Old Blog Archives
Thursday, September 14th, 2006
ADVANCED MYSPACE EDITOR REVISITED
Okay so what have I been doing all summer? Go here now and find out.
Yes, that's right. This Advanced MySpace editor was completely revamped with a new compact look, a 'Tweaks' section (to create transluscent tables and stuff like that) and...
AND....
(*drum roll please*)
.................
.....
....................
...EIGHTY NEW READY-MADE BACKGROUNDS TO CHOOSE FROM!!
(like this one)
Sooooo.....
If you've been looking for a way to make your friends go ape-poopy over your MySpace layout then this may be the ticket... (admission is free, of course...).
Have a good one!
Thursday, September 7th, 2006
7 EASY STEPS TO A KICK ASS MYSPACE PAGE
In an effort to stem the tide of MySpace pages that are 99% bells and whistles and 1% genuine appeal, I created this page to outline some simple web design techniques that MySpacers can use to enhance their profiles without having to resort to cheap trickery.
On this page you will learn:
- How to put the text in your About Me section into paragraphs
- Why certain backgrounds don't work
- Why a lot of MySpace pages get spread wider than the browser viewport
This page also has a rich text editor that you can use to format your text into different colors, sizes and fonts and then automatically generate the HTML source code (which you can then paste into your MySpace layout via the Edit Profile page.)
Enjoy!
Friday, August 11th, 2006
FIREFOX 1.5.0.6 RELEASED
The following pages were updated to reflect the release of Firefox 1.5.0.6:
Firefox 1.5.0.6 official release date: August 2nd, 2006
Tuesday, July 4th, 2006
COMBINING SELECTORS
Okay, I've added a tutorial to round out my Basic CSS section. This tutorial explains how to group selectors and how to use descendant selectors in your CSS rule sets.
By the way, the use of descendant selectors is probably one of the most important things to know if you've got a hankerin' to whip up your own MySpace layout from scratch. So now everyone who's been sending me emails asking me to make them a custom-made MySpace layout for free (egads kids! I love ya to death but I've got no time to do that!) now has little excuse not to learn how to do this on their own. All the technical know-how required to make a MySpace layout is contained right here on this site. You have only to read and learn.
And of course, if you don't have time for that then don't forget you can always install one of my free MySpace layouts to customize your profile. Or if you don't like any of the layouts I made then you can use one of my easy-to-use MySpace editors to create your own layout and have the code automatically generated for you.
And finally, if you're willing to pay a fee then yes I will gladly make you a custom-made MySpace layout. You can contact me here to discuss the details.
Have a good one!
Tuesday, June 13th, 2006
FIREFOX 1.5.0.4 RELEASED
The following pages were updated to reflect the release of Firefox 1.5.0.4:
Firefox 1.5.0.4 official release date: June 1, 2006
Monday, May 8th, 2006
FIREFOX 1.5.0.3 RELEASED
The following pages were updated to reflect the release of Firefox 1.5.0.3:
Firefox 1.5.0.3 official release date: May 2, 2006
MYSPACE LAYOUT INSTALLATION PAGE
My page here at Iron Spider which gives instructions on How to install a MySpace layout was updated to reflect recent changes made to the MySpace 'Edit Profile' screen. And these were some welcome changes indeed. All the text boxes that facilitate entering text into your various MySpace components (Interests, Details, etc.) now appear on one Edit Profile page which saves you a lot of clickthroughs and, most importantly, styles applied to your MySpace page (by means of the layout code) are no longer applied to the Edit Profile page which makes it easier to see what's going on.
'S FRIENDS SPACE' GLITCH
Also, I hope everyone had the sense to wait out that glitch with MySpace pages that happened last week which rendered the text "s Friends Space" in various misconfigurations (including displaying it by itself, in a different font and/or on a new line). This was a glitch with the default MySpace template (you could even see it in effect on MySpace pages that had no layouts applied to them) that had nothing to do with anyone's layout codes (including mine). This glitch was subsequently fixed by MySpace later on the same day.... (*wiping sweat off brow*)...
Monday, April 17th, 2006
FIREFOX 1.5.0.2 RELEASED
Wow. Smoothest update ever. Wonders never cease. I wish there were more like these...
Anywho...
The following pages were updated to reflect the release of Firefox 1.5.0.2:
Firefox 1.5.0.2 official release date: April 13, 2006
Tuesday, April 11th, 2006
NO RESPONSES TO EMAILS
Ooops! I was wondering why I didn't get any emails in the past couple of days and I just realized that a misconfiguration in my email setup was issuing confirmation screens for anyone sending me an email but the email itself was subsequently spirited away into a black hole. So MOST HUMBLE APOLOGIES to anybody who sent me an email in the last 48 hours and subsequently wondered why I never responded (which is not like me at all, by the way).
This problem has now been fixed. (I sent myself several emails using the contact form and I received them so all looks copesthetic). If you did try to contact me in the last couple of days via my contact form, please resend the message.
Dang.
Sorry about that...
Sunday, April 9th, 2006
NEW EMAIL ADDRESS
Be advised, one and all, that I will be shortly retiring the email address. After surviving spam-free for over year, it finally leaked out and now I'm getting spammed up the ying-yang.
My new web communications secret identity is:
Actually, the easiest way to send me an email is to just use my contact form. There you won't have to deal with any email programs, addresses or whatnot. Just fill in the blanks and away ya go. No muss, no fuss.
Friday, April 7th, 2006
Alrighty then... Big news!... Big news!... (hee!)
Iron Spider now has two high quality, fully-functional MySpace editors which you can use to customize your MySpace profile with your choice of background image or color, table color, text color, font styles and more. Both of my layout editors offer up a ginormous 3.6 million colors provided by easy-to-use HSB color sliders. Not only that but they will also will deck out your page —if you so desire— with a cool color-coordinated contact table with a mouseover effect (brand new!)..
You can find my layout editors at the following pages: Hey but wait! That's not all...
I also added two whole new sections of MySpace layouts to bring the total number of quality layouts available at this site up to 70. The two new sections are:
Enjoy!
Tuesday, February 28th, 2006
Ooops... Did I say by Monday?... ....... Dang.
Okay what I really meant was Tuesday.
For sure.. Uh huh... That's right.
Tuueessday. Yep.
(*ahem*)...
...
......
... heh heh...
So anywho....... Here's the scoop on my MySpace layouts situation:
The Drop Shadow series of layouts which I had to pull last Friday could not be reconfigured to my satisfaction to deal with this bug occasionally appearing in MySpace pages (described below). So what happened was all these layouts have now morphed into the Chromatic Tables series.
This new batch of layouts features chromatic style backgrounds (salvaged from the Drop Shadow series) in the MySpace components tables only which produces an awesome look and a super clean display. These layouts also feature evenly sized tables, aligned headings and subheadings, colored scrollbars, customized contact tables... Like you know... All the bells and whistles that typically accompany Iron Spider MySpace layouts. Right?... Right!
Here are the relevant links:
Enjoy!
Friday, February 24th, 2006
MYSPACE LAYOUTS UPDATED
Many of my MySpace layouts were modified to accomodate a glitch appearing in MySpace pages over the past few days which sometimes —but not always— inserts a space between the navigation bar and the main content table (which, in effect, blew away 2/3 of my carefully constructed layouts... AAAAARGGGHHH!!....)
As a result of this bug —which cannot be easily reproduced— I was forced to modify all my Code_Junky layouts so that the background image is only rendered in the main content table. This way it doesn't matter whether MySpace serves up the page with the space inserted or not because effectively no one will notice. As for the Drop Shadow series of layouts, I had to temporarily pull them altogether until I rework them all to accomodate the glitch. I expect them to be back up and running again by Monday the 27th at the latest (shooting for Sunday morning).
MOST HUMBLE APOLOGIES to anyone who installed either a Code_Junky or Drop Shadow layout in the last week and subsequently noticed their page breaking (as described above). If you were using one of the Code_Junky series then just reinstall the updated code from the page you got it from. If you installed one of the Drop Shadow series then the updated code will be ready by the beginning of next week.
All MySpace layouts from my Background series are unaffected by this glitch so if you used one of those you don't have to worry.
Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta go wipe all this egg off my face...
Sunday, February 19th, 2006
FREE QUALITY MYSPACE LAYOUTS!
Okay, I just finished cooking up a batch of 30 free high quality, fast-loading MySpace layouts and they are now available here at Iron Spider. You don't need any web design experience to install these layouts. Basically, if you can copy-and-paste then you're on your way to having a kick butt MySpace profile featuring translucent fixed backgrounds, colored scrollbars, mouseover contact table links and more. Get 'em while they're hot!
Here are some links to get you started:
- Code_Junky Outset
- Assorted Backgrounds
- Music Backgrounds
PLUS...
Step-by-step instructions on...
- How to Install the Layout
And if you install one of my layouts....
I'D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YA!!
Send me an email or you can visit my own MySpace profile and leave a comment.
Also, I'll be glad to supply some technical support if you first add me as a friend. Heyyyyy! What are friends for, right?
Sunday, February 5th, 2006
FIREFOX 1.5.0.1 RELEASED
The following pages were updated to reflect the release of Firefox 1.5.0.1:
YES, I'M STILL HERE..
Woops! What happened to January? Well you see the thing is, my brother gave me a new computer for Christmas (thanks bro!) so I had to reinstall Windows and all my freeware programs (which now number well over a hundred). But now I'm back with a bigger and badder system and I'm hard at work on a major update for this site. I'm shooting for the middle of this month as a launch date so keep in touch and...
Happy web editing!
Thursday, December 15th, 2005
FIREFOX 1.5 RELEASED
Continuing its successful onslaught on browser market shares, Mozilla has released a major update to Firefox which is now up to version 1.5. This version, although better and faster, wreaked havoc in the world of Firefox extensions, many of which have now been rendered into various states of incompatibility. I'm happy to report, however, that all the extensions featured on my Firefox - Best Extensions page are compatible with Firefox 1.5. I took the trouble to locate the latest versions of these extensions or, failing that, I actually opened and edited the extension's install.rdf file so that the <maxversion> element equaled 1.5 (also known as bumping).
The following pages were updated to reflect the release of Firefox 1.5:
CHEAP EXCUSE TO TOOT MY OWN HORN DEPT. (AGAIN)
I've been kind of slow on the updates here at Iron Spider lately as I've been very busy working on my latest web design contract. But it's all finished up now (for the most part) and I'm currently right back at the task of producing more content for this website. So stay in touch!
Aaaaaaannnnndddd.....
Happy Holidays to one and all!
Wednesday, November 16th, 2005
FIXED ALL BROKEN LINKS
Thanks goes to the anonymous individuals who took the trouble to click on the buttons on my custom 404 error page to report broken links. The links in all the footers on my new CSS tutorials were set to resolve to the wrong directory. Oooops. Sorry about that. All fixed up now. I also ran the entire site through a link checker and found a few more outdated internal and external links which have now all been either removed or corrected.
Friday, November 11th, 2005
CSS TUTORIALS!
Alright... What can I say? The dog ate my homework...!
...(*ahem*)... But seriously folks...
Rolling in one day after my previously forecast ETA [i.e., "...a couple of weeks on the outside..." (famous last words)], it is my pleasure to announce that CSS tutorials are now available here at Iron Spider. WHEEEEE! (hoo boy, we're hittin' the big time now..!)
These tutorials are located in a new section of Iron Spider called Advanced. I did it this way because the menu system on this website is now bloated beyond belief serving up a whopping 114 pages in the original or 'Beginner' section. So essentially, the Beginner section focusses on HTML while the Advanced section focusses (for now) on CSS. You can access the Advanced section by simply clicking on the 'Advanced' link that appears near the top of the left side bar menu system (or just click here).
Here are some shortcuts to the new tutorials:
- What is CSS?
- Why You Should Use CSS
- How to Use CSS - An Overview
- Inline Styles
- Embedded Style Sheets
- External Style Sheets
Happy web editing!
Thursday, October 27th, 2005
30% LESS FAT!
Okay so I gave my external style sheet a major overhaul yesterday and managed to trim off a whopping 30% of pure fat/junk/etc so now all the pages here at Iron Spider should load a little faster. Then I went through the whole site with a fine tooth comb to see if everything still looks copesthetic in what I consider to be the top three 3 browsers, i.e., Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. And as far as I can tell it does.
That being said, if you do perchance hit a page on this site that looks kind of wonky, be sure that you're not viewing a cached version. You can do this by holding down the Shift key and then clicking on the Refresh (Reload) button on your browser's toolbar (this will basically reload the page from scratch). If the page still looks wonky then please email me right away as I may have missed something.
Thanks.
COMING SOON...
And speaking of which, I've been feverishly at work hammering out a full-blown tutorial on CSS. It should be up and running here in a couple of weeks on the outside. At this point, Iron Spider will be split into two major sections, BEGINNER and ADVANCED. The BEGINNER section will contain all the pages that are currently on this site while the ADVANCED section will contain tutorials and resources suitable for those who have already got the HTML thing down and are now looking to see what bells and whistles they can add to their web pages with the help of CSS, Javascript and stuff like that.
So stay tuned and happy web editing!
Wednesday, September 28th, 2005
IT'S ABOUT FRIGGIN' TIME DEPT.
Opera has joined the 21st century and is now giving away —yes that's giving away— the ad-free version of their browser on a permanent basis. I'm pretty amped about this because Quick Draw McGraw here just spent the last 4 weeks kicking himself for having missed the 'free for a day' promotion Opera had on their recent tenth anniversary (August 31st).
The Opera page here at Iron Spider was updated to reflect this fantastic new addition to the world of freeware.
FIREFOX 1.0.7 RELEASED
The following pages were updated to reflect the release of Firefox 1.0.7:
BROKEN LINKS FIXED
Much thanks to those anonymous individuals who took the time to use the button on my 404 error page to email me about broken links they found here at Iron Spider. As a result, the following links were fixed:
- What You Get links on all the Free Quality Templates pages.
- MetaPad download link on Installing NMS FormMail. (I forgot to upload the zipfile... Ooops. Sorry about that.)
Wednesday, September 14th, 2005
To all returning visitors to the Setting Up HTML Kit section:
Hello again and be advised that I've made some changes to how the More Information Please... buttons work. These buttons look like this ~>
...and now function by clicking on them rather than hovering your mouse over. This will eliminate the occurrence of details boxes popping up by accident should you be the kind of person that likes to fly their mouse pointer around the screen every once in a while just for the hell of it. (My gal does this all the time... *chuckle*...) The details boxes themselves still close by clicking anywhere inside them.
Monday, September 5th, 2005
The BEST FREE TOOLS section was created which effectively replaces the Free Graphics Editors section (which is now defunct). In this section, you will find the following:
Tuesday, August 9th, 2005
The following pages were updated to reflect the latest browser releases:
Netscape Navigator (version 8.0.3.3.)
Mozilla Suite (version 1.7.11)
Mozilla Firefox (version 1.0.6)
Opera (version 8.02)
Mozilla - Best Extensions (verified 1.7.11 compatible)
How to Configure Firefox (verified 1.0.6 compatible)
Firefox - Best Extensions (verified 1.0.6 compatible)
Sorry folks but the whole release of Netscape 8.0 last May (and all the hooplah around it) just blew right by me. Don't know how that happened. I guess it's because I rarely use Netscape so I didn't have my radar up on that. Not that it matters anyway because I wholeheartedly concur with some of the user reviews that this latest release is a "buggy piece of junk".
But then, you be the judge...
I also corrected a minor error in the navigation on the How to Configure Firefox page where closing one of the details boxes returned you to the wrong part of the page which may have created some confusion about which part of the tutorial you were following. Oops. My bad.
Thursday, August 4th, 2005
I finally wrote up a complete tutorial on how to make web page frames. It spans 8 pages and it starts here:
Using Frames for Layout
It also includes a special layout I developed that remedies alot of common problems that frames pose for web authors. You can find that here:
SmartFrames: A Solution
Happy web editing!
Friday, July 1st, 2005
The following pages were updated to reflect the release of Firefox 1.0.4.
Mozilla Firefox
How to Configure Firefox
Firefox - Best Extensions
More specifically, on the How to Configure Firefox page:
- I fixed some minor errors in the navigation (oops, sorry about that).
- I added a tutorial on how to disable autocomplete in the Firefox location bar.
- I modified the Customize the Navigation Toolbar tutorial on account of I finally get why everyone is so gaga over tabbed browsing (he's a learner!)
Sunday, June 26th, 2005
BEST FREE WEB HOSTS
Alright then, I finally updated this page so that it actually contains a whole list of free web hosts instead of just one (*chuckle*). This list was put together after several weeks of researching 40 of the best free web hosts listed in various directories around the net. About Free Web Hosting was also updated to reflect my latest findings.
SEARCH THIS SITE
I forgot to mention earlier that I added an in-site search engine but I guess it doesn't matter since I see by my site stats that many of you have already noticed. A 'GO' button is on the way (promise).
Wednesday, May 11th, 2005
HOW TO CONFIGURE FIREFOX
Ever since version 0.8, I've uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox about a kazillion times in order to test extensions, themes and updates. And every time I reinstall Firefox, I kind of have to rack my brain (what's left of it anyway) to remember what my favourite setup was/is/has-recently-become. So I took to writing a quick tutorial on my typical Firefox configuration. Check it out. Maybe it will work for you. Maybe not.
At the very least, it should familiarize you with some of the basic options available to you in this browser. At the very, very least, it will save me some trouble the next time I have to reinstall Firefox thereby leaving me more time to focus on continuing work on this website which will eventually serve you. Right? See? It's a trickle-down effect! We all win! ... (okay maybe clutching at straws here...)
PAGERANK STATUS
I forgot to mention yesterday that I added this extension to the Firefox - Best Extensions page. This is an alternative to PageRank Googlebar which I've discovered may cause you some problems if you've installed a Firefox theme.
Tuesday, May 10th, 2005
MOZILLA BROWSER PAGES UPDATE
The following four pages were updated to reflect the release of Firefox 1.0.3 and Mozilla 1.7.7:
Mozilla Suite
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla - Best Extensions
Firefox - Best Extensions
EXTENSION UNINSTALLER
I successfully installed all the extensions that I recommend into the updated browser versions. There was, however, one casualty. I had to remove Extension Uninstaller from both Best Extensions pages because of technical difficulties with the author's website which produced various errors when trying to download or install this extension into Mozilla 1.7.7 and Firefox 1.0.3.
This is probably of little consequence to Firefox 1.0+ users (since the Firefox built-in Extension manager works just fine to uninstall extensions). However, Mozilla users who have recently upgraded to version 1.7.7 or new Mozilla users might find this a bit of a hassle and will have to revert to uninstalling extensions manually for the time being (and this ain't no picnic).
Check out the new website for Extension Uninstaller to get the latest skinny on this situation and perhaps drop a few words of friendly encouragement to Jeremy to update this great extension.
Monday, April 25th, 2005
ZIP FILE DOWNLOAD LINK FIXED
The Download NMS FormMail zip file link has now been fixed. Much thanks to Nancy for pointing that out. And to one and all, if you run into any other broken links on this website, please email me about them to earn yourself an honourable mention on this updates page (Okay everybody altogether now..."Whoop-de-doo!")... heh heh... Anywho... I try my best to keep up on this stuff but hey, nobody's perfect, right? Also, contrary to the frequency of update notices on this page, I am ALWAYS around. I'm online everyday (sometimes all day) so don't hesitate to rattle my cage.
MINUTE DETAILS DEPT.
Just for the record, that was sixteen new pages I uploaded on Friday, not seventeen.
A LITTLE OFF-THE-WALL
And yes I realize my last post (see below) was a little off-the-wall. In fact, my gal has duly informed me that she didn't even get it. Although in my defense she doesn't have an ongoing love/hate relationship with her computer (only hate). She also said she found it hard to imagine a computer being a living entity with a mind of its own. (Although later she was forced to confess that when one kicks a computer then they must be under the impression that the computer feels pain.)
Anyhow, I would like to take this opportunity to warn everyone that this Updates page is now officially the Updates/Outlet-for-the-occasional-bombastic-inspiration-by-Rob-when-he-gets-burned-out-on-all-the-technical-writing-stuff page.
Anyhow, I would like to take this opportunity to warn everyone that this Updates page is now officially the Updates/Outlet for the occasional bombastic inspiration by Rob when he gets burned out on all the technical writing stuff page.
Sunday, April 24th, 2005
THE HUNT
Okay, so in case you were wondering what happened to me, two months ago, cabin fever really began setting in and I became increasingly obsessed with spending every waking hour in front of my computer monitor studying reams upon reams of web page source code.
Then one day, while doing a Google search for a JavaScript that would automatically do a load of laundry whenever I got down to one pair of clean underwear, I suddenly realized what I had become. Angrily I got up, backed slowly away from my computer and told it to run for its life. I gave it a couple hours head start —since I'm a sporting man— and then I set off in hot pursuit with the intent to, once and for all, terminate its command over my daily existence.
Since my office was in a terrible state of disorder, the hunt lasted for quite some time. I had to plow my way through gargantuan piles of CD cases, power cords, floppy diskettes and old modems but I was not to be deterred. Many days passed but I eventually found my prey cowering in a corner ingeniously hiding behind a huge stack of old DOS manuals. (It instinctively knew that would be the last place I would look.)
My computer was now in sad shape. Deprived of my constant tender loving care and supervision, it had become coated with a thick layer of dust, bloated with spyware and hopelessly infected with a host of high level viruses. Weakened and visibly shaken, it looked up at me with a whimper. "C'mon Rob. Why can't we go back to old times? Huh? We can download some freeware... Hmmm? Just you and me? Some freeware? Huh? How 'bout it? ...hmmmm?... please?...." But it failed to rouse my sympathy. Seeing the determination in my eyes, it tried one last desperate bid to divert my attention. It displayed the blue screen of death. But there was no stopping me. I had flushed my quarry out and I was not to be denied. It was now time for the kill.
I vigorously shuffled my stocking feet back and forth across the carpet several times and then I approached the computer tower, extended my right arm, pointed my index finger and purposely made contact with the CPU, injecting it with a lethal dose of static electricity. Then, licking my lips and drooling with anticipation, I ripped out the hard drive and ate it while it was still warm. (I had read somewhere that this gives you strength.)
With the spirit of my dead computer now coarsing through my veins, I sought out the companionship of its forgotten predecessor, my color television set, and I have been surviving ever since on a steady diet of jolt cola, cheese puffs and PlayStation 1 video games.
*ahem*
...Uh..... heh heh...
BIG UPDATE
Alright, alright, so none of the above is actually true. (Wishful thinking perhaps. Especially the part about playing video games all day long... tee hee...)
The truth of the matter is I'm still a card-carrying member of Geekdom International and my Pentium IV is still very much alive and well (I caress it gently every now and then to make sure it knows that I love it).
The past two months have actually been spent putting my nose to the grindstone on a number of different web-related projects, some of which for I was actually paid... yes, it's true... (Run for the hills! The sky is falling!) and not the least of which was preparing a big update to Iron Spider.
When this update was finally completed two days ago, I quietly snuck onto the internet, and with little fanfare and no advance warning, I uploaded seventeen new pages. These pages are spread out over two new sections: Web Design 102 and Interactive Forms.
And from these new sections you will learn things like:
...and much more.
Enjoy!
P.S. I'll be back soon.... (Really!)
Thursday, February 17th, 2005
NEW EMAIL FORM
The contact page now has an email form that you can use as an alternative to send me a quick note (or a lengthy diatribe as the case may be). Just fill in your name and your message (your email address is optional) and click on Send Message.
No muss, no fuss.
Tuesday, February 8th, 2005
LOOK MA! NO TABLES...!
After literally hacking my way through the swarm of CSS bugs incessantly buzzing around and feeding off the web-standards-flaunting slime that forms a protective coating on the skin of that big monopoly browser (mentioning no names, of course)...
I emerge...
Bruised and battlescarred, I lay claim to the victory (if it be proper to call it such) of having transformed the Iron Spider template into a tableless design and having successfully installed it onto all 91 pages on this site...
(...*passing out from sheer exhaustion*...)
STRANGEST BUG DEPT.
One of the strangest bugs I encountered while installing my new template was the inability to select text off my web pages by click-and-dragging the cursor (Internet Explorer only, of course) and which I subsequently discovered was caused by using DIVs which were absolutely positioned. In case anybody else out there is currently beating their head against the wall over this one, I can tell you that I fixed this bug by removing the
BASE element from all my pages (go figure).
Speaking of absolute positioning...
I was recently asked if I was going to do any tutorials on CSS here at Iron Spider and the answer to this is a definitive YES.
MOZILLA SUITE
This page was updated to reflect the release of Mozilla 1.7.5. All the extensions on Mozilla Suite - Best Extensions page were successfully installed although I had to restart my computer to get Extension Uninstaller to run without hanging Mozilla. Now it's working fine.
Friday, January 28th, 2005
IRON SPIDER MAKEOVER
I've decided to give the Iron Spider template a complete makeover which will essentially transform it into a tableless design. It will look exactly the same as the old template however on the HTML level, alot of junk code will be jettisoned so, in theory, the pages should load a little faster. I've successfully run a test page through the following browsers:
- Internet Explorer 6.0 - 5.5 - 5.0
- Netscape 7.2
- Mozilla 1.7.3
- Firefox 1.0
- Opera 7.54
BROWSER ISSUES
Netscape 4.7 - It has come to my attention that less than half of 0.1% (0.04761% to be exact) of those who hit this site are still using Netscape 4.7. The current Iron Spider template uses the
@import method of calling up stylesheets so that this dinosaur of a browser and its decrepit support for CSS would at least be able to see my web pages (although no styles would be applied). The new template will use the link element to call up stylesheets and hence will fall to pieces —and I mean like completely break down— in Netscape 4.7. So on account of all this, I've decided to no longer support this browser. That is to say, if you are still using Netscape 4.7 (and I admire your courage) you are more than welcome to visit Iron Spider but I have to warn you, it will look like crap. Actually even the old template looked like crap in Netscape 4.7 so soon it will look like total crap. Sorry.Internet Explorer 5.0 - I just noticed that there was a glitch with the new Iron Spider home page that messed up the page a little bit for those still using Internet Explorer 5.0. This has been rectified. Sorry about that.
Thursday, January 20th, 2005
How to Make a Web Page ~ I enlisted the help of someone whom I considered to be... how shall we say.... technologically challenged to test drive this tutorial and I was rather amazed at the parts where she got stuck. Hence I rewrote it to make it more user friendly for those who are not completely geeked out (like me) and don't know the Windows operating system like the back of their hand. For those who do know their way around Windows, the first paragraph of the tutorial will tell you everything you need to know.
Happy web editing!
Wednesday, January 19th, 2005
Free Templates ~ Alright then, I would like to wish a belated Happy New Year to one and all...! *ahem*... Yes well... I try my best to be sentimental but I don't always pull it off. (Actually, me and my gal were recently honoured with the widely coveted Life-of-the-Party award for spending New Year's Eve alone and falling asleep before midnight... *smirk*... )
Since then I've been spending much of my days doing my post-holiday gig at the North Pole sweeping up Santa's workshop but during my off hours I managed to borrow a laptop from one of the elves and, using some leftover Christmas spirit that was laying about, I whipped up a batch of web templates which I am now offering for free... Yes that's right... FREE. Grab one now before I change my mind (OK... OK Santa... just kidding... just kidding... yes people they really are free...)
There are currently 28 web templates in the illustrious Iron Spider collection (more to come) and they are loosely categorized into four groups of seven:
Don't let the suggested use of some these templates scare you (e.g. Business 1, Business 2). If you want to use what I call a 'business' template for your personal website then by all means, go right ahead. Don't be shy. Just be advised that although these templates are free, they are all subject to some certain basic TERMS OF USE. Thanks for respecting them and enjoy!
Friday, December 3rd, 2004
Making a New Actions Bar (Setting Up HTML Kit) ~ Thanks to Brian for pointing out an error on this page where the results in Figure 2 didn't actually match the instructions I gave in the tutorial (oops... don't know how that happened...). I also fixed up my inconsistent spelling of
And on that note, if anyone else notices any errors on this site (especially ones that make me look like an idiot) please don't hesitate to email me about them.
COMING SOON TO IRON SPIDER: Free templates! No CSS experience necessary!...
Tuesday, November 30th, 2004
Mozilla Suite - Best Extensions ~ This page was updated to match the changes I made to the Firefox - Best Extensions page. All open source extensions that I feature on this page will henceforth be available for installation or downloading directly from Iron Spider.
Tuesday, November 23rd, 2004
Firefox - Best Extensions ~ This page was updated to reflect the release of Firefox 1.0. I also gave this page a complete makeover to make it more user friendly (not that it wasn't before but hey... there's always room for improvement, right?) The most significant change I made is that all extensions that I list that are officially open-source will now be mirrored at Iron Spider. In other words, you'll be able to install or download them directly from this site.
Sunday, November 21st, 2004
New web host ~ Alright then, for those who may have noticed, Iron Spider was suffering some brief but frequent downtimes during the last 3 or four weeks (especially in the morning) which was becoming increasingly exasperating and to which my old web host offered little and, more often than not, no explanation. This forced me to finally draw the line about a week ago and move to another web host.
Computer crash ~ About 2½ weeks ago, one of my hard drives suffered a temporary power outage and caused my computer to crash in the most horrible way imaginable (actually it could have been worse but still it was really bad). My registry file became corrupted way beyond repair and I could no longer even boot my installation of Windows or any programs I had installed. Fortunately I had just finished backing up the zip files of the 120 some odd freeware programs I had collected over the past 3 years so it wasn't a complete disaster. But nevertheless I'm still faced with the daunting task of reinstalling and reconfiguring them all... (*sniff* ... *sob*...)...
...uh... just give me a minute here...
*ahem*
... Heh heh...
As you can imagine then I've been very busy as of late trying to get back up to speed as quickly as possible. So if it seems to you like I'm just treading water here at Iron Spider then now you know why. But I assure you that some brand new content is coming to this web site in the very near future. (Really!)
(And let this be a lesson to all you Windows users out there... BACK UP YOUR REGISTRY FILES ON A REGULAR BASIS!!!)
Wednesday, November 3rd, 2004
New email address ~ First of all, I would like to say a big thanks for all the emails people have been sending. Your feedback and accolades are greatly appreciated.
Now... Please take note that I have deleted the email address. Henceforth, if you wish to contact me (and don't be shy!), my new email address is:
This is to further an earlier action I took to fend off the hordes of spambots out there on the net (all of whom seem to think either that I'm up to my ears in debt or that I have some kind of incessant need to modify certain parts of my body... *chuckle* ...uh... ...'nuff said on that subject... heh heh...)
Here's the antispam javascript I use to write email addresses:
Click inside the text box to select all the code and then just copy-and-paste it into the HTML source of your web page wherever you want to display a spam-proof email address. The above javascript will write your_name@example.com on your web page. To make it write your own email address, you only have to edit the first two lines of the javascript:
nme=('your_name');
addr=('example.com');Monday, October 25th, 2004
Tooting-my-own-horn dept. ~ Alright then, for those who may have noticed, there's been no updates to Iron Spider for the past few weeks because I've been busy completing my first web design contract.
You can view the fruits of my labour at:
Janet was looking for efficiency, clarity, simplicity, warmth, and ease of navigation. She didn't want a website loaded with a lot of bells and whistles and yet she still wanted something that was dynamic enough to reflect her spirit.
The contract included:
- Designing the template and the logo
- Selecting, editing and layout of text and graphics
- Setting up the domain name with a webhost and uploading files
- Setting up an email address and forwarding
Friday, September 24th, 2004
- Essential Web Browsers section entirely updated to reflect the latest releases.
This includes:
PageRank Googlebar was added to both the Mozilla Suite - Best Extensions and the Firefox - Best Extensions lists.
Thursday, September 9th, 2004
- Favicon ~ Made a favicon available to all pages on the site. For those who don't know, a 'favicon' is that little custom logo thing that appears beside the URL in the address bar of your browser (and sometimes beside the respective listing in your favorites/bookmarks menu). The favicon will appear when you add any page in Iron Spider to your Favorites menu (thank you) using Internet Explorer or when you merely visit the page using Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox or Opera. (If I left your browser out, humble apologies.)
Pending a full page tutorial on how to make a favicon (on my to-do list), here's a very quick rundown on how to make one for your own web page:
- Create a 16 x 16 pixel logo and save it to 16-bit color
.bmpfile format. If you're using Windows you can actually do all this using the default MS Paint program although most any other graphics editor will do. - Convert your 16 x 16
.bmpto.icofile format by opening it in a free graphics converter called Irfanview (been using it for years, I highly recommend it) and then saving it asfavicon.ico. - Insert the following code in between the
<head>...</head>tags of the web page in which you would like to display your favicon:
To copy and paste code:
- Right click inside text box above and click on Select All
- Right click on selected text and click on Copy
- Right click in the source code of your web page and click on Paste
- Upload
favicon.icoand the respective web page to the root directory where you keep your web page files online.
All done.
- Create a 16 x 16 pixel logo and save it to 16-bit color
Tuesday, September 7th, 2004
- Latest Additions and Updates page added. Okay so this is like 'day one' for the updates page. What can I say? This idea just occurred to me. (He's a learner...)
- Favorites button (which reads 'Click here to add this page to your favorites!') added to every page on the site. Agonized briefly over whether to use the British (favourites) or American spelling (favorites). The Americans won.
- Javascript Email Address ~ Finally used Javascript to write my email address on the email page to deter email harvesting web bots. Okay I know I'm a little slow on the uptake on this one but it's been a REAL BUSY summer for me. I'll probably change the email address too (idle threat for all you spammers out there). For those who have Javascript disabled, my email address will only appear as an image which means that you won't be able to click on it to automatically open your email program. Sorry.
- Conventions page updated so that it makes more sense in the context of its new position in the site map. Hmmmm. Site map. There's a thought. Please email me if you think Iron Spider needs a site map. Personally I think the sidebar menu with its flyout submenus serves this purpose just fine. I could be wrong though.
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