From an earlier thread on this forum it was said Windows XP doesn't come with Java. While Java is a different animal than Javascript, do Windows XP users need to download Javascript as well? I can't get some Javascript to work and I was wondering if that is the problem.

goto: www.java.com and click on GET IT NOW button on the right... that will setup your window xp to run java appz on you computer.

No, I'm wanting to know whether JavaScript comes with Window XP, not Java... in other words, whether I need to download JavaScript before Window XP (vis-a-vis FrontPage) will recognize it. I don't need Java (at least for no reason I can think of)

javascript is universally recognized and worked into the basic functionality of all top browsers if I'm not mistaken. you don't need any download to run basic javascript.

You're both right I've confirmed... under tools/page options there is a place to turn on or off javascript. While it was turned on, but since I kept getting a pop-up message about something 'detected', it might be either the firewall or Norton (antivirus software) restricting it. I really think it's my idiot programming skills tho...

javascript is more of a launguage but u do need java to run it, remember that microcrap & java (sun) have a fairly bad history and of course xp doesnt like to play nicely with anything that it doesnt own.
next problem is the use of frontpage, it sucks! (huh josh )
frontpage imo creates subpar code which (fact not mo) gets knocked down by comps running certain anti-virus and/or firewall apps such as norton.
if your java is corrupt or if u have both microcraps java virtual machine and java "java" installed u can have conflicts as well.

the best thing imo to do is get rid of everything u can on your comp that is microcrap and needs java and your entire system will run better

also, u might wanna start using something better than frontpage, thats the seed of all the probs ur having

Well, Loftboy, I know you don't like FrontPage or anything Microsoft and there may be limitations but I don't want to spend the next 6 months setting up another system. I'll just do what I can with FrontPage. Besides, by choice I like a simple looking website.

Surprisingly, two of the best ranking independent bookstore websites are so simple looking they look like an fourth grader did them. Mine looks like a scientific marvel compared to theirs but they both outrank me. Why? It is obvious they are customer oriented in ways I never thought of. I don't care about having the latest gadgetry anyway. You're a tech guy and I'm not, nor do I want to be. If I can't do something extra cool with FrontPage easily then I'll do without. It simply isn't worth it to me to spend endless hours trying to do something that probably wouldn't make that much difference anyway. So, you're wasting your breath on me... I'll never switch from FrontPage. Go FrontPage... Rah, Rah, Rah!!!

lol

well allen ur get something things very mixed up
those sites may well be "simple" looking but those same simply looking sites sure as **** cant be made in frontpage!

here look at this
http://www.csszengarden.com/

frontpage cant make that simple "looking" site, then look at the source code, long ways from frontpage eh!

If it takes u 6 moths to learn something else then i'll assume u took the "blue bus" to school! jk

dl dreamweaver make a site then use the import and cleanup crappy frontpage code from the menu and ur on yer way.


Why?? lol well cause they aint frontpage 4 one, now that may make u mad or whatever but there is actually truth behind that.
Search engines use all kinds of methods to place sites and for example one of them is keyword density. which means how many ties your keywords are there compared to non keywords but the mistake ppl make is that they only look at the visual part of the site and not the actual code. Search engines dont spider a site like u visually view it, they read the source code. SO u think u have good keyword density but ur not taking inconcideration your code. And as well all know that frontpage adds a ton of crap code so therefor kills your keyword density.
In otherwords, the less code there is on the page the more your keywords are captured by the search engines all they get is all that shitass code fp creates.
ANd we havent even touched using css and how it affects the search engines which is pretty significant and as we all know css support in fp really sux **** and in most cases doesnt even exist.

this is just "touching" on the issues of "why" they are ahead of u, yet the majority of them are traced back to frontpage and that starts to show why it is such a shitty tool.


If money is on the line or your rankings are important then yes it is worth the time

using something else isnt about having the latest gadgetry, its about u having the knowledge to properly do what ur trying to do. ANd to tell u the truth most all frontpage users really dont have a clue. SUre they can drag and drop an image on the page and change the background colors.
but they will have no friggin clue about anything besides draggin & droppin.

basically comes down too ppl being to lazy to learn how to do it correctly, which is fine by me cause i get all the business they lose. Not trying to knock yer tree but given your answer u really dont know why things are the way they are and to tell u the truth u probably wont as long as u use a wysiwyg editor.


yeah there are, a lot.........


i do too but just cause u use frontpage doesnt mean its a "good" simple looking web site.
not to mention that NO FRONTPAGE website has a chance of conforming to the current web standards. DO u know what that is? or why its important?
www.w3c.org

u should familiarize yourself with that and start to realize that u need to learn and start using css & xhtml now as its the standard, today & the future

allen, if u have any ?'s id be more than happy to answer them if i can
I did start with frontpage (for about a week) and the reasons i hate M$ are valid but doesnt mean i say crap agianst frontpage unless its true.
But my suggestion is that if you really wanna do this right then u need to learn how to write the code yourself. Sure i use dreamweaver but i also use notepad2, html-kit and others and most of the time i completely write the code. I could sit here for hours and tell u why but the next time u ask yourself why those sites outrank u, there are answers and if u choose to find them you will find yourself wanting to get away from fp

dave

ok im looking at your site

honestly
it looks like a fp site
and looking at the source code absolutely blows my mind!
i forget how much crap fp puts in there

honestly it will never rank well until u get it cleaned up
would also help if it propery validated

look at your results
html - ok you should be using xhtml but yours is far from validating against even the html standards
http://validator.w3.org/check?verbose=1&uri=http%3A//www.matrixbookstore.biz/

or the css validation
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/validator?profile=css2&warning=2&uri=http%3A//www.matrixbookstore.biz/

oh and btw~ the title is the single biggest variable to getting your site a good ranking, u need to change yours to a description, look at your compitions if u need too

Dave,

If you really want me to be frank (and I know you do), then yes. Frontpage lacks much of what w3c has standardized on the web in order to bring the web "to it's full potential" . And in some (alot) of instances, it intentionally goes against these "rules for the web". Frontpages primary issue isn't that Microsoft makes it... it's that it insists on running on it's own "engine", and that was the first, largest, and most lethal mistake.

HOWEVER... even though I do agree that if this is something he's going to be doing and doing for a long time that Allen should start experimenting with other technologies or even get a developer to create something that he can manage himself (something database driven - which by the way only seems right for the type of website you run), I appreciate that he wants to do things himself and know that this is the primary reason that Allen uses frontpage. I'm not saying that this makes anything right because it doesn't. As you said (which was all true), his rankings are suffering because of the code that Frontpage generates. I too forget about how hard FP makes it to create not only a nice site, but a functional one as well.

I'm not sure what else to say, because even though I would love to see Allen either begin to learn the "right" way to accomplish this task, or even hire a developer to create something for him, I'm not going to just pound him and tell him he's wrong and that he should just *blam* drop everything he knows and loves for something totally foreign. Remember, Allen's not a developer, nor does he claim to be one. Rather, he seems to be on the business end of things. He spends alot more time running his business than updating his website.

BUT if this is something that he DOES spend quite a bit of time on, then it could be very beneficial.

my $.02

And hey, it still seems we're playing nice

hehe, yeah see i can play nice, i think i just dont word things correctly.

my take on allen is that he wants to be more involved with the creation of the site, which is why he is on here. But sometimes u need to take a hardline in order for ppl to understand what ur saying. ANd he was very stern on his stance with fp (however, i think that was in another thread) but i dont think he knows why its such a bad tool.
And everyone might think i am a jerk for saying things like i do BUT if it gets the point across and he does take a few hours to say learn enogh of dreamweaver, gets all that cleaned up and then starts selling more, it wont seem like i am that bad after all.

i remember when i started making my own real estate sites and i would get pissed at the ppl ahead of me in the search engines but u know they deserved to be. Why should someone who doesnt know a thing go to best buy & buy fp go drag & drop some stuff and expect to be at the top of the charts??

and not to be mean to allen or anyone but i bust my chops an average of 16 hrs a day 6 days a week and a lot of that time i spend learning and have done so for yrs and there is no reason in **** that someone who doesnt know much about the web should be able to come in a get a better ranking..rant over

so im my opinion, fp makes u a lazy ummm, cant say programmer i guess
and it hurts your rankings, as it should
and it makes it look like so many others

he says he likes the site just fine and thats great but what about the customers? thats who counts.

I have plenty of sites that i cant stand the designs of but its how they wanted it but the customers seem to like them, i forgot my point lol 7am - no sleep yet

so allen my point is this, i dont tell u to get away from fp cause i hate m$(which of course i do) but its because of the issues it creates in terms of how your site is processed and broken down by all the different factors. I bet u had no idea on half the stuff i wrote about tonight.

since ur not using a server-side scripting yet, i would really sit down and learn some html(actually would learn xhtml), really u can learn most of what u need in a few hours. And if u need help, i will be more than willing to help u as i am sure josh and others would as well

dave

Well... Dave, I knew I'd get you all worked up and I expected this. But that's okay, no offense taken. Some of what you say may be true but I need to further digest and verify what you've said. So for now, I’ll just say this…

As far as ranking, while I'd like to do better (don’t we all?), I do fairly well in many subjects. The search term I was referring to where I was really lagging was 'bookstore' or 'bookstores'. Those are generic terms however and extremely competitive… there must be a half million bookstores with websites. That doesn’t really bother me tho because I only sell two books… hardly being a real bookstore. I rely on my articles to bring me visitors.

On other search terms (from my articles), I do pretty well with Yahoo but not-so-well with Google and I do wonder why. But as to how well a website does… there are many factors. Search engines might penalize ‘non-compliant’ websites to a degree, but I’m not so sure. Nobody except Google insiders know. Not you, not Josh.

As far as keyword density… I would suspect the crawlers can tell the difference between code and text.

Besides, why the concern about compliance if a website can still displays itself properly? Perhaps it won’t to every single browser ever made, but to 98% it probably does. This standard, I suspect, is to accommodate every single browser. For example, I don’t try to accommodate all screen resolutions… only the most popular ones which cover about 95% of all browsers. That might break one of the rules. I’ve also known for some time my code is sloppy but it works… the bottom line.

As far as the time to convert… who are you kidding? It would take months, after all, you didn’t learn all you know in a week did you?

As far as being lazy… I spend almost all my time writing articles so that isn’t the reason I’m not interested in learning a new system. Actually, I learned how to program (fortran, RPG and cobal) probably before you were born (1968) but I lost interest in it. I KNOW how time-consuming and aggravating programming can be. I KNOW how long it takes to learn a new system. You might can snow the snowman but you can’t snow me!!

While you could be right about my non-compliance hurting me, I’ll be investigating this as a possibility. I was impressed with that Zen site tho, with a Google page rank of eight!! That’s almost unheard of. Mine is just a mere five, which, by the way, isn’t too shabby.

Bottom line Dave, (and Josh) I think you’re a bit hung up on your end of the business (programming) when in fact there are many other considerations. I get a lot of newsletters from SEO’s (Search Engine Optimizers) and what you’re both saying isn’t said among them. Not once have they mentioned source code as a factor in rankings.

In summary Dave, your hatred towards Microsoft products is awfully revealing. You may not like their products but I do. I also admire Bill Gates. You may not like this either but people have a right to choose what products they like. You also have me at a disadvantage… you haven’t ever revealed where your website is, or where any of your work can be found. You’ve been asked before on this forum (by Josh) but you’ve never said. Helpful you can sometimes be… but I swear, you aughta try chilling out sometimes. At some point, a dog gets tired of chewing on the same old bone. You and Bill Gates should kiss and make up!!!

My understanding is that Microsoft is planning on replacing FrontPage with the upcoming Visual Web Developer http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/vwd/default.aspx (part of Visual Studio 2005). This may give you another reason to consider something other than FrontPage for authoring your sites. I am an MS guy... I do like their tools a lot, but I never really liked FrontPage, other than for making really basic pages with little or no formatting.

Because of my dissatisfaction with FrontPage, I started using Adobe GoLive, and I found it pretty easy to use. Being Adobe software, it doesn't follow all of the MS conventions which can throw you off initially, but when I compare it to FrontPage 2003, it's a lot more straightforward.

One thing that older versions of Frontpage didn't seem to have (and I don't know if it does now) is components. GoLive has this, and it's incredibly handy. It allows you to create an HTML page as a "component", that you can drag and drop onto other pages. You can put pretty much anything in this component - including other components. Then if you change the component, all pages that use it are automatically updated. This is great for menus, title sections or anything you need to repeat on several pages. I use this heavily and it saves a lot of time.

If you do use graphics on your website, GoLive has good integration with Illustrator and Photoshop making it easier to use images that have been created in Illustrator or Photoshop.

I am more of a developer, but I am also responsible for producing the website for one company I'm involved with. Since I'm not any sort of graphic artist, the site is quite plain, but it meets the needs of our users. (There's also some organizational things on our site that I don't agree with, but some others insisted on things being the way they are). You can see what I put together in GoLive at http://www.bcfpi.com. I'm right in the middle of transfering this domain to www.hostmysite.com, so hopefully it will be up (if) when you go to see it.

Basically, if you're happy with FrontPage, by all means stick with it. I just found GoLive much easier to use, and it seems to produce better code than FrontPage.

Allen,

In my line of business, programming, it's not about getting somebody to use what I use because I think it's the best thing since sliced white bread, but rather using what accomplishes the job the best.

I was actually trying to help you and never mention moving to anything other than fronpage, but from personal experience and many headaches I can tell you that frontpage does not like divs, layers, or anything considered to be proper layout. In fact, I will admit, that's part of my problem. I started out on frontpage and got very comfortable using tables for everything. It's very hard for me to use divs. I don't like the way they act or the things they do. However, I know that what I do isn't right. That's why I have a designer very fluent in those areas. He does all my art and layout for me. im just a programmer... i put all the functionality in the site.

But anyway, I was just saying that I honestly believe, in this instance, you could be fighting a losing battle and also believe that my suggestion would be in your best interest.

However, since that's not an option, I won't bring it up anymore. Im not in the business of trying to get everybody to use what I use... rather, just getting from point A to point B. Im a production guy, not a talking guy... I produce, not preach. So I'll help you the best I can.

======== DONE =========

You are REALLY showing your age - Fortran, Cobol... omg. That reminds me, I worked as a VB programmer for a company who was still maintaining one program for a client written in BASIC... I couldn't believe it!!! They just wouldn't upgrade their systems or software, so they kept maintaining it. What a PAIN figuring all that out!!! Even though, to you, maybe BASIC is pretty high tech stuff Just kidding, Allen.

and on another note... I don't want to be around for when Dave meets Gates because I don't want to get caught in the crossfire. rofl.

Yeah, okay. Speaking of the old days, Basic was very similar to RPG but no, I didn't really see it as high tech, it was pretty simple. Actually, I became bored with it, not seeing its full potential however. Looking back, I should have stuck with it instead of going into farming.

Anyway, much of what you said about FrontPage not doing, if can, at least my 2003 version does. Anyway, enough about that. I'd really like to ask questions on this forum without getting a raft about using FrontPage, I like it, it has enough functionablity for me... and that's that. And if you're reading this Dave, please don't ask me to explain in detail because I won't. Go frontPage... Rah, rah, rah!!!