Introduction to the Web for MC475: Concepts of Production

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Introduction to the Web forMC475 Concepts of
Production

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How does the web work?

• The basic process

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How does the Internet Infrastructure Work?

• Millions of computer systems are connected in
  many different ways to form the Internet.
• No one owns the Internet
• Computer systems are big and small
• Began in 1969 with four host computer systems

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The Internet is millions of interconnected
computer systems
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• For these examples well use the following
  website
• http//www.ksu.edu/Prospective/

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How web works contd

• URL is broken into three parts
• The protocol (http)
• The server name (www.ksu.edu)
• The file names (/Prospective/)

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How web works contd

• To keep machines straight, each machine on the
  Internet is assigned a unique address call an IP
  address (Internet Protocol). IPs look like
  this209.116.69.66
• Servers have static IP addresses
• Home machines that dial in through a modem have
  an IP address that is assigned for that session.
  Next time the machine signs in, the IP will be
  different.

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How web works contd

• Domain Names are human-readable names that
  associate with IP addresses.
• Domain names were created because humans have a
  difficult time reading and remembering numbers.
• Trivial Pursuit Knowledge .com and .net domains
  are managed by the registrar company called
  VeriSign exclusively.

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How web works contd

• Protocol is the pre-defined way that someone who
  wants to use a service talks with that service.
• Protocol is often text and simply describe how
  the client and server will have their
  conversation.
• Every web server on the Internet conforms to the
  HTTP protocol

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Now that you know about the web

• The browser breaks the URL into three parts
• 1. The protocol (http)
• 2. The server name (www.ksu.edu)
• 3. The file name (/Prospective/)

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Why build a web site?

• Entertainment, http//www.espn.com
• Information, http//www.ksu.edu/maps
• E-Commerce, http//www.ebay.com
• Marketing, http//www.manhattan.org

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The Michelle OMalley Lecture

• Who is your audience?
• What purpose does it serve?
• How do you know if it is a good site?
• What design principles are true here?
• How do you evaluate the site?

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Pet Peeves (from OMalley)

• Marquees
• Spelling errors
• Gross colors
• Animation
• Links that dont work
• Pages that say under construction
• Picture boxes without the picture

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Pet Peeves (from Candy)

• Yucky Fonts
• Lack of text size control
• Lack of common sense links
• Organization problems
• Pictures that are TOO large
• Sites that are rarely updated
• Microsoft Front Page Designs
• Sites that dont work on both MACs and PCs!!!

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Adding Audio Video to Web

• Treat Audio and Video as an element of the design
  of site.
• Always consider slowest possible connections
  (dial-up modem)
• Use compressed files like .wmv and .mp3 files
• Test files on all types of machines with
  different browsers and players!

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Folders

• Note Placement of Folders
• Use of Indexpages

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Files

• When naming files
• Use all lowercase alpha and numeric characters
• No spaces, wildcard characters, periods, commas,
  etc.
• Try to keep the file name short! Less than 10
  characters.
• Files should be named in a manner that links to
  the files contents

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Organize Your Page

• Using index cards
• Organize the example provided in class
• Folders are grouping Variables
• Images
• Download
• Experience
• Education
• Skills, etc.

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Practice

• Using the resume I provide, create a folder and
  file structure for the an online portfolio.
• Remember use of folders and index pages we just
  discussed.

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Resources

• Eager, N (1994). Using the World Wide Web, Que
  Publishing, Indianapolis, Indiana.
• Grant, A. Meadows, J. (2004) eds. Communication
  Technology Update. Elsevier Publishing. Focal
  Press.
• Web resources
• http//www.howstuffworks.com
• http//www.microsoft.com