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Highboard

To jump off the high board with both feet, de-engineer your favorite sites. Learn the tricks of the trade directly from top Web designers. You won't find their backflips in books. You will find these tricks in the source code of killer sites.

The Web is an open environment where imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Such synergy assumes you have the common sense to improve on what you find. That way, nobody gets hurt (read: you don't get sued) and you add something to the conversation. One day you'll wake up to find yourself stealing a trick off somebody who improved on a trick they stole from you.

Still not convinced? Well, top Web developers, such as Jonathan Steuer (founder of c|net, Hot Wired, and Cyborganic sites), openly advocate de-engineering as the best way to learn HTML. Worried about copyrights? Follow Steuer's simple dictum: "If you think you may be violating a copyright, you probably are."

To get started with something easy, steal from this site. The following procedures are designed for Netscape Navigator.

Steal the HTML for this page

  1. Choose Save As from the File pull-down menu.

  2. Do one of the following:

    • Macintosh
      Choose Source in the Format dialog box.

    • Windows
      Choose HTML Files in the Save As Type dialog box.

  3. Enter a filename (for example, filename.html).

  4. Click Save.

  5. Open the file from your favorite text editor.

  6. Edit the file.

  7. Open the file from your browser to see your edits, thief.

Steal an image from this page

  1. Choose the image:

    • Macintosh
      Hold down the mouse button over the image and choose Save This Image As.

    • PC
      Right-click the image and choose Save Image As.

  2. Enter a filename (for example, image.gif).

  3. Click Save, thief.

Steal the background for this page

  1. Choose Document Source from the View As pull-down menu.

    The HTML source file displays.

  2. Copy the BACKGROUND location from the BODY tag:

    <BODY BACKGROUND="../../images/gif/water.gif" TEXT="#000000" LINK="#006666" VLINK="#006666" ALINK="#006666">

  3. Paste the BACKGROUND location into the Location field of your browser just after the after the URL for this file:

    ../../images/gif/water.gif

  4. Delete two directory levels from the URL (as indicated by ../../).

    The resulting URL is where the image is located:

    ../../images/gif/water.gif

  5. Press Enter.

    The source image file displays.

  6. Choose Save As from the File pull-down menu.

  7. Do one of the following:

    • Macintosh
      Choose Source in the Format dialog box.

    • Windows
      Choose GIF File in the Save As Type dialog box.

  8. Enter a filename (for example, image.gif).

  9. Click Save, thief.


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