Whirly Wiry Web Today
News, mission, and more skinnies you might be interested in.

News

Bye TickTweeze, Hello LaunchinIE 3

We plead guilty: we promised to release TickTweeze, an online scumware remover, in a few weeks. Yet weeks became months, and today we decided to cancel the TickTweeze project. There are several spyware cleaning alternatives out there, and maintaining our own would cost lots of effort in the end; effort that would only barely benefit the community.



Instead we will focus on releasing LaunchinIE 3. Users require a better LaunchinIE; we're working on a significantly better one, one that features more control, more security, one that's a LOT easier to use. (For those missing the point: we're really excited about LaunchinIE 3!) Watch for its release, or even better: subscribe to our WhirlyWiryWeb Wire at the end of this article (currently IE users only).

24-Jun-2002

Article Round Up

Here's what we got:

1. Launch an HTML splash screen when people put your CD in
   
   Triggered by the 16000-and-first post in news groups about autorun.inf files, the WhirlyWiryWeb wrote its own version of an Autorun compatible launcher! Another piece of lean and elegant shareware, on the house.
   
   20-Nov-2001
2. Now you can detect eZula TopText AND Surf+
   
   We got the nerve to download dreadful Surf+, and are now proud to offer TWO detection scripts: one will catch Surf+.
3. Fighting Ezula: TopText's Defeat Close?
   
   Here's the article presenting the famous Ezula Detection Script. A core element in the Internet community's Rage against the worst case of parasitic technology (also known as 'contextual advertising').
4. DHTML Gems
   
   Locked table headings and a progress-bar-with-overlayed-text; two questions that get answered sooo badly in DHTML news groups.
5. Invisible Communication between Server and Browser
   
   Exchanging data under the covers, in a really simple way. Inspired on a hacker's trick, you no doubt know better use for this fresh technique!
6. Opening Office from a Web Page
   
   Ever wondered how you open Office documents in the Office app instead of in Internet Explorer? If you're looking for an intranet solution, this article tells you how.
7. Starting Executables from a Web Page
   
   Millions of people have told you it's impossible. Not so on the intranet! An unrivaled free-to-download Launch-in-IE ActiveX component allows you do it, securely!
8. Viewing HTTP Headers
   
   Curious whether BarnesAndNoble.com is on Windows 2000 servers? Whirly Wiry Web offers a free tool to comfortably view the wealth of information hidden in the HTTP headers.

This is the WhirlyWiryWeb, by Koen 'RockinFewl' Mannaerts

Some recent news articles falsely state that Gary Rosenzweig is the author of the WhirlyWiryWeb.

Gary made an interesting study about the number of people that are unware of spyware installed on their system. Although Gary used detection scripts made by the WhirlyWiryWeb, he's not connected to us in any way.

7-Sep-2001

Launch-in-IE Rocks!

Sound engineers at Radio Voodoo embrace WhirlyWiryWeb's Launch-in-IE control. As of now, the control allows the distribution of sound clips across the intranet.

Being the one who implemented it at Voodoo, Heather is a bit of a demanding yet understanding person to deal with. Thanks to her, we now release LaunchinIE 2.2, and updated the installation guide to better tackle the problems you may run into.

Check out the updated Launch-in-IE page!

Mailing List Subscription Moved

There's opportunity to subscribe at the end of each article.

About the Mission

This Web site fills a void in DHTML FAQ land. Too many FAQs deal with the regular elementary questions of novices. There are a lot of other questions though -- posed by novices just as much --, questions that sound elementary, yet they remain most often unanswered in newsgroups, or get answered like can't be done.

Those are the challenges that will get an answer here.

As you will see the solutions turn sometimes out to be easy, they're often surprising, but always developed with sense and efficiency kept in mind.

Simply put, the mission of the Whirly Wiry Web is to honor its name: to tell how to realize fascinating whirly things, in a lean wiry way. Web things.

How XML drives this site

XML for content management.

You're visiting a zero-maintenance Web site.

It may sound strange, but I take special pleasure in spending hours, days to set up a system that will allow to reduce maintenance time afterwards to virtually zero.

To bring a new article online, I only need to upload the content as raw XML. The Web server will index it automatically; common stylesheets (both css and xsl ones) will take care of consequent formatting.

The backbone technology of the content management is XML indeed, surfacing only to MSIE5+ clients that will get the XML served straight away. MSIE5+ is fairly strong in working with XML/XSL; my server will gain processor time as it delegates large parts of the rendering to your client.

Yet, the XML/XSL approach results in a few advantages for you -- the client:

1. The server doesn't need to do extra preprocessing (i.e. no server side includes -- ssi); the client will get the file faster.
2. Once the XML stylesheets are loaded, the only thing the client downloads is content. These bare content is considerably smaller than a full mark-up file. So here again, the client will finish the download part sooner.
3. Using XSL, I can target the specific client. Today, I target MSIE5+ with neat mark-up, and all others with a a simple text based page.
   
   It's not that I despise other browsers, it's just a way to serve Search Engines what they like to be served: very simple mark-up.

In for a peek at the other side?

So currently I support only two XSL translations: one is targeted to Microsoft Internet Explorer 5+, and the other one is targeted to... well... the rest. A server-side browser sniffer tells what to serve.

The XHTML version looks really different as it is built for simplicity and speed. Just what crawlers (and those looking for a browser beyond Internet Explorer) like.

Curious to see what search engines, Navigator, Opera, and the others get? Here's the XHTML1 translation of WhirlyWiryWeb's Welcome page.

If you're not running MSIE5+, but if you think you're up to, try the MSIE5+ translation of the Welcome page!

Also at the Whirly Wiry Web:

DHTML Gems
Fine DHTML tricks that may save your day. (Script)

Fighting eZula
The Web author's war against contextual advertising. (Script)

Detecting TopText and Surf+
Detecting eZula TopText and Spedia Surf+ Enabled Browsers (Script)

The Revealing HTTP Headers
View HTTP server response headers and unprocessed HTTP content. (Tool)

Launch-in-IE
Web pages can start applications. Securely. (ActiveX)

Open Office from a Web Page
Override IE's default behaviour to open Office documents in the browser window. (Script)

ShellExe launches HTML files from AUTORUN.INF
A ShellExecute wrapper that delivers (Utility)

Stealth Browser-Server Conversations
Exchanging data with the server without a page refresh. (Script)

Whirly Wiry Web Today
News, mission, and more skinnies you might be interested in. (General)

Dockyard
Material in test. (-)

The Whirly Wiry Web is RockinFewl's test bed and showcase in one.
All content, code and graphics are entirely crafted at our own premises, but material can freely be reused if charming credit is given.

WhirlyWiryWeb.com, 2001-2006. Address comments to Rockin at WhirlyWiryWeb.com