Slightly related musings on building a hut in the trees...
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treehouse

Tuesday, December 21, 1999 12:52 p.m.

This is a little technical and, if you don't have a Pitas page, probably pointless. Or you could think of it as puzzle-solving in a limited universe.

Previously, I described how to create a custom Pitas "thank you" page for your Feedback Form. Now you want to make a change to the thank you page. You could just make a new one with a new url, such as thankyou2.html.

Or you could try archiving to the same file name as before. Will Pitas overwrite the existing page or give an error?

Let's try it.

1. archive the current entries
2. add a new thankyou item
3. archive that as "thanks for the link", with filename thankyou.html (same as the existing Pitas archive page)
4. add nother new entry
5. check the archive - is the new one there or the old?

Tuesday, December 21, 1999 08:47 a.m.

Want to know when your favorite weblog is updated? Then click the View link near the top left of this page for Linkwatcher - nicely done and fast. Plus use it to read the Slashdot headlines and avoid the slow visit to Slashdot itself.

Linkwatcher marks sites as "Suspect" if they change too often - could be dynamic content such as the current date and time. You also need a URL that changes only if the content of the page changes. For example, my Silicon Isle weblog has bonus links that appear randomly for Frequent Clickers. For Linkwatcher it has an option to make itself static:

http://siliconisle.com/?nopix=1

Monday, December 20, 1999 10:42 a.m.

Wow - many treehouses, many pictures, will return often.

In February 2000, the team at TreeHouse Workshop are staging a special workshop in Costa Rica and they want you to participate with the events! The workshop is planned for 10 days at the Lake Coter Eco-Lodge resort in Costa Rica during 1-11 Feb.

Sunday, December 19, 1999 1:45 p.m.

1995, about treehouses, from the author of Home Tree Home. Look at all the people who are interested in treehouses.

Saturday, December 18, 1999 11:05 a.m.

Father and grandfather build simple treehouse for $300.

Friday, December 17, 1999 10:33 a.m.

It is easy to find new links for the Treehouse - every treehouse site invariably links to 2 or 3 new ones. I have much more difficulty finding links for my Silicon Isle weblog, dedicated to the proposition that the Internet may (or may not) enable programmers to work and live wherever they want.

The explanation is simple: if you have escaped to program on a tropic island, your best strategy is to keep a low profile. Otherwise you are inundated with email full of unanswerable questions from people with unrealistic fantasies and denial problems.

Thursday, December 16, 1999 03:04 p.m.

Recommended.

A treehouse, perched high in the sky.
Silly, absurd,
glorious. A testament to frivolity. A
celebration of
simpler days. As Jimmy Buffett says,
"Whatever
happened to Junior Mints? I want my
Junior Mints!"

Oh, and about those skylights...
Today's modern treehouse has skylights
built in,
of course. Letting in the sun, letting out
the heat,
and keeping out the bugs...

More that I learned here:

There are no books, guidelines, or city ordinances (at least not in Los Angeles) to consult on the building of a treehouse -- but there are a few absolute requirements: It must have a trap door. The tree trunk must come up through the middle of the main room. And there must be a pulley/bucket/rope system to raise/lower items.

As with many projects, we may start a treehouse with great enthusiasm, only to lose interest or get discouraged. The web is littered with the debris of such projects. This is one, an attempt to build a children's tree of all the species of the animal kingdom. Only the beetles were partially done, and you may fall through holes in their treehouse:

But even unfinished symphonies can have some good parts: check out these microscope shots of beetles.

Tuesday, December 14, 1999 09:02 a.m.

The Treehouse "Submit a Link" form emails me whatever info you provide. It is processed free by Bravenet. If you decide to add a form to your Pitas page, here are some tips.

Most simple changes work fine, if you know HTML: change the table layout (it is not part of the form), change the size of fields, change the description of fields (they are outside the tag), change the name of a field.

Do not change the name of any hidden field, especially userid; they make the form work. Do not change the form action clause or the Submit button (except the label value). However, you can add hidden fields; for example, add a field with the page name in case you use the same form on different pages.

You can safely delete fields, such as where, but do not delete the userid. You can remove the reset button, but leave submit. You can remove their logo, but leave a link to the site - this is what they request in return for their free service.

You can add new text fields, checkboxes and radio buttons, but DO NOT ADD A TEXTAREA! In case you ignore my advice, you will need to read my experience and discover how to escape the mess you are in.

By default, the user is presented with a Bravenet promotion page after they submit the form. You can redirect them to your own custom thank you page instead.

Other common questions are answered on the Bravenet how-to page: force people to include an email address and send the message to multiple addresses.

Monday, December 13, 1999 04:28 p.m.

Give the feeling of camping out under a tent - these are not condos - "House of the August Moon" - $65/night:

"The main room is 13' by 18', ten feet above ground, spanning African Tulip trees. It is screened and walled in with a queen size bed,and a small sleeping platform above with a futon for two more. An adjacent balcony with a panoramic ocean view has two hammocks. Down the stairway at ground level is a covered camp-style kitchen with a barbeque pit and a propane stove."

Sunday, December 12, 1999 03:46 p.m.

"Waipi'o Treehouse - Hawaii - 25 feet up in a giant monkeypod tree - The wall-to-wall windows look out on the valley and a two thousand foot waterfall, named Papala. If conditions are right, you can hear the faint thunder of the crashing surf in the distance. Always present is the sound of waterfalls!"

$250 for one night, $200/night for longer stays. (found on Jake's treehouse)

Saturday, December 11, 1999 02:50 p.m.

Reason 1: free counters often don't work, because of the heavy server load, so you end up with a stupid looking broken graphic on your page.

Reason 2: when the counter does work, it is usually discouragingly low.

Reason 3: the counter slows down your page.

Reason 4: everyone else does it, so it can't be cool.

Forget about how many people are visiting your site each day. Focus on what you want to say and how you want it to look. But, write as if your grandmother and your grade 10 english teacher were watching over your shoulder - the web is very public.

Friday, December 10, 1999 10:00 a.m.

Too much technology.

I just found Jake's treehouse, which has lots of links, unfortunately with some linkrot.

Friday, December 10, 1999 08:45 a.m.

On December 7th, Lycos changed the URL of Wired from wired.com to wired.lycos.com to rebrand it. After a firestorm of complaints from readers, they quickly changed it back.

But that wasn't the only URL they changed: Hotbot and Angelfire were changed as well. I don't know what the results were for Hotbot, but the results for Angelfire are a disaster.

The free hosting service at Www.angelfire.com is now redirected to angelfire.lycos.com, but what about the user sites? Their domain names are derived from Angelfire, such as http://www.angelfire.com/ny/destinyheadquarters/.

I don't know about other users, but my test page comes and goes now. And trying to edit it is extremely difficult. They must be redirecting the domain, then redirecting it back. For some reason, whatever they are doing fails completely in the Opera browser, but often works in Netscape. (And the banner ad across the top has tripled in size, but that is another story.)

Of course if you read their Usage Rules you would never post anything on Angelfire anyway.

But what do you expect for free? Oh yeah, this Pitas site of mine is free also ... never mind ... I expect a lot for free!

Thursday, December 9, 1999 12:19 p.m.

The Treehouse "Suggest a URL Form" is provided by Bravenet who forward the contents to me via email. On the hidden options in the form is the URL of the "thank you" page - where to send the user after they click SEND and their message is captured. At first I sent the user back to my home page:

INPUT type="hidden" name="thankyou"
value="http://treehouse.pitas.com/"

How to create a custom "thank you" page for a Pitas site like this where you can't upload HTML page directly? Here is the answer:

1. archive your current pitas page
2. Add a new entry with pagename = "Thank you for filling out our form". The link URL can be blank or back to the index.html home page. The entry text should have a thank you message plus links to your main page and your archive page.
3. archive your current page with only this one entry on it, with the title = "thank you" and the url = "thankyou.html".
4. write a new entry to your pitas to flush out the archive.
5. change the hidden form element to value = "http://treehouse.pitas.com/thankyou.html"

Wednesday, December 8, 1999 11:03 a.m.

A huge site on treehouse construction and living. Corbin built his first treehouse in the redwoods above Santa Cruz CA when he was 14-15 and has continued since then - he claims the first treehouse web site. Look down at the "entrance" to his new treehouse: