From harvester at lists.evolt.org Mon Nov 2 00:00:08 2009 From: harvester at lists.evolt.org (harvester at lists.evolt.org) Date: 2 Nov 2009 00:00:08 -0600 Subject: [thelist] Tip Harvest for the Week of Monday Oct 26, 2009 Message-ID: <20091102060008.21251.qmail@tempest.evolt.org> The tip harvest for the Week of Monday Oct 26, 2009 has been added to the lists.evolt.org site. Get it at: http://lists.evolt.org/harvest/show.cgi?w=20091026 Week at a glance listing at: http://lists.evolt.org/harvest/week.cgi?w=20091026 Harvest Summary --------------- Number of messages: 89 Number of tips : 1 Tip Authors ----------- Jay Turley (1) Tip Types --------- reputation (1) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ What: Tips are how a list subscriber "pays" for making an off-topic post to the list (see List Info for more information). Of course, this does not make off-topic posts acceptable. :) How : You include a tip in your posting by using the [tip]...[/tip] tag (replace the square brackets with angle brackets). The tip tag takes the optional attributes of 'type' and 'author'. From joel at bizba6.com Mon Nov 2 14:33:35 2009 From: joel at bizba6.com (Joel Canfield) Date: Mon, 2 Nov 2009 12:33:35 -0800 Subject: [thelist] PayPal buttons inactive after 'continue shopping' Message-ID: <619d00930911021233y43167ef5s7f6229da67628e9c@mail.gmail.com> Using Google Chrome, on this page (and others) http://www.commonsenseentrepreneur.com/ce/#buynow if you add something to the cart, then click the 'continue shopping' button which just closes the PayPal page, none of the buttons work. Refreshing the page resurrects them. Clicking the 'View Cart' button and leaving the cart page/tab open seems to solve it as well. IE and Firefox get it right every time. Safari (on my Windows box) is spotty. Chrome and Firefox open the cart in a new tab; Safari and IE open a new window. That doesn't seem to be related. -- Joel at Bizba6.com http://BizBa6.com/ From dwayne.conyers at hp.com Thu Nov 5 10:38:51 2009 From: dwayne.conyers at hp.com (Conyers, Dwayne) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 16:38:51 +0000 Subject: [thelist] ZIP. Boom. Cuckoo... Message-ID: <769907F0D19EFA45BD6F04FC6E896D6D2204CBEAA4@GVW0538EXC.americas.hpqcorp.net> I had an old Dell desktop that had 100MB ZIP and 3? inch floppy drives built in. Had that for years and would occasionally archive data to a CD... but mainly used the ZIP and floppy media. Data that I felt was the most important I burned to a CD or DVD. Anyway... time rolled forward and I wanted to access something from one of the DVD's - but the DVD gave cyclic redundancy failures. WHAT???? I never got that from a data DVD before. The hard drive on the Dell had died so I figured that was all she wrote. Meanwhile. fast forward several months to today. I was cleaning my home office and found all these 100mb ZIP disks and floppies in a closet and realized this was my *other* data backup. However, my 64-bit HP Pavilion only has DVD and bays for HP media drives. I was thinking of maybe getting a USB ZIP and USB floppy so I could get that data and archive it in a more permanent format... but - that seems like a lot of money to spend, especially since that is the only use for it. I saw a cheap ($45) refurbished IDE ZIP drive... but don't want to open my tower and install it -- assuming it would even work on my 64-bit Pavilion. Hmm... Ideas? -- The generation that took acid to escape reality is now taking antacid to deal with reality http://blog.dwacon.com http://www.twitter.com/dwacon From ronr at linuxdude.com Thu Nov 5 08:40:32 2009 From: ronr at linuxdude.com (Ron) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 09:40:32 -0500 Subject: [thelist] Do you use :visited in CSS? In-Reply-To: <177c0a10910300212v19b81c2ak1c418cf9678ee8a8@mail.gmail.com> References: <177c0a10910300212v19b81c2ak1c418cf9678ee8a8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4AF2E3E0.3090706@linuxdude.com> Fred Jones wrote: > Nielsen says { http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9605.html } that one of > the "Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design" is "Not Changing the Color of > Visited Links". > > Do people agree? I personally do NOT change the color of visited links > because I think it's confusing to users who don't know what it means. > Regarding :visited, as Lee pointed out, it depends on the context and type of content. The Wikipedia definitely needs :visited. Regarding "mistakes", the number one mistake is not puting dates at the top of each article. If your content is in anyway time sensitive it has to be dated, just like a blog. Since most of my web activity involves looking for information about new or changing things, if I don't see a date, I'm probably not going to waste much time on the site. From evolt at roselli.org Thu Nov 5 14:15:01 2009 From: evolt at roselli.org (aardvark) Date: Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:15:01 -0500 Subject: [thelist] ZIP. Boom. Cuckoo... In-Reply-To: <769907F0D19EFA45BD6F04FC6E896D6D2204CBEAA4@GVW0538EXC.americas.hpqcorp.net> Message-ID: <4AF2EBF5.13785.17C87C5@localhost> i'd first check with friends to see who has a ZIP drive... check with geeks... check with programmers and graphic designers who were in school 15 years ago... check with a friend who works for a college or a large IT department... many orgs (like mine) dropped money on a USB ZIP so that we could pass it around internally and sometimes help a client rescue old data by bringing it on-site... if that doesn't work, buy the refurb and install it in a friend's machine without telling... On 5 Nov 2009 at 16:38, Conyers, Dwayne wrote: [...] > I saw a cheap ($45) refurbished IDE ZIP drive... but don't want to > open my tower and install it -- assuming it would even work on my > 64-bit Pavilion. Hmm... > > Ideas? From fredthejonester at gmail.com Thu Nov 5 15:52:41 2009 From: fredthejonester at gmail.com (Fred Jones) Date: Thu, 5 Nov 2009 23:52:41 +0200 Subject: [thelist] Do you use :visited in CSS? In-Reply-To: <4AF2E3E0.3090706@linuxdude.com> References: <177c0a10910300212v19b81c2ak1c418cf9678ee8a8@mail.gmail.com> <4AF2E3E0.3090706@linuxdude.com> Message-ID: <177c0a10911051352p609ee29eq890f2f70627645db@mail.gmail.com> > Regarding "mistakes", the number one mistake is not puting dates > at the top of each article. If your content is in anyway time sensitive it > has to be dated, just like a blog. Agreed! From admin at chrome.me.uk Thu Nov 5 19:16:09 2009 From: admin at chrome.me.uk (Chrome) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 01:16:09 -0000 Subject: [thelist] ZIP. Boom. Cuckoo... In-Reply-To: <769907F0D19EFA45BD6F04FC6E896D6D2204CBEAA4@GVW0538EXC.americas.hpqcorp.net> References: <769907F0D19EFA45BD6F04FC6E896D6D2204CBEAA4@GVW0538EXC.americas.hpqcorp.net> Message-ID: <005f01ca5e7e$b9620720$2c261560$@me.uk> > Ideas? Hi I know this is a UK site but maybe something like this might help? http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=48965 Dan From evolt_org at striderweb.com Fri Nov 6 11:54:20 2009 From: evolt_org at striderweb.com (Stephen Rider) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 11:54:20 -0600 Subject: [thelist] ZIP. Boom. Cuckoo... In-Reply-To: <769907F0D19EFA45BD6F04FC6E896D6D2204CBEAA4@GVW0538EXC.americas.hpqcorp.net> References: <769907F0D19EFA45BD6F04FC6E896D6D2204CBEAA4@GVW0538EXC.americas.hpqcorp.net> Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2009, at 10:38 AM, Conyers, Dwayne wrote: > I was thinking of maybe getting a USB ZIP and USB floppy so I could > get that data and archive it in a more permanent format... but - > that seems like a lot of money to spend, especially since that is > the only use for it. > > I saw a cheap ($45) refurbished IDE ZIP drive... but don't want to > open my tower and install it -- assuming it would even work on my 64- > bit Pavilion. Hmm... > > Ideas? eBay. Before and after. ;-) Or borrow, as suggested by others. Stephen From evolt_org at striderweb.com Fri Nov 6 11:58:50 2009 From: evolt_org at striderweb.com (Stephen Rider) Date: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 11:58:50 -0600 Subject: [thelist] Common Site Mistakes [was: Do you use :visited in CSS?] In-Reply-To: <4AF2E3E0.3090706@linuxdude.com> References: <177c0a10910300212v19b81c2ak1c418cf9678ee8a8@mail.gmail.com> <4AF2E3E0.3090706@linuxdude.com> Message-ID: On Nov 5, 2009, at 8:40 AM, Ron wrote: > Regarding "mistakes", the number one mistake is not puting dates > at the top of each article. If your content is in anyway time > sensitive it > has to be dated, just like a blog. Since most of my web activity > involves > looking for information about new or changing things, if I don't see > a date, I'm probably not going to waste much time on the site. My favorite is local news/newspaper sites that just say WXYZ Channel 5, and not "Boofoo, New York", as though only people local to them are ever going to find their site on the Internet. Then the article keeps referring to events in Xville, and you have no idea where that is. I saw an article recently and from the town name thought it was in the Middle East. Turns out it was in upstate Michigan. Stephen -- Stephen Rider http://striderweb.com/ From chris.price at choctaw.co.uk Sat Nov 7 05:14:51 2009 From: chris.price at choctaw.co.uk (Chris Price) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 11:14:51 +0000 Subject: [thelist] XAMPP and phpMyAdmin Message-ID: I've installed XAMPP on my Mac (OS X 10.4) and have created a new table in phpMyAdmin that came with the XAMPP installation. I was getting a 'no database selected' error so I've run a 'SHOW DATABASES' query and the table I've created doesn't appear to exist. I can't see any indication in phpMyAdmin why this should be. It just lists 'information_schema' and 'test' but I have run a query on the new db in phpMyAdmin I've tried restarting MySQL but that doesn't fix it. Anyone any ideas what is happening? -- Chris Price 0777 629 0227 follow me at http://twitter.com/choctaw check out http://spoonfulofdreams.co.uk From nan at nanharbison.com Sat Nov 7 06:57:48 2009 From: nan at nanharbison.com (Nan Harbison) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 07:57:48 -0500 Subject: [thelist] XAMPP and phpMyAdmin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <11C72083BE5841D393298BB4F7AC281F@nancyb0bda4ba6> Check for a typo! It happens to me all the time! -----Original Message----- From: thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org [mailto:thelist-bounces at lists.evolt.org] On Behalf Of Chris Price Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2009 6:15 AM To: thelist at lists.evolt.org Subject: [thelist] XAMPP and phpMyAdmin I've installed XAMPP on my Mac (OS X 10.4) and have created a new table in phpMyAdmin that came with the XAMPP installation. I was getting a 'no database selected' error so I've run a 'SHOW DATABASES' query and the table I've created doesn't appear to exist. I can't see any indication in phpMyAdmin why this should be. It just lists 'information_schema' and 'test' but I have run a query on the new db in phpMyAdmin I've tried restarting MySQL but that doesn't fix it. Anyone any ideas what is happening? -- Chris Price 0777 629 0227 follow me at http://twitter.com/choctaw check out http://spoonfulofdreams.co.uk -- * * Please support the community that supports you. * * http://evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ For unsubscribe and other options, including the Tip Harvester and archives of thelist go to: http://lists.evolt.org Workers of the Web, evolt ! From evolt at markgroen.com Sat Nov 7 08:47:44 2009 From: evolt at markgroen.com (Mark Groen) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 06:47:44 -0800 Subject: [thelist] XAMPP and phpMyAdmin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4AF58890.9080204@markgroen.com> Chris Price wrote: > I've installed XAMPP on my Mac (OS X 10.4) and have created a new table in > phpMyAdmin that came with the XAMPP installation. > > I was getting a 'no database selected' error so I've run a 'SHOW DATABASES' > query and the table I've created doesn't appear to exist. > > I can't see any indication in phpMyAdmin why this should be. It just lists > 'information_schema' and 'test' but I have run a query on the new db in > phpMyAdmin > > I've tried restarting MySQL but that doesn't fix it. > > Anyone any ideas what is happening? > > This help? http://www.phpfreaks.com/forums/index.php?topic=218802.0 cheers, Mark -- From nan at nanharbison.com Sat Nov 7 08:14:12 2009 From: nan at nanharbison.com (Nan Harbison) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 09:14:12 -0500 Subject: [thelist] Having trouble showing text after an ampersand on a Mac Message-ID: Hi Folks, On this website: http://concordpublicschools.net/ the left side navigation has a link called Finance & Operations. On Macs though, the word Operations is dropped, something to do with the ampersand I guess. The way I create this page is using a template, setting the parameters and then use $page->CreatePage(); the createpage function, but I am not sure this matters: foreach ($this->parameters as $key => $value) { // Loop through all the parameters and set the variables to values. $template_name = ''; $this->html = str_replace ($template_name, $value, $this->html); I have tried changing the ampersand to & and & but neither work. I made the link be a variable and echo it there, doesn't work, although it worked on my iPhone, where the first two ways didn't. But my boss, on a Mac says the word Operations still doesn't show, Maybe I am using the wrong DTD? I am terrible with DTDs. Or some quirk on Macs? Does anyone have a suggestion for me? Thanks! Nan From marun2 at gmail.com Sat Nov 7 07:41:12 2009 From: marun2 at gmail.com (Mohan Arun L) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 19:11:12 +0530 Subject: [thelist] Do you use :visited in CSS? Message-ID: >>Regarding "mistakes", the number one mistake is not puting dates at the top of each article. If your content is in anyway time sensitive it has to be dated, just like a blog. Since most of my web activity involves looking for information about new or changing things, if I don't see a date, I'm probably not going to waste much time on the site. Agreed! I always look for the date of publishing of the post when reading any blog. ------------------------------------------------------- /** http://www.mohanarun.com http://www.webdesignexpert.me */ From hassan.schroeder at gmail.com Sat Nov 7 12:26:08 2009 From: hassan.schroeder at gmail.com (Hassan Schroeder) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 10:26:08 -0800 Subject: [thelist] Having trouble showing text after an ampersand on a Mac In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4eedb92a0911071026p5168c3e2w80580df7a54cae34@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Nov 7, 2009 at 6:14 AM, Nan Harbison wrote: > the left side navigation has a link called Finance & Operations. On Macs > though, the word Operations is dropped, something to do with the ampersand I > guess. The word shows up in View Source and with all styles disabled, but the whole left menu display is wonky (text seems overly large and the column is shifted left) on both FF and Safari on my MBP (10.5.8). I'd start by validating the markup (it currently doesn't validate) and then start working through the CSS if that doesn't fix it. FWIW, -- Hassan Schroeder ------------------------ hassan.schroeder at gmail.com twitter: @hassan From evolt at weeb.biz Sat Nov 7 13:19:15 2009 From: evolt at weeb.biz (James Hardy) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 19:19:15 +0000 Subject: [thelist] Having trouble showing text after an ampersand on a Mac In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2009/11/7 Nan Harbison : > Hi Folks, > > On this website: > http://concordpublicschools.net/ > > the left side navigation has a link called Finance & Operations. On Macs > though, the word Operations is dropped, something to do with the ampersand I > guess. On my Linux PC running Firefox 3.0 at default text zoom Operations is also missing, but changing the zoom level (either bigger or smaller) and it sometimes reappears. Looking at the source of the page, it is definitely there. I would imagine this means it is a wrapping issue, it does not have quite enough space, so it wraps to Finance & Operations but Operations is cut off due to the height of the containing element James Hardy From david at chelseacreekstudio.com Sat Nov 7 11:27:15 2009 From: david at chelseacreekstudio.com (David Laakso) Date: Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:27:15 -0500 Subject: [thelist] Having trouble showing text after an ampersand on a Mac In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4AF5ADF3.9090903@chelseacreekstudio.com> Nan Harbison wrote: > http://concordpublicschools.net/ > Does anyone have a suggestion for me? > > Nan > > Validate. From nan at nanharbison.com Sat Nov 7 14:40:30 2009 From: nan at nanharbison.com (Nan Harbison) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 15:40:30 -0500 Subject: [thelist] Having trouble showing text after an ampersand on a Mac In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <51769A188BB545FD9D039D8D5F872A9C@nancyb0bda4ba6> It does appear to be a font size issue. I brought it down a notch. But clearly, my code is not validating and I have work to do, arrgghhh. Thanks to everyone who replied! Nan -----Original Message----- From: mrweeble at gmail.com [mailto:mrweeble at gmail.com] On Behalf Of James Hardy Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2009 2:19 PM To: nan at nanharbison.com; thelist at lists.evolt.org Subject: Re: [thelist] Having trouble showing text after an ampersand on a Mac 2009/11/7 Nan Harbison : > Hi Folks, > > On this website: > http://concordpublicschools.net/ > > the left side navigation has a link called Finance & Operations. On > Macs though, the word Operations is dropped, something to do with the > ampersand I guess. On my Linux PC running Firefox 3.0 at default text zoom Operations is also missing, but changing the zoom level (either bigger or smaller) and it sometimes reappears. Looking at the source of the page, it is definitely there. I would imagine this means it is a wrapping issue, it does not have quite enough space, so it wraps to Finance & Operations but Operations is cut off due to the height of the containing element James Hardy From cervantes_vive at yahoo.com Sat Nov 7 09:27:49 2009 From: cervantes_vive at yahoo.com (ivo) Date: Sat, 7 Nov 2009 07:27:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [thelist] PayPal buttons inactive after 'continue shopping' In-Reply-To: <619d00930911021233y43167ef5s7f6229da67628e9c@mail.gmail.com> References: <619d00930911021233y43167ef5s7f6229da67628e9c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <448953.47539.qm@web65610.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Was just giving it a look. The 'Continue Shopping' button triggers this JS onclick continueShopping('http://www.commonsenseentrepreneur.com/ce/',noWinAlert,closeWinAlert); which attempts to set the location of the parent window parentWin.location.href = shoppingURL; and throws an exception that kills the page. Seems WebKit throws this error if the parent window is HTTP and the child window is HTTPS. If both are the same then I dont see the issue. Hope this helps. - Ivo ----- Original Message ---- > From: Joel Canfield > To: thelist at lists.evolt.org > Sent: Mon, November 2, 2009 12:33:35 PM > Subject: [thelist] PayPal buttons inactive after 'continue shopping' > > Using Google Chrome, on this page (and others) > http://www.commonsenseentrepreneur.com/ce/#buynow if you add something to > the cart, then click the 'continue shopping' button which just closes the > PayPal page, none of the buttons work. Refreshing the page resurrects them. > Clicking the 'View Cart' button and leaving the cart page/tab open seems to > solve it as well. > > IE and Firefox get it right every time. Safari (on my Windows box) is > spotty. > > Chrome and Firefox open the cart in a new tab; Safari and IE open a new > window. That doesn't seem to be related. > > -- > Joel at Bizba6.com > http://BizBa6.com/ > -- > > * * Please support the community that supports you. * * > http://evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ > > For unsubscribe and other options, including the Tip Harvester > and archives of thelist go to: http://lists.evolt.org > Workers of the Web, evolt ! From bobm at dottedi.biz Sun Nov 8 10:49:39 2009 From: bobm at dottedi.biz (Bob Meetin) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 09:49:39 -0700 Subject: [thelist] the ampersand & and similar entity type characters Message-ID: <4AF6F6A3.9040702@dottedi.biz> Just curious here. Can someone explain when/why it's compulsory to use the entity code rather than the character itself in a document. Commonly in validating pages, even the cryptic php strings they won't validate unless I convert & to &, etc. With simple page titles like "Jack & Jill" they become "Jack & Jill". Or perhaps: index.php?option=page&id=3 becomes index.php?option=page&id=3 It's just rather fatiguing... -Bob From bobm at dottedi.biz Sun Nov 8 11:41:28 2009 From: bobm at dottedi.biz (Bob Meetin) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 10:41:28 -0700 Subject: [thelist] the ampersand & and similar entity type characters In-Reply-To: <4AF6FB42.6040101@gulfbridge.net> References: <4AF6F6A3.9040702@dottedi.biz> <4AF6FB42.6040101@gulfbridge.net> Message-ID: <4AF702C8.5050503@dottedi.biz> John List wrote: > Bob Meetin wrote: >> Just curious here. Can someone explain when/why it's compulsory to >> use the entity code rather than the character itself in a document. >> Commonly in validating pages, even the cryptic php strings they won't >> validate unless I convert & to &, etc. >> >> With simple page titles like "Jack & Jill" they become "Jack & >> Jill". >> >> Or perhaps: >> >> index.php?option=page&id=3 becomes index.php?option=page&id=3 >> >> It's just rather fatiguing... >> >> -Bob >> > > Since the ampersand is the escape character for entity codes in an > HTML document, it needs to be escaped itself to avoid possible > ambiguity. Compare this to escaping the backslash when you really want > to use a backslash in a Javascript or PHP string. > > It's not compulsory, just "correct". Most browsers are forgiving and > will fall back to displaying the ampersand if they can't decipher the > entity code. > > What validation are you talking about? W3? > > What do you mean by "cryptic php strings"? (A good PHP code validator > would not require entity codes in a string since it's not part of an > HTML document.) > > John > Cryptic is not cryptic to me as I do this all day long, but commonly you'll see a very very long string with 3-4-5 options which appears cryptic to the regular user. Sometimes you have to link this page in other pages, menus, etc. The link works but then you pass it through the w3c validator and it complains, so I/you switch to the entitity code alternate and all is well in Bugsvillle. In Joomla and perhaps the other CMS on an article page there is a page title, a simple input field. The validator does not appreciate the use of "&" here. -- Bob Meetin From johnlist at gulfbridge.net Sun Nov 8 11:09:22 2009 From: johnlist at gulfbridge.net (John List) Date: Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:09:22 -0500 Subject: [thelist] the ampersand & and similar entity type characters In-Reply-To: <4AF6F6A3.9040702@dottedi.biz> References: <4AF6F6A3.9040702@dottedi.biz> Message-ID: <4AF6FB42.6040101@gulfbridge.net> Bob Meetin wrote: > Just curious here. Can someone explain when/why it's compulsory to use > the entity code rather than the character itself in a document. > Commonly in validating pages, even the cryptic php strings they won't > validate unless I convert & to &, etc. > > With simple page titles like "Jack & Jill" they become "Jack & Jill". > > Or perhaps: > > index.php?option=page&id=3 becomes index.php?option=page&id=3 > > It's just rather fatiguing... > > -Bob > Since the ampersand is the escape character for entity codes in an HTML document, it needs to be escaped itself to avoid possible ambiguity. Compare this to escaping the backslash when you really want to use a backslash in a Javascript or PHP string. It's not compulsory, just "correct". Most browsers are forgiving and will fall back to displaying the ampersand if they can't decipher the entity code. What validation are you talking about? W3? What do you mean by "cryptic php strings"? (A good PHP code validator would not require entity codes in a string since it's not part of an HTML document.) John From Chris at activeide.com Sun Nov 8 11:21:34 2009 From: Chris at activeide.com (Chris Anderson) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 17:21:34 -0000 Subject: [thelist] the ampersand & and similar entity type characters In-Reply-To: <47703B5EFF2241F1A5173B705D28BE76@ActiveIDE.local> References: <47703B5EFF2241F1A5173B705D28BE76@ActiveIDE.local> Message-ID: <09DEC79B6F995248B402303C86CA4912574FEF@scarlet.ActiveIDE.local> > Just curious here. Can someone explain when/why it's compulsory to use > the entity code rather than the character itself in a document. > Commonly in validating pages, even the cryptic php strings they won't > validate unless I convert & to &, etc. > > With simple page titles like "Jack & Jill" they become "Jack & > Jill". > > Or perhaps: > > index.php?option=page&id=3 becomes index.php?option=page&id=3 > > It's just rather fatiguing... It's because in markup language formats, the ampersand is a special character used to encode other special characters (such as < (<), > (>), etc). If it were not a special character itself, the markup parser would have to try to determine whether the ampersand was being used as a special character marker or was content. As it is though, the parser knows that the ampersand *always* starts a special character encoding, and simply scans forward to the next semicolon to extract the encoding What language/platform are you using? These days most have utility functions that do the encoding for you Chris From cervantes_vive at yahoo.com Sun Nov 8 11:43:12 2009 From: cervantes_vive at yahoo.com (ivo) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 09:43:12 -0800 (PST) Subject: [thelist] the ampersand & and similar entity type characters In-Reply-To: <4AF6F6A3.9040702@dottedi.biz> References: <4AF6F6A3.9040702@dottedi.biz> Message-ID: <798144.62366.qm@web65603.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> You can still use character codes if the encoding of the file supports it except for special characters (&, <, >). If you have a plain ASCII document and need to represent accented e then you need to writeé or é because ASCII doesnt have a character for it. This is what makes the '&' character special, it is used to indicate numeric and character entities. If you need to indicate an actual '&' then you need to use & . Check this out http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/charset.html#h-5.3 ----- Original Message ---- > From: Bob Meetin > To: "thelist at lists.evolt.org" > Sent: Sun, November 8, 2009 8:49:39 AM > Subject: [thelist] the ampersand & and similar entity type characters > > Just curious here. Can someone explain when/why it's compulsory to use > the entity code rather than the character itself in a document. > Commonly in validating pages, even the cryptic php strings they won't > validate unless I convert & to &, etc. > > With simple page titles like "Jack & Jill" they become "Jack & Jill". > > Or perhaps: > > index.php?option=page&id=3 becomes index.php?option=page&id=3 > > It's just rather fatiguing... > > -Bob > > > -- > > * * Please support the community that supports you. * * > http://evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ > > For unsubscribe and other options, including the Tip Harvester > and archives of thelist go to: http://lists.evolt.org > Workers of the Web, evolt ! From barney at clickwork.net Sun Nov 8 03:23:58 2009 From: barney at clickwork.net (Barney Carroll) Date: Sun, 8 Nov 2009 09:23:58 +0000 Subject: [thelist] Common Site Mistakes [was: Do you use :visited in CSS?] In-Reply-To: References: <177c0a10910300212v19b81c2ak1c418cf9678ee8a8@mail.gmail.com> <4AF2E3E0.3090706@linuxdude.com> Message-ID: <472577830911080123h22c8b6ackf0d61846d1c88fad@mail.gmail.com> For a proper job to be done as far as information design is concerned, I think it's important to have an honest, iterative, back-and-forth design process with the client's authority representing the copy writer(s) as to what information should be available for any given page format on the site and how this should be displayed. In my experience, both designer and copy writer need to occasionally remind each-other of how to form a proper document - and the immediate reference points that denote relevance to the user are the first thing to go when this isn't done responsibly. On 06/11/2009, Stephen Rider wrote: > > On Nov 5, 2009, at 8:40 AM, Ron wrote: > >> Regarding "mistakes", the number one mistake is not puting dates >> at the top of each article. If your content is in anyway time >> sensitive it >> has to be dated, just like a blog. Since most of my web activity >> involves >> looking for information about new or changing things, if I don't see >> a date, I'm probably not going to waste much time on the site. > > My favorite is local news/newspaper sites that just say WXYZ Channel > 5, and not "Boofoo, New York", as though only people local to them are > ever going to find their site on the Internet. Then the article keeps > referring to events in Xville, and you have no idea where that is. > > I saw an article recently and from the town name thought it was in the > Middle East. Turns out it was in upstate Michigan. > > Stephen > > > -- > Stephen Rider > http://striderweb.com/ > > > > > -- > > * * Please support the community that supports you. * * > http://evolt.org/help_support_evolt/ > > For unsubscribe and other options, including the Tip Harvester > and archives of thelist go to: http://lists.evolt.org > Workers of the Web, evolt ! > -- Regards, Barney Carroll barney.carroll at gmail.com 07594 506 381