters July 12th, 1999

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site (http://www.irt.org/) has been updated, here is the latest
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In This Edition: 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

Articles at irt.org 
* Speed Thrills : CGI Please ... and Fast!
* CGI Programming Made (Relatively) Easy Using Libraries
* JavaScript Bookmarklets
* JavaScript Guidelines and Best Practice
* The Book of the Day Script
* Looking for Something? : Searching the Web
* Server-Side Includes and its Extensions
* Browser Redirection using VBScript
* Image Manipulation Techniques
* String Gradients the Fun Way!
* Rattling Keys and Chasing Mice With VBScript
* Jump Start your Intranet Web Sites - Setting up Virtual Hosts on Apache
* Time Changes Everything
* E-Commerce on the WWW : A Matter of Trust
* Creating 'Encoded' Name & Value Pairs

Resources at irt.org
* External Emacs/XEmacs Resources
* External Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) Resources
* Is your JavaScript ready for Nav5 and IE5?

FAQs at irt.org 
* ColdFusion Frequently Asked Question Knowledge Base
* JavaScript FAQ Knowledge Base Update

Software Reviews at irt.org 
* Symantec Visual Page
* Actinic Catalog 3.0

Games at irt.org 
* The 4th irt.org Games Challenge - WINNERS Announced!
* The 5th irt.org Games Challenge

Books at irt.org 
* Web Design in a Nutshell

How to Unsubscribe 


Articles at irt.org [http://www.irt.org/articles/] 
=================== 


Speed Thrills : CGI Please ... and Fast!
http://www.irt.org/articles/js172/index.htm
The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard for interfacing
external programs with the Web servers. Under testing conditions,
such as computationally-intensive tasks or large number of concurrent
users, CGI scripts can degrade in performance. Reasons for this
behaviour are pointed out and solutions are suggested by Pankaj
Kamthan.



CGI Programming Made (Relatively) Easy Using Libraries
http://www.irt.org/articles/js171/index.htm
The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard for external gateway
programs to interface with HTTP servers. CGI libraries simplify the
task of writing CGI scripts. The use of one widely used CGI library,
CGI.pm, is discussed in detail by Pankaj Kamthan.



JavaScript Bookmarklets
http://www.irt.org/articles/js170/index.htm
Here is something novel: using JavaScript to make your web experience
more enjoyable, when you decide, and with what you want to do - rather
than site specific JavaScript code that performs what the web author
wants to do.  In this article Martin Webb describes the basics behind
bookmarklets.



JavaScript Guidelines and Best Practice
http://www.irt.org/articles/js169/index.htm
The constantly evolving JavaScript language can hold several surprises
for the unwary or JavaScript beginner, which can cause carefully
crafted code to fail on other browsers and older versions of
JavaScript.  Martin Webb illustrates JavaScript coding best practices
learnt over several years experience.



The Book of the Day Script
http://www.irt.org/articles/js168/index.htm
Ben Allen shows how to use a JavaScript to display a Book of the Day,
which links to you Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com affiliate program.



Looking for Something? : Searching the Web
http://www.irt.org/articles/js167/index.htm
Searching for information is one of the most common activities on the
Web. However, it can also be one of the most frustrating to carry
out. Pankaj Kamthan describes some of the basics behind searching and
provide recommendations that could improve the outcome and the
experience. The nature of information, which is the search object, is
also discussed.



Server-Side Includes and its Extensions
http://www.irt.org/articles/js166/index.htm
Server-side includes (SSI's) extend and introduce implicit dynamism in
HTML documents, and can be a useful alternative to CGI's in certain
cases. Use of SSI's, and their extensions in the Apache WWW server,
XSSI's, are described. Applications SSI's and XSSI's are given.
Written by Pankaj Kamthan



Browser Redirection using VBScript
http://www.irt.org/articles/js165/index.htm
This article, by Ryan Detert, will show you how to detect client-side
browser versions and redirect the client to a web page that is best
supported by their browser. And of course, all of this will be done
using Microsoft's VBScript



Random and Recursive Crypting using Salt on Unix and Win32
http://www.irt.org/articles/js164/index.htm
Ha Quach explains how to use the Perl crypt() function to create
random and recursive crypted passwords for both Unix and Win32 systems



Image Manipulation Techniques
http://www.irt.org/articles/js163/index.htm
This article, by Martin Webb, will demonstrate how to get the best
image manipulation techniques out of each browser, using a mixture of
Frames, Images, Floating Frames, Tables, Layers, JavaScript, DHTML and
Microsoft's Multimedia effects. The completed working example of a
slide puzzle presented at the end of the article will work on all
Microsoft and Netscape browsers as far back as Netscape Navigator 2
and Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.



String Gradients the Fun Way!
http://www.irt.org/articles/js162/index.htm
Have you ever been to a site where words or sentences are composed of
what appear to be two blended colors? Ever wondered how on earth to do
it without using a fancy program or wracking your brain trying to
figure out which letter should be what color to generate a nice blend
in straight HTML coding? Well in this tutorial Ryan Detert plays
around with some of the more advanced features that JavaScript offers,
as well as some advanced techniques in order to get a nice shading
effect.



Rattling Keys and Chasing Mice With VBScript
http://www.irt.org/articles/js161/index.htm
Ryan Detert describes how to use VBScript to capture key presses and
mouse button clicks events



Jump Start your Intranet Web Sites - Setting up Virtual Hosts on Apache
http://www.irt.org/articles/js160/index.htm
Tarique Sani describes how to set-up the Apache server as for single
and multiple virtual domains



Time Changes Everything
http://www.irt.org/articles/js159/index.htm
This article covers how time is slowly becoming a first-class citizen
of the Web. Written by Janus Boye this article covers three exciting
technologies that have come out in the last two years: SMIL
(Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language), ASF (Advanced
Streaming Format) and HTML+Time (Timed Interactive Multimedia
Extensions).



E-Commerce on the WWW : A Matter of Trust
http://www.irt.org/articles/js158/index.htm
In this article, by Pankaj Kamthan, the risks involved in E-Commerce
(E-Commerce) on the World-Wide Web (WWW) that lead to breach of
privacy and loss of trust are addressed. Ongoing efforts to tackle
these risks are outlined.



Creating 'Encoded' Name & Value Pairs
http://www.irt.org/articles/js157/index.htm
Martin Webb describes how to create a simple JavaScript Tool that can
be used to automate the production of encoded name/value pairs to be
used when passing data from one page to another



Resources at irt.org [http://www.irt.org/links/] 
====================

External Emacs/XEmacs Resources
http://www.irt.org/links/Emacs_Resources/


External Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) Resources
http://www.irt.org/links/CSS_Resources/


Is your JavaScript ready for Nav5 and IE5?
http://www.irt.org/http://developer.netscape.com/docs/examples/javascript/browser_type.html
Get the latest JavaScript client sniffer which supports all versions
of Navigator, IE, and Opera



FAQs at irt.org [http://www.irt.org/faqs.htm] 
===============

ColdFusion Frequently Asked Question Knowledge Base - managed by Bill
Huggins
http://www.irt.org/script/fusion.htm A new irt.org resource



JavaScript FAQ Knowledge Base Update
http://www.irt.org/script/faq.htm
The ever expanding JavaScript FAQ Knowledge Base has over 1000
Questions and Answers.  With two new sections: General and
Miscellaneous, along with over 300 new JavaScript Frequently Asked
Questions - with answers!



Software Reviews at irt.org [http://www.irt.org/software/] 
===========================

Symantec Visual Page
http://www.irt.org/software/sw016/index.htm
Paul Rundle examines Symantec's effort at the WYSIWYG editor market.



Actinic Catalog 3.0 - Software Review
http://www.irt.org/software/sw015/index.htm
Pankaj Kamthan evaluates this online catalog creator from Actinic
Software.



Games at irt.org [http://www.irt.org/games.htm] 
================

The 4th irt.org Games Challenge - WINNERS Announced!
http://www.irt.org/games/chall/c04.htm
The judges results are in and the winners of the 4th irt.org games
challenge have been announced. A copy of The Settlers II game goes to
both the first and second place winners - congratulations!



The 5th irt.org Games Challenge
http://www.irt.org/games/chall/c05.htm
Breakout (or Arkanoid, as a more advanced version was called) is a
classic arcade game from the mid-80's. Enter the challenge and create
this classic game in JavaScript. Prize yet to be decided.



WebGames Challenge #04 - Minesweeper - Submission #3
http://www.irt.org/games/chall/c04/sub03/index.htm
The third minesweeper games challenge entry - by Tim Down



WebGames Challenge #04 - Minesweeper - Submission #2
http://www.irt.org/games/chall/c04/sub02/mysweeper.html
The second minesweeper games challenge entry - by Matthew Dean



WebGames Challenge #04 - Minesweeper - Submission #1
http://www.irt.org/games/chall/c04/sub01/mine.htm
The first submission for the current WebGames Challenge is in - play
Jonathan Paynes' version of Minesweeper.  Can you do better?  There
are two versions of the The Settlers III game to be won.



Books at irt.org [http://www.irt.org/books/] 
================

Web Design in a Nutshell - book review
http://www.irt.org/books/html.htm#1565925157
Pankaj Kamthan reviews this extremely handy reference book




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