Mistakes (almost) Everyone Makes

Frontpage configuration

There are a couple issues to consider when choosing FrontPage as your web editor. This product has been developed to be an all-in-one web-publishing tool. There are a few features of FrontPage that will not function properly on or with the ThinkQuest NYC server, such as the hit counter, search forms, confirmation fields, ActiveX controls and almost anything in the toolbar under "Insert" -> "Component".

An easy way to keep from using these features is to turn them off. They can be turned off by going to the toolbar and selecting "Tools" -> "Page Options". This will open a window that has a tab labeled "Compatibility" towards the top. Click that tab and then select "Both Internet Explorer and Navigator". This will tell FrontPage to create web pages that will function for various browsers. Then under the "Servers" drop down menu select "Apache" and deselect the checkbox labeled "Enable with Microsoft FrontPage Server Extensions". By using these configuration options FrontPage will be compatible with the TQNYC server and most browsers.

Publishing with FrontPage

If you use the "Publish Web" feature in FrontPage to upload your site to the server the host address will default to http://www.tqnyc.org. This will fail. When given the opportunity enter a location to publish to, use "ftp://www.tqnyc.org" (notice the prefix "ftp://"). Then you will enter your Team ID and password when asked for username and password. The last step will offer you a link to view the page. This link will not work as you expect. To view the page(s) you published to the TQNYC server, open a browser and enter "http://www.tqnyc.org/{your team ID}/{new file name}". Be sure to replace {your team ID} with your team ID and {new file name} with the file you just uploaded. You should be able to see your page on the TQNYC server.

Broken Images and Links

Very often these issues are caused by one of two things. Either you did not upload the image or page to the server or when you created the web page you used an absolute path as opposed to the relative path.

The quick answer and explanation of the absolute versus relative links is the following. When people create webpages with web editors, the editor will default to what is known as the "absolute" path to the image or page you are linking to. So if you are on a PC an absolute path might look like this:

"file:\\C:\Documents\WebPages\logo.jpg"

If you leave this as the path when the browser opens the page it will look on that persons computer for "logo.jpg" because "file:\\C:\" tells the browser to look on the local computers hard drive. This is not correct. It may work fine for you on your computer where you created the page but no-one else will be able to see the image.

Assuming your web page lives in the same folder, or directory, as the image, "logo.jpg" you want to be displayed you should use a "relative" path, which in this example would be "logo.jpg". This way the web page will load correctly when you look at it on your computer, as well as from the TQNYC server when you upload it. On the server, the relative path will tell the browser to load it from the same place the web page came from.

This concept of relative versus absolute path is also applicable when you link pages together. Use the "relative" path.

Take a look at our FrontPage Tutorial for a graphic explanation of this problem.

File Naming

When you create files and give them names it is a best practice to use only letters and numbers and keep them lower case. Instead of spaces try using underscores, "_", that can usually be found to the right of the zero character on the keyboard. Using non-alphanumeric characters can cause the server and the browser problems, not to mention it can be problematic remembering complicated file names. This tip will save you time and trouble.

Citations & Permissions

For all information, graphics, animations, music, videos you must have permission from the owner of the material as well as documentation of this permission including links to where it was found. This DOES NOT MEAN "http://www.google.com" is an appropriate source. Google is a search engine that has links to resources. Google does not own the resources it links to, therefore listing google.com as a resource for your site is not correct. You have to have specific information covering who the owner is and that they gave you permission to use their work.

The best resources are things you write and/or create. Also keeping a list of resources you have used during the project will make a citations page much easier.

If you get something from a copyright free resource you should also give them credit in your citations page.

Uploading early

Making sure you can upload to your account and that your web site works on our server is critical to making your teams work available to the world. For more on uploading go to our Uploading Tips.

Testing your site on the TQNYC serve with multiple browsers and types of computers is the only way to insure it works for everyone, including the judges.