The definition of a web site that refuses to upgrade is one that does not "understand" anything other than Internet Explorer 6 or 7. For many this is a constant source of frustration for three very good reasons:

1. Internet Explorer 8 has been in existence for almost seven months at the time of this writing. The administrators of these "IE only" web sites couldn’t figure out how to write in support for 8 in this span of time? Apparently not.
2. Many choose not to use IE, but they’re out of luck when certain web sites will only support IE 6/7 and nothing else.
3. Windows 7 comes provided with IE 8 (unless you’re in the UK.) These computers will be on the shelves very soon and in come places already are. What does one do in that situation since they can’t "degrade" to IE 7 or 6 just to get certain web sites to work?

There are two ways to get around problematic web sites like this.

Method 1. Using IE 6 or 7 in WINE for Linux

WINE has had the ability to run a whole bunch of different IEs for some time now. Versions 1 all the way thru 8 are available, but the ones you would be interested in for compatibility’s sake are 6 and 7.

The only problem you may encounter running IE this way is that certain plugins for IE may not work when used in WINE. This is rare, but it can happen if it’s some ActiveX oddball plugin or something like that.

Method 2. Windows 2000 or XP virtual PC

On my Windows 7 desktop I purposely keep a barebones setup of XP running with IE 6 in VirtualBox. When I upgraded to Win 7 I already had an existing fully licensed copy of XP Professional Edition, so that’s what I have used in the virtual PC.

In Windows you have three major choices for computer virtualization, that being the aforementioned VirtualBox, Microsoft’s Virtual PC or VMware. I choose VirtualBox because it operates exactly the same in Windows, Mac or Linux – and I truly like that kind of compatibility because no matter what OS I’m on, VirtualBox is always familiar. However you may like Virtual PC or VMware better as far as your personal preferences are concerned. I will say the easiest of the bunch is Microsoft’s version because it’s very straightforward – but it only works under Windows.

Setting up your virtual PC with IE 6 or 7, and other notes

If you have a fully licensed OEM disc of Microsoft Windows XP, such as I do, this comes with IE 6 as its bundled web browser. What I’ve done in my virtual XP PC is used Microsoft Update to patch up every single thing I possibly could except the browser. This can be done easily. What I have is an XP that does have IE 6 for those web sites that absolutely refuse to work right with anything else.

VirtualBox running XP Professional Edition with the IE 6 browser

A bunch of updates in the virtual PC with XP, including Service Pack 3 – but still on IE 6

It is the fortunate case that web sites that are IE6-only are dwindling slowly but surely off the internet, but instead of embracing multi-browser capability, they’re latching on to IE 7 which is just as bad.

For the time being, I use a virtual XP with IE 6 and if I have to go to 7, this can be downloaded without going to 8 with XP, and I’m sure Microsoft will be keeping this download on their web site for at least a few more years.

Even if you are running XP with IE 8 now and plan to stick with that for a while, you can still use Virtual PC or VirtualBox to install another Windows XP (assuming you have another legal licensed copy) with IE 6 or 7. This will work fine.

The only thing you cannot do is have both IE 7 and 8 in the same Windows OS at the same time. While that would be really great if you could do that, it’s simply not an option. The easiest workaround is to have a virtual PC with a previous-generation browser.

For those of you out there who do not have another legal copy of Windows, my suggestion is to use VirtualBox and install a distribution of Linux, such as Ubuntu, and use IE 6 or 7 via WINE. Most distributions make this very easy to install, and I may even write up another article on how to do just that so it’s even easier for you.

Some people may be under the impression that if a web site loads slowly and/or causes your browser to crash that it might be your computer’s fault it happened.

Not necessarily.

There are several things that people interpret as a fault with their computer when in fact it isn’t.

Things that are not your fault when problems happen loading web sites

Web site server issues

PCMech even suffers from this periodically (it is a largely visited site). It happened yesterday. When sites go slow due to server issues, that has nothing to do with your internet connection whatsoever.

The best way to find out if a site is having problems is to perform a Twitter search. This does not require a Twitter account at all. For example, if your were having a problem with Gmail, search Twitter for that term. If you see a bunch of other people having similar issues, then you know it’s not your fault.

And yes, Twitter itself has another site that checks this.

Flash

Many people hate Flash with a passion. Flash will crash any browser. It will even crash your OS at times. Most of us use Flash when we view video content on the internet. Even if you have a brand new multi-thousand dollar Mac Pro with 32GB of RAM in it, Flash will at times cause OS X to have a kernel panic, forcing a restart of the OS. Not even a BSD-based UNIX is immune to this (and you can’t get any more stable than UNIX).

Flash has never had an in-program way of disabling it. Either it’s installed and on-demand whenever a request from a web site is made, or you have it uninstalled completely as there is no "off" option. Fortunately there are add-ons like Flashblock for Firefox that can temporarily disable Flash. This allows the option of having it enabled only when you want it to be. It’s sad that an add-on like that needs to exist when there should be an in-program way of doing it, but it’s better than nothing.

Slashdotting/Digg Effect

If a particular article on a web site triggers a massive response from the internet as a whole, an onslaught of requests hit the web server and will at times temporarily take it offline due to the sheer amount of incoming traffic. The original phrase for this effect was called Slashdotting, but it is also known as Digg effect. Either means the same thing in general conversation.

When this happens, the site you’re trying to get to will either load very slowly or not at all until the traffic goes back down to normal levels.

OS/Browser limitations

Certain web sites will make too many network requests. This in combination with an OS limitation either by bug or design will render your internet connectivity unusable for a minute or two.

The best example of this is Google Maps using the Windows operating system. That web site uses many different servers in order to display map data in your browser. If you zoom very quickly around the map, this makes so many network requests that Windows will literally lock any further requests and make it appear that your internet connection isn’t working. This is incorrect. It is working, but Windows is specifically designed to limit network requests for security purposes. The solution is to close the browser, wait 60 to 90 seconds, and your internet connection will start working again.

To date, I have only been able to replicate this rare instance using the Google Maps web site. And yes, it still happens.

Is this a fault of Windows? No. It’s a fault of Google Maps. Other mapping web sites never have this issue. Only on Google Maps (and not Google Earth) does this occur.

The browser itself is also purposely designed to only accept a limited amount of network (as in http) requests at any given time.

In Internet Explorer 8, the maximum concurrent connections to a single host allowed is 6. This is an improvement over previous editions of IE where the setting is 4. This is yet another reason to use the most current version of IE, should you use that browser.

In Firefox 3.5.3 (the latest version at the time of this writing), the maximum concurrent connections to a single host is also 6. However it should be noted that the maximum total http connections in Firefox is 30, with a per-server of 15. The 6 applies to the persistent connections per server (which is what matters the most).

You can see these settings by typing about:config and searching for the term connection, like this:

I strongly recommend against modifying these settings. Increasing the maximum connections or other "max" values for other connection settings ordinarily will not increase your transfer speeds at all.

Webmaster error

This mainly happens on personal web sites. If a the owner of a web site is using WordPress for example, and installs a WP plugin that doesn’t exactly work correctly which causes "weird" things to happen to the site, this is obviously not your fault.

"Showpiece" web sites

These are web sites that are so full of Flash (of course) that there’s actually a pretty good chance it will crash your browser unless you have a fairly fast computer.

A classic example of this is the Transformers Movie web site.

This web site is absolutely horrible. It will bring your web browser to its knees. When you click "Enter Site" it will purposely force full screen. Horrible, horrible, horrible. You will hate this web site in very short order. The only thing that will save your browser from crashing is if it’s the current version of IE or Firefox (both have well-written code to accommodate for super-bloat sites with craptastic Flash).

Web sites like these are showpieces and nothing more. They serve no purpose other than to be glitzy and have plenty of "wow" factor. Said another way, useless.

If the site hoses your browser, I sincerely apologize in advance.

Yahoo, yes (that Yahoo) made some significant changes to their main web site. While this angered some, to those I say this: Yahoo is not Google, and I’m glad it’s not. If you’re expecting Y! to be another Google clone, it isn’t. And it shouldn’t be.

The first thing I do on Yahoo is switch over to the compact view and change the color to blue (just my preference). This is located at the far right:

From there, Y! is slim and trim, the way I like it:

For those using 1024×768 displays, yes, Y! is still very friendly to that resolution (even in Y’s "full" mode).

Above: Adding in (or removing) favorites is easy. And yes you can add in non-Yahoo sites.

You will notice that at least in compact mode, Yahoo.com does not scroll-scroll-scroll down like it did before. It’s been cleaned up considerably and yes it is easier to use.

My only immediate complaints are these:

No links are underlined

I’m a fervent believer in having as many links underlined as possible to there’s no guessing whatsoever, especially for the color blind who cannot distinguish black text from blue.

Should have more my.yahoo.com features

My.yahoo.com has things like tabs and moveable boxes. The main Y! site should have this also.

If you’re going to have a logo color change, it should be universal

Pick a color and stick with it, Yahoo. Yahoo.com has a purple logo now. My.yahoo.com has a red logo. Mail.yahoo.com and several other Y! services still have the red logo.

If you’re going to commit to the purple, then, well.. commit.

Are you a Yahoo?

Many of you out there use Yahoo.com as your home page. Are the changes welcome or should Y! have stayed with the old format?

The purpose of a team web site is for organization and communication. You may lead a team, be it a gaming team, bowling team, soccer team, etc. and are in need of a central location for all team activities. A web site takes care of that. So the next time a member needs any information about anything going on with the team, you point them to the site.

These are my tips on creating a team web site that will work for you and your team.

The site itself

This does not need to be a dot-com or even a domain for that matter. It can be something as simple as a group-style site or a forum, both of which are freely available.

Example group sites: Yahoo! Groups, Google Groups, Windows Live Groups

Example free forum sites: ForumUp, Boardnation, Proboards (and there are many more besides these)

Which should you pick?

This is dependent on what type of team you have.

Gamers for example typically prefer forums over group sites. And if your team only requires a place to discuss things, a forum will do just fine.

Group sites are better suited for teams that have need for more than just a discussion forum. Group site providers offer calendaring, bulletin posting, to-dos, integrated instant messaging, and so on.

Bear in mind that for group sites you should pick the service that more of your team members use. If most use Hotmail and the Windows Live Messenger, it would be better to use Windows Live Groups. If most use Yahoo, use Yahoo Groups. You get the idea. Pick the one that best accommodates what the team already uses. This will make it much easier to convince them to actually go to the site and check for updates.

Bulletins – Email or Instant Messaging?

Posting bulletins is a big part of running a team site. Team members must stay informed as to what’s going on.

Email is the easier of the two to send out bulletins because you can mass-send. With IM it’s not as easy. Some allow it while others do not.

Group sites and most forums allow to send broadcast messages to all members which is another reason why email is easier.

Perk of a group site: You can actually send a bulletin to both email and IM at the same time. Since the service is integrated to the messenger, members will receive notices on both mediums.

Convincing your team members to start using your team site

You’ve put together a site, be it a group, forum or whatever else you decided to use. Now you’ve got to convince your team to actually use it, and yes, this is always the hardest part.

If your team is a bit on the lazy side, make the team site sound "cool" and interesting to use. Send an email to the team stating something like, "HEY, GUYS! Just put together a brand new team site! It’s here [insert web address here]. All future team bulletins will be posted at that place, so see you there!"

Alternatively you can just be a dictator and say, "Use this site I made or you’re off the team, bucko." But that really doesn’t promote team spirit.

Communication is key

We’ll say Lady Luck is on your side and all your team members start using your site. Very good.

Now it’s your job to keep it updated.

The deal is that if you convince everybody to start using the site, and then you don’t use it yourself, this makes you look bad, and you don’t want that.

Keep up communications with the team site. You wanted it, after all. If there comes a point where you’d rather have someone else post news and bulletins, elect someone in the team to do it.

Have you ever run a team site?

What advice would you give? Let us know in the comments.

Now that we have used a table to create a basic layout for our website, we can expand the site to more than one web page. Watch below as I show you how to do this. After all, almost all sites have more than one page involved.

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Tables can obviously be used to lay out data in an organized way. However, you can also use tables to create the overall structure of your website. This video below will explain and show how to do this.

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Now that this course has provided the basics on hand-coding your HTML, we will delve into the world of WYSIWYG editors. Using an editor like this will allow you to create your web pages in a much quicker fashion and in a style much more similar to a word processor. You can accomplish much of what you need without doing any HTML coding by hand.

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What makes the Internet into the “world wide web”? Or more accurately, what makes it a “web”? It is links. See, if there is a web page floating out there on a server with no links pointing to it, it might as well be completely off the Internet. Nobody can get to it! It is links which link one web page to another and it is links which form the continuous flow that is the Internet experience.

Obviously, a link is essentially an element on a web page that, when clicked, takes the user to another page. When that link is a text, it is usually signified by being an underlined and your mouse cursor will turn into a little hand. You clicked on a link to get into this very lesson.

OK, now let us jump right into how to create a link.

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Tables are something you will probably need to make use of on your web pages. You may use them to simply structure your data for easy viewing. Some people actually use tables to form the basic layout of their pages. I will address using tables for design later in this course. For now, let me simply introduce the HTML needed to create simple tables.

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Often, the difference between a “blah” looking webpage and a good looking one comes down to the images used. Images are used not only to accent your text, but also for the actual design and layout of your web page. We will get into how to actually design a web page a little later in this course, but for now it is necessary to know how to insert images into your HTML.

In the Introduction to Website Files, I talked about what a JPEG, GIF and PNG image file is. These are image files, and these files are SEPARATE from your HTML file. You use an HTML tag to reference the external image into your HTML document.

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OK, before we get going with creating your own website, there are a few things to think about and gather together.

An Idea

Before creating your own website, you need to have some idea of exactly what you are trying to do with it and what you would like to accomplish. You can consult the Reasons To Have a Website lesson in this course for more information on the different types of sites that are out there.

The reason I mention this again on the checklist is because I believe you should put a little planning into your new website. It is best to think about your ultimate goal and then work backwards. For example, are you looking to create a site to talk about yourself and potentially “sell” you to recruiters? The goal here would be an impressed recruiter. They will need to have information about you (i.e. a resume) and will want to see that information on a professional-looking website. Want to keep your family updated on what is happening in your life? You’ll probably want a site which allows easy updating often (a blog).

With a relatively firm grasp of where you want to go with this, let us get into the different tools you are going to need to get moving.

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The first step to getting into this field is to understand how it works. Here are some questions that I have found many people simply don’t understand:

• How does the internet work?
• When I put up a website, where does it go?
• When I enter a website address into my browser, what is happening?

I have talked to people about this and the confusion is definitely rampant. Most people have never really thought about where a website comes from. Its just the mysterious “they” who do it, I guess. Also, contrary to what Senator Ted Stevens said, the internet is not really a “series of tubes”.

So, let’s take a look at how this all works.

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Before we begin in earnest, let’s talk about why you might want to have a website. There are a lot of different types of sites out there and the great part about the internet, in general, is that it is a free medium to do with what you want.

Some of the common things people do on their websites today are:

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