If I have a Google web search form placed in my site, how can I set it up so that there is one input box (for the web search) but two submit buttons - one for a web 'text' search, and one for a google image search? Is that even doable??

I have added a Paypal button to my weblog but I can't figure out how to put the text above or below the buy now button so that people know that they are buying before they click on it. I am just learning about HTML?

This is a really basic question, but I'm still just trying to figure all this Internet stuff out. I don't know any HTML. I would like to know how to a) place HTML in my coding to turn a paragraph color to red and b) increase the font size.

I have a search box on my Web site that I got from the Amazon Associates program and it's a nice addition to the site, except that I really want people to only have results from their books department, not all across the Amazon system. Is that possible?

How can I protect my website html pages, graphics, etc. from being viewed, and/or manipulated by casual viewers? IOW, what do I need to set up so that if someone tries to go to "www.mysite.com/pics" (for example), they would get a "no permission" message?

I love CSS. I would like to use CSS menus. I have seen several versions on the netover the last 12months (I currently use a javascript menu system). My biggest problem with these CSS menus is that you have to put the menu code into each HTML page as far as I can see). This means a menu change for a site must be updated in every page.

This seems to go against the idea that CSS can be used to change the look and feel of an entire web site by just chnaging the external style sheet. Do you know of a way of putting CSS menus information in an external file that can be linked or imported into the HTML?

I'm writing a webpage registration program for a local non-profit, and I've been trying action="mailto:myaddr@yahoo.com" thinking that it would send me the stuff that my CGI script will get (method is POST) but I don't see anything. Is there a way to see what my cgi script will see w/o having to do the server side stuff first?

I'm just starting out in the Web world and was just told by someone else who I respect that I should be careful with the JPEG graphics format because it's "lossy". I have no idea what that means, however. Can you enlighten me?

I am trying to make a web page and am having trouble with the HTML. I want to make some links at different places on the picture on the front page. Could you help me with the code? Right now the whole picture is a link, but I would like to make the ENTER sign a link as well. If you could just point me in the right direction
it would help a lot...

Dave, I have added Google to my webpage using the "Google free" code. Can you please tell me how can i by default place the cursor in google search box?

I've been reading your Creating Cool Web Sites book, and what I'd like you ask you is how do I put a picture on website? Even though you have mentioned it I am not sure what to write in the <img src='__" />. I am not sure where you get that part if you want to download a picture from the Internet. It would be a great help.

Hi there, I noticed, on a previous entry, somebody asked how to add a countdown timer to their website, well I am also interested in one for my website, on how long until the next clan match is for Socom II, am i able to get a visual countdown timer, where when people go on the website, they can watch it count down, also, could it say days, hours minutes, etc, and also maybe colourful.

I'm having a problem with a title block on one of my sites. When the browser window is below a certain size (about 750px in width), one of my absolute positioned divs overlaps another. How do I make it so that the browser just displays a scroll bar once this minimum size is acheived rather than starts overlapping my divs?

Dave, I have a email link on a web page. Set so when you click it, the email opens with the address and subject line populated. I want to have the cursor OR Hello show up in the Body of the email. I am told 'ONLY' with forms but I am sure I did this years ago. Here is what I have so far:

      "mailto:me@my-addr.com?Subject=Dear Kirk"

Do you know the code to finish it off?

I really enjoyed your article about the "mail to" problem many of us rely on for folks to contact us for one reason or another.

While I am just a geekette wanna-be, and am at best a stumbling dabbler in script and coding, I was wondering if you could share greater detail about how you scripted your contact form? When I took a look at the source code, not that I understand a lot of it, I was unable to determine how the message gets to where it needs to go without specifying the destination in the HTML?

Dave, I know that I can easily add links to my Web pages that let people click and send me an email message by specifying a mailto: URL. However, I've heard rumors that there are some problems with spammers snagging those addresses of my site? I hate spam, should I just avoid email addresses entirely?

Dave, I have read your Creating Cool HTML 4 WebPages and gotten into basic web-designing. I have one pestering question though. Say you have two frames, is there any way you can prevent the frames resizing if you resize your window? For instance, a maximized window viewing these frames is fine, but when it is not maximized it may cut off some information and pop that annoying scrollbar next to it. It can, anyway, disrupt ease and fluidness of the site.

Hello Dave, I work on Mac OS X and I have been trying to add a favicon.ico to my website's address bar, only to find that it only shows when I open it with Netscape or Firefox, all the other browsers like Safari and Explorer don't seem to recognize it.... Can you help?? It is driving me mad...

Dave, I'm writing something where I need to place various currency symbols in an HTML file. (euros, yens, and pounds) Is it best to use names like &yen; or numbers like &#165;? I presume just putting the raw text character in the file is bad.

Dave, I read your HTML primer for bloggers, but I'm confused because on the sites I add comments, I have to use something called bbcode, not HTML. What is bbcode and how do I use it?

Dave, I've just started a weblog of my own and am finding that I need to learn a few HTML tags to make my entries as attractive as possible. I'd also like to learn how to link to other sites and other Weblogs, but really haven't much of a clue other than that HTML has < and > around different letters. Can you give me a quick primer?

How do I validate my Web pages and end up with one of those nifty "xhtml 1.0 verified" graphics for my page?

Dave, I notice that whenever you mention any products on Amazon, your links always go straight to the recommended product (rather than their annoying intermediate landing page where they try to sell you on other products) and neatly tuck your affiliate link in too. So, do tell, what's your secret technique?

Dave, I've started a new web site that uses web standards throughout, including CSS layout instead of tables, even for forms. Works great in Mozilla, Firefox, Safari, IE 5 for Mac, etc. Guess what the problem is? Yep, it's Internet Explorer for Windows. The form looks like absolute garbage on IE 5.5 and IE 6 for Windows. Any ideas how I can fix this to use CSS layout for forms, even with IE?

I received this email from a younger reader: "Dave, thanks for your cool book Cool Web Sites, but I still need a bit of help. I want to have a little box on my page that shows the person the current date, like you'd see on a day-a-page calendar. I figure you can do that in CSS and Javascript, but I can't figure it out. Can ya help me?"

"Dave, I've been having great results using the hover attribute within my CSS style sheets, but when I have graphical buttons, sometimes they end up with the background-color change hover attribute as a small drop-shadow that only appears when the mouse is over the element. Y'know what I mean? How do I disable this?"

A funny email message arrived: " The other day, I was working on a site when I stumbled across a forgotten corner of HTML. The <dl> tag is a "definition list"; it uses alternating <dt> ("definition term") and <dd> ("definition definition", it seems) child elements. This sort of markup fits pretty well for, say, dates and news items, so I've used it for that.

"My question for you is, what are your favorite obscure tags? I'm not talking about <img> or <br> -- I'm talking about the ones everybody's forgotten about, like the <dl> tag. Other bits of obscurity (like weird CSS selectors) are welcome too, of course. :^)"

While going through my book Creating Cool Web Sites with HTML, XHTML and CSS for a class I was teaching at the University of Colorado, Boulder, I realized that a gremlin crawled into the page proofs and somehow I ended up with IE-specific DOM reference code to show how CSS and Javascript can interrelate, rather than the approved standards-based approach.

I've been using various versions of Firefox for quite a while, but this week marked an important milestone in the evolution of this slim, small Web browser from the Mozilla team: the release of version 1.0, the first "official" release version of the program. Is it a good browser? Oh yeah, I have lots of good things to say about Firefox and its many capabilities (though why it can't import Safari configuration settings is a bit puzzling). But there are some gotchas too, particularly from the perspective of a Web developer.

The question arose: "I'm always forgetting to change the copyright notices on the bottom of my Web pages, so it's not uncommon for me to have 2003 as the copyright well into 2004, and I'm sure that I'll do the same thing in 2005. Help! Surely there's some easy SSI trick for fixing this?"

I occasionally receive email from people telling me that they think they've become quite the HTML/CSS mavens and are curious if there are any competitions they could enter to demonstrate their prowess. It's a great idea if you think about it, because I know that I've certainly come across little CSS pages or JavaScript widgets that are just, well, amazing. So how do you get some peer and industry recognition for this skillset?

A reader writes:

I've really learned a lot from your book Creating Cool Web Sites with HTML, XHTML and CSS, but now that I have a site, I'd like to find out more ways to build traffic and maybe even make a few bucks off advertising. Can you help?

A reader writes:

" On page 62 of Creating Cool HTML 4 Web Sites, the first line of code (<link type="text/css" href="mystyles.css" /> does not seem to work until I add 'rel=stylesheet'. I've tried it out on both IE 6.0 and Netscape 7.x."

I've been beating my head against the wall (proverbially, at least) with what should be a simple CSS style issue: I want to change the color and style of some text links on a Web page. I've been trying this:

<style type="text/css">
.bl              { color: #000; font-weight:900 }
.bl a:link       { color: #0f0; }
.bl a:visited    { color: #00f; }
.bl a:hover      { color: #000; background-color: #ff6 }
</style>

<a href="uses.shtml" class="bl">Google Adwords and Overture</a>

but it wasn't working.

This isn't the first time I've received this sort of query, but a few days ago I got this message from a loyal reader:

I am starting my own web design business and I could do with some assistance. Do you have any starting out pointers and how are the contract negotiated for service and provisions? Is there a special legal branch I should be contacting or is there already pre-made forms. I appreciate any and all assistance.

There's always a time lag between when a book is published and reviews start to come in, so I'm pleased that the first review of Creating Cool Web Sites with HTML, XHTML and CSS is available online, and the result is very positive! A. P. Lawrence says that it's "definitely a book I can strongly recommend for someone who wants to start writing their own web pages."

A reader writes:

Some time ago I purchased your book, Creating Cool HTML 4 Web Pages. I have gotten a lot of use out of it. However, I am now getting my feet wet on Cascading Style Sheets and have come across something I did not see answered in your book. I am hoping you can answer these two questions.

1) I use <h3></h3> headers for the headings of columns in a table. I notice Internet Explorer adds an extra blank line under the headings before continuing text but Mozilla does not. How do I eliminate the blank line following an <h3></h3> header? I would like text to follow immediately below the heading.

2) Same question for horizontal rules. I do not want a blank line below a horizontal rule; I would like text to follow it immediately. How do I get rid of this extra blank line?

A reader writes:

"I have been reading your "Creating Cool Web Pages (HTML 4), and I just understood how to make frames. However, I am having trouble with my links opening in the same frame.

For example, I have my links in my smaller frame, but all the pages connected to the links keep on opening in the same smaller frame. How do I change it so I can have them open in a new window, or open in the bigger frame?

This is probably the most common challenge people face when they begin to work in a frames-based environment, and the trick to getting this working has two parts: First, you must name each target pane of your frames-based design when you specify it, and Second, you need to use that exact same name as a target attribute with all links you want to point there.

A devoted reader wrote to me, asking:

"I have just picked up your new book Creating Cool Web Sites, and it's great stuff. I specifically read the chapter on how to increase your findability and am still wondering if there are even more tips and tricks about how to get good search engine ranking?"

A friend writes:

I'm finding that some number of people are hosting my Janet Jackson "movie" by simply linking it in from their sites, meaning *I* get to pay for the bandwidth. Is there some way to prevent this?

A young reader writes:

"Hey Dave! I'm trying to explore tons of web sites to see how they're built and keep bumping into restrictions because my folks installed a "nannyfilter" on my computer. Is there some way to get around it so I can make my own decision of what sites to visit?"

A reader writes:

"Help! I cannot view source code. I select it from the menu, but nothing comes up. Further, I cannot save pictures in their original format. I right click to do "save picture as" and it only provides me with a .bmp extension. What's going on?"

A reader writes:

Can I place a Microsoft Word doc on my website for download? It works when I test it on my hard drive; but doesn't work once I FTP it to the website.

if your browser shows the little icons next to URLs - in which case you should see a lightbulb next to the booktalk URL right now - then you might be asking yourself how you build these favicon.ico graphics and incorporate them into your own Web site.

I've been continuing to tweak the pages at RealLifeDebt.com and have wanted to ensure that the xhtml coding was all proper and correct. So, logically, I turned to the W3C online validator, but kept hitting this one error:

Below are the results of attempting to parse this document with an SGML parser.

Exploring some of the ideas discussed in the upcoming "Creating Cool Web Sites" book, I've built a new Web site worth visiting called Real Life Debt. View source while you're there and see how it's a nice combination of xhtml and Cascading Style Sheets. In fact, you can pop open the style sheet and see how CSS helps quickly create an attractive design.

My friend Barbara Feldman has written a very interesting article about techniques for avoiding what she calls "link rot", when the links on your pages and in your print material end up being obsolete. If you're just getting started with your site design, of course, this might not seem like anything you need to worry about, but I'll bet you've gone to a site, seen a list of favorites, and found that most of them don't exist any more.

A reader writes:

"I was hoping you could tell me where I can find info to solve a problem I'm having with one of the pages. I want my hyperlinks to stay the same colour as the rest of the text and not change at all, and i'd like to avoid the underlining too."

A reader from India writes:

"I have purchased your book titled Teach Yourself Unix in 24 Hours which is very interesting and I have learnt many commands from that. Sir I have one problem. I have purchased some space for a website on the remote server. And I have designed my web site and once I got it launched from the system adminstrator. Now he has given me the user id and password for the SERVER (which is 250 Kilometers from me). The problem is I have changed my website files and I have uploaded these files on to the server using FTP. So to refresh what should I do in the sense what command should I use? Please send me the details"

A reader of my book Creating Cool HTML 4 Web Pages writes and asks:

"I've been looking all over the internet to find an average price for making a website and I can't fine a good estimate on the going rate. If you could point me in the right direction that would be great. After reading your book (creating cool HTML 4 web pages) and taking some computer classes I've now got my CIW certificate and am starting to build my first website for a client, but I don't know how much to charge!"

I'll resist saying that this is the question of the ages in the world of computing, but it is definitely going to be a tough one to answer...

The big day is Monday. The day you get to show off what you know about Dynamic HTML. The problem is, you're not really up to speed. Maybe it's been a while since you worked with JavaScript or cascading style sheets. Or maybe you just like a challenge!

The fifth edition of an international best-seller, Creating Cool HTML 4 Web Pages (the second edition of "HTML 4" is even updated for HTML 4.01) lets anyone learn how to use free and simple tools to create attractive and sophisticated Web pages, then how to publish and publicize them.