Jaxreds wants you to know this is: Issue 1, April 16, 2000


Welcome to the First Edition of our Newsgroup Newsletter. Our Focus is Page Builder Help, and our Message is Positive. Hopefully this will serve to re-cap our Newsgroup Highlights, build community spirit and solve world hunger. Or at least be informative and enjoyable. Everyone is welcome to submit and everyone is welcome to subscribe .

This Newsletter will be published on a monthly basis and is a group project (that means I am too lazy to list everyone's names). It also means I did a lot of cut and paste and each persons submission was written by them.

Our newsgroups' focus remains Page Builder Help. That means that if you see a birthday listing (none this month), that you should send birthday wishes through private e-mail. But if you have a question about a Page Builder specific item, then, please, by all means, post it in our newsgroup:
news:alt.discuss.clubs.public.website.pagebuilder.sec retadmirer

Okay, stuff we have this month:

Relative Linking

Our first Page Builder tip comes from Andy, the Page Builder Engineer. He recommends our using relative links. The Page Builder program always has. Relative Linking means to link to the file names within the same user account. Using just filenames instead of complete Internet addresses saves you a lot of typing. More importantly, the links between your pages will work properly no matter where the pages are located. If you ever move your pages from Page Builder to another host or if you move your pages from one user account to another, you will not have to rewrite all of your links.

I made this page to illustrate Relative Linking:
http://community-2.webtv.net/SecretAdmirer/sitemap/

I made a Sitemap of a few of my Page Builder sites. The first link is to the WebTV Scrapbook Uploader. Instead of linking to:
http://community.webtv.net/SecretAdmirer/scrapbookupl oad , I made the link to: /SecretAdmirer/scrapbookupload/

Here is how to use Relative Linking to create a Sitemap:

I went on to add four more relative links. After that I added what is called an "Absolute Link" because it was a link to a page outside of my user account. An absolute link is the full internet address.

Relative Linking should be used for page and image files. Basically you are removing the http://community.webtv.net and starting with the /username This certainly alleviates the whole community/community-1/community-2 bother, doesn't it? A very big thank you to the Page Builder creator, Andy, for taking the time to recommend this. I have a lot of good advice about links and addresses from Andy that I am trying to compile for my next Net4TV articles.

For those not familiar, I write a regular feature on the Page Builder for Net4TV, the online magazine for those of us who access the internet through our TV. Click here if you would like a free subscription to Net4TV.

Page Builder Sound Storage

Beth's Page Builder Sound File Storage is here!
Page Builders now have a place to store wavs and midis. All you need to do is forward an e-mail with the wav attachment, or URL of the midi to: SecretAdmirer@at.starblvd.net . Make sure you put "PBstorage" in the subject line. You will be e-mailed your linkable file.

It will look like: http://www.PBstorage.com/username.mid or
http://www.PBstorage.com/username.wav

This service is for all Page Builders, one per user name. This would not be possible without the financial generousity of Timothy Richardson. Thanks Tim.

Another great option for Page Builders is free linkable sound files at: http://www.BGsound.com Bgsound is brought to you by the hard work of its creator, and owner, BigHead and again, the financial generousity of Timothy Richardson.

For complete information on the How and Where to put sound files in the Page Builder, please read:
Putting Sound in Page Builder

Newbie Laughs

by Mick
Mick shares her perspective of our newsgroup world, and it is very very funny. Please visit her web site for a good "Newbie Laugh." http://community-2.webtv.net/mickieann/NewbieLaugh/

SnowGlobes

I love SnowGlobes By: Micki
Are you are looking for that special touch to add to your homepage? You might want to try the world of "Snowglobes". They range from whimsical to elegant. An excellent site is Catladies: Snow Globes 4 U. She will even custom make you one. I know I'm hooked!

Vicki Vents


[Editor's note: A little venting is always good therapy.]

Fools Rush In . . . . and get to sign the guestbook. Ever go to what you think will be a really great gifs or tools site, only to be confronted by a first page consisting of awards, webrings, pleas to sign the guestbook, and urgings to 'Vote for my site!' before you see even a single gif or tool? I went to three different well-recommended sites today, where the first paragraph assured me of the quality of the work and pleaded with me to sign the guestbook. "Okay", I thought, "but what will I say? I haven't seen anything yet. Should I lie?" Having wrestled with that moral dilemma [I signed: Great site! Keep up the good work! Vicki K], I was overwhelmed by half a page of awards, assuring me that this site was, indeed, without peer. "Must be good," I said to myself. "Look at all these awards!" Onward I trekked, past the counter ("3,000 hits! Gee whiz!"), and a sig award, and, having duly noted the 'Listed in Net4TV' and 'Listed in 'ClubWebTV' logos, I arrived at the webrings. All of them. "Very impressive," I thought. "There must be one here for every day of the week." It was at this point that my mind started wandering until I was brought up short by a banner that shrieked, 'Vote for my site as one of the top 100 sites of WebTV!' Vote? But what was the site about? I can't remember. In fact, what am I doing here? Maybe I'll find out if I go to the next page. See it says, 'more on page 2 . . . .' But, more of what? Wish I could remember. Maybe I'll go surf for awhile; see if I can find some neat gifs or tools sites . . . .

OK, so I'm exaggerating, but don't tell me you haven't been smacked in the face with a 'Sign my guestbook before you leave' the minute you get to a page, or half a page of awards and webrings before you even get to the good stuff. How about letting folks see what you have first? Heck, it must be good if you got all those awards and you must know it's pretty decent or you wouldn't want anyone to get a crack at that guestbook. As for voting for the top 100 sites, I could place right up there in the top twenty because every one in my family has a computer or a webbie -- and I have both [two votes here]. If you have a counter, that should tell you how many people are 'voting' for your site. Word travels fast about good sites. Top 100? Everyone who takes the time to build a site has a top site. You're putting yourself forward, in public, with what is basically a piece of artwork -- thereby being very personal, not to mention courageous.

There's a place for guestbooks, webrings, and awards, but not at the very beginning of your site. Let's see what you've got; let's enjoy our stay without being told, by inference, that we should. I'll admit I have a couple of webrings on the first pages of three of my little sites, but at the bottom of the page. I know they should have been put at the end of the site, but I was very thrilled at being accepted into a webring that was owned by someone other than a relative or someone who owed me money.

- Vicki

MLski's Easter Page

EASTER PAGE aka "Hoppy Easter" by MLski
The lastest installment of my holiday celebration! This page covers all aspects of this highest of holy days, but only touches on the religious side. Besides focusing on the Easter Bunny, food and Easter promenades ~ this page (built and created on pagebuilder) also features a half dozen or so pages created by other webtv pagebuilders.
http://community-1.webtv.net/mlstore1/easter

Page Builder Pioneers


We have two new additions to the Page Builders Pioneers page and one great Banner Tutorial:

Adding Meta Tags to Page Builder by Jaxred
Jaxred writes:
This website is a simplistic demo of my suggestion for correctly adding meta tags, style sheets, and javascipt to a WebTV PageBuilder document head tags. I have correctly added several additional meta tags, provided space for styles and scripts, and different body tag code. This is in response to several posts that suggest that we cannot access the PageBuilder document head tags to correctly add meta tags, styles and scripts.

ML's TUTORIAL aka " Gif Encoding for Newbies"
Mlski writes:
I seem to answer the same question over and over and over again from people new to webtv and pagebuilding - who want to take their pages to the next step of freedom - coding gifs into email or onto a webpage. This should help to answer some questions (and ease up some of the wear and tear on my keyboard!) If it helps at least one person, it was worth it!

Here's a great Banner Tutorial From Michelle
http://community.webtv.net/loveswolves28/BannersMadeE asy/

Bragging Rights & Congrats to:

From Pagosa:
Would like to sincerely thank all who post here for making my first site a featured site at NET4TV! I was thrilled and am so grateful for your encouragement. The site is http://community.webtv.net/pagosa/THEWONDERSOFWOLVES

Beth's web site is in:
WebTV For Dummies, Quick Reference!
The author, Renee Gentry wrote: "If you are interested in creating Web pages with Page Builder, Beth Candy's site is the place to go. Stop by and check out all the good info."
Thanks Renee. Great book!


Congratulations to Jaxred for being the first to review Renee Gentry's WebTV for Dummies, Quick Reference and winning the $50 Amazon Gift Certificate Prize! That is your good karma saying hello right back atcha, Jaxred.

WebScissors Update

Two engineers (Jos best buddies), are working to maintain, and update WebScissors. I will be helping with e-mail. I just received a synopsis of the e-mail questions and their answers. I thought I would share them with you.

Here's a quick overview of the folders and what they contain.

Sorted - Base HREF
These are sites that use the (base href="URL") tag to define the beginning of the URLs for it's links. But since WebScissors doesn't recognize this tag, all the links are broken, so WebScissors can't find the images. It's a bug with no current fix.

Sorted - CGI URL
These are emails that have CGI (or other server-side scripting bits) in them, but they're either missing variables or using variables that have expired since the email was sent, so we can't really troubleshoot them very effectively.

Sorted - Community
These are emails that point to WebTV community sites. As I think you're probably aware, there's a wacky bug with the community sites that you can't snag an image unless you've already (recently) been to the site the page is on. So if they go to the page they want to snag images form, then go directly to WebScissors and use the "show last URL" button, they should be able to get the images they're after.

Sorted - Direct Image URL
These URLs point directly to images, and not to pages that contain images. Since the whole logic behind WebScissors centers around scanning the HTML code from the page it's given, it can't comprehend links directly to images. Again, a bug with no real fix.

Sorted - Fixed Bugs
These are pages that actually do work now. Most of these are pages that prbably didn't work before we fixed the carriage return bug was fixed. (If you hadn't heard about that, that was the fact that some editors - like GeoCities - were putting carriage returns in the middle of URLs, so they had the characters "& 0A" and "& 0D" in the links. So we added some code so that it would search therough the URLs and strip out any instances of these carriage return characters).

Sorted - General Questions
These are mainly just general questions people have about using WebScissors, Transloaders, or other such stuff.

Sorted - Page Not Found
These are links that point to pages that no longer exist. Suggesting that people actually go to the page they want images form then go directly to WebScissors and use the "show last URL" button would help eliminate more of these.

Sorted - Redirect
These are URLs that actually redirect themselves to other URLs. But since WebScissors can't detect the redirect, it's trying to attach the ending of the link to the base href of the URL that was originally entered, causing broken links. Again, if the user goes to the actual page (which will follow the redirect to the correct address) then goes directly to WebScissors and uses the "show last URL" button, they should be able to get their images correctly.

Sorted - Undefined
These are ones that I couldn't find a cause for in thirty seconds or less. These are the ones that still need to be troubleshoot.

Well, there you go. If you are waiting for an e-mail response from WebScissors, there's the answer you are going to get.

Plus Update

No Page Builder news, but here is the letter that Plus Users will get after they receive their update:

Thank you for taking the time to update your Microsoft WebTV Network™ service.

Periodically, we offer these updates to keep your WebTV Internet unit running smoothly and send you our latest technology and functionality. Here are just a few of the new features we've added to your WEBTV service:

With MSN™ Messenger you can see when your friends are online so that you can send an instant message to a friend or "talk" with several friends at once. It's like your own personal chat room! You can exchange instant messages with other WebTV subscribers and even Windows and MacIntosh operating system users who use the MSN Messenger service on their personal computers.

RealNetwork's RealAudio G2 technology allows you to listen to online streaming audio files and even online Internet radio stations!

Windows Media Player support now gives WebTV service subscribers the ability to play a wide range of Internet audio and video content. You can listen to online music and video clips right on your TV! Check out some sample Windows Media Player files at http://www.windowsmedia.com

Interactive TV has a new look. A w symbol will now appear when a TV program has a link leading to a web page with additional information. The I symbol will continue to denote interactive TV programs. (Judge Judy, Jeopardy, etc).

Also, with your WebTV Plus service you now have an even wider range of printer options. You can use several new Epson printers along with additional Hewlett-Packard and Canon printers. There are now almost 50 printer makes and models which work with your WebTV service. Just plug in your new printer and your WebTV Internet receiver does the rest. See help for a full list of supported printers.

Additionally I was told:
... the upgrade for plus users is getting Flash 4.0 too.. that is included.

Classic Update

Here is the letter Classic Users will get:
Thank you for taking the time to update your Microsoft WebTV Network™ service.

Periodically, we offer these updates to keep your WebTV Internet unit running smoothly and send you our latest technology and functionality. Here are just a few of the new features we've added to your WEBTV service:

With MSN™ Messenger you can see when your friends are online so that you can send an instant message to a friend or "talk" with several friends at once. It's like your own personal chat room! You can exchange instant messages with other WebTV subscribers and even Windows and MacIntosh operating system users who use the MSN Messenger service on their personal computers.

RealNetwork's RealAudio G2 support now gives WebTV service subscribers the ability to play a wide range of Internet audio content. You can listen to online streaming files and even online Internet radio stations right on your TV!

Special Thanks to Wayne

Everyone is our newsgroup would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to Wayne for archiving the posts. Wayne's dedication, hard work and long hours spent reading, bouncing, cutting, pasting, editing and archiving our posts so that we may have this wonderful resource is sincerely appreciated by everyone. Thank you so much Wayne.

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