Ryan's District Boards

You already know how to get to WWW sites and FTP sites using CTRL+L (CTRL+O in some browsers) or the "Location" (or "Address") input boxes -- simply type http:// or ftp:// followed by the address of the site. Did you know that you can use the same technique to get to your news groups and even news messages?
Press CTRL+L (CTRL+O in some browsers)

If you have only one news server setup or if you don't know the name of your news server (and still you can access news)...
 
Type "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login (without quotes) followed by the name of the news group you'd like to visit. For example, if you want to read the "comp.internet.net-happenings" news group, type:
    You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

OR, if you have multiple news servers...
 

Type "You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login followed by the name of the news server followed by "/" and then finally the name of the news group. For example, if you want to visit the "comp.unix.admin" news group from a news server named "news.dummy-server.com" type:
    You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login


Press ENTER

You could also go to a particular message in a selected news group located on a given news server. Unfortunately, the message IDs that you have to remember in order to do this aren't that easy to remember.

So you want your own home page on the web? Or have an idea for a web site, but want to try it out without spending money for web space? Following is a list of services providing free web space, free email and other related services for you to get started.

Angelfire Communications [ Join | Terms | Help | Directory ]
"Your Home on the Web"

Free web space (5 MB)
Free email
Requires you to display their banners on your pages


FortuneCity.com [ Join | Terms | Help | Directory ]

Free web space (10 MB)
Free email
Free chat system
Requires you to display their banners on your pages

300,000+ members as of 16-May-1998.

Free Sites Network [ Join | Terms | Help | Directory ]
"We offer 100 % free web hosting."

Free web space (20 MB)
Free CGI access
Requires you to display their banners on your pages


GeoCities [ Join | Terms | Help | Directory ]
"The Largest Community on the Web!"

Free web space (6 MB)
Free email
Requires you to display their banners on your pages

1,700,000 members and 40+ communities as of 1-May-1998.

Hypermart [ Join | Terms | Help | Directory ]
"Free Business Hosting"

Free web space (10 MB)
Free email forwarding
Free personal newsgroup
Free CGI access
Requires you to display their banners on your pages


ProHosting [ Join | Terms | Help | Directory ]
"Free web hosting"

Free web space (10 MB)
Free email
Free CGI access
Requires you to display their banners on your pages


The Globe [ Join | Terms | Help | Directory ]
"Your friendly full-service intergrated online community."

Free web space (6 MB)
Free email
Free chat system
Requires you to display their banners on your pages

1,400,000+ members as of 16-May-1998.

Tripod [ Join | Terms | Help | Directory ]
"Make it your home base on the Web"

Free web space (5 MB)
Requires you to display their banners on your pages

1,462,658 members, 2,700,000+ member pages and 68+ communities as of 16-May-1998.

XOOM [ Join | Terms | Help | Directory ]

Free web space (11 MB)
Free email
Requires you to display their banners on your pages

1,068,547 members as of 16-May-1998.


Need more choices?

freewebspace.net

Guide to free webhosting services. Here you can find the information you need to get free web hosting for your homepage.

Dieter's Free Hompage Guide

Don't have a news reader software or access to a news server? Not to worry, just point your web browser to:

    Deja News

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

There are thousands of newsgroups covering virtually everything anyone could possibly be interested in. So, how do you find a newsgroup that interest you? Try the following link:

    Infinite Ink's Finding News Groups

You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Internet Explorer has the built-in support for marquees, and here's the simplest way to put one on your page:
<marquee bgcolor = yellow>
hello, world!
</marquee>

If you're using Navigator 3.x, Explorer 4.x or higher (or compatible browser), try slowly moving your mouse over the following image blocks:

 


If you have JavaScript enabled, you'll notice how above blocks change colors when you move your mouse over them. Using the same technique, you can create "animated" buttons as in the following example:

 


We're taking advantage of the fact that you can change the source of an image using JavaScript, which in turn would change the image itself, by using the following syntax:

<SCRIPT language="JavaScript" TYPE="text/javascript">
document.images[ <image#> ].src = "your_img.gif";
</SCRIPT>
Listing #1 : JavaScript code. Download chimg.htm (0.22 KB). You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

"image#" is the image ID that you want to change. For example, if you have 3 images on your page you can use 2 as the image ID to change the 3rd image on your page. Image IDs start at 0, which means your first image ID is 0, second is 1 and the third is 2.

In our animated button example, we're using "OnMouseOver" and "OnMouseOut" JavaScript events to change the images. Let's look at the complete JavaScript code used to create above examples. Note that following code block must be inserted onto your page if you wish to animate your buttons as explained in this document:

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript" TYPE="text/javascript">

//
// variables required for our purposes
//
nImg1ID = 0
nImg2ID = 0
nImg3ID = 0
bCalled = 0

//
// we require a Netscape 3.x or compatible
// determine this by checking for agent IDs:
//   Mozilla/3 or Mozilla/4
//
bCompatibleBrowser =
(
  (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("a/3",6)
   >= 0) ||
  (navigator.userAgent.indexOf("a/4",6)
   >= 0)
);

//
// this function was created to make things
// compatible in the old days. if you're
// using Netscape 4.x, Explorer 4.x or higher
// there are easier ways to get image IDs
// such as using the image name
//
function FindImageIDs()
{
  //
  // skip if we've already done this
  //
  if( bCalled )
  {
    return;
  }

  if( bCompatibleBrowser )
  {
    //
    // find the index of our images
    // -- blue and green blocks --
    // by going through all the image
    // src names up to this point
    //
    for( i = 0;
         i < document.images.length;
         i++ )
    {
      if( document.images[ i ].src.indexOf(
          "/i/tips/32x32blue.gif" ) >= 0)
      {
        nImg1ID = i;
      }
      else
      if( document.images[ i ].src.indexOf(
          "/i/tips/32x32green.gif" ) >= 0)
      {
        nImg2ID = i;
      }
      else
      if( document.images[ i ].src.indexOf(
          "/i/tips/home1a.gif" ) >= 0)
      {
        nImg3ID = i;
      }
    }
  }

  //
  // note that our job is done
  //
  bCalled = 1;
}


//
// change the source of a given
// image using its image ID
//
function ChangeImage( nImgID, sImgSrc )
{
  if( bCompatibleBrowser )
  {
    if(document.images)
    {
      document.images[ nImgID ].src
        = sImgSrc;
    }
  }
}

</SCRIPT>
Listing #2 : JavaScript code. Download chimg2.htm (0.84 KB). You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Now, let's look at the HTML code used in our 2nd example animated home button (sample image obtained from Explorer 3.x):

<a onMouseOver =
   "FindImageIDs();
    ChangeImage( nImg3ID,
    '/i/tips/home1b.gif' );
    return true"

   onMouseOut  =
   "FindImageIDs();
    ChangeImage( nImg3ID,
    '/i/tips/home1a.gif' );
    return true"
><img
   src = "/i/tips/home1a.gif"
   border=0 width=50 height=40
></a>
Listing #3 : HTML code. Download anibtn (0.28 KB). You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

By calling "FindImageIDs()" function, we first find out the image ID (or the index) of our animated button's image -- "home1a.gif" Then we simply call "ChangeImage()" function to change "home1a.gif" to the image we want to replace it with. If the mouse is over our image, then we change it to "home1b.gif". If the mouse is outside the image boundary, we change it back to "home1a.gif"

Of course, we didn't have to use "FindImageIDs()" function to get image IDs; we could have manually counted images on the page. For example, if you know the ID of the image that you want to animate, let's say it's 1 (the 2nd image on your page), you could use the follwoing code instead:

<a onMouseOver =
   "ChangeImage( 1,
    '/i/tips/home1b.gif' );
    return true"

   onMouseOut  =
   "ChangeImage( 1,
    '/i/tips/home1a.gif' );
    return true"
><img
   src = "/i/tips/home1a.gif"
   border=0 width=50 height=40
></a>
Listing #4 : HTML code. Download anibtn2 (0.27 KB). You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login

Using "FindImageIDs()" function insures that our image IDs will stay correct even if we change the placement of images on the page, which in turn would change the image IDs.

Although the concept of pocket size computers isn't new, pocket size web browsers supporting the latest Internet standards are. Believe it or not, now you can actually run Internet Explorer on a pocket size computer running Windows CE operating system.

    Windows CE
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