Top Margin With CSS

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:41:58 -0500

Quick and simple line of CSS code to add a top margin property to your page body

How to add video to your webpages

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 20:42:35 -0500

Welcome back to another addition of "How Did They Do That And Will It Fry My Brain Figuring It Out?" This tutorial debunks the myth that you have to have special, other-worldly knowledge to put a video clip into a webpage and make yourself look like a web pro. I'm going to use one of my demo sites (It's for sale if you want it) that can be found by going to http://ihaveyounow.com/malecs_cam.htm . You'll see an aquarium full of fish, slower computers or internet connections will have to be patient. This video is added as a mock-up to simulate a live webcam in a pet store (I'll teach you about web cams later). The point is that there are no controls to this and it runs automatically when the visitor lands on the page. I'm going to give you the code and also some advice to help with the slower fish that may swim in your pond.

First Tip: Whatever the size the video is, create a image that has the text "Stand By - Video Loading" or something like that. People with slower connections may not realize a video is about to appear or others may get impatient thinking there is a problem with the site ('cause you know they couldn't possibly be at fault for having a dial-up connection). What you do with the image is to make it the background of the cell that the video is to be in. Always try to make the cell the size of the video and define the size of the surrounding cells, if possible, to avoid shift or movement. If your site is set for 100% to adjust to different screen resolutions, at least define the size of the cell the video is in otherwise the background image will tile, creating a mess, but once the video is loaded, it covers the image, and seamlessly at that.

The following is what's called an "Active-X" control, sometimes websites will try to get you to install one and a yellow warning appears on the top of your browser. You generally won't have that problem here because it's using Windows Media Player and almost everyone with a windows system already has this on their PC.

Now for the code, this is it:

The best thing to do is insert this code directly into your html, if you copy and paste onto the page directly onto the page instead, depending on your program, the code may or may not work right. I was able to copy and paste this exact code fine with FrontPage, but that doesn't mean it will at your house.

You can see that some of the parameters are funny looking and others are pretty self-explanatory, once you have this code, play with it and see what happens. The code here is an Autoplay/Looping video that never stops, you can change the parameters for "Autostart" and "Loop", this code does have the controls on it, so there is a way to let your visitor stop or pause it. If you want to remove the play/pause controls, simply find the line

and change the number from 1 to 0. Usually in these types of things, 1 is yes or "True" and 0 is no or "False". Like I said before, this may seem a bit overwhelming, but it is all pretty simple and can be played with to understand it better...THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN BREAK THAT WE CAN'T FIX! The rest of the parameters are adjusted in much the same way, for us we can look at it this way: The first part of the code is basically just the player itself, the second part of the code is the video and how it should look.

Second Tip: When putting in your video, I always like to put the complete web address to where it is, just because I worry, and if I copy this page or code and put it somewhere else on the web, the code can still find the video on the I Have You Now server.

Well, that's all for now, as always, if you have questions about this or anything related to web design, please come to the forum. You may not see me right away, but post your question and someone will help you or hunt me down. Keep it Str8!

Steps To Create Niche Pages

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 06:42:06 -0500

A process for research and selection of stronger sites and pages

SEO At Work : News > Site Design

Top Margin With CSS

How to add video to your webpages

Steps To Create Niche Pages