VBOK #9 - Server errors, excellent software ______________________________________________________________________ TOC 1. Server Errors Those annoying "404 Not Found" and more. What do they mean? 2. Software you can't live without At least my opinion of them. 3. Sites of the week. ______________________________________________________________________ 1. Server Errors ------ You've all seen them, the cryptic error messages you get sometimes when trying to find a site. The error message you see is an actual HTML page that someone has set up to describe the error encountered. More often than not, they don't explain what the error means, so as far as you know Godzilla is on another rampage and has stomped their server. Here's a breakout of what they mean. Note that I have typed in the generic title of the error after the number. Error descriptions are HTML pages created by the server administrator, so they can be made to say anything. YMMV <-- This is an acronym for Your Mileage May Vary (It means you will probably see this, but not always). ------ *** Redirection Codes *** 300 - Permanent Relocation Not only has this page/file moved, but it's never coming back. 301 - Moved Target has been moved. Most likely permanently. 302 - Moved temporarily/Redirect You will get this error if someone has moved the target page for only a short amount of time, it will usually forward you to the correct URL. This is a temporary relocation. 303 - Another temporary relocation, can't remember what this one is for. 304 - Not Modified You have performed a conditional GET. The linked page will only be returned to you if it has been modified since a certain date. If it hasn't been modified, you get this message. ------ *** Client Request Codes *** 400 - Bad Request Your request just didn't quite make sense for some reason. 401 - Access denied/Unauthorized This usually shows up when you have tried to access a file or page that requires a login and password and you typed it incorrectly. 402 - Payment Required To get to the linked page, you were supposed to pay first. You can get this if you authorized incorrectly for payment. 403 - Forbidden You don't have access to this area. Sometimes you will get these by accident if the webmaster has incorrectly set the permission levels for a file or page. Even if you have a valid login and password for this file/URL you can not get to it. 404 - Requested URL not found This is the most common one you will see. There are generally two causes. One is that you typed the URL incorrectly (or the link you clicked on was typed incorrectly), and the other is that the HTML page you are trying to view does not exist anymore. Usually it's the latter, and it happens quite frequently. Believe it or not, there is an actual name for these deleted pages... Are you ready? They're called COBWEBS. Go figure. ------ *** Server Errors *** 500 - Internal server error This message is generated when an unexpected (read undefined) error occurs. It's not sure what happened, so it can't tell you. 501 - Not Implemented Whatever you tried to do, the server software is not designed to do it, or is not configured to do it. Usually you will see this because of the way you tried to authorize with a login and password. 502 - Service Temporarily Overloaded There is too much going on with the server. It could be too many processes running or too many users. It's temporary, so check it later. 503 - Timed Out The server timed out after 30 seconds. It couldn't complete your request in the allotted amount of time. Could be a busy server, or your connection is very slow. 666 - Server possessed by evil spirits! This one was a joke error I ran across on some guys page a while back. I thought it was funny enough to include here. ______________________________________________________________________ 2. Software you can't live without ------ I thought maybe I could save you some trouble by telling you what I think are some great software packages. I consider these programs essential in my daily computing life. ------ ICQ - This is without a doubt the best chat client ever. As of last week they had over 7 million subscribers. Unlike other chat clients (mIRC, PowWow, etc) the only people who can see you, are the people you authorize to do so. It supports file transfers, running of client applications, messaging, etc. You can also temporarily or permanently hide from people as well as have them ignored. It's small, sits off to the side and tells you when certain people come on-line. If you want more info on this application, newsletter #3 was all about it. Just send a message with only the words GET_VBOK_3 in the subject. ------ GetRight - Have you ever been downloading a really big program and something happens that causes you or the server to drop carrier? i.e. someone calls when you have call waiting, GPFs, your transfer rate drops to .002 K per second etc... Well, this program will pick up where you left off and continue to download the file. No more having to download the whole thing again. There is one catch however, the server must be able to resume broken downloads. Most do, so this program makes itself invaluable. You can also have it write a .txt file containing the date, time, URL, filename etc of the files you download. This is absolutely necessary for me as I download approximately 5 - 10 MB a day, and can never seem to remember where I downloaded them from. ------ CuteFTP - Many times you won't be able to download files from an FTP site through your web browser, because it requires a login and password. Using CuteFTP is like browsing your hard drive using Windows Explorer, except that it is not your hard drive, it's someone else's. It's very easy to use and has a very nice layout. ------ Free Agent - This is a very nice news group reader. It has tons of functionality, it's freeware, and if you spend a lot of time in the usenet groups, then you need this. There is one problem though. Forte has just been acquired by Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. and they will most likely not put any more R&D into Free Agent. Too bad. ------ Opera - This is a small (Make that VERY small, fits on a single 1.44 floppy when compressed) web browser. It's very fast but doesn't have support for push technology, ActiveX or Java, but if all you want to do is surf without all the extra garbage, this is a great way to do it. One feature I really enjoy is that when you want to look at two pages at the same time, it doesn't start another instance of your browser like IE and NN, but it opens another window within Opera just like all the other Windows applications you own. If this isn't clear, here's an analogy. When you open another document in Word, it opens another window in Word with the document right?!? It doesn't start another instance of Word, so that you have to switch back and forth between the two concurrently running copies. ------ ACDSee - An excellent image viewer. It supports just about every graphics format there is, and loads them extremely fast. It has a built in "Explorer" type interface, so you can find and display your pictures fast. There are also built in, a slide show, file management tools, forward and reverse buttons, descriptive annotation, thumbnailing, auto wallpapering, and printing. ______________________________________________________________________ 3. Sites of the week ------ Have you seen the power and beauty of Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language (DHTML)? Well, go here and check this place out. ------ Here's a nice on-line encyclopedia ------ Want to learn more about VRML, and see some examples? ------ Interested in some more VRML? There was a lot more I waned to include in this edition, but I have some other things I need to take care of. Have fun. Well, that concludes this issue. Have fun. Leif Gregory Copyright (c) 1998 by Leif Gregory. All rights reserved. You may share this copy of the VBOK newsletter with others as long as it is reprinted/resent in it's entirety to include this copyright notice. 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