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Rust Never Sleeps

This month's tutorial is dedicated to Ross Macintosh, who: a) requested a rusty license plate tutorial, and b) for some unexplainable reason, is a big Neil Young fan. Well Ross this one's for you and Mr. Neil "My Voice Never Changed" Young. (Sorry Ross, I just burned out on Neil's whiny voice in the 70s along with Joanie Mitchell and other 70s icons).

If your mind is better than mine, you may question whether California license plates in the mid 50s were as pictured above, or black with yellow type. I honestly can't remember. And my long suffering wife thinks that the stick-on month and year tags were not in use at that time either. I'm sure you'll let me know. I had just gotten my driver's license then and was not paying as much attention as I guess I should have.

 This cool little Message Scroller showing bullet points from last month's tutorial is from Xara Modules. (You can only see it when you are connected to the Internet). I have to admit it took me a little time to get used to the way it works. You create your messages on the Xara Modules Web site. Xara creates the JavaScript and gives you a line of HTML code, which you add to your HTML page, which links to the Xara Modules site, which causes the scroller to display.

You press Add to add a new line of text. And you also press Add to make any non-text changes. It's just that when you press Add to apply your non-text changes, it also adds a blank  New Message line which you must then delete, unless of course you want to add another line of text. It's not the most perfect interface, but as you can see here, it works.

Once you learn how the interface works, you can create scrolling messages like this one with custom bullets, your own image or logo, and other neat stuff. It's a great way to draw and hold your Web site's visitor's attention. Message Scroller is $49.00 US per year or $10.00 US per month. (Obviously per year is more cost effective). In essence, you rent these effects from Xara Modules on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Xara Modules also offer several other text message effects including: Sliding Message, Horizontal Marquee, Speedy Message, Typewriter Text, Message Presenter, and Spinning Text . Each of these modules is $29.00 US per year or $2.95 US per month. You could add a new effect each month, but wait, you can get the whole lot for only $49.00 US per year or $4.95 US per month! How can you pass up a deal like this? I ask you.

And the good news is, they all share the same interface. Once you learn one, it's easier to learn the others.

And remember, Xara Modules is part of Xara Ltd. who generously sponsors theses free tutorials.