| Sunday,
July 4, 1999 Happy Birthday America Advice needed. Most of
my links problem seem to have to do with the base at which relative links
are aimed. The HTML Manuals tell me there is a "BASE" tag or
statement or element, of the form BASE HREF= giving an absolute URL which
presumably would be www.jerrypournelle.com
for this site. The problem with that of course is that when I am working
locally on the site, the links aren't going to be seen without going out
on the web, thus obviating the advantages of working off line.
The books do not say but I infer that the BASE element needs to be
inserted on EVERY PAGE that needs to know about it; it's not a web-wide
statement that can be included one place and not others. That would solve
some of my problems, since on rarely changed pages it wouldn't matter
where the top layer pointed, and I could specify that BASE where things
have gone wrong with the relative stuff. It would be a fair amount of
work, but it could be done.
Better would be a simple tag that would identify the "top
level" here. That is, if something refers to a
C://etc/etc/etc/images/img.jpg, I can substitute ../ for the
C:/etc/etc/etc/ stuff and it works IF AND ONLY IF the page referring to
that is only one folder level down. If it is, say, mail/currentmail that's
fine, but if it's reports/jerryp/y2k.html then it needs to be ../../ and
that takes judgment and work. Better would be if I could just point to the
"top level" on which index.html resides; but if there's a way to
DO that I do not know it.
There's probably a simple way to handle this, and I don't know what it
is. Help?
I have got to stop fooling with this stuff, but it's taking a while.
More later.
==
More disasters. I am learning a lot about networking and the more I
learn the more I wish I had the old Workgroup peer to peer net working.
All this administered stuff from servers sounds great in theory, and once
set up properly I am sure is wonderful, but for the moment it means I
can't print and much of the time I can't get at assets I need because I am
logged in as the wrong person. I am sure it can all be configured
properly. I am also sure that the advantages are small compared to my old
everybody can do anything workgroups.
OUTLOOK 2000 has a terrible "feature". If you are not already
logged on to the net when you open the "improved" Outlook, then
it doesn't connect to the net. It just sits there. I wanted to send an
urgent message. I logged off as administrator (who doesn't seem to be able
to use Outlook properly) and on as jerryp on this NT workstation. Of
course that dumped the net connection through the modem. As I came on as
jerryp I punched the dialup connection button to cause the modem to go log
me onto the internet. Then I opened Outlook and started to compose a
message. As I was doing that I got logged on. When my message was finished
I punched SEND. Usually it sends pretty instantly. It didn't. I punched
the send/receive button on Outlook 2000. It accepted that but DID NOTHING.
I kept hitting send/receive and nothing happened.
Perhaps if I had waiting long enough it would have realized it wasn't
connected to the net and had a look to see if it could get that way, but I
was finally impatient and closed Outlook. With the net connection still
established. When I opened Outlook again it found the net connection and
sent my message.
Office 2000 Professional ought to be named "Office Surprise, with
workarounds."
Another "feature" of Front Page 2000 is that it doesn't
preserve fonts from Word to Front Page. Then to make it worse, although
it's supposed to be better integrated with WORD, the f8 key does not turn
on "select", so you must use mouse scrolling to select, which
requires dexterity I don't have; I often get too far over and hit a margin
or the bottom of a table, and it selects everything and you have to start
over. Thanks a whole bunch, Microsoft.
Office 2000 Surprise isn't ready for MY prime time. Maybe someone
else's.
===
I often do the Techweb broadcast summary. If you want to hear me on net
radio, here's how:
Jerry, I know you asked me to
let you know the specific URL for The Week in Review, and I didn’t
forget your request.
The situation is this: at
present, I do only the multimedia G2 version for TechWeb Today. It is
posted at 4pm Friday and stays up until 4pm Monday. At present, we don’t
archive it, although, because of you request we are considering doing so.
During those 72 hours each week,
the week in review always has the same URL:
http://media.cmpnet.com/twtoday/technology.ram
This bypasses the table of
contents page and directly launches our program.
Paul E. Schindler Jr., Executive
Editor
CMP Media / Byte.com
====
Well, Thompson tells me that I can just
eliminate the file//c:/etc/etc stuff and Front Page will look for the
address from the top of the tree. We will see. It can't be worse than it
is, so we'll definitely try it. If that works some of the page links ought
to be fixed on this publication. If not, well, they aren't. [I think they
are not; I don't believe this works. I think I need the ../../ stuff to
tell things where to look. More as I know more.]
HELP WANTED: Front Page does global
replace only page at a time: it will find all instances of a string, but
it wants to open each page that string is on, deal with that, close it,
and open the next. With 100 pages to work on this is tedious. I know I
have had editors that would take batch files: open all the files in this
directory, find this string, replace it with this, continue to the end,
close the file, go to the next. I don't seem to have one any longer. Can
someone recommend one? I know they worked in DOS, so there ought to be one
for Windows?
Dobbins tells me there's an interaction
between Windows 2000 and the HP 4000 drivers that may be at the bottom of
my printing problems. Sigh. "I do all these silly things so you won't
have to..."
Late. Very late.
I have fixed about 1543 broken internal links plus a bunch of links
that it said were external although they referred to my C: drive. There
are probably more. When Mr. Rice does the newest Viewdex, New Order, and
Maildex some of the bad links will go away. Others we may have with us for
some time. Still in all, the major ones are fixed.
Thompson and I disagree on Front Page 2000. He likes it better than FP
98. So far I do not. On the other hand, many of the problems with 2000
would probably vanish IF THERE WERE A FLIPPING MANUAL! Are You Listening,
Microsoft? IT NEEDS A MANUAL. The reviewers guide is better than the
manual, and it's not all that good, and it's not available to readers to
begin with. FRONT PAGE 2000 needs a MANUAL, better index on the HELP
files, and a general attention to funny details like there should be a
"no to all" button as well as a "yes to all". It
needs to tell you what it is doing. It knows how many files it is going to
upload, and FP 98 told you: uploading file 4 of 15, that sort of thing.
Not 2000.
I could go on and on. The bottom line to me is that I miss FP 98. That
may change. I may decide I love it. But so far I sure don't, and if you
are reasonably happy with FP 98 I sure don't recommend that you change to
FP 2000.
Anyway, I've been grinding along. It's column time now.
Roberta wants me to tell subscribers: If you sent in DISCOVER card, we
don't have any way to collect on that. Sorry. She was a bit late processing
June orders.
I now have to get the last maps done for BURNING CITY; get the column
out; finish HIGH TECH WARS; work with Niven on the outline and
presentation for the sequel to BURNING CITY; finish Mamelukes the next
volume in the Janissaries series; and probably about five other things.
It's a great life if you don't weaken....
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