September 9, 1999

Page 1

Quick Note From The Editor

Well I hope that all of you enjoyed the holiday weekend, the last holiday weekend of the summer! It doesn't seem possible that the summer is all but over does it? The kids are back to school though and that's a good thing! Peace and quiet reigns supreme now between 7:30am and 2:45pm. Almost time to start preparing for the next fun holiday...Halloween! One of the best holidays ever as far as I'm concerned. Okay enough of the chit-chat on to this week's issue. ENJOY!

Ok, so nobody wanted to write in and tell us about the marketing program that they are involved with. That's okay, we will just continue writing our reviews of programs that we have found and you can decide for yourselves whether or not you would like to get involved.

I will extend the offer again. Send us your information about the program you are involved in and we will review it and possibly publish it in next week's issue. If you include a link to your site or the site to sign up with the program, it will be included in our review. We will not replace your link. If you receive a commission when someone signs up under you, please include the appropriate link.

We are trying to help you and would also like for you to help us make this publication better. If you notice a mistake, please let us know. Help us help you.

Rick Barr
Nicole Bibee

PS: I was thinking about adding an area for you to request the readers to review your site. One site per week based on first come first serve basis. What do you think? ezine@prodigy.net

On To Page 2

Page 2

In The Spotlight
written by Nicole Bibee

Ever heard the phrase ... "If You Make It They Will Come?" Well I made it but no one ever showed up at my web page! Why? Lets face it, without advertising, your web page may grow cyber cob webs fast. So I would like to start something new to help you promote your site.

This weeks FREE Link exchange program is Smart Clicks. You show members banner ads on your site, and they show your ads on their sites. For every 2 banner impressions you show, 1 banner credit is awarded to you. Try it out today and visit: www.smartage.com/smartclicks/.

No web page? Get one here!
written by Rick Barr

So it crossed my mind today that perhaps not all of you have your own web site. We have spent alot of time going over some HTML basics and telling you about things to help you with your site, but what if you don't have a site?

If you don't have a web site, there are alot of places to get one. There are more than a few free sites that you can choose to get yourself going, and that is what we will talk about here. I think the best place to find a free site is the search engine at www.freewebspace.net. Here you can search for a site by the amount of space that they give you, access to a cgi/bin, and more. If it's not in their database then it probably isn't worth bothering with.

Now, you might ask..."Why do I need my own site? The affiliate program I am involved with gave me my own free site with all the pages created for me."

The answer is a simple one...Most search engines will not index a site that contains the special characters that are more often than not found in these affiliate site's URL's. These characters include (but are not limited to) "?" , "!" and also addresses with "cgi-bin" in them. So, getting indexed in the search engines will not work if you have one of these types of sites.

Now you can see the importance of having your own web site or at least web page that will contain links to your various affiliate programs. If you are new to HTML you might want to go with a site such as www.angelfire.com, www.tripod.com, or www.geocities.com as these sites offer a user friendly interface for designing your site.

Angelfire, for example, allows you to choose all the elements of our site visually. All you have to do is choose your background color using radio buttons, type in your link addresses and text. It is possibly the best way to go when you are just starting HTML or don't know HTML.

On To Page 3

Page 3

Beginning HTML - Image Maps
written by Nicole Bibee

This week we are discussing client side image maps. An image map is a graphical representation used to access multiple targets, these defined areas (hotspots) act as a link to other documents or locations. An advantage to a client side map is the processing is done locally by the web browser. The only downside to image maps are some older browsers do not support them.

Lets say you have a map of the United States which outlines the states and their locations. Also you want to give the user the choice to view information on a particular state. This is where image maps come in handy. You can define a specific area (hotspot) which will link to another location where that information is located.

First when defining your image map, you will need to decide on the shapes for the hotspot and the coordinates of this shape. There are only three defined shapes that can be used: RECTangle, CIRCLE and POLYgon. When defining these shapes you will need the coordinates that coincide with them.

A RECTangle coordinates consist of 2 sets of 4 exact pixel points:
1) x_left and y_upper --> (0,0)
2) x_right and y_lower (80,20)

A CIRCLE uses:
1) x_center
2) y_center
3) radius
For example --> (161, 130, 49)

A POLYgon uses the coordinates of each vertex in the shape. In my opinion, the polygon is the shape that requires the most coordinates. Now there are plenty of web sites that will help you get the specific coordinates for your image map. They are located at:

Windows Platform
Web Hotspots 3.0 S Edition
LiveImage


Macintosh Platform
Mac-ImageMap
MapServe


Windows, UNIX
Mapedit

We have the general idea so lets proceed on with the code. First we will need to name our image map and have the img src tag use the code USEMAP="#mapname" to create the hotspots. Then we will define the shapes and coordinates of the map. We will also need to define the URL associated with the hotspot shape.There are four general steps when writing the code:

1) Create the map name with <.MAP NAME="nameofmap">
2) Define the area shape, coords and url
3) Close the Map code with <./MAP>
4) Add the USEMAP property to the <.IMG> tag

Here's is an example of the code:
<.IMG SRC="/images/pic.gif" USEMAP="#states">
<.MAP NAME="states">
<.AREA SHAPE=RECT COORDS="0,0,80,20" HREF="www.angelfire.com">
<.AREA SHAPE=CIRCLE COORDS="161,130,49 HREF="www.yourname.com">
<.AREA SHAPE=POLY COORDS="29,4,29,41,111,41,111,78,213,78,213,4" HREF="www.msn.com">
<./MAP>

However viewing this image in different browsers may cause a colored border around the image. I suggest using border=0 in the img src tag to hinder the border from appearing. We have learned how to create a single image to link to several locations and documents. That wraps up this weeks discussion. Next week we will cover creating tables.

Notice: We had to insert a period after the less than sign to make the tags viewable by your browser. When writting your own code please do not add the period to the tags.

On To Page 4

Page 4

This Week's Download
written by Rick Barr

I found a pretty good one for you this week. It is a doorway page creator. If you don't know what doorway pages are, they are specially designed pages that point to your site that help you get better rankings in the search engines. You can download it at Direct 2 U Online

It takes the keywords that you specify and the links that you give it and makes a HTML document for you to upload to your site. I would recommend setting up a couple of free sites with a doorway page to your main site and submitting them to the search engines.

It is a free program. The size is 154kb so it is a relatively quick download.

A Word From This Week's Sponsor

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