Like http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/General/Internet/WWW/HTMLPrimerAll.html
A Beginners guide to HTML. See, it’s simple:
<LI><A HREF="#GS"><B>Getting Started</B></A>
<UL>
<LI><A HREF="#AE">Terms to Know</A>
<LI><A HREF="#WT">What Isn't Covered</A>
<LI><A HREF="#HV">HTML Version</A>
</UL>
<LI><A HREF="#HD"><B>HTML Documents</B></A>
<UL>
<LI><A HREF="#WI">What an HTML Document Is</A>
<LI><A HREF="#HE">HTML Editors</A>
<LI><A HREF="#GY">Getting Your Files on a Server</A>
<LI><A HREF="#TEM">Tags Explained</A>
<LI><A HREF="#TM2">The Minimal HTML Document</A>
“That look's pretty easy.”
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The Crazy HelpDesk
“Yes. But then it's not so easy because nowadays most of underlying code is not
generated by pure only HTML anymore. You get more and more pages with extensions
like *.asp, *.jsp which produce dynamic HTML. You will have JavaScript codes
among the simple HTML code. But when you use FrontPage to make a Web page you
will produce HTML code without knowing it. It’s beneath your page. Just choose
‘View - Source’ ad you'll see all the code you've subconsciously produced."
“Thanks. I feel better now. You know it all.”
“Why did you want to know what HTML stands for?”
Dimitri was working in the Geology WG.
“Just to hear your magical voice. Your charming, warm, sensual voice. In fact I have to
meet a guy from the CERN, Tim Berners-Lee, they say he invented the thing. You
helped me out so much, thanks a lot! But hearing your voice alone is solving half the
problem.”
This Dimitri was really something. Hadn’t Hilde told her about a similar compliment
and hadn’t it been Dimitri too? Were they saying the same thing to everyone?
Compliments help and Greek men know how to make them, but Lut yawned. She was
so tired, and she had a splitting headache. A light eczema had broken out on her
checks. It didn’t show, but it itched. Many of her users seemed to have similar
symptoms. It was for sure ‘somatic’, as Gwendoline had explained to her.
“Take Ezster (or Eszter?, she never remembered the spelling). She came and told me
she suffered from severe muscular aches. She said: “My wrist hurts, my ankles hurt,
my eyes hurt, my head hurts, all my muscles hurt, everything hurts.” At the same time
she tells me she feels that she’s moving on quick sand all the time. It is obvious that her subconscious is translating this picture into a reality for her body. Her subconscious at least is taking her seriously: Literally by the word. In her efforts to mind all her steps her subconscious means well and tries to protect her from getting swallowed up by the
situation: Slurp!”
Lut found it very much interesting, but even more awful. She felt so tired, she could
hardly move. When would this end. And she had lost 15 minutes at least looking for a
Prince she wasn’t personally interested in. She had only asked him to represent how to
know all basics about using Internet in 5 minutes. Royals were supposed to do that,
being present at all sorts of openings, promoting good causes, standing as an emblem
for what good meaning people were trying to achieve.
Meanwhile the quick sand feeling grew. People became aggressive more and more
easily. Life-long boss & secretary couples broke. Best colleagues snapped at each
other. One could witness scenes like a colleague menacing another with a dark spell,
others not talking to each other, even throwing things at each other. Many declared
themselves sick and probably really were.
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Elvira and Natasha, two pretty CLA's having both been assigned the same office by
mistake, as this happened all the time now, almost tore each others dark and blond hair
out. One could hear them shriek ‘You’re crazy, that’s my office’ and ‘Go back to your
Blinis!’ and ‘Go back to your Spaghettis!’ all over the floor. It was really disgusting.
The floor was already dirty enough as it was. Gwendoline imagined people taking a
liking to this sort of actions and throwing Sushi, Sauerkraut, Fondue, Hot dogs, Frites
(French fries), chicken Moambe and Paella at each other.
When a situation gets really bad people have a tendency to seek consolation in looking
for the guilty one. When they don’t find one, they will invent one, and get at a person
near them, in this case, their colleagues. It's close to hallucination sometimes. Where
did this need to soothe the pains of workload by making someone else guilty, when he
was having the same problem, come from? Where had the nice ways of the House
gone?
Everyone now was striving to leave the MOU. The best of course, were those to
succeed first. They were replaced or not replaced or traded by inexperienced
newcomers, who only increased the workload, since they had to be trained, and no one
had time for training. Gwendoline and the others really got a shock when they heard
that Robert, from the personnel unit, was leaving for another MOU now too. This was
bad news entirely; would the MOU be entirely empty in a few months or even weeks,
and remain with only a handful of people in it? What would happen then? The huge
turnover of people, perpetually arriving and leaving, made that there was not enough
time to train everyone properly and go through all the necessary steps in preparing
them for their job. And so they left as soon as they could. It was a typical vicious
circle.
Many people, instead of giving (positive) criticism or rebelling went with the system,
apparently agreeing with it, with the conscious knowledge that this would be the best
way to hasten up its (self-) destruction. It was like in karate: one must use the strength of your adversary against himself. But who was the adversary?
They lacked directives entirely. Ok CHD as most IT people, could very well live
without it, and without any boss too. But for the rest of the MOU, it was not so easy.
Directives is not only instructions, it’s also order short and a line to follow. So in which way to go, no one really could say. Was it left or right, up or down, east or west? They were swimming.
It was a mystery how some were sticking on, some of the best too, like Micha, Jack
Owl’s secretary, Penelope, or Doremi, or Chiara or Rosie or newcomer Boris. And the
CHD. The CHD was holding on. Why did they do that? Each of them would have been
welcomed like a saviour in any other MOU. But they didn’t apply for a new job, they
just kept holding on. Like a dog which you could lift with the bone he was gnawing on,
they just wouldn’t let go. They wouldn't give up. Maybe it was partly due to all the
recognition they got. The critical mass of as system is greater than the individual. And
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The Crazy HelpDesk
the critical mass remained good. The soul of the House seemed to remain, somewhere,
deeply hidden in it's depths. On one side one could think that all this trying to mend
things was leading to nothing, but on the other hand, the fact that people were at least trying, and so many of them, was simply grandiose. And CHD were part of those
trying. CHD sort of became their banner. The 777 brave users began calling them ‘The
Mythical Eleven’. This added a nice note to the impressive series of compliments the
Helpdesk was by now used to get; along with flowers and cookies. As to being called
names like Wizards, Kings and Queens, Angels and Saints, Legend!
It’s lunchtime
Lut stayed in her office, too tired to move, Maurice went home to his wife and Sven’s
wife came to have lunch with him at the House. Gwendoline had a chilli at the Flower
Bar with Leo and Boris, who now worked in the Biopsychology WG. Or had it been
renamed Psychobiology again?
He didn’t say, but when Margarida, coming to their table just to say Hello, told them
that she was not so well, because her muscles ached all over, they started on
Gwendoline’s theory again.
Leo told her that he had heard several of his Sub-webmasters complaining about the
same symptoms and Margarida told them two of her colleagues were too.
“And I too know at least ten people who’ve told me about them having this muscular
ache,” said Boris when she had left.
“Thus Eszter (or Ezster?) is in good company ,” said Gwendoline, surprised. “therefore
it’s not so much somatisation, as I first thought, but just a little virus which wanders around.” She explained about her theory of quick sand being translated into muscle
ache by the brain.
Boris listened attentively: “Gwendoline, I think you’re right in both respects. It’s both, a virus and somatisation.”
“But how can all of them somatise in the same way?”
“Precisely. That’s the answer. They do. It’s an epidemic. Most doctors now admit that
the mind influences the body and its functions, that a fragile state of mind makes the
body more vulnerable to attacks from the outside. But what many people don’t know
that if such a state of mind, unease, stress, or worse, panic and anguish is felt by many, is collective, it gets translated into an epidemic. Like this new fashionable malady,
chronic fatigue, which seems to get hold of the world.”
Gwendoline and Leo felt awed and very interested.
“This is impressive,” said Leo, “but what about epidemics like the pest.”
Boris startled like if the word itself could bring about the malady and then looked at
him pensively:
“Those are conflicts so terrible, so ingrained...” He didn’t pursue and they went over to lighter topics, like gardening, roller-skating and the latest films.
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The Crazy HelpDesk
When Gwendoline got back to lunch she found Lut in the ladies room, and got really
frightened: Lut seemed close to apoplexy. She was leaning against the wash basin,
panting. Her face looked like made of rubber and one felt her skin could be extended at
will, and moulded into everyone form one could imagine. The fact that she was putting
a layer of at least three inches of make-up on it showed at least a will to survive.
“I have a hundred web pages to do before the end of the week. For only one conference
on a single one of them I have received more than 50 Emails. All in all I have counted I got 5700 Emails in six weeks, 50 phone calls a day, plus I don’t know how people
popping into my office. And the whole world is watching. And I am little Lut, standing
in a ladies room, and doing all that. Where is my big team? It really needs magic to
accomplish all this! I am little Lut, and the whole world is watching. I am doing a
hundred web pages a night, and the world imagines a huge team behind this. But I am
little Lut sitting on ah - in a toilet room. I will break down and this is the House of
Science and whole Science will break down because of me."
It was so bad that she forgot that ‘no one is irreplaceable’.
And she cried and cried. And she still cried when they left the facilities. But than Sven appeared, to console her, held her tight and said:
“Hush. Hush. Do not cry little Lut. The world is listening. They feel the same. Do not
mix yourself up with anyone, you are you, believe in yourself. Of course you are great.
Do not underestimate the power of the little ones, when they shit, they shit jewels. I
promise you, I swear, one day your bravery will be known.”
Sven was really the most intelligent man of the MOU, the whole House maybe (I’m
not really House).
But not only close colleagues could be nice and when Lut came back to her office she
found an email, for once not inviting her to work:
Dear Lut and Leo,
I want to thank you for the great effort you have done with the web pages for our
workgroup and moreover, you can be utterly proud of the fabulous result. They have
been noticed by the Nobel price Frederic Wale himself and he pointed out how well
you seem to have grasped the scientific matter itself.
Unfortunately, I am not your boss, but I honestly think you would merit more than just
a little promotion if such a thing existed here.
We are planning a workgroup dinner together with Frederic Wale next week
Thursday at the ‘Mischel & Wuschel’. We would be grateful if you could join us at this occasion and be our guests.
David Bär - Neurophysiology WG.
Lut’s mouth watered at the compliment and at the thought of the meal. Bohatians were
excellent cooks. But ‘Mischel & Wuschel’ was a three-star restaurant in the Michelin
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The Crazy HelpDesk
guide!!!
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The Crazy HelpDesk
Misty children
Bohatia is well known for the mists that cover it repeatedly. Visitors wonder and say
it’s a country where one can’t see through. Nothing is ever clear. Did the fog come
from all those rivers and lakes? Not sure. It was one of those misty days, and mist
would cover everything for hours. When the mist got really thick and one just could
really not see a thing, and got lost in a faraway world, with thoughts obscured and
dreams set free. Day dreaming was allowed on such days or hours and not too many
people were calling the Helpdesk.
Nico dreamt about far away countries, Arthur of a sixth ball (where did he suddenly
come from?), Hilde of methods and properties in Visual Basic for Word, Johanna of a
country of her own, Maurice about computers, Gwendoline about having a talk with
the dwarfs: ‘Why are you here dear? Are you maybe really real? What was your idea
about coming here?” The dwarf smiled and didn't answer.
Sven not only dreamt he was away surfing; he was away surfing, lucky him. One could
read this fact in his Out of Office Reply, which can be found in the ‘Tools’ Menu of Outlook. It was astonishing how easily most users found out that one. Gwendoline
remembered only one single call about it. Astonishing how finding out about things is
linked to pleasure.
Myra was dreaming of Princes. And she thought:
“If only his father could make it true, and bid me to his castle, so that I can have a look at his PC, and, maybe, if I’m very lucky, his son.”
She had talked to him again, over their usual meeting point, the vinyl fence. She felt
much less bad about Chaos, since someone was listening. And Justin listened royally
well.
The mist had begun to fade and the sunrays were just of the right amount to mix with
the rain droplets such as to make a rainbow appear. Even two rainbows. People were
used to rainbows here and did not pay them the deserved attention anymore, but now
suddenly a third and then a fourth had appeared, until they couldn’t keep track of their count anymore because they reflected themselves again and again in the glass windows
of the House and gave the impression of being a thousand or more.
Myra was now sure to see Prince Martin’s face reflected there, Arthur had disappeared
again, Lexi saw a new invention, Maurice a new computer, Nico the country he would
go to next time and all of them got a glimpse of the solution which would get them out
of the infernal mess the MOU was in. It must be magic. It could only be magic.
Today was children’s day, or one of them. Some school holiday, but not a holiday for
the House, and the parents, not knowing what to do with their offspring, just took them
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The Crazy HelpDesk
with them to the office. They came by the tenths of dozens, swarmed around in the
offices, the floors and meeting rooms. It was typical of the House to allow this.
Looking at them, one could not feel but warm and heart.
Of course the parents had to find something to do for them. They usually managed to
find some free PC, his owner being on sick leave or some official mission or holiday.
The little ones had brought their working material with them, which were games.
Games on CDs or diskettes or good places on Internet which they had in mind. They
installed or downloaded them brightly, showing more gifts than their parents.
Administrator rights seemed to elude them, it was a mystery. The PC, if it was a child,
just let him install just about anything. The House, or rather Mrko Mrnsk, had not yet
foreseen an adequate protection for such behaviour because very often this meant that
with the game some virus was installed too. But the consequences were the least of a
child’s worries. Nor did their parents stop to think.
It was quite a scandal, if one thought of it. On the one side, a work place that allowed their staff to bring in their children, was the sign of a better world, on the other, one let the Helpdesk get crazy because of this. Always be tolerant was a typical House way.
Lexi jumped from office to office, cleaning viruses. After some hours of this game, she
was exhausted. This was too much. She would have wished all the kids in the world to
some far-off planet, had she not wanted some so badly for herself. And anyway she did
not believe in wishful thinking. ‘Forgive them; they don’t know what they are doing.’
Certainly Lexi didn’t. She swore vengeance. And first of all on Mrko Mrnsk, who
hadn’t put the adequate Virus Shield in the configuration. He would later condescend
to explain that the new virus shields couldn’t have been downloaded that week
because, blablabla and than followed a lame excuse about maintenance that wee which
the CHD found hard to believe.
Myra went crazy too with all the parents now phoning the CHD to complain about their
PC being infected by a virus. She did believe in wishful thinking. Anyway it was the
parents fault and she wished all of them to h… The phone rang.
Sven came to see her and told her he had seen icons’ fighting on a user’s desktop, and
really hard. Myra didn’t believe him of course. But when she came back to her phone
from a quick coffee swallowed together with Lut down at Tello’s place and looked at
her desktop she froze:
The icons on her desktop were indeed fighting. They were moving around, hunting
kicking and throwing things at each other. They took on mean faces and grew large
teeth. Internet Explorer gulped at Media Player and ate him up slowly. Windows
Explorer knocked down the Virus Shield Icon. Internet Explorer, still hungry,
swallowed up Windows Explorer. The Desktop was now almost empty and when a
large hand appeared and dragged Internet Explorer into nowhere only the typical blue
background desktop colour remained
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The Crazy HelpDesk
(Right-click on Desktop, choose Desktop and then Color)
Myra had to do her best not to shriek. She ran out of her office in the hope to find one of the CHD Wise Ones so he or she could help. She was sure her PC had caught some
awful virus which would contaminate the whole House within seconds.
Hidden behind the door stood Sven, holding his stomach and bent over with his
attempts not to laugh out aloud:
“Just a joke, Myra, don’t worry, it’s just some fun webpage I have placed on your
desktop while you where away. Look!”
They went back to her PC and Sven clicked on the little Restore button in the upper
right top of the desktop. Indeed she now saw that it was just an internet page there,
even if now empty. She only had to click on the little box with the x in it to close it and there was her Desktop again. Sven was very pleased with himself.
He had one of his kids at this trail who kept asking him questions about the seven
dwarfs or garden gnomes which had been there some time before and which he seemed
to have met just the week they had been at the House:
“But Papa, where are the little dwaffs?!”
“Which ones Miki?”
“The dwaffs at the door.”
“Gone Miki.”
“But where Papa?!
“Guess they’ve gone home.”
“But why Papa?”
“Guess they didn’t want to work anymore.”
“But why Papa?! Mama said little dwaffs like to work.”
“Oh I so wish they were doing my job,” meant Sven half to himself, half to Myra.
“Those Heinzelmännchen.”
“I want to play with the little dwaff again papa.”
Sven smiled down at him: “Ah so you have played with a little dwaff.”
Miki nodded at his dad and at Myra. Myra nodded back, smiling. How cute this Miki
was, a little “dwarf” himself:
“Maybe you can get yours and Gwendoline’s children to help you. Imagine him
pushing the cart with a PC on it. It would be so cute.”
After that brief interlude the phone started its howling again and Myra answered or
dispatched patiently. She was still young, and of a patient kind, and users kept thanking
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The Crazy HelpDesk
her for that and calling her names like 'saint' 'guardian angel'. This was nice, but people were more crazy that day than at usual.
One user called to say that his printer was stinking. She tried to put him off but saw Alexandra-Lexi, who’d just entered her office, waving at her:
“No, no! Wait!”
Myra put the phone on loudspeaker.
“What?”
“He may be right. Ask him what a kind of printer he has. Some of them ARE stinking.”
Myra looked at her bewildered. Was Lexi going mad too?
“It’s the Ozone. Some of those printers produce it. And it does stink.”
Myra inquired and voilà, it was indeed that kind of printer. Myra promised to sent someone to have it replaced.
Another called to tell her that he had an insect in his computer. He put his phone set to the printer and indeed she could hear a faint buzzing, like of a bee.
The user, moreover, was eating an apple while he talked. Myra just hated people who
where chewing an apple, especially on the phone. She just had an intrinsic distaste of
apples. For some obvious reason she didn’t know about. Apples brought up bad
memories from the depths of being, some bad event she'd once lived and than linked to
apples. Freudian, as Gwendoline would offer to say.
“I have this printer, schlerk, schleck, schlirp ...,” the sound of satisfaction annoyed her to distraction, “and... schlurp, ... it stinks ... schlunck. ”. Her stomach twined and sent cold shivers all through her body.
Lexi, there again by chance, explained that this could be true. One piece inside had to
be broken and the printer than made that buzzing noise. Myra promised the user the
broken piece would be replaced.
The next call came from Frank, one of their ‘best’ users. One of those who spent
their time playing around with PC’s, and achieving a remarkable level of mastery.
Strangely enough this kind was not made to end up in a Helpdesk. Somehow his mind
was too twisted, to much looking for was NOT a standard way of doing, only the
unusual, not the useful. Frank told her proudly he had discovered a Flight Simulator in
Excel. He wanted it removed, because it made Excel slower. Myra shook her head at
this, but he insisted. Maurice later told her that this was true. There was a Flight
Simulator hidden in Excel. You had to press a series of buttons and write some text in
some specific cells and it would start up and you could steer a plane. Some
programmer with some time on his hands and in need for a joke must have put it there,
and it had stayed there through the various versions of Excel without no one but some
users noticing. Maurice said it couldn’t be removed and that she should send Frank to
hell. Whatever was that use spending his time at.
Miki came back, and tugged her sleeve. Gush was he cute. Such huge eyes. Intelligent
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The Crazy HelpDesk
eyes. Wise for a child. She talked with him a while and he told her his Mum and Pa
were sort of rich and working very hard, and that he had two bigger sisters, and that
they lived deep behind the rocks. Strange. Almost no one was living there. And she
thought Sven had told her their house was at the shore of the Potok River and that Miki
had only one sibling, and this was another boy, a bit older. Then she shook her head,
slightly bewildered. This little boy there was Miki, wasn’t he? She must remember to
ask Sven about this. Just as she was wondering he disappeared again, wandering off
like a little spiri