ANSWERS TO VEXING QUESTIONS

If you build web sites like I do (to make sure that changes you've made look like you intended them to)...or if you visit sites where the content changes frequently, and you always want to be sure that you're seeing the very latest version...the Firefox browser can drive you a little crazy. It's easy to tweak Internet Explorer for this purpose (Tools ===> Internet Options ===> Browsing History ===> Settings, then click "Every time I visit the webpage"). For some silly reason, Firefox programmers decided this wasn't a common need, so they didn't provide such a convenient switch to flip.

The Fix:

• in the address bar, type about:config
• scroll down until you find: browser.cache.check_doc_frequency
• right-click on that line, then drop down to Modify
• in the "Enter integer value" dialog box, change the value to 1
• click OK and you're done!

Among my suite of sites, I have one on which I don't/can't use a WYSIWYG design app like Dreamweaver. Yet, I need to be able to easily come up with the embedding codes for various media to paste into the page. As a consequence, I have come to really value this tool at the USCF Center for Instructional Technology web site.

The Fix:

• upload the media file itself to your site, making note of the page on your server with the domain (i.e. http://yourdomainname.com/media/filename.swf
• visit the Embedded Media HTML Generator
• choose the media type (Flash, Quicktime, Real Media or Windows Media)
• type in the path location to the media file on your server
• choose from the additional settings for that media type (looping, alignment, quality, etc.)
• click Submit
• click Test Media
• if everything works OK, just copy the code from the window and paste it wherever it needs to go...and you're done!