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Dr. Website® Archives 2001

Question:
Dear Dr. Website:
I am a beginner, and have a executable file in my cgi-bin directory, lets say its called ls.cgi. I want to execute this from my webpage. so i want to click on ls and make it execute this script. can you tell me what html i should have to execute this.
thx

Answer:
You'd just create a link just like any other link:

<A HREF="/cgi-bin/ls.cgi">ls</A>

Thanks,

-- Dr. Website

Question:
Dear Dr. Website:
What is the content type for .csv file? (You may know already) The .csv file is the file we export from Microsoft Outlook.

I don't know the content type (MIME) of this file (.csv) (Microsoft Excel Comma Separated Values File). As you know the content type of Microsoft Excel is "application/vnd.ms-excel"

Thank you very much in advance

Answer:
For .csv (comma separated values) files, you should use text/plain as your MIME type.


Thanks, -- Dr. Website

Question:
Dear Dr. Website:
I do have a big problem!! I need to get the username of the user conected to my site on a client machine! I've tried to do this with a java applet and i couldn't do it! A friend told me that it could be possible using javascript but he didn't know how to do it!

Can you help me?? Is it possible to get the username of a client machine with javascript???

Thank you

Answer:
You can use LOGON_USER or REMOTE_USER, but neither will work in most instances. This isn't something that should be accessable for security and privacy reasons, and as such, the browser and server makers have built such protection into the browser. Thanks,

-- Dr. Website

Question:
Dear Dr. Website:
Hi, Hello I am creating a site in Frontpage 2000 and have an animated gif of a globe. I would like to put something inside the globe and have the globe still spin. Any input would be appreciated.
Thank You

Answer:
Have you ever seen one of those old time "flip books" which allow you to flip through them, showing you a little movie as you flip the pages (sort of like shuffling a deck of cards). You can think of an animated gif as something similar. Another way to look at it is this: when you see a 16mm movie, the old type you used to see on projectors, you're actually seeing one frame right after another, and another, and the result is that it looks like a continually moving scene.

An animated gif is actually a series of frames that get cycled through, providing the appearance of a movie or animation. To add something inside of the animated gif you have, you will need to break the gif down to its respective frames, and add your image inside each of those frames, specifically where you want it to appear. Then you have to reassemble the gif to be an animated gif again. Not a simple task by any means.

You can find a list of tools that will help you out here:

http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/Graphics/Tools/index.html

Thanks,

-- Dr. Website

Question:
Dear Dr. Website:
I happened to come across your site the other day(~ 2 days ago) and since then I must admit that I have found some interesting stuff. I began web design a couple of weeks ago and have managed to design my web page(which is still on my hard drive) using HTML help sites. What brought me to your site was that I was looking for help with online forms.

Actually I copied the form from a website and just changed the mailto parameter.What I want the form to do is to automatically mail the comments on the form to me without the visitor having to use his/her email software.

From what I understand so far, this should be taken care of by CGI scripting etc. but I think I haven't reached that level of expertise yet. Are there any good sites that have CGI basics and the rest? I think that's the only way for me to understand this stuff. Or if you have any other suggestions please let me know !
Thanks

Answer:
Yes, a mailto will send the contents of the form to you, but it will enlist the help of the visitor's email client. To send through a cgi script, you'll need to have the script in your cgi-bin directory, and have it configured specifically for you. You can find many such CGI scripts here:

http://www.scriptsearch.com/Perl/Scripts_and_Programs/Form_Processing/

To get started learning about CGI scripts and Perl, I suggest you start with our "The Perl You Need To Know" series:

http://www.wdvl.com/Authoring/Languages/Perl/PerlfortheWeb/

Thanks,
-- Dr. Website

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