Question:
Dear Dr. Website:
Is there any way to trace people who leave messages on my guestbook and also trace people who visit my site? I am sick of rude and vulgar messages on my guestbook.
Thank you
Answer:
This is something we run into quite often. You can create a script to write your visitor's IP addresses to file, and then you can deny them entry to the site based on their IP address using an .htaccess page (more about.htaccess here:
http://webdeveloper.internet.com/servers/
servers_htaccess_magic.html).
The reason this approach is problematic is because of what is known as proxies. A visitor to your site can set their browser up to use a proxy server, that is, a server acts as an "in-between" server between all web servers and the user's ISP. When they use a proxy, their IP address will not show up, but the proxy server's IP address and/or domain will.
So if you ban that IP address or domain, they can just use another proxy--and there are tens of thousands of such proxies out there.
Seriously, the only way to effectively ban someone from coming to your site is through law enforcement, the FBI, etc. They have the resources to go to the user's ISP, or the proxy ISP, and get records, etc. to determine exactly who was doing what, and when. Then they prosecute that individual in a court of law.
Thanks
--Dr.Website
Question:
Dear Dr. Website:
I'm a newbie/amateur web site designer. So far, I've only worked on my personal site and a site for the Sunday School program at my church, which I'm doing as a volunteer. However, I'm trying to learn more all the time. Recently, a friend asked me to help him design and publish a site to sell a cookbook which he has self-published. So now I have to get more serious about reaching a wider audience on the web.
I checked your current FAQ's and archive, but didn't see anything which seemed to address my problem, so here goes...
All the design tips I read say, "Keep your image files small and the total KBs on your page low, so that your pages will not take too long to load." I've been looking at my pages and figuring out how long it would take them to load if someone has a 14.4K modem, or 28.8K modem, 36.6K modem, 56K modem. Most of my pages load quickly at 8 Kbsp put they are very pokey at 2 Kbsp.
Here's my question: do I really need to design for the slowest possible modem speed? How many people are still using 14.4K modems? Will I lose a lot of potential viewers if I design with the 56K modem in mind?
I've been able to find some interesting statistics about what percentage of people have which types and versions of browsers, but I haven't been able to find any statistics about what percentage of people have 14.4K modems versus faster ones. Do you know where I might be able to find such info? Could you point me toward it?
Thank you for any help you can give me with this.
Answer:
As the Executive Editor for internet.com's Web Developers Channel, I have to keep these things in mind when we design or re-design any of our sites. Since most of those folks visiting our site are web developers, they tend to have a newer version of a browser, and tend to have higher connection speeds than the general population. You need to keep your audience in mind when you design your site.
I assume your site would need to appeal to the general population. As such, you will have to support most browsers, and most modem speeds. Those with faster modems won't notice, those with slower modems most definitely will. While I wouldn't develop with 28.8 connection speeds in mind, I would certainly not design a site that didn't load well at 56k, the typical connection speed these days.
Thanks
--Dr.Website
Question:
Dear Dr. Website:
Dear Dr. Website:
We have a particular application where we need to monitor real-time data of our control process via the internet. We have been able to achieve this by writing HTML documents that cause the pages being viewed to be refreshed every 2 seconds. This is accomplished by including the following statement in the HTML document:
<meta http-equiv=REFRESH content="2">
This works fine. But we would like the update of the screen every 2 seconds to be as smooth as possible for any browser being used. When using Netscape 6, the refresh of the screen is smooth and almost unnoticable. However, when using Internet Explorer 5, the whole screen seems to blink and completely "repaint" (including background, links, and buttons) when a refresh occurs.
For example, the background color of the page is normally light blue, and when the refresh occurs, the screen changes to all white for a split second and then repaints.
Is there something that could be included in the HTML document to remedy this? Or, is there an IE5 setting/option that could help? Any ideas?
Thanks
Answer:
Unfortunately, it's the nature of the beast. Netscape doesn't "flash" when it refreshes, while MSIE does. Not much you can do about it, especially if you want the current data to be shown (as opposed to cached data).
Thanks
--Dr.Website
Question:
Dear Dr. Website:
Dear Dr. Website:
Aloha Dear Doc.,
Yawn... I'm tired of being woken up at 3 a.m. in the morning again! My tropical barkcloth fabric is real popular and my website orders at my 50's fabric shop are coming in from all around the world. I am in deep need of some deep sleep and a clock script that will tell folks what time it is in Hawaii before they reach for their phone. Could you help me get some REM again?
Answer:
Yes I have two:
<!--BEGIN CLOCK CODE--->
<center>
<table border=1 cellpadding=4 bgcolor=FFFFBB><tr><
td>
<a href="http://www.escati.com">
<img src="http://escati.linkopp.net/cgi-bin/clock.cgi?
trgb=000000&srgb=00ff00
&prgb=221100&timezone=GMT+0600" border=0></a><br>
</td></tr></table>
</center>
<!--END CLOCK CODE--->
Note: Replace +0600 in the above Clock Code with your time zone.
or
<a href="http://www.wunderground.com/US/HI/Honolulu.html">
<img src="http://banners.wunderground.com/banner/gizmotimetempbig
/US/HI/Honolulu.gif"
alt="Click for Honolulu, Hawaii Forecast"
height=40 width=467></a>
Note with this one you can go to the site and pick the city close to you.
http://www.wunderground.com/US/HI/
Sleep well,
--Dr.Website
