HTML-1: FAQ

Start-Up Reality Check: Is this Class Really for Me?

If you're the type of student who is serious about taking college level classes; if you don't shy away from some hard work; if you are truly interested and excited to learn the skills and be able to apply them; if you are willing and even eager to commit yourself to putting in the time and expending the effort required; if you are willing to budget your time each week, and to get started on your reading and assignments early; then this course IS probably for you, and you will likely be successful.

You can expect to spend an average of 6 - 10 hours each week in reading, studying, practicing, and doing the assignments. The best way to approach this is to schedule 2 - 3 work sessions each week, rather than one long, intense marathon; and to schedule them earlier in the week, so that there is time to request and receive help. Humans learn better with shorter sessions, and with breaks in between them, to allow the unconscious mind time to assimilate what has been learned; and also when not jammed up against a deadline. Several sessions will also allow time for you to ask questions, get the answers, and try applying the answers to the problem you were having, and if need be, to ask more questions.

If, on the other hand, you are the type of student who has the habit or expectation of sliding by without breaking a sweat, if you believe that you deserve a C (or even a B), just for bothering to show up, without doing any of the reading, or studying; if you believe that any type effort you make should be praised and rewarded, even if it fails to meet the criteria for the assignment or the project; if you think that an hour a week is all the time you should be expected to spend on homework and study; and if you manage your time in such a way that you regularly wait until just before the deadline to look at what you need to do for the class ... If you are that type of student, then this course is NOT for you, and it's very likely that you won't be successful with it.

Instead, you'll be stressed and frustrated when you discover that you can't do all of the work required in the hour or so before midnight of the deadline day. When that occurs you'll be tempted to take the easy way out by stealing someone else's work and submitting it as your own. If that happens you'll be very unhappy with me when I discover that you've cheated and stolen another student's work (and I often do), and when I give you a 0 for the assignment. You'll also probably be unhappy as you continue to receive poor grades on your assignments because you haven't made a commitment to yourself to make sufficient room in your life to give the course the time it really needs. And perhaps you'll even angry with me for having 'unreasonable' expectations for you.

If all of this is true for how you approach classes at SRJC, your current work habits will prevent you from passing this course, and my strong suggestion is to drop it right away, in order to avoid an F, and to make room for someone who is serious about learning HTML, XHTML, and CSS, and who is willing to put in the time required for reading, study, practice, and assignments.

Do I really have to purchase the text?

Absolutely! The text is the central core around which the course is built. It will be your friend for the duration of the course. It is an excellent text, and easy to read. All of the assignments and quiz questions will be based on the content of the text.

Do I really have to purchase the CD?

I strongly encourage you to purchase the CD. However, it is not required, it is optional. Most students love the CD and depend heavily on it because it gives clear, concise instructions on how to get the assignments done. Also, it includes videos, so if your learning style is visual or audio rather than read/write, the CD will be indispensible.

How can I do well in the class?

The best strategy for doing well in this class has 4 aspects:

1--The first aspect is to spend sufficient time each week. You will need to arrange your schedule so that you can devote 6 - 10 hours each week for reading, study, practice, and doing your assignments. For some students who find the subject matter particularly challenging, the time needed may be much longer than this. It depends completely on how quickly you absorb and retain new concepts and ideas, and quickly you are able to begin applying those new learnings to other situations.

Don't make the mistake of thinking you can do all of the reading, practice exercises and complete your assignments in an hour or two, late on Monday evenings. That isn't enough time.

Several shorter sessions (2 or 3) are MUCH BETTER than one long marathon on the day that assignmets are due. If you have any difficulty understanding the material, or being able to make it work in the way the text describes it, you need to have enough time before the deadline for the following steps: first, to be able to walk away from it for a bit, to clear your head, and then come back to it with fresh eyes; second, if necessary, to search the Forum to see if anyone else has already encountered the same difficulty and to try the solution(s) posted there; and third, if there is no resolution to your difficulty in the forum, to post a request for help and wait for a response.

If you make the choice of waiting until the day of the deadline to begin the lesson, you're only setting yourself up for stress, frustration, and possibly for crashing and burning. Be kind to yourself by budgeting enough time during the week, to work without being frantic.

2--The second aspect is to do the required reading from the text CAREFULLY and COMPLETELY ! And if necessary or helpful, take the time to watch the videos on the CD.

DO NOT skim, or just flip the pages and glance at the pictures. Read EVERY word, TAKE NOTES, and then go back and re-read it. Skimming is for finding a particular passage that you recall from when you read the chapter carefully before, it isn't an appropriate tool for something you're reading for the first time.

3--The third aspect is to do EVERY expercise and practice task presented in the text -- even the cross word puzzles. When the text suggests that you do an exercise, actually PICK UP A PENCIL or GO TO YOUR COMPUTER and DO IT, before you go on to the next page!

4--And the final aspect of the strategy for doing well, is to read the assignment instructions CAREFULLY and COMPLETELY -- again, don't skim them. Then, follow them. Do each step. And before going on, double check that you've done each step and haven't overlooked one.

If you put in the required time and effort, if you understand the material being presented, if you can reproduce the material in the practice sessions, and if you are able apply those principles and concepts to creating your own pages, then you will almost certainly be successful.

Why Should I Bother with the Check In?

It is each student's responsibility to officially Check In to each online class they are taking.

In an in-person, face-to-face class, the instructor and the students can see each other, and when the instructor takes the roll, students answer that they are present, and it is clear who is participating and who is not.

In an online class some other system needs to be used, as the instructor and the students cannot see or hear one another.

Some sort of Check In procedure is the only way that instructors of online classes can determine, right at the beginning of a class, that a student has found the class website, and is ready to begin participating.

As part of the Check In process that is used for this class (and for most online classes at SRJC), students also create a username and password which allows access to the Online Gradebook for the particular section they are checking in to.

NOTE: each class section has its own gradebook, and requires a username and password. This username/password combination may or may NOT be the same for every class you take. You create the pair on each Check In form, so WRITE IT DOWN somewhere safe and indicate which class gradebook it is connected to. Once you become familiar with it, you can destroy the written copy.

Students Not Checked In Are Dropped as No Shows

Following College policy, any students not officially checked in by the beginning of the 2nd week of class, for a half term course, are dropped as No Shows by the instructor, just as they would be in a face-to-face class if they didn't show up.

If your section is full, and you are dropped for not checking in on time, you may not be able to get back in, so DON'T MISS the Late Check In Deadline.

Check In Requests MUST Be Approved By Instructor

Also NOTE: I MUST approve your Check In before your username and password will work. When I approve it, the system will generate an automated confirmation email which is sent out to you immediately. Once you receive this confirmation email, you will know that your Check In is complete.

I normally approve Check In requests every morning, and if I happen to be at the computer later in the day, I will approve them as they come in, but please give me 48 hours to approve your check in.

If You Don't Receive Your Confirmation

DO NOT WAIT for a whole week for your confirmation email, assuming that it may take a long time to get to you. First check your Junk/Spam/Graymail email box. Sometimes certain email systems automatically direct the confirmation messages to Junk/Graymail, rather than to your Inbox.

If AFTER 48 HOURS, you still haven't received your confirmation, please contact me immediately, via email, to let me know WHEN you submitted the Check In.

If you do nothing, when you haven't received your confirmation, you WILL be dropped as a No Show. So stay alert and watch for the confirmation.

Keeping It Sorted:
I'm confused about all the different
usernames and passwords! AND
What is the default password for my account at student

Usernames, Passwords, Accounts, Websites, URLs . . . Where am I? Where Do I Go? Which Login Do I Use ???

Until you become familiar with the different combinations of usernames and passwords, and which accounts and locations they're for, I suggest that you write down the specific details for each, somewhere safe — username, password and the location, account, URL (web address), it belongs to.

Better yet, it would be a great idea to invest in a software application called a Password Vault or a Password Manager, which will keep all of your passwords and other crucial info, in encrypted format. You'll have them all at your finger tips, and no worries about losing them, forgetting them, or someone else finding your scraps of paper where you've written them down, or the unencrytped Word or Excel file into which you've typed them all.

I recommend SplashID, by SplashData.com, which has versions for both Windows and MacIntosh. I've been using it for more than 3 years now, and I'm very happy with it. It costs $19.95 — a very small price for not having usernames and passwords and security questions scrawled on scaps of paper, the backs of envelopes, rollodex cards, and my address book — and never being able to find the one I want immediately. An alternative to SplashID could be some of the Anti-Virus/Anti-Spyware programs which have a Password Manager add-on that can be purchased.

Each semester in the HTML and CSS courses, there is at least one student, and sometimes a handful, who about halfway through the course will post a comment in the forum very similar to the one below:

I wish I had taken Muiz' advice right at the beginning of the course, about writing down the 3 sets of usernames and passwords. When I first read the suggestion, I thought "Why should I do that. I'm an intelligent person. I certainly can remember a couple of usernames and passwords!" I naively thought that his advice didn't apply to me, that I wouldn't need any help in remembering them, and where to use them, but I was wrong, and I wasted a whole lot of time being unable to login to one area or another, because I kept using the wrong set in the wrong place.

The other detail that will be very helpful to you, to get clear about and remember, is the correct name and URL for each of the various websites that you have to interact with. It will help you tremendously to get them all clear and sorted in your mind, because if you ever need to ask for help, it will greatly shorten the time it takes to get your question answered, if you are able to use the CORRECT name for the site or account where you're having trouble logging in, AND if you provide the URL of the page where you're actually typing in your username and password.

An immense amount of confusion and frustration are created, when you ask for help, if you misidentify the site or page where you're having difficulty.

At one point a few years ago, I spent close to 2 hours, over the course of 2 days, sending emails back and forth, trying to get a student who was having difficulty, to give me specific, clear, and accurate details about

what it was she was trying to do,
specifically which page she was on,
what the URL of that page was
what she was seeing on that page,
and what she was typing into the input boxes

I needed these concrete details so that I could figure out where she actually was, and what she was doing wrong, in order to get her problem resolved. The above questions seem very direct and straightforward, and one would assume quite easy to answer, however for whatever reason this student seemed to be absolutely unable to provide any actual, specific, concrete details, no matter how many times I asked for them.

Ultimately after far too much frustration and irritation on both sides, I finally figured out that she wanted to login to the Class Discussion Forum (at insideskills.com/classes), but because of her confusion she was trying to do that at the CATE System site (online.santarosa.edu) where the online gradebook was located but NOT the Discussion Forum, and that she kept using a username and password pair that she remembered creating for an online class she'd taken the previous semester.

She kept referring to problems with logging in to "your site" and "the class site", without realizing that the website for the class she was taking was not located at CATE where her previous online class site had been, but at insideskills.com/classes, and she also assumed incorrectly that a single username and password pair would work everywhere login creditentials were required.

Here are the 3 sites you'll be, or have been, dealing with, which require login username/password combinations:

1—insideSkills.com/classes/html1/10spring
(aka "our class site at insideSkills")

This is where you are right now, at the html1 class site. It is located at my Inside Skills domain (http://www.insideSkills.com/classes), along with the class sites for the other classes I teach. insideSkills.com is my own private domain, not connected officially with any of the college websites. At this site you'll find the pages for the Syllabus, the Assignments Calendar, and detailed instructions for each Lesson, the FAQ Page, the Resources Page, the class Forum, and a Discount Sofware page.

In addition you'll also find links here to the online gradebook which is located at the CATE website (see #3 below) rather than here at insideSkills.com/classes.

At this class site, ONLY the Forum requires a username/password. Your username is your full name, and your password is whatever you chose it to be. If you forget that password, I can't retrieve it, but I can create a new one for you, once you tell me what you'd like it to be.

2—student.santarosa.edu
(aka "student", the SRJC Web Server and Email System for students)

This is the site where your Class Project Website pages will be uploaded, as part of your assignments, and where we'll all view your site. student (http://student.santarosa.edu), requires a username/password combo to upload your files via whichever SFTP application you're using. The login username/password combo which you use for your account at student is different from the combo used to login to the Forum at insideSkills. If you get them confused you won't be able to login.

default username

Your username for your student account is your first initial plus the first 7 letters of your last name — all lower case. If there was already an account for another student with those same 8 letters, yours will have a number instead of a letter for the 8th, and possibly also for the 7th character of the username.

default password

Your original, default password for your student account, was the first letters of your first and last names, in UPPER CASE, plus the last 5 digits of your social security number.

If you changed this default password, then it will be whatever you changed it to. There is no way for me to retrieve it for you if you have forgotten it. You can reset your password to the original default yourself, by re-applying for an account at the student website. This will NOT hurt your existing account or files in any way, it will just reset your password to the default.

account URL - viewing it in a browser

Once you have your account at student, and upload your assignment pages to the public_html folder, you'll view them by pointing your browser to http://student.santarosa.edu/~username/, where username is whatever your particular username might be. Don't forget to type in the tilde character (that little squiggle ~ ) in front of the username — it is a CRUCIAL part of the BROWSER URL — it stands for the public_html folder, but you CANNOT use "public_html" in place of the tilde ~ )

HOWEVER, do BE AWARE that the tilde character MUST NOT be used in your SFTP program, only in the browser URL. For your SFTP (and SSH applications), the HOST name is ONLY student.santarosa.edu, without the http://, without the tilde character, without the username. Your username goes in a separate entry box, and if there is a box for Directory, or Initial Setting, public_html/ can be put in that box.

If I had an account at student my website URL would be

http://student.santarosa.edu/~mbrinker

For any who are using your student account for other classes as well, if you've put your files for this class into a separate folder (inside of public_html), then you need to ADD the folder name (or names if you have folders inside of folders) preceeded by a single 'slash' character, AFTER the user name. If my folder name was html1, then the URL to see my pages would be

http://student.santarosa.edu/~mbrinker/html1

3—online.santarosa.edu (aka CATE)

Another website that you already used when you submitted your Check In (although you might not have realized it) is http://online.santarosa.edu. This website is also known as the CATE website or CATE system. CATE stands for Center for Advanced Technology in Education. Many other instructors have their entire class websites for their online classes at CATE. And some instructors who have the majority of their class websites at some other location, often use the CATE site for their gradebooks, quizzes, and forums or message boards.

Each class that uses CATE for any of its features (from the full website, to one or more of the components), will have its own username/password combo, to control access to the class Check In, Gradebook, Message Board and any other secure locations. When you performed the Check In step for the class, you would have created your CATE login username and password, FOR THAT CLASS. If you happen to have created the same username and password as you used in other classes, then the username/password combo will be the same -- if you created a different username/password combo, then it will be different than for your other class or classes.

I'm using the CATE site for ONLY 3 THINGS: for the Check In procedure, for the Quizzes, and for the online Gradebook. You'll use the username/password combo you created during the Check In steps, to take the Quizzes, and to view the Gradebook.

BE AWARE: This login is different from the one used to access your web account at student, and from the one used to access the class Forum at insideskills.com/classes.

If you forget your login combo for CATE (to see the Gradebook and take the Quizzes), you can have it sent to you by entering the email address you used for your Check In, on the CATE Password Reminder page:

http://online.santarosa.edu/cgi-bin/autocate/student/reminder.cgi

I have a generic instructor homepage at the CATE system website (http://online.santarosa.edu/homepage/mbrinkerhoff), as well as individual generic course pages at CATE, because CATE ties in automatically with the official Schedule of Classes that can be seen online, and with the official college rosters, but the various links for the individual sections of the courses, all point here to the appropriate folders at InsideSkills.com/classes, where the full class websites are located.

I hope that this brief overview makes the situation a bit more clear.

Be careful that you don't confuse the username/password combos that work for class sites you are using, or may have used previously, at CATE, with the combo used in this class to access the Discussion Forum, or with the combo used in SFTP to upload pages to your web account at student. Go slowly and deliberately, think about which site or account you're trying to access, and use the appropriate username/password combo.

And of course, if you're having difficulty, check the Help section of the forum to see if your situation/problem has already been asked about, and a solution posted. If not, open a new topic, and give complete details of what you're trying to do, where you're trying to do it including giving the PAGE URL, and what is occurring — the actual text of any error message(s) is often VERY helpful in diagnosing the exact nature of the problem.

The fewer concrete, specific details you include in your help request, the longer it will take to give you the help you need, so do yourself a favor and include those details right from the beginning.

I changed my password for my account
at student, and have forgotten it. What can I do?

If you've changed your password for your student account and then forgotten it, the only thing you can do is to have your password reset to the default. Point your browser to the home page at student, (http://student.santarosa.edu) and click the "Application for Student Account" link in the Setting Up section. Enter your SID (Student Identification) number, and your birthdate. You MUST enter your birthdate in the format requested, 4-digit Year first, then 2-digit Month, then 2-digit day, with no spaces, dashes or slashes between them -- just 8 numbers. Instead of creating another account for you, your existing account will have the password reset to the default.

See the FAQ "I'm confused about all the different usernames and passwords" for info on what your default password is. It's in the section on your account at student.

How do I login to my account at student?

How and WHERE you login to your account at student depends completely on what you are trying to do, once you've logged in.

For what we are doing in THIS class, you do NOT go to the student.santarosa.edu website and look for a login or sign in page or area. The only section of your student account which you can access from the student main website, is your student EMAIL account, which comes along with your student web account. Most HTML-1 students never use the free email account that comes with the free web account. Whether you use that email account is up to you, but it is not part of what we're doing in this class. You probably already have an email somewhere else, and you will likely continue to use that email account.

So, to repeat, if you are working on ANY of the assignment steps for this class, you DON'T login at student.santarosa.edu. See below for the 2 ways you login to your student web account for the work in this class.

If you are working on Step 1-9 from the Lesson 01 Assignment Details page -- getting your account ready for web access (the sudo wwwme or public_html folder step), you need to launch SSH and type student.santarosa.edu into the host name box, and your username in the username box, and click the Connect button, then enter your password in the password window that pops up.

If you are trying to upload web pages and graphics files to your student account, you need to launch your Secure File Transfer program (SFTP for windows users, or Fugu for mac users), and again

I've forgotten my username and password at CATE so can't take the Quiz or see my grades. How do I find out what it is?

You can have your CATE username and password emailed to you by the CATE system. All you need to do is visit the CATE Password Reminder page

http://online.santarosa.edu/cgi-bin/autocate/student/reminder.cgi

and enter the email address you used when you filled out the Check In form.

If you have more than one email account, and don't remember which one you used for the Check In, you may try different ones, one at a time.

If you DON'T receive an emailed response within a few minutes, that almost certainly means you've used a non-functional email account -- meaning you typed it in wrong, or your Inbox is full and isn't accepting any more incoming mail, or another problem exists (such as spam blocking where your email provider is blocking the message, or you received it, but it went to your Junk Mail folder instead of your Inbox, etc).

If you don't receive the message, look in your Junk Mail folder, and then try again, being very careful when typing your email address. If you still don't get the message, send me an email so I can help you.

Remember to put CIS58.51A as the FIRST part of the Subject line, in ALL emails to me.

How do I know what the assignments are?

The assignmens are grouped by Lesson. To see the navigation tabs for all of the lessons, click the Assignments tab, in the navigation panel at the top right of every page, or in the text navigation links at the bottom of every page, (except the Forum and Gradebook pages). That will open the Assignments Calendar, where you'll also find a link in each week to the details for that week's assignments. You can use either the Lesson tabs at the top right, or the links on the Assignments Calendar, to view the details for each set of assignments.

How do I know when the assignments are due?

Look on the Assignments Calendar (click the assignments tab in the main navigation panel, top right of each page). In each box for Tuesday on the calendar, the deadline for each assignment is displayed. Also on the Assignment Details Page for each lesson, the deadline is displayed at the top, and again with each step where you have to submit something.

Each time I do an assignment should I build a new website from scratch?

No. The assignments should build on each other. Each time you do an assignment, you should add your new work to your existing pages at the same website. This means, for example, that every assignment after Lesson 3 will include a navbar at the top.

The instructions for each Lesson should be clear about which pages you are working on. If they aren't, ask a question in the Help Forum.

WORKING AHEAD: Is it ok if I include features in my website that we have not yet covered in the class, or that the assignment doesn't ask for?

No -- Please DO NOT work ahead in any page that you are submitting for grading.

In addition to making the process of finding and grading the specific elements of an assignment much harder for the instructor, it often ends up confusing the student who tries it.

Please do not work ahead, or include ANYTHING else in the assignment except what is requested, at that point.

If you do get excited about what you are learning and want to move forward because you're inspired, CREATE a COPY of the assignment page, name it something like 'workingAhead-lesson2.html', and then have at it -- be creative, experiement, put your skills to the test, have fun! This way we both win. I get to look at your page with just the elements I'm looking for, and you can follow your interest, creativity, and enthusiasm in a different page. And in the event that you do get confused, or make some coding mistakes that break your page layout, or prevent the page from displaying, you haven't lost anything, and your assignment page is still intact.

Should I be working toward a coherent, meaningful website when I do my assignments?

I think that you will enjoy the course more and get more out of it if you attempt to create a website that is meaningful and coherent, and build on it as we progress through the course. However, in the grading of your assignments I will be paying much more attention to the elements that the assignment focuses on -- code and layout -- rather than to your actual content. However I may make some comments about content.

What is not acceptable is to use totally generic, content-less, placeholder text or entire pladceholder pages. For example, something along the lines of this will not work: "this is the first page", "this is the second page", "this is an example of a large font", etc.

Will I lose points if my website doesn't look great?

Usually Not. In the grading of your assignments I will not be paying great attention to aesthetics -- UNLESS the aesthetics, the appearance, the look and feel, of your pages is in conflict with or obscuring the content. The fundamental design principle here is that the appearance of a page should enhance the content not detract from it, fight with it, or dominate it.

You can think of the content of a website as presenting a certain message. The appearance and layout of the content is the packaging for that message. If the packaging draws the attention away from the message, if it conflicts with it, or obscures it, trivializes it, or makes it more serious than it should be then the page, the site, becomes ineffective.

This class is, first and foremost, a class on the technical skills required to create web pages; it is not a graphics design class. I will be looking first for good, correct coding techniques and then at design issues that affect the user, such as easy navigation, quick loading speeds, readability in terms of content font sizes and sufficient whitespace, and appropriate choices for background colors and background images as they affect readability and eye strain.

For example, if background colors are too dark, dark colored text, or links, are very hard to read. The same is true if both are too light. Easy readability depends on an appropriate amount of contrast between foreground and background colors. The same is true for background images, plus if the image used for a background is very complex and 'busy', it can interfere with the readability of the content, too.

Another consideration is conflicting colors -- certain color combinations, like primary red and primary blue, conflict with each other, which means that they both tend to grab and draw the attention to themselves with equal strength -- so bold face, large font blue text on a red background will cause the letters to seem to vibrate, as the eye and attention is unconsciously drawn back and forth continuously, between the blue and the red. Certain conflicting color choices are a recipe for a headache because of this. Imagine trying to read an entire page of text that seems to vibrate.

If your page visitors have to push past their comfort level; if they have to squint, or really concentrate to be able to read the text or identify the links; if they risk developing a headache while trying to read your content, you've basically lost them. They're very likely to stop trying, and just go off to some other page that doesn't require such focus and effort.

If you have any of these issues in your pages, I will comment on them, and may suggest that you make a specific change, to improve the readability. You'll only lose points if you don't make the change, and carry the issue forward into the next lesson.

What is the difference between
an absolute path and a relative path?

An absolute path is a complete or FULL path 'giving the directions' to find a file, by beginning at the very top of the folder and file tree, at the root folder, and tracing down through each subfolder involved, to the file itself. Because this type of path begins at the root folder, it is not dependent on, not relative to, the location of any other file. It is an independent or 'absolute' path, and contains all the info needed to locate the file, in every situation.

A relative path is an incomplete or PARTIAL path, 'giving the directions' to find a file, by beginning at the location of some other file, and tracing from THAT CURRENT location to the desired file. Because this type of path begins, NOT at the root, but at the current location of some other file, it is NOT independent, not absolute. It is dependent upon, or relative to, the location of the current file. In order to use a relative path to find a file, one MUST be at the location which the path is relative to, otherwise the directions "make no sense", and the file will not be found.

Everyone uses both absolute and relative type directions all the time, in real life. If someone is giving you directions to find a cafe, the relative directions (or relative path to the cafe) will start from where you are, at the moment, and include left turns and right turns, which depend completely on your current location, and which side of the street you happen to be on -- the directions are relative to where you are at the moment. On the other hand, the absolute directions to the cafe will start from a well known landmark, a "root" location, not from where you currently are, and those directions don't depend on where you are right now. They are absolute.

To follow absolute instructions (an absolute path), you need to go first to the well known landmark -- the "root" for the directions, and proceed from there. To follow relative instructions (a relative path) you can proceed right away because relative instructions begin from where you currently are -- they are relative to your current locatiion.

Relative directions/paths assume you are at a particular location, and are ONLY accurate for finding the desired destination if you are actually starting from that assumed location. If in reality you are somewhere else altoghether, the relative directions will fail, because they are dependent on you being at a particular location and starting from there. A relative path says "start where you are and follow these directions."

Absolute directions/paths will always get you to the destination, though they may not use the shortest distance, because they begin from a known starting point -- the root. So even if you aren't currently where the person giving the instructions thinks you are, the directions will still work, because they require that you go to the root location first. An absolute path says "start at the root, and then follow these directions."

In looking at a link, if the link path is just a file name, or if it begins with a folder name followed by a file name -- for example 'contact.html" or "resources/contact.html", it is relative. The first assumes that "contact.html" is in the same folder as the file containing the link ... no need to go up into a higher level folder, nor down into a lower level folder, the file is on the same level, in the same folder. The second indicates that the contact file is a level below, inside the resources folder AND the resources folder is at the same level as the file containing the link.

If a link path begins with a / (the slash character is the shortcut name for the root folder) it is an absolute path, starting in the root folder of the current site. You might also see link paths that begin with http:// and a domain name, like "http://www.insideSkills.com", or a domain name and an account name "http://student.santarosa.edu/~username", or perhaps a domain name plus a folder name, or maybe several folder names all separated by slashes /, like "http://www.insideSkills.com/classes/html1/09spring" -- these are all absolute paths too.

In the code for a web page, if a link begins with http:// it is an absolute link to a file in a DIFFERENT website. If the link begins with just a slash, /, then it is an absolute link to a file in the CURRENT website. For absolute paths in the current website, there is no need to repeat the http:// and the whole domain name -- the slash character means 'root folder of this website'.

If the link begins with anything besides / or http://, it is a relative link. It could begin with the file name itself, or a folder name and a file name, or even a ../ which is shorthand for 'the folder above this one'.

ONE FINAL CAUTION: If your link (or the URL in the browser address box) begins with file:// rather than http://, it is an absolute link pointing to a particular location on your HARD DISK, not at your website. Keep an eye out for any links or URLs that begin with file:// because they are NOT valid paths for a website and will lead to 'file not found' errors. They only work with YOUR browser, on YOUR computer, looking at a file or files on YOUR hard disk. If you upload a file to your website with links or paths that begin with file://, no one will be able to use those links, because the web page, on the web, doesn't have access to your hard disk.

Why doesn't the gray border show up when I type in the code on page 30 of the text?

First, make sure that you don't have any typos in the CSS code for the border. When using the shortcut word 'border:' you MUST provide ALL 3 values separated by SPACES -- a width value, a border style value, and a border color value -- if any of the 3 are missing the border will not display. Also make sure your code has the required semi-colon at the end of the previous style.

If your CSS border code is correct, then the next most likely thing is a possible browser issue with the color name 'gray' (notice that it is 'gray' and not 'grey' -- both spellings are acceptable in English, but 'grey' isn't a valid color name in CSS and may be ignored by some browsers, in some versions). View the page with Firefox and see if the border displays -- having tested this myself I know that Firefox, both Mac and Windows versions will display the gray border, however IE 6 for Windows will not.

If Firefox does display the border, you've discovered a CSS issue for the browser and version that you were using. Changing the color name 'gray' to the Hex color code for gray #808080 should fix the problem in the browser you're using.

If it doesn't, double check your code again to make sure you don't have a semi-colon where a colon should be or vice-versa, and that you haven't omitted a semi-colon or colon, or added anything else to the CSS code, or mistyped anything.

If your code is correct, then check through the topics in the Help forum, in the CSS Problems area, to see if anyone has reported a similar problem. If not, create a new topic, and provide the details for which operating system and version, which browser and version, and the fixes you have tried and ruled out, so far, AND upload the page to your student account so that we can view it too -- but MAKE SURE you rename it before you upload it -- don't leave the name as index.html. Instaed call it starbuzz.html, or something like that, and THEN provide the URL in your help request.

If you don't include all of these details, I'll need to start at the very beginning and ask you to check them all, one by one, anyway, to rule them out.

Why does my apostrophe (or quotation mark or dash) show up as a question mark (or some other strange character) on my webpage?

This is probably because you copied one or more characters (such as a smart-quote or a smart-apostrophe or a dash) from a document that you created using a Microsoft product like Word, and pasted it into your HTML document. If you go back to your HTML document and retype the character by hand the problem should be fixed.

Smart quotes are special types of quote marks, that don't use the normal, single or double quote mark which you can type from the keyboard. The opening, or left, quote mark looks different from the closing, or right, quote mark -- they're opposites of each other and come in pairs. Since they don't belong to the normal character set (ISO-8550-1 or UTF-8), and since the <meta> tag in your page is calling for one of those two character sets, the browser doesn't know how those special characters are supposed to look.

Make sure that when you re-type it, the quotes (or apostrophe) look exactly the same at the beginning and ending of the quote, not curved to the right at the beginning and curved to the left at the end.

Also, make sure you have your preferences set in Notepad or TextEdit to use plain text rather than rich text format (rtf).

Why is it that the book uses "ISO-8859-1" as the value for the charset in the meta tag (on p. 240, for example), but in Dave's template in assignment 2 the charset value is "UTF-8"?

In the template given in assignment 2, the meta tag (which is in the head section) declares a charset value of "UTF-8". In most of the examples in the text, the value "ISO-8859-1" is used. Here's the scoop.

Some web servers do not declare a default charset, and so you can use either UTF-8 or ISO-8859-1. However, the student web server declares a default charset of UTF-8, so if you use the value ISO-8859-1 in your meta tag, the Validator gives you a Warning message about a "character encoding mismatch", because the web server calls for UTF-8, and the page is calling for ISO-855901.

In terms of displaying the text on your page correctly, either character set will work, as ISO-8559-1 is a subset of UTF-8, but it's nice to not have the Validator Warning showing up every time you validate, so change ISO-855901 to UTF-8 in all of your pages, and in your template page too.

Why should you care about this if the text displays correctly? If, after this class, you transfer your pages to another web server, and that server declares a default charset of ISO-8859-1, you would need to change your meta tag accordingly to avoid getting that warning message when you validate.

I've uploaded my new webpage to the server, but my browser still shows me the old page. Why is this?

Browsers commonly save a copy of each page that they display, to save the time of having to retrieve it from the server if the user asks to see it again. Unfortunately, this means that if you want to see the new, updated version of the webpage, you have to click on the refresh (or reload) button in your browser. Some browsers have a preferences setting to make it so that pages are always retrieved from the server each time they are loaded, and I strongly suggest using this setting if you can figure out how to do it. Unfortunately, one of the (few) things I dislike about Firefox is that it does not allow this preference to my knowledge, and with each new version of IE it gets harder to find this preference.

It's easy to forget to do this, and when you do forget it causes stress and frustration because you can't figure out why the changes you just made aren't visible. Form this habit -- once you view your page (from the web) leave the browser window open; switch back to your text editor to make changes to your page; save it; upload it; switch back to the open browser and refresh or reload the page, to see the changes.

Help - my page looks fine to me but my instructor says images are missing and links are broken

This problem happens most often for those using Windows, and it is caused by UPPER/lower case differences between what the names of the image files, pages, and folders actually are at student, and how you've typed those names in your XTHML code.

The Windows operating system is NOT case-sensitive. It essentially ignores upper and lower case. In Windows, these two file names are considered to be exactly the same -- index.html and Index.html (NOTICE that the 2nd file name uses an UPPER case 'I' and the first uses a lower case 'i').

Because of this lack of case-sensitivity, it is impossible, on a computer running Windows, to have a file named index.html AND a different file named Index.html in the same folder. If you try to create the 2nd file in Windows, you'll be warned that a file by that name already exists and asked if you want to OVERWRITE and REPLACE the existing file.

Other computer operating systems ARE case-sensitive and UPPER and lower case DOES MATTER. The Mac operating system is case-sensitive, and so are the Unix and Linux operating systems. Many of the computers out on the web, where web sites are located, are running either Unix or Linux, and so a file named index.html is DIFFERENT FROM a file named Index.html.

YES, even a single character difference is enough for the name to be considered TOTALLY different by a computer. We often unconsciously overlook differences in capitalization when reading, because in the English language index and Index are NOT totally different words. But they ARE totally different words in "Mac- or Unix/Linux-speak".

Because a case-sensitive operating system pays attention to upper and lower case, both of those files can exist in the same folder at the same time since from the point of view of the operating system, they have totally different names.

The student web server, where your web account is located is runing on a Unix/Linux machine, and ALL file and folder names ARE case-sensitive. Upper and lower case MATTERS.

So if you create a file and name it index.html, and then if you create XTHML code for a navigation link, in some other page, and if you type the name of that file into the link code as Index.html, Windows will see the file name and the link that points to the file as the same, and your link will work.

HOWEVER, once you upload the file and the page with the link in it to your account at student, anyone viewing the file with the link in it with a browser will find that the link DOES NOT work, because the link is pointing to Index.html when the name of the file, at student, is really index.html, so the link comes up broken. The browser cannot find the file that the XHTML code is calling for.

The same is true for the names of image files, and for all folder names. Your code MUST be typed with exactly the same UPPER/lower case letters as the actual name of the file or folder, or the link will be broken when the page is viewed from the web.

Therefore, it is always a good idea to name all files and folders with lowercase letters, so you don't have to remember which names use upper case letters when typing your code.

It is also always a good idea to view your pages just like your instructor or others will see them -- from the WEB, not from YOUR LOCAL DISK. Point your browser to the URL of your account at student, followed by the path to the file and the file name. That way you will see the page in a case-sensitive environment, just like everyone else does, and you'll be able to spot broken links and missing images that are the result of UPPER/lower case differences between actuals names and how your code refers to the names.

If you're at all uncertain how to tell whether your browser is showing you a page from your remote web account, or the local copy on your local disk, read the next FAQ entry.

How can I tell if my browser is showing me the local copy of my page (from my local disk) OR the remote copy of my page (from my web account at student)?

As long as your train you eyes to look at your browser's address/URL line, you can easily tell where the page being displayed is located -- whether it is local or remote, on your local disk or at a remote web site.

URL stands for Universal Resource Locator, and it is the location/address of the page ON THE WEB. URL's for pages out on the web always begin with http:// in the browser address/URL line. Recent versions of browsers have become sophisticated enough that they assume you want to view a web page out on the web whenever you type anything into the address/URL line, so if you skip typing http:// the browser will add it automatically to the beginning of what you type.

The browser can also display certain types of files that are local, that is files which are located on a disk connected to your computer, rather than being located out on the web somewhere. If a local file is being displayed, the address/URL line of the browser will show that fact CLEARLY. The address/URL will begin with FILE:// instead of http://, followed by a DISK LETTER, a colon character, a slash, and then a string of folder names that are particular to the disk where the file is located -- you may see folder names you recognize from exploring the folders on your computer ... like C:/My Documents, or C:/Documents and Settings/Administrator/My Documents.

The single important detail to focus in on is whether the first part of the URL is

FILE:// or http://

If the URL begins with FILE:// you're viewing the local copy of your file, and case-sensitive differences in the code will not matter in Windows, your links will work and images will display.

If ithe URL begins with http:// then you're viewing the remote copy of the file FROM your web account, and what you see will be the same as what your instructor and everyone else will see. Case-sensitive differences will apply, and your links and images may be broken.

Build the habit of ALWAYS viewing the remote copy of your pages, FROM your web account, and NEVER waste time viewing the local copy, so that you are certain you are seeing the page as weveryone else wll see it. Coding errors which might not show up when viewing the local copy will definitely show up in the remote copy, and you'll be able to fix them, rather than being confused.

Also be aware that your XTHML code for links and images and file paths, should NEVER contain FILE://, or ANY local disk drive letter like C:/ or D:\ or a local disk drive name like MacIntosh HardDrive:, etc. This means that your code is incorrectly referring to the local copy of the file, and it will NEVER be found by anyone else's browser, because your site visitors don't have access to your local computer drives from the web.

Why does the validator say "no referer header found" when I click on the validation icon?

There are 2 possible reasons for this:

First, make sure that you clicked the icon when you were looking at your webpage as it is posted ON THE WEB in your student account, NOT your local version of the file from your hard disk.

If you just used the "file open" menu command in your browser to view your page, or if you just double clicked the file icon, in an Explore or Finder window, you ARE looking at your LOCAL copy of the page, NOT the copy on the web, and the Validator icon won't work. Upload the file to the web server (your student account) first, then type the URL of your webiste (student.santarosa.edu/~yourusername) into the browser address bar to view the WEB COPY of your file, THEN click on the icon.

DO NOT try to validate your files BEFORE you upload them. Upload them FIRST, then view them from your account (the URL in the browser address bar MUST begin with http://, NOT with file:// ), and then click the Validator icon.

Second, if you are clicking the Validator icon from the copy of the page on the web and you are still getting this error message, it means your Anti-virus, Anti-spyware, or Firewall software is blocking something which is preventing the validation by clicking the icon.

What your security software is blocking is the ability of the browser to report the previous URL visited (the 'referer header'), when you switch to the Validation site, by clicking the icon. The purpose of this blocking is to prevent your browser from revealing your browsing history to marketing companies who track which sites you visit.

The security software should be able to be configured to allow the browser to pass the previous site URL (the 'referer hearder') to the Validation site so that it knows the URL of the page you want validated, but if you don't know how to do that, you can validate your pages by another route.

Go directly to the Validation website (validator.w3.org) and type in the URL of the webpage you want validated, by hand.

Why, when I validate my page, does the validator say "Sorry, I am unable to validate this document because on line ## it contained one or more bytes that I cannot interpret..."?

Also, make sure you have your preferences set in Notepad or TextEdit to use plain text rather than rich text format (rtf).

HTML - Level 1

CS-50.11A, section 8164, Summer 2010

presented by Muiz Brinkerhoff

FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions

Getting Started, Preparation, Class Materials

Usernames and Passwords and Accounts

Assignments

Class Project Website

HTML, XHTML, and CSS issues

Browser Issues

Validation Issues