Google Blog For Students

While exploring the Official Google Blog that Professor Drake recommended to us, I came across something very cool. There was a directory that displayed all the different type of blogs that were officially from Google. Some of the ones that stood out were the official Chrome blog by the Chrome team and the Public Policy blog which gives Google's views on politics.

But there is one that really caught my attention and I think would be very useful to the rest of my classmates. It is called the Student Blog and gives the description: "Google news and updates for students".

Perusing through the first two pages and I already found some very helping posts in the blog. The very first post on the page talks about the new Google Docs page for students and give links to five different examples of students from different backgrounds/stages in the college careers using Docs to achieve different tasks. Things aren't posted everyday, but when they are it is something very valuable or informative. Many Google scholarships and how to apply for them are posted throughout the blog. As well as extensive walkthroughs and guides like "Using Google Apps to make the most out of Group Work"

iFrame It!

We will be using an iFrame in our group project so I decided to blog about it as it seems a very valuable tool to help keep a web page dynamic. iFrames, inline frames, are similar to standard frames except that they are smaller and more dynamic. It's like having a smaller browser page imbedded on a larger page. We've all browsed to a page and while reading it had to scroll down to read the full page. iFrames also help to eliminate this effect. You can view the frame with a scroll bar within the page. This is nice sometimes if you want to view something while not leaving a content area.

Example of an iFrame where content from another page is viewed:


Javascript can be used to load a frame very easily. There are two ways to do this. Here's a link to an example demonstrating the load of a new page into the iFrame using Javascript (the code is also available on this page):
http://www.dyn-web.com/tutorials/iframes/load.php

Another really cool feature about iFrames is that they can be dynamically generated which makes them a great option for 'tooltips'. If you hover over text or an object a little popup window appears with a picture or text.

One more cool feature with iFrames is that you can write a script to change the content of the frame daily. This would be helpful if you want to show a tip of the day. The code can be found here: http://www.dynamicdrive.com/dynamicindex17/dowiframe.htm

As you can see, iFrames are another great way to help keep web page elements dynamic. I'm sure there are even more uses for iFrames that I haven't covered but this is a start.