Internet and Programming Tutorials

Most of these tutorials are released under the Gnu Free Documentation License. More information about the license is available within each tutorial and at the Gnu FDL web site.

AppleScript Basics

Basic AppleScript to automate the use of your Macintosh. (Sep 15, 2012)

Carnival of HTML

Creating basic web pages with straight HTML code and a pre-existing style sheet. (Jan 11, 2012)

Cascading Style Sheets

Working with CSS to turn a basic web page into something that draws attention to all the right places. (Jan 11, 2012)

Django: Beyond the SQL

Django is a great application framework for Python and web applications. You can use it to greatly speed up your database and application development both on the web and on the command line. This tutorial is currently a very rough draft; it probably won’t be very useful without the assistance of someone who knows Django running the tutorial. If I ever run this tutorial a second time, I’ll probably update it with screenshots to make it more usable for individuals. (Jan 11, 2012)

Easy Web Design

Creating basic web pages with Netscape Composer/SeaMonkey. (Jan 26, 2013)

HTTP headers

It’s hard to understand how cookies work and how much information from web visitors can be trusted without understanding how browsers and servers communicate. (Jan 11, 2012)

JavaScript for Beginners

Basic JavaScript to enhance your viewers’ reading experience. (Jan 25, 2013)

MySQL for Other Applications

The basics of working with MySQL for users of other applications such as Dreamweaver, PHP, Perl, or Python. (Oct 8, 2012)

PHP: Hot Pages

Basic PHP to store form data and maintain sessions. (Dec 18, 2012)

Perls Before Swine

A basic Perl tutorial covering reading files, filtering files, importing into SQL databases, and displaying on the web. (Jan 11, 2012)

Persistence of Text

A series of useful Persistence of Vision tutorials, starting with the very basics of simple object creation and progressing to automation and the usefulness of math. (Mar 31, 2007)

Simple Photorealism

Simple photorealism for people who can’t draw. This tutorial guides you through using the free Persistence of Vision ray-tracer. You’ll create a planet, with rings and an orbiting moon set against a starry background. (Jan 28, 2013)

Come to Valhalla

Valhalla is—or was—a MOO. MOO is a ‘programming language’ for creating multi-user dungeons (MUD). MOO is object oriented (thus, MUD, Object Oriented). MOO was created by Pavel Curtis and Xerox PARC, who are to be commended for their work. While MOO is ancient technology, there are still people who find it fun and useful. (Apr 1, 2013)

Evaluating Information

Some things on the net are true, some things are not, and many are both. If you want to believe impossible things before breakfast, however, you can do so just as easily off the net as on the net. The best evaluation techniques will work for any information, not just Internet information. We have never been able to trust the printed word. (Dec 21, 2012)

Gender Neutral Instructions

Writing for all of your readers. (Jan 31, 2013)

Joy of Access

What the net has to offer you. This tutorial is quite old, and hasn’t been updated since the last century. I’m leaving it available mostly for historical reasons. I’m not likely to write a newer version. (Dec 18, 2012)

Web Design for the Rest of Them

Prepare yourself to enter the mid-1990s, when not all browsers supported tables, let alone javascript and style sheets. This ancient tutorial discusses writing pages to support browsers with varying support of the new-fangled web. (Dec 10, 2011)