Frequently Asked Questions

In the navigation area, in the row labelled "assignments", there is a list of the 7 assignments. Each one is a link that takes you to the actual assignment.

How do I know when the assignments are due?

On the syllabus, near the bottom, is a table that shows when each assignment is due.

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. Many students love the CD and depend heavily on it.

Help! I'm confused about all the different usernames and passwords!

There are three. (1) Your CATE Username and Password, which you made up when you checked-in to the class. You will use these ONLY when you take the quizzes. If you've forgotten your CATE Username and Password go here:

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

(2) Your student server Username and Password, which were given to you when you created your student server account. The Username is usually "<first initial><last name>" (or something close). The Password is "<first initial><last initial><last 5 digits of your SSN>". You use these when you connect to the student server. Also, I require you to type this username in the "Name" field when you post a message on the message board. If you've forgotten your Student Username and Password, fill out the form in this link:

https://student.santarosa.edu/apply/

(3) The password for the message board is "html".

How can I do well in the class?

The best strategy for doing well in this class is to do the required reading from the text CAREFULLY! Don't skim. Read every word, and then re-read. When the text suggests that you do an exercise, actually sit down and do it before you go on to the next page!

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 not be paying much attention to your content. Just don't make a bunch of webpages that say "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?

No. In the grading of your assignments I will not be paying attention to aesthetics. This is a class on the technical skills required to create webpages; it is not a design class. I will be looking for good, correct coding techniques and design issues that affect the user, such as easy navigation and quick loading speeds.

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 website. This means, for example, that every assignment after assignment 3 will include a navbar at the top.

What is the message board password?

html

Is it ok if I include features in my website that we have not yet covered in the class?

No. This usually ends up confusing the student who tries, not to mention the instructor trying to grade the work. Please avoid this.

How do I validate my web pages? Or why does the validator say "no referer header found" when I click on the validation icon?

How do you validate a web page? If you have uploaded it to the server, all you need to do is click on the validation button at the bottom of the page, and you will get the report. However, if you want to test your pages before you upload them to a server, or if the validator says "No referer header found," you will need to do the following:

Go to http://validator.w3.org/.
You may either click on the button to "Validate by File Upload" OR
Copy your HTML code and paste it into the box labeled "Validate by Direct Input".

How do you fix problems reported by the validator? This isn't always easy. First of all, don't be shattered if 27 (or more) errors are reported. There is probably one problem toward the top of the file that causes many subsequent problems. If you fix the one at the top, many, if not all, of the others will disappear. If you're really stuck, just send me an email and I will be glad to help you.

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

This is a browser issue. Some browsers do not correctly display the border. Try a different browser, such as Firefox. Also, try inserting the DOCTYPE tag from the template in assignment 2; this also may solve the problem.

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

This is probably because you copied a character (such as a smart-quote or a smart-apostrophe or a dash) from a document that you created using a Microsoft product 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. Make sure that when you type it, the quotes (or apostrophe) go straight up and down, not curved left or right. Also, make sure you have your preferences set in notepad to use plain text.

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 servers do not declare a default charset, and so you can use either UTF-8 or ISO-8859-1. However, the student 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". You should try it just for fun. Why do you care about this? If, after this class, you transfer your pages to another 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 it the trouble 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.

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

A relative path means that you are stating the location of the file RELATIVE to the current folder; so, for example, if you are working in a file named "x.html", you could say simply "contact.html" and the browser knows that you mean "the file named contact.html that is in the same folder as the file x.html". With an absolute path, you are telling the browser the exact location of the file without regard for where the current file is. So to get to that same file (contact.html) I might have to type "http://student.santarosa.edu/~dharden1/contact.html". In terms of when to use relative paths and when to use absolute paths, you should always use relative paths when the file you are trying to refer to is part of the same website. You should always use absolute paths wen the file you are trying to refer to is in some other website.

Why won't my FTP application let me delete my folders?

Before you can delete a folder you must delete everything inside the folder. If you are using Fugu, there is the additional complication that some files are considered "hidden", so you think you have deleted everything inside the folder, but there are actually still hidden files there. Choose SFTP -> Show Hidden Files to show the hidden files, then delete them, then delete the folder.

Designing Web Pages 2