Gizmo's Tech Support Alert

Look Up That Term
Come across an IT term that you don't recognize? If you can't find out what it means from one of these sites, then it's probably a misprint.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.techweb.com/encyclopedia/defineterm.cgi
http://pcwebopedia.com/
http://www.cknow.com/ckinfo/index.htm

Top Site for IT White Papers
The papers on this site cover a wide range of subjects from CRM to programming. I thought the security section particularly useful with categories including authentication, content filtering, encryption/cryptography, intrusion detection/prevention and more. Be aware that some of these papers come from product vendors.
http://www.ittoolbox.com/

FAQ Finder
FAQs are compilations of Frequently Asked Questions. They are a gold mine of information particularly when you have an obscure problem to solve. This site has searchable listing of ALL the UseNet FAQs and believe me, that's a LOT of information.
http://www.faqs.org/faqs/

Everything You Wanted to Know About Cookies
Well not quite everything. This site covers the basics pretty well, has an excellent FAQ and gives good guidance on cookie removal but there's not much on the curly issues such as setting cookie management policies.
http://www.aboutcookies.org

Free Photoshop Video Tutorials
Nice collection. I particularly liked the tutorial on recovering badly under-exposed images.
http://www.lombergar.com/v5/list/tutorials

Free Knoppix Book, Linux Training
"Knowing Knoppix" [1] is a free downloadable 124-page book released under the GNU Free Documentation License. It's a great introduction to Knoppix for those coming from a Windows background. For a more formal set of tutorials, try the free online courses from this [2] site.
[1] http://www.pjls16812.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/knowing-knoppix/index.html
[2] http://learnlinux.tsf.org.za/courses/web-courses.html

Learn HTML for Free
I often get requests from readers asking how they can best learn HTML. I usually refer them to this site that offers a free on-line tutorial. The course starts from a very basic level and takes about five hours to complete after which you will have
learned more than enough to build a simple web site. The same site offers a number of other free courses such as dynamic HTML and Windows 2000 server but I haven't tried these.
http://www.e-learningcenter.com/free_html_course.htm

Free HTML Tutorials
This site offers an excellent directory of HTML resources including many free tutorials. While at the site, check out their free HTML editor. I've not tried it but, based on the description, it sounds most impressive. If you try it, give me some feedback and I'll pass it on to other readers.
http://www.evrsoft.com/

HTML Reference
Looking for a good book on HTML?  Don't bother.  The reference pages on this Web site are as good as anything you can buy off the shelf, in our opinion.
http://www.blooberry.com

Excellent Free JavaScript Tutorials
These are the best free JS tutorials that I've yet encountered. If you want to learn JS, this is the place to go.
http://jennifermadden.com/

Web Programming Tutorials
Like to brush up on your JavaScript? Need some help with HTML4? Then head for this site where you'll find lots of links to free web programming resources.
http://www.muppetlabs.com/library/tech/tutorials.html

Free Web Site/Application Development Tutorials
I don't think I've ever seen a more comprehensive collection of web development tutorials. Topics include HTML, XML, JavaScript, ASP, PHP, .NET and dozens of others. The amazing thing is they are all free.
http://www.w3schools.com

Free Web Developer Tutorials
Thanks to subscriber Roger Davis for letting me know about this top site featuring free tutorials and guides for web programming languages. Many of the guides are in PDF format and can be downloaded for off line reference. The quality is excellent.
http://www.devguru.com/

Regular Expressions Explained
Sooner or later every techie runs across "regular expressions" either in programming or embedded in a software tool. This excellent free tutorial explains what they are and their use.
http://gnosis.cx/publish/programming/regular_expressions.html

Free Tutorial Makes Regular Expressions Comprehensible
A few issues back I mentioned a free tutorial on this oft-troublesome subject. Here's another excellent guide.
http://www.regular-expressions.info/