CYBERTIMES
Cookies
If a Web site wants users to be able to customize their visit (personalized weather, stock quotes, etc.)
Two ways:
Cookies
Login Screen
Both allow the server to 'know' who you are
Login procedure requires registration, and is a barrier to new users
Cookies are transparent
Both can be abused
HOMEWORK FROM LAST WEEK
Critiques
Web Sites
Who's having trouble?
No FTP
Demo Tripod Web interface
HOMEWORK FOR NEXT TIME
Reading
Poor Richard's
7, 10, 11
Online Reading
HTML
For those of you considering making a Web site for your final project, you should begin experiment with some of the tags mentioned today. Even if you use an HTML editor.
Technological Change and the Publishing Industry
BookTV - CSPAN2
Oren Teicher
CEO American Booksellers Association
Liz Lane
Research Library Director New York State Library
Bob Minzesheimer
USA Today Book Critic
No one in the publishing industry knows what the future will be.
Predictions range from:
online carving a new niche for itself while printed media still having a place
all printed media becoming completely obsolete
look at the horse and buggy or the telegraph
both still exist, but are no longer used by most people
what once seemed modern (the telegraph) now seems quaint
everyone agrees that change is inevitable
remember Y2K
Main issues
People will continue to read
questions are whether they will read paper or screen
Plato opposed general literacy, warned of demise of poetry by advent of literacy
people are making similar claims about the internet
3 Threats to publishing
Internet
Many content people have already abandoned print (news, encyclopedia britannica)
Yet book sales online are huge
Electronic Books
Drawbacks outweigh the benefits for people now
but that is a generational issue
Today's children will probably take them for granted
Current issues of reading on-screen will be solved by technology
Print-on-Demand
Every library and bookstore could potentially have every book
bookstores could evolve into printing houses with access to online database and no need for inventory
An entire book can be printed in just several minutes (and bound?)
Discussion?
Pros of traditional print
The 'feel' of the book
the existence of astronaut food has not meant the end of fine dining
people still appreciate the tactile experience of books
Copyrights are safer
Many publishing contracts include clauses specifying print-only to protect the intellectual property of the author
Print can be shared and given as gifts more easily
You can transfer files easily, but even easier to hand someone a book
Pros of new media
Cheaper
No need for warehousing
libraries currently have to discard old books because of space limitations
Length no longer a limiting factor in periodicals
Searchable as database
-> Data is better on a computer, literature is better in a book
-> Timely information is better online, timeless content is better in print
Fears
Sales Tax
Predicted loss is in billions of dollars
Before the threat to small stores was from big chains (Wal-Mart)
But a growing threat to small bookstores now are amazon.com
They provide no local jobs and pay no local sales tax
Royalties hard to claim.
Content will be in hands of distributors, publishers - commercialization of all text material
lower quality content
faster - sloppier
Other Media
Expensive Midpriced Cheap
High-Quality Collectable Low-Quality
Live Personal Library Push
Public Private Private Customizable
Theater Movie Video TV
Concert Record/Tape/CD Radio
Storytelling/Town Crier Book/(ebook)(P.O.D.) Magazine/Newspaper/(Internet)
Audio industry is also affected by the digital age, they are also dealing with copyright issues (mp3)
But 'printed' audio media is still around, people like having physical libraries
TV industry tried to ban VCR
Predictions
Simply more choices
People usually overestimate the influence of technology
Wireless telegraph was predicted to replace newspapers, since updates could be made hourly, the first 'push' technology
The Internet and ebooks will not replace hardbound books, rather replace softbound books
however, paperbacks will still have a place
-> CDs did not replace casette tapes, because tapes are so durable
What will be affected by new media?
Reference books - need to be updated, cheaper online than paper
Textbooks - online can include other media, traditional textbooks are heavy, students will favor not having to lug 20 pounds of paper
Public domain works: shakespeare, socrates - there are no copyright issues
Role of library - they include new media as it becomes available (microfiche, audio books)
and they will still be needed to be a commercial-free supplier of information
If there is a health reference database, commercial sites would either charge for use, or include ads which would compromise the integrety
libraries would be able to buy the database and make it available to the public
Role of publishers - while small bookstores have been hurt by the internet, small publishers have been helped by being able to distribute through amazon
what happens if Tom Clancy decides to publish directly through amazon, skipping the publisher altogether?
many publishers see the internet as merely a way to promote teasers
some have experimented with novels online but that is mostly a novelty
Role of bookstores - perhaps they will sell old books antique-style and simply print up new ones on demand
a combination of rare book sellers and printshops
What will not be affected (as much)?
Children's literature - heavy reliance on pictures, which cannot be replicated as well on screen
need something that won't short out with slobber all over it
Historical documents - to expensive to scan or type in every book in existence, regardless of copyright
Books will evolve into historical documents, libraries into museums
Foreign language texts - english is becoming the language of the internet
The Internet cannot display non-roman characters as well as the english alphabet
Icelandic government trying to curb the use of english by children (who get it from tv and internet), they're afraid of losing their entire language
child - fiction - nonfiction - instructional - reference
not affected affected
not updated updated
Magazines and Newspapers Books
Introduction to HTML
Purpose: To show what HTML is and how it works. I'm not going to go over every single tag here….
This is an overview, your time will be better spent learning HTML in a real-world situation--that is, if
you really want to learn it at all.
Don’t have to know every detail
Do have to understand what it is
Markup Language
Not a Programming Language
Rendered on client-side (browser)
Cross-platform
Standardization
Netscape and Microsoft support different versions of HTML
Standard itself is not standard
Standard always evolving
Browsers 2 years behind - 3.2
Lowest common denominator
Learning HTML
View Source
Web Site reference
webreference.com
webdeveloper.com
Books
HTML Editors with viewable source
Anatomy of a Tag
Tags tell the browser how to display text
Tag name between angle brackets
<B>
Open and Close Tags
Make this text <B>bold</B>
A few tags, eg.
,
, <IMG> don’t have close tags
More about tags
Case of tag name doesn’t matter
Tags are themselves not displayed
Tags can be nested
‘White space’ is ignored
Can be viewed offline or online
Basic Structure of a Web Page
<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>The title</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
various text and formatting tags
</BODY>
</HTML>
Some basic tags
<P>some text</P> - Paragraph
put line breaks around text
- Line break
Add 1 line break
<B>some text</B> - Bold
<I>some text</I> - Italic
<U>some text</U> - Underline
- Horizontal Rule
Font
<FONT></FONT>
Requires ‘attributes’, can be combined
<FONT COLOR=“white”>some text</FONT>
<FONT SIZE=“3”>some text</FONT>
<FONT FACE=“arial,helvetica”>some text</FONT>
CSS will eliminate the need for this tag
Anchor
<A HREF=“http://matchstick.com/class”>link text</A>
Absolute versus relative links
Image
<IMG
SRC=“http://matchstick.com/class/picture.gif”
WIDTH=“50”
HEIGHT=“30”
ALT=“My Picture”>
Images
gif - General Interchange Format
Can be animated - Compresses by eliminating colors - ‘lossless’
jpg (jpeg) - Journal of Photographic Engineering Group
Same guys who developed MP3
better for photography - compresses by eliminating reolution - ‘lossy’
png - Portable Network Graphics
Not supported well enough
Tables
Allows magazine-style layouts in HTML
<TABLE>
<TR>
<TD>Some text</TD>
</TR>
<TD>Some text</TD>
<TR>
</TR>
</TABLE>
Comment
<!--All text inside comment tags are ignored by the browser, allowing the editor to explain the HTML, ad notes, etc.-->
Colors
Can use 16 basics
white, black, red, blue, yellow, etc.
Need to specify hexadecimal code for others
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
3 primaries
RGB: red, green, blue
8-bit = 0 to 255 for each color
Web-safe colors
6 possible values for each
0%, 20%, 40%, 60%, 80%, 100%
6^3 = 216 possible colors
Many browsers/monitors will display more than 216
CGI
“Common Gateway Interface”
Server-side
Software that works with the Web server to provide interactivity
DHTML
“Dynamic HTML”
Client-side
Additional HTML tags + JavaScript + CSS
Allows more sophisticated Web pages
JavaScript
Not the same as “Java”
Client-side
A simple programming language that allows basic interactivity
Does not communicate with the server, so cannot be used for higher-level interactions
Java
Traditionally client-side, but now can be used server-side also
A true programming language
When used client-side its use is very similar to DHTML
When used server-side its use is similar to CGI
ActiveX
client-side
A Microsoft standard that only works with MSIE on Windows
Similar to javascript
XML
client-side and server-side
“Extendable (or Extensable) Markup Language”
The ‘next generation’ of HTML
Essentially allows the developer to create custom HTML tags
Most useful when working with data
CSS
“Cascading Style Sheets”
client-side
Superior to HTML regarding page formatting and layout
Streaming Media
Usually requires its own server and client-side plugin
Examples
RealAudio
VRML
“Virtual Reality Markup Language”
client-side
A way to create ‘3D’ Web pages
Needs a lot of bandwidth
Widely haled around 1997, basically flopped