Aussie John's Links No. 1

Note:The free websites don't provide facilities to download from your website.
But the capacity to download part or all of your website is your last ditch form of backup. If you lose your computer and your website copies due to bad luck or stupidity (my area of personal expertise) you can always connect a computer via modem to the internet and use a program like WS_FTP to download a copy of your website.

www.ipswitch.com
For WS_FTP LE 5.08 (free for personal use) and the full WS_FTP Pro 7.0.
When you can put up a website using the basic facilities provided free by Geocities (or similar), you are going to have to download and learn to use WS_FTP LE. Fully installed it takes up 1.07Mb and the installation .exe file is about 0.7 Mb so you can take it on a 1.44 Mb floppy disk to school, library or a friends house.

Ignore the flashy WS_FTP button in the middle of the screen and go up to the top nav bar, click on 'Download' then select 'Evaluation Software' from the dropdown menu. It is right at the bottom of the page you are sent to (nowhere near the WS_FTP Pro selection box which is higher up the page).

www.ftpplanet.com
Sponsored by Ipswich, it presents itself as a "community site where you can learn lots about FTP". There are technical articles, guides and discussion forums. See the uploading to Geocities (or similar) tutorial.
You can also download WS_FTP LE 5.08 and WS_FTP Pro 7.0 for evaluation but there was no other FTP software. Click on either the "Free Downloads" below the WS_FTP LE logo or on the GO button alongside "Downloads" in the upper right-hand corner of the homepage. Both take you to the same downloads page. See the installation tutorial.

Now this is good! Try clicking on the ftp.FTPplanet.com link in the top nav bar for an an authentic ftp alternate download site to the www site above. You've read about them and now you can experience one, thanks to Aussie John! There is some good stuff! I downloaded Opera (you have a choice between version 3, 4 or 5 ..I took 5, I'm no fool) now I can have a good browser. The real men can download Internet Explorer 3 and validate that their web pages render well for the folk out there looking for the best price on dog food.
Again you could download WS_FTP (LE or Pro) and other Ipswich software. I could not see any other FTP software.

www.dna.com.au
Digital Networking Australia, providers of Networking services.
Australian Distributer for Ipswitch. Can download WS_FTP Pro but not WS_FTP LE.

www.cadtutor.net/wb/ftp/wsftp/wsftp.html
David Watson's (ex? University of Greenwich) WS_FPT LE tutorial with lots of screen shots. Links to other good WS_FPT LE tutorials. The top nav bar leads to excellent AutoCAD, 3DStudio (3DStudio is used to make AutoCad 3D models look photo-real), website building and many other good tutorials.
Be aware that www.cadtutor.net ('best free tutorials on the net') is a subset of www.cadtutor.co.uk which also considers low priced software for students (one of my interests).

www.globalscape.com
For CuteFTP 4.2 (light version) and Cute FTP Pro 1.0 (full version). Both versions have to be purchased. CuteFTP 4.2 can be downloaded for a 30 day evaluation. I don't promote Cute FTP because they supply user documentation in pdf format without providing an html alternative. Cute FTP 4.2 is 1.4 Mb and they want you to download a 4 Mb Plug-In to read their documentation. You try to understand their thinking. If they want to offer an optional (prettier) version as an attachment to a web standards compliant version that would have been ok.

As I've said elsewhere, you can do without an ISP to start off by making your website on your computer at home then take the diskette to school, college, public library, friends house or wherever there is an internet conection and use Geocities or similar free web space provider to host your site. You don't need a computer either. Use the one you are hosting from to build your site.

However once you want to be on the net at home you need an internet service provider. You still have the choice of using the webspace they provide as part of the deal or keep your site with your Geocities type organisation. That way if you and your provider part company you don't lose your website URL and have to start building traffic again. You could get your own domain name which overcomes this but that is another storey again because you lose the nurturing enviroment and support to be found in a Geocities style site and you must have your own computer or use a friends because you wont get past past the firewalls to upload to your site at school or college (I've tried).

There are many ISP's.You can get completely opposite reports from different people about the same provider so be wary of what one person says. $15 per month sounds like a better deal than $20 per month but it depends on what you get for the money. A beginner can't tell the difference and probably can't use all of what's on offer anyway and may have to change providers once they know what they are doing and what they really need. Back to the Geocities website arguement.

www.cynosure.com.au/isp The Australian ISP List.
Enter a phone number, town or other key words for a list of ISP's meeting the criteria, or enter a State, then select a region within the state.

www.ihug.com.au Started in New Zealand (first big plus) and has expanded into Australia. Growing organisation competing with the big boys on the block and I think is trying harder. It is the provider I used when I decided to go on the net at home. A friend who used them recommended iHug to me and I'm also very satisfied. Now proves many communications services.

www.ozemail.com.au Ozemail offers a student or academic plan called OzECampus for Aust $19 a month unlimited use. The plan is not on their site so ring them on Sydney 132 884 for details.
They have arranged with some educational institutions for students to have access through firewalls. This is why I recommend Geocities and similar free websites because you can access your email and work on your website at school, work or a library.

www.sia.net.au For students and I guess anyone. Aust$1.50 per hour ISP service. If you genuinely don't go the net much this could be a good deal. Provides a lot of links, computing and general and for this reason I to use it as my browser start up page until I decided I wanted no start up page at all and to choose from a Favourites list instead.

www.bigpond.comTelstra is the Australian Government owned national telecommunications carrier which has been 50% sold off to private investers. An example of a big player in Australia that can use control of what was originally, public funded infrastructure, market position and legislation to restrict competiton. If you are city based in Australia, this is a great team to be part of! If you are a rural Australian, tough luck, you can always use smoke signals.

www.antitelstra.com Visit the Darwin based Anti Telstra site if you are disgruntled with Telstra and want to join others working for change. Is Telstra that bad? I saw a friend's phone bill and a connection to the internet in Sydney was 30 cents, but 100 km out of Sydney at his brother's house the charge was $3.00 for the same conection. That's ten times as much! Incidently, don't berate Telsta employees over management policies over which they have no control and besides, concerned Telstra employees are helping AntiTelstra with useful information!.

www.tips-tricks.com A well laid out site offering useful tools for your website. However some things upset me:-
1. They offer instruction on how to build a website that adjusts for different screen resolutions yet their own site is 640x480 fixed width.
2. The beginners instruction in HTML moves quickly into tags and attributes like <center> and <font> which a beginner should avoid. A beginner's real advantage is they don't know old tags and attributes! so they can start keeping their style separate to the content (CSS).
3. The tuition on CSS, though well presented but does not go past being a superficial introduction, and they say CSS is new ..another of my pet hates. In internet terms 1996 is quite old.

The link "HTML Wastes My Time" promotes web authoring (ie WYSIWYG) tools. Eventually you might add a good one to your web building toolkit. No problem there but please learn HTML first so that you will be able to edit the code you generate and you know enough to be able to choose an authoring tool that minimises the amount of editing have to do and respects the editing you have done. You will have to hand edit ..believe me!

www.webmonkey.com Found from www.hotwired.lycos.com
Can learn a lot on this site but mayby not for absolute beginners. I got myfirst javascript examples here.
Includes tutorials on all web related code including heavy stuff like cgi, java, perl, and C++ for example.

webdeveloper.earthweb.com

www.htmlgoodies.com
A good commercial site with a lot of primers, tutorials and straight talk.
Tutorials cover a broad range including beginner, perl and ad revenue for example.
Has HTML 4 tag reference, CSS properties, javascript keywords, downloads, discussions and a library.

javascripts.earthweb.com
Another site of Earthweb. Home is www.internet.com, 7000 javascripts you can download (duplicated in Links 2 JavaScript Section).

The three sites above are part of www.earthweb.com and aims at web developers.

Earthweb itself is a subset of www.internet.com (which calls itself the Internet Industry Portal with an affiliate system and links sites of interest for advanced internet or IT people).

Here are some points I wish to make about "developer's" sites. These Earthweb sites are just one example.

1. A lot of commercial sites link together. They may all be owned by one company and or include companies linking together for mutual leverage. If one is dominant then the others may get called affiliates.
2. It is done for their own commercial advantage and if they are successful then the users must be happy enough. But odd naughty ones (not Earthweb!) are getting all flushed with themselves and giving themselves a .net extension. Commercial organisations indicate their status with a .com extension. Two or more .coms don't suddenly cease to be commercial I believe their use of .net misleading at best, or fraudulant at worst and an abuse of the .net extension in any case.
3. They do it to cross-utilize content either by shuffling content from site to site with minimal presentation changes or and/or cross linking so that when you click on a article or tut which is presented as one site's content you find yourself flung to another site. If you look at that sites home page the articles and features look suspiciously similer to those of the site you came from.
4. Using "degrading" comes in. Degrading is a promotional concept where new and interesting material is down graded to a lesser standing, then to a lesser standing again until it falls off the end of the screen ie this weeks stuff, last weeks stuff, recent stuff and then removed (or todays stuff, yesterdays stuff, stuff from earlier in the week and then removed). The theory is you will come back regularly so you don't miss anything. If they have archieves I don't see how you could miss anything but there is the rub ..they are either very selective about archieving or don't archieve at all ..that's their master plan see ..22 million sites on the net and you have to go back to them regularly or miss their material when it gets taken off.
5. There is not enough new material so how do they get around that. One way is to send their degraded stuff to one of their affiliates so stuff is degradeded away on one site and pops up fresh in another one ..bit like sitting watching in a screen saver at work and just as informative. Another approach is to link to news sites or a very succesful method is to get users to provide content which many users do for a host of reasons including interest in a topic, net community spirit or perhaps, to promote themselves or their own website. Yes it's posible to read editorial comment on one website site and seeing the same stuff by the same person in a contributing article on, what is in effect, a competitor's another website. If this is too hard to organise they just link between one another and so it goes on.

What to do? I don't know. But something's got to happen cause all this crap ends up on the search engines as multiple references to the same piece of material (each page seperately as well!)

dynamicdrive.com The website designers.
Free DHTML/Javascript code to set your website up. They expect a link.

www.zdnet.com/developer
ZDNet has a printer icon to click on to print an article It might only be ifor the achieves, I'm not sure but it comes out full width text. I got an MS Paint article like that which meant I could do the tutorial straight into the computer without having to juggle between screens and I this made me feel better about ZDNet.
Indication is they are trying to provide for professionals but they are using a 640x480 screen and half of that is taken up by ads and links.
On one article/tutorial I felt I was scrolling down or going to the next page and finding myself wanting to go back as they continue to refer to something which is not on the screen any longer.
They may well have good content, I'll peruse some more, but honestly some of the other developer sites above are presented for 800x600 screens (I got my 800x600 screens out of a rubbish skip!) so I can't bring myself to get too enthusiastic about this 640x480 site.

www.flashkit.com A one stop resource for all your flash needs. They operate out of Hobart, Australia, so they must be good. Lots of tutorials and help forums.

www.webknowhow.net
Really need to cheak out! Good implementation of a (nominal) three column site (there may be more for spacing). The outer two are fixed width and the inner column expands and contracts as you go between the optimised layout for 800x600 down to 600x480 or up to 1024x768. The header and footer are two independant tables
Not done with CSS but the challange would be to use CSS to achieve a comparable presentation.
Note: I included this site sight unseen (pun there!) because it was a .net. However it turns turns out to be really a .com, part of www.devstart.com.

www.tetranetsoftware.com For LinkBot to varify your site's links.
Nothing worse than a visitor clicking on a dead link. Works with many HTML editors including HomeSite (of course Homesite and presumably some other HTML editors have a link varifier built in).
Note. This link now goes to www.watchfire.com (a compay that also bought out the uk internet url filter company Bobby). Can't immediately see reference to LinkBot and as much as I like it you may have to go into www.google.com and do a search on 'link validators' and look for another suitable one. There are free ones out there. I'll get onto it when I can.

search.atomz.com Powered by ATOMZ.
Used on the Bolt Science site www.boltscience.com, where I found it.
Other users include Macromedia, Webmonkey and O'Reilley Books. Impressive.
They provide the hosted site search service free for sites under 500 pages!
The testimonials say that this site search facility is very good.

www.w3.org/Amaya W3C's complete tool for web browsing, editing, authoring and publishing to the web.

www.opera.com For the Opera browser.
Get Version 6 for Windows plus they have versions for Mac, Linnux, handhelds and other systems. They have appointed as their Chief Executive Officer an internet guru, one of these (old?) guys that have made the net what it is today. Anyway they focus on producing a better browser taking up far less space on your computer than the big name opposition and they have suceeded in doing this.

www.grc.com Gibson Resarch Corp.
A expert how understands many things ( including the security problems with Windows XP ..much to Microsoft's chargrin) and commends software to overcome a variety of security problems. Free patch to close port 135 (the Windows Messenger pop up) which is a vulnerability. Advice and links (including to Microsoft) for patches for latest exploits.

www.lavasoftusa.com Makers of the free Ad-Aware ver5 completely free Pop-Up (and Pop-'Under'!) ad killer (95,98,ME,NT40 and Win2000 with special version for XP (faqs) and 9x/2K/XP (aumha.org)). While Google does not have pop-up ads on their site, Google's entry page refers to Lavasoft's free Ad_Aware as a means to protect yourself against pop-ups and pop-unders over which they have no control (spyware).

¤ www.aumha.org Widows specialists. See (among other things ) the his list of 'Favourite Free Software'.

www.ntu.edu.sg/cits/sw_frames/sw_utilities.html ## 400 Not Found 28Jun03 ## Good List of utilities by .edu techos Last updated 14 mar 2002. See MS Paint update (26 Sep 97) for Win 95 that permits saving as a gif.

www.acdsystems.com ACD Systems. Makers of an Explorer like product "ACDSee" that allows to manage your image files by displaying them as thumbnails. Available in Windows or Max OS versions.

www.xara.com A British company that makes XARA 3D and other XARA products. Great effects at a modest price. Many useful links. See the user's gallery and visit their sites as well.

www.jasc.com For PaintShop Pro 7. Download a 30 day trial!
You can buy more expensive graphics programs if you work in printed media as well. I don't.
Besides raster work I use PaintShop Pro to cropp, re-size or re-format images I copy from the web.*A note on copying.* I only copy stuff that is free for personal use and even then I provide a link back.

www.ozones.com Dr Ozone's Website. A top graphics site.
I visit it to feel better about not doing much graphics. It is specialist work. You can download buttons, backgrounds and icons for your own non-profit use. Links to good graphics tutorials and other website building tutorials.

www.passtheshareware.com
Relatively new kids on the block. Maybe trying a bit harder. See their Free section.

www.simtel.net Shareware, freeware and public domain software.
Has top100 list and a forum to discuss your your software needs or experience.

www.sharewarejunkies.com A1 Shareware Evaluations

download.cnet.com Cnet site. Downloads for PCs, Macs, Linx and Handhelds
I put ftp in one seach box and Mac in the box along side it and got a list of places to go to download.
Note: Has Win 3.1 software from www.winfiles.com now shut down.
shareware.cnet.com Cnet's shareware.com site.

www.webware.com CNET's Business related, ASP's and web based applications.

www.tucows.com Tucows's well regaded site. Reviews and various platforms provided for (ie Mac. Linux OS ect.)

www.filetransit.com Web Whirl

www.webattack.com Web Designers, internet tool providers ..see HTML Editors and free Graphics Editors!

www.centernetworks.com Center Network's main site. Built around a HTML Center and a WebGraphics Center.
www.htmlcenter.com Center for HTML, CSS Javascript and Tuts.

www.zdnet.com/downloads NF21/3/02 ZDNet. They expect you to register.
Note 1: Education & Science->Typing Tutors
Note 2: Programming->Microsoft Certification Course( free)
If they don't have it to download to you they try to offer you a list of sites that do have it. The more I looked at it the more I liked it. The alternate software options for a paticular job were layed out in horizontal rows with price, file size and other indicators for ease of comparison. I choose Project Management (from Business and Finance) as one subject, nominated a platform, and was offered a range of appropriate software from engineering production (gnatt flow charts and the like) to a time billing systems for service provider types. Filters helped you narrow down your search.
User comments and other mechanisms help you select the shareware that will do the job for the money you pay.

www.davecentral.com Click on either the Windows icon or Linux icon.
Got to use search with key words but appropriate software is listed with Dave's first and second choice.
Each has a short review by Dave and comments by people who agree or disagree and say what they use and why. Dave's search link is available to put on your site for your visitors to find and download software.

netforbeginners.miningco.com/internet/netforbeginners
Clean site Genuinely providing help for beginners as their theme.
Select from subjects like FTP, Tutorial, Search Engines or many others from a well laid out listing.

www.learnthenet.com
Another clean uncluttered site. Easy for a beginner to the net to select topics of interest.

www.netguide.aust.com/tutorials
Commercial site but the tutorials section you are linked to has the clean no nonsense look, focus and being able to locate a topic quickly that you expect from a .edu site (ie a college or university site). Ranges from complete beginner interest areas to more advanced stuff

www.davesite.com
Good site. Tutorials and other useful stuff such as advice on advertising income (scams?) and other traps.
www.neonlollipops.com
Another good site by Dave (above). Different focus .. perhaps more toward design of sites. Covers design, layout, legal aspects, moving your site ..done by a (young) man who has learned it all by doing it.
www.neonlollipops.com/design/
Direct to his site design page.

www.epinions.com SU21/3/02
Excellent product comparisons and reviews to aid your decision making.

www.webpagesthatsuck.com
Highlights things you should not do. Cites examples of people doing it right. Includes web design information and resource links.

www.whytehouse.com A site with a Christian theme and links. Some interesting javascript, html and graphics on this site has contributed to my learning. I am not a practicing Christian (although I have prayed to Him to keep me alive upon occaision) and it was only chance I stumbled on this site and here I am providing a link and recommending you visit. Perhaps God does work in mysterious ways.

As a beginner prowling around you keep seeing these words. Here are links to good people who have helped me get it into some sort of context.

www.w3.org/StyleSheets/Core/stylebot.html.
A paper by WC3's Jon Bosak written when he was with Sun Micro Systems explains how SGML and XML fit in with a comment on the role of Java opening up the concept of using the internet for applications involving database access.
For example the desirability of a HomeCare worker being able to access or update a patients file held at a hospital from either the patients home, the worker's home or a regional office. There are many different systems in use by many different hospitals and the point is made that the internet is the common link if it can be used in an interactive way.

www.w3schools.com.
Award winning learning site. Wide range of tutorials and quizes.

www.scottandrew.com/index.php/articles/dom_doit
Scott Andrew gives a feel for web applications, Internet II, DOM/CSS and the role of Netscape 6 and Mozilla.
Arguably a CSS site, unless considered too advanced in terms of dhtml.

www.linux.org Linux Organisation. Linux is a free operating system based on unix, originally created by Linus Torvalds and added to by many members of the web community. See 'Linux 101' ..a complete on-line course for beginners to Linux.

sourceforge.net
SourceForge provides web space and support for Open Source developers.

www.osdn.com/gallery Open Source Developers Network.
Go back to their home page to visit the rest of Osdn.com or use this webpage to link to other open source news sites including Slashdot.Com, Souceforge.Net, Freashmeat.Net, Linux.Com, Newsforge.Com, and GeoCrawler.Com.

www.mozilla.org For a free open-source web browser!
Mozilla.Org are co-ordinating the efforts of those working to produce a free open source browser. Download the latest release and try it. If you can help in coding or debugging great! The rest of us can help by reporting bugs. Based on Netscape's release of their source code (the first company to do so). Netscape now uses a versiom of Mozilla.

www.gnu.org Free Software Foundation/Gnu Org.
The organisation originally pioneered by the legendary high priest of free software Richard M Stallman who slept in the MIT labs, wrote the development tool gcc and led the first effort to create free software using legions of hackers on the internet. Linus Torvalds was encouraged to port his fledgling Linux so it would run the accumulated free software allowing Linux as we know it to be first released as GPL software.
Some of the free software available for download that interests me is an electrical circuit design program and a CAD program (there are others).

www.opensource.org/docs/links.html Opensource.Org's links page.
Another organisation working toward open-source software. Go back to their homepage to see the rest of the site. One of the principles is Eric S Raymond.

www.gimp.org Gimp.Org
For a free image editer that does most things that PhotoShop3 does. For Unix and X operating systems.
www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32 for the windows version. For reference only. Installation requires higher level skills.

webresources.html
Web Resouces from the CD's in my Sams TY to Create Web Pages in 24 Hrs Books

webresourcesphillinpointers.html
NF21/3/02
My copy of a site that was listed in the above CD made so if it goes off-line, they are not lost but are on my computer and on my website. It is old but the guy works at Stanford and has provided a list of learning links to .edu types he recommends. I will sift through them for fun looking for gems. If any of the sites are still up they must be very experienced people.

homepages.wmich.edu/~mchugha/w2kfirewall.htm IPSec Firewalling.
Win 2000 and Win XP Pro both allow the end user to construct a IPSec Firewall without having to rely on third-party solutions. Many industry journals spend most describing most firewall systems as half-baked because those systems only prevent ingress packets and not egress packets. The author conceeds Windows XP's excuse for firewalling is indeed half-baked but was heartened to see that Microsoft left the IPSec functionality alone while upgrading Windows.

Aussie John's Site Page Last Updated and Links Checked: 11 October 2003

Grab Bag of Links 1 -Website Building