Writer's Cafe Wizardry - Lesson 4

We'll learn about HTML limitations for your profile entry, a sneaky way to examine who wrote you in Writer's Cafe without losing your footprints, and an introduction to a unique recommended Firewall.

Writer's Cafe Wizardry - Ch 04   Want to read this in a different language ? Change the TO field to your own country and click the TRANSLATE button after going HERE LESSON FOUR - July 2nd 2013 < > Good afternoon, class ! Let's begin. Let's focus today on your Writer's Cafe PROFILE. Your profile is what appears when you type in your address bar, "http://www.writerscafe.org/" and then you type out your alias on the end of the URL, like with me, mine is: "http://www.writerscafe.org/dw817" To edit what appears in your profile, click on the text right where it shows, Account. A new page will appear: OK ! Right in that tiny little square is where you type your profile ! Why they don't have cool buttons for center, bold text, insert image and stuff I just don't know dude so - you have to type the WHOLE thing in HTML but there's a weird catch too. Unlike all other normal HTML editors, anytime you press [ENTER], that is visually shown in your final profile. So unfortunately you can't just build your page in a nice editor like Seamonkey cause the tabulation will be completely wrong. No, but you can manually build your HTML profile in Notepad and paste it from there. It's a real mess, but here are a few things to help ya. Remember to end all HTML commands, it is always a greater than sign with a forward slash, the name of the command you were working with, and then a less-than sign to close it up. To make BOLD text, type <b> and to end the bold text type </b> To make Italic text, type <i> and to end the italic type text type </i> To make BIGGER text type <big> and to end the big type text type </big> To make SMALLER text type <small> and to end the small type text type </small> To insert an image, as we learned in the past lesson, type out <img src="{image}"> where {image} is the URL address of the image you want to add. Unfortunately since we aren't given an option to upload an image here, the best way to include an image for your profile at this point is to create a new writing, maybe call it image storage. And if you look below, you'll see some options so flag it UNPUBLISHED for now. as you don't want people to comment on it like a regular writing. Then in that secret writing, upload all the images you want from your hard-drive. When you are ready to get the URL for one, click on the image first so 8-dots appear around it, then the button from your menu and a new panel will appear: Click in where the stylus is showing, the URL area and press Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, and then you have the URL address for that image in your clipboard ! Back to your HTML profile page, type out: <img src=" and press Ctrl-V here, then type the rest of the HTML code, a quote and a less than symbol to close up the image definition. "> And there you have it ! To make a clickable link in your profile, just like we learned in the past lesson, you type out: <a href="{Link}">{Text}> Where {Link} is the URL address you want to go to when the text of {Text} is clicked. Phew ! That should be enough to get you going for the moment. * * * OK, the next part of the lesson is just a tricky and sneaky easy little way to see who all has written you comments without losing your place, cause as you know if you click one of these buttons above: Then that particular notice will be gone, making it sometimes a little hard to find later if you disregard responding to it right then, sorta like Facebook. So - how can you get them back ? Well, provided you don't close this Internet Tab, you don't lose your Internet connection, and you don't hit the wrong button, don't do it ! You can hold down the ALT key and press the LEFT ARROW KEY to go back a page and see your notices are still there where you left them and can go from there. * * * This last part for today doesn't have anything to do with Writer's Cafe but talks about a wonderful little Firewall program I have been using since Windows 98 came out. It's called, "ZoneAlarm" and unfortunately today like a lotta companies do, their current 2013 product version is bloatware, requires a monthly payment to keep it running, and tremendously slows down your computer. What to do ! Well, I have made a very good habit of keeping track and tabs on utilities that are Freeware. While ZoneAlarm is not free, the version I have which they released years ago can be used forever, is super-fast and awesome, and you can even disable the nag from configuration that appears every month so it's a lifetime product then that never needs registration or payment. First off a bit of information if you didn't know it. A Firewall is a program for your computer that monitors Internet traffic and keeps out viruses and stuff. Well one reason I am truly fond of this particular Firewall program is it shows ALL Internet activity in a cool little icon below, and you can configure it so ANY program that wants access to the Internet has to get permission from you first. And you can further configure it so once it asks, then it doesn't ask again UNLESS that particular EXE changes ! (And it awesomely checks for this !) This curbs a LARGE portion of viruses, malware, keyloggers, and spyware as they are bone determined to get back on the Internet and post your credentials, credit card numbers, and personal passwords. If they cannot access the Internet, guess what ? They can't do very much, and that's the beauty of this program. And the fact that since it raises a pop-up window for a program you don't recognize that wants to access the Internet, well - UH OH ! Cause that sneaky program that was trying to secretly run in the back of your computer and whisper secret stuff back to the Internet just got CAUGHT red-handed and now you know where they are and how you can deal with them ! So, to get you going, the program can be found HERE. Install as normally. Once you get it up and running it should look like this: To turn off the notice that appears every 30-days to register, click on PREFERENCES and below, "Check for Updates, turn on the button of, "Manually." Notice you get a nice little ugly window ! First off, the 'updates' you get are just an annoying nag saying your ZoneAlarm is out of version and if you agree to the 'update' it just goes to the main website where you can purchase the commercial version and pay monthly to have it monitor the same stuff. It's not worth it. Now, let's get this configured right. Back at the Main screen, click on Firewall from the vertical selection: Click on MAIN from the tab at the top and set both of the Security Settings, Internet Zone and Trusted Zone to HIGH. Now click on PROGRAM CONTROL also in the left-hand vertical column. Set that to MEDIUM. By doing so it means ANY program that tries to access the Internet will come to you first, like a well-behaved kiddo asking if it's okay to let the stranger in the door. Those notices will appear in the bottom-right-hand corner of your screen and appear like this: Is this a program you recognize and want to allow access to the Internet ? If so, and you don't want it to bring up this same notice later, click on, "Remember this setting," and Allow. And continue on. If it's a program you DON'T recognize like, "SpankMyMonkey" or something, then click, "Remember this setting," and DENY. And then you are at liberty to bring up your Programs from Program Control to see where this little rotter is located and weed it out yourself. Those are the basics ! If you have any further questions about this immensely useful and powerful Internet Firewall, please address them below. * * * In the next lesson we'll learn about a most useful public-domain paint program to assist you with your images in Writer's Cafe, how to change the color of URL links, how to add a way cool webpage counter to your profile page, and lastly the sweet ability to have an image CHANGE to another image, even if it's a different size, just by moving the mouse pointer over it ! See you next week ! Return HOME   You are Earth Visitor #

Author's Note

Any questions, class ?

Reviews

[zaisham9393]

Cool :D
Thank You so much for this :)!!!!!!!!!

[dw817]

You're very welcome Zaish. Have a lovely day ! :)

[zaisham9393]

YOu too :)!

[Wølfy]

I was always wondering how people got pictures on their profile. I have used HTML language a bit, but when it comes to HTML making I am just...well lazy. I guess if I really tried to I could do it but I already have enough stuff in my head.

[Yui Tarsis]

Oh my gosh I have wondered how to do this forever. Thank you sooo much

[dw817]

Wow ... glad to help. Man I wrote this so long ago. Welp, good to be of service ! :D

If you don't already have it, you can find the entire INDEX for this series, HERE:

http://bit.ly/1dOSAYq

[Yui Tarsis]

Thanks! For this and other things!

[dw817]

Take care ... :)

[Sally Dinn]

Fantastic presentation. I just need more background as I am very new to this kind of thing. What would you recommend?

[dw817]

You need a few utilities. I would recommend starting with Mozilla Firefox's Seamonkey found HERE:read moreYou need a few utilities. I would recommend starting with Mozilla Firefox's Seamonkey found HERE:
http://www.seamonkey-project.org/

Next session I was going to introduce everyone to a good Freeware paint program. The problem is I've been using this commercial giant one, Corel Paintshop Pro for years for my work - so I need about one day to become familiar with this new one. When I do though, I'll post a tutorial on how to use it.

Images if anything are definitely integral to bloggers. :)

[dw817]

BTW, I'm starting to see what the problem is, if you type a colon (not going to), then the program that handles a comment locks up with a -more- and, in Opera Internet browser for instance, you can't click to show the rest of the text ! I'll definitely be mentioning this little bug in following Tuesday's Tutorial.

[Random Peter]

you know, miss teacher, i lost my homework in a fight with a boy who said that you are not the best teacher in the writetscafe.org

Why can`t I put 120/100???

[dw817]

If you put 120 over 100 you might smoosh the numbers underneath cause it weighs more ? :Þ