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Hit
Counters
Cached Pages: Why Can't I see the Most Recent Page Updates?
Spyware
and Viruses
Non-Obvious
Passwords
Sound
on Your Page!
Privacy Policy
Homework Hero Version
2.0
Custom HTML: Word Documents
to Homework Hero?
Hit
Counters
It is possible to place hit counters on your assignment page!
Free hit counters are available from a variety of sources on the web.
For example, try "The Ultimate Counter":
http://www.ultimatecounter.com/
Sign up for the hit counter, and follow the instructions
to receive your counter code. Once you have the counter
code, you will need to paste it into the Homework Hero
assignment form. However,
first you will need to manually delete the line
breaks from the text, because Homework Hero automatically adds lines to your page when
it encounters line breaks in your submitted text. There is an exception
to the last point for Homework Hero Version 2.0
users. If you are using Homework Hero version 2.0,
then you can paste the code directly into the Custom
HTML box in the assignment page form without having to
delete line breaks. Don't know if your school uses
Homework Hero 2.0? Click here.
See this page below for
examples with counters:
http://www.homeworkhero.com/cgi-bin/aahero01/acceptit20/search.cgi?dir=ademo
Cached
Pages: Why Can't I See the Most Recent Page Updates?
Sometimes I hear from students who say that the
computer did not display the most recent assignments, even when
he/she knew that her teacher had updated her Homework page. What is
the reason? The usual reason is that browsers can be set to store images of
web pages in a "cache", and then redisplay them from memory when
that page is accessed again. This makes page loading faster, but
if the page has changed, you do not get to see the most recent version.
Fortunately, you can control the way your browser handles this.
In Internet Explorer, choose "Internet Options" from the tools menu.
Under Temporary Internet files, choose "Settings." Then, under check for new versions of pages, choose either
"automatically" or "every visit to the page."
From AOL, Choose "My AOL," then choose "Preferences," then
choose, "WWW". From there, choose your temporary internet
file settings in the same way as in Internet Explorer.
If students complain that your page was not updated, give them
this message!
Spyware
and Viruses
Everyone knows about
viruses and many of us use firewalls, but do you know if
spyware is living on your computer?
I noticed that my home computer had slowed down a bit,
particularly when I was browsing the web. A little bit of investigating suggested that
I had some "spyware" applications running -- theses are programs or
cookies placed on your machine by websites or installed by software -- usually
without your knowledge or approval. Normally the purpose is to track your
movements around the web for marketing purposes.
I installed a free spyware detection program (Spybot) I had read about. It
immediately detected about 200 suspicious cookies and spyware apps.
I then used the software to remove most of these (a few seemed to be legitimate and necessary software
functions) and noticed immediate improvement in the performance of my machine.
The software does have an undo function, so there is
little danger of permanently deleting something of
importance.
If you are interested in Spybot, you can find it here:
http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?lang=en&page=download
I have no commercial interest in this product.
Non-Obvious
Passwords
I will admit that I sometimes use passwords that are easy for me to remember. Unfortunately, this may also make them easy for others to figure out.
Although you can't lose money if someone discovers your Homework Hero password, you should still take care to protect it. Yes, students do
occasionally try to update your pages! (I also periodically get messages from students impersonating teachers and requesting lost passwords). If your password is too "obvious" you might wish to consider changing it when you next update your assignment page.
The same recommendation applies to manager passwords. (Managers, you cannot change your own passwords; but I can change them for you if you request it.) Sound
on Your Page! You can place sounds on your page by providing a link to a midi file already posted to the web.
For example, paste this code (replacing the URLs in quotations with your selection) in an assignment text entry box to play a tune:
<embed src="http://www.homeworkhero.com/flourish.mid" width=95 height=55 autostart=true loop=true><noembed><bgsound src="http://www.homeworkhero.com/flourish.mid" loop=infinite></noembed>
Warning: Keep in mind that do make your page a bit slower to
load and may annoy some users! Privacy
Policy Homework Hero does not provide any information about its users to any outside companies, nor do we use any information we have to directly market services or products from other parties to our users.
Users should be aware that any information (e.g., e-mail addresses) posted on an assignment page can be seen by the public. However, because of the way that Homework Hero operates (pages are dynamically generated from a database), it is a bit more difficult for information to be harvested by outsiders. This is nevertheless a possibility, especially since some search engines now store pages as "cached" files.
I recently experimented by posting a "new" e-mail address on a Homework Hero page. After 3 months, that address has did not received a single spam item. Nevertheless, it is probably a good idea to use a separate e-mail address (get one from hotmail or yahoo) instead of your school assigned e-mail address for posting publicly. Homework
Hero 2.0 Some of you may know that schools who have signed up for Homework
Hero since January 2003 are using an upgraded version of our software.
The most important features of the new software are (1) there is
an automatic password retrieval feature for teachers who lose or forget
passwords, and (2) users can directly upload images from their
computers to be placed on an assignment page. There are also a few
minor improvements, including an option to reformat pages for printing,
a correction of a glitch that occurred when a user placed quotation
marks in a course title, and more convenient handling of
custom html.
Otherwise, the look and feel of the new Homework Hero is much like
that of the old.
Unfortunately, databases for the old and new software are not
completely compatible --- upgrading requires a reconstruction
of your site and a database conversion. Also, all teacher passwords
need to be reset with an upgrade. However, it is
possible to upgrade -- for more information click
here. Complex
HTML: Word Documents to Homework Hero? I am often asked if it is possible to post material from a Microsoft
Word file to a Homework Hero assignment page.
If you only want to post text, this is easy --- just copy the text
from Word and paste into the assignment form.
If you wish to preserve colors, fonts, tables, and other special
formatting, things are a bit more difficult, but often possible.
Following these steps will usually work (as long as their are no
images embedded in your Word file):
1. Save your MS Word file as HTML (Choose File--Save As--then under
"Save as type" select "Web Page" and click the save button).
2. Close the new file you just saved (that file now has the file extension
"htm" rather than"doc").
3. Now reopen the new "htm" file in a text editor (Notepad). Select all
of the text, and copy it. If your
school uses Homework Hero version 2.0 you are almost
finished. After step 3, copy directly into the assignment form entry
for "Complex HTML" and submit as usual (to find out if
you are using Homework Hero 2.0, Click
Here). You are finished! If
you are using Homework Hero version 1.0, continue
reading.
4.Open MS Word again, but open a new blank document. Paste the selected
text into the new Word Document.
5. The next step, necessary for Homework Hero version
1.0, is to get rid of all paragraph marks. To do so, choose Edit--Replace. In the dialog box, click on the "More" button. In the
next dialog box, click on "Special." Choose the top selection, "Paragraph Mark."
Then click the "Replace All" Button. Click "Close" to close the dialog box.
6. Now choose "Edit--Select All" in the MS Word document to select the HTML code.
Copy the text, and paste it into a Homework Hero assignment box and submit as
usual.
I know this sounds complicated, but it only takes a couple of minutes.
To see an example of a table that could be produced this way, see this page: Mr.
Taube's Page
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