Question for b0b

Mark Ardito · Post by **Mark Ardito** » 15 Jul 2002 7:04 am

b0b,

Hey I have a question about the forum. How did you make the Steel Guitar Icon. I mean, when I put a shortcut to the forum on the link bar in Internet Explorer, instead of haveing the standard white icon with a blue E in it, it is the guitar strings with a bar over it. Some other sites that have their own icons are; Google, Hotmail, MSN, CNN etc...I would like to know how this is done. Can't seem to figure it out?

Thanks,
Mark

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 15 Jul 2002 8:39 am

Sorta cool, isn't it? I put a file called favicon.ico in the default directory for steelguitarforum.com. Internet Explorer looks for it when you add a link to your favorites list.

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<img align=left src="http://b0b.com/coolb0b2.gif" border="0"> Bobby Lee
-b0b- quasar@b0b.com 
-System Administrator

Jim Smith · Post by **Jim Smith** » 15 Jul 2002 8:44 am

I'm pretty sure my IE 6 at home picks up this icon and others, but IE 5 at work doesn't, nor does it pick them up for other sites either. Is this "feature" that version specific, or could it be my firewall at work?

Mark Ardito · Post by **Mark Ardito** » 15 Jul 2002 8:58 am

Jim,

Try deleting the link and then closing the browser. Open the browser again and then add the link again.

Mark

Jon Light (deceased) · Post by **Jon Light (deceased)** » 15 Jul 2002 11:41 am

Aha! I did as you suggest, Mark, and my IE5 Favorites does take the SGF icon. Pretty nifty.

Ernie Renn · Post by **Ernie Renn** » 16 Jul 2002 3:51 am

I was looking at a few Favicon making/using pages last night. Something you can try if you use IE.

In YOUR browser: On the little blue IE logo in the corner of the address bar,

Click and hold down your left mouse button on it and drag it, like you're moving it. Keep doing it until it changes. Here's what it changes to:

Cool, eh?

(Do it on www.buddyemmons.com too!

)

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My best,
Ernie

The Official Buddy Emmons Website
www.buddyemmons.com[This message was edited by Ernie Renn on 16 July 2002 at 08:15 AM.]

Mark Ardito · Post by **Mark Ardito** » 16 Jul 2002 11:37 am

Ernie and b0b,

How do you make icons? I am sure there are a ton of freeware programs to make the .ico extension, but any of them good? This could get interesting!

Mark

Ernie Renn · Post by **Ernie Renn** » 17 Jul 2002 1:58 am

Mark;
Size is everything. It has to be so many pixels by so many pixels. I don't remember how many though. I found an icon rendering program, (which was on my old computer - I think it was "Microangelo 98") For the website, you have to save it as "favicon" and load it to the main directory.
Here's mine:

Good luck!

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My best,
Ernie

The Official Buddy Emmons Website
www.buddyemmons.com

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 19 Jul 2002 7:44 am

I made mine in Visual Studio (a Microsoft programming environment), but there must be better ways. The icon editor is Visual Studio is really primitive compared to any real graphics editor I've used.

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (Emaj9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic) Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)

Jim Smith · Post by **Jim Smith** » 19 Jul 2002 8:13 am

The icon doesn't show up consistently for me. Most of this week I couldn't get the icon at work with IE 5.5 SP2 but I did get it at home with IE 6. Now I'm getting it at work but not at home. Just now I got it at work for this message but not for the reply page.

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 20 Jul 2002 5:15 pm

I think it shows up if the icon exists in the same directory as the HTML file you are referencing. The Forum uses a different directory for each section, and most of them probably don't have the icon file in them.

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<img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
Sierra Session 12 (E9), Williams 400X (Emaj9, D6), Sierra Olympic 12 (F Diatonic) Sierra Laptop 8 (D13), Fender Stringmaster (E13, A6)