Hello.

I don't know if this is the right place to ask about this issue, if is not then, please apologize.

I have a small WISP in my town and I would like to offer free internet service at coffee shops, restaurant, and other public places but, this free service will have its limitations: All pages would have an advertisement or promotion on top just like NetZero used to do. I think this is done with frameset but, don't know how to force this for all the pages.

I have a linux gateway that runs squid and would like certain ip addresses (free ones) to view pages with this promo on top or even have pop ups from time to time whichever is easier.

Can this be done? If so, can you please provide any suggestions?

Thanks in advanced for your help.

I would suggest browsing the alt.html archives or even subscribing to the newsgroup.

There is a very low noise level in there (some spam but its easy to ignore and only a few trolls and flamers) and most of the regulars seem willing to try to answer an intelligently asked question.

They will ask you to for a link to where they can inspect the page design, so, if you can make something available over the net, it will help.

I do know that, in general, frames are out these days and CSS containers are in. I'm not a web designer--except for my personal sites--but I have dipped in there enough to know that the denizens of alt.html have never liked frames.

Thanks for replying.

I just want to force the user to view an advertisement. I don't mind using CSS to accomplish that. I want every user to see that add on every page the user requests from the Internet.

Don't know how to really do this or if it can even be done.

Thanks.

im not sure the specifics but it can i believe be accomplished by a transparent proxy, or some routers can do such a thing

I'm not saying I could make that happen but I know it can be done using containers.

When you visit a blog, the sidebar(s) that most blogs have are "containers" in CSS-ese.

For example, you can make a banner container and put the add in the banner.

About dot com has a good primer on CSS--I say "good" because it works easily from basic to more complicated and doesn't throw everything at you at once.

I would recommend going there and nosing around a bit.

Another good site is HTML Goodies.

W3C Schools is the most thorough, but I found it really overwhelming unless I did pre-homework, kind of like taking Algebra II without taking Algebra I.

Yes, I rather use CSS, I think it would be a lot easier to work with but, how would I be able to "rewrite" all pages that passes through our gw? Maybe it can be done with squid or apache? That's where the trick is at:

If an user requests www.google.com, I would like that banner to appear on top and the requested page just below it. This sounds difficult to do since, there should be a script or something that would have to rewrite the requested page html code. Maybe have a "floating" banner?

The traffic should definitely pass through a router/gw in order for this to be accomplished. Also, I would like to run a php script that would load ads from mysql table on to a css or frame banner...

Can this may be accomplished with AJAX? I noticed google used to something similar to what I'm trying to do.