Learning from the past Standards, hardware, software and migration

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Learning from the pastStandards, hardware,
software and migration

• Gareth Knight
• gareth.knight_at_ahds.ac.uk

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Recap - Why standards are a good thing

• Well documented,
• Best practice,
• Easier to manage,
• Preservation - Increased longevity of electronic
  resources
• Financial - I dont get paid if I dont support
  standards!
• But

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Theme of the presentation

• Are you 100 certain that you comply with all
  relevant standards?
• Be honest!
• Things change
• Software, hardware and working practices may
  change HTML, CSS, plug-ins, etc.
• What are the implications?
• Long and short-term problems if the standard is
  not correctly implemented HTML, CSS, plug-ins,
  etc.
• Im running out of money. How can these problems
  be fixed cheaply?
• Remedial actions to solve the problems

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Browser Standards

• The problem
• WYSIWYG applications producing questionable code.
• How will this affect my user?
• Broken web pages or badly formed HTML
• Foreign or illegal characters (e.g. ampersands)
• Mixing characters from other encoders.
• Broken plug-ins
• Difficult to migrate to XHTML
• How will these issues affect the user?
• Badly formed HTML (e.g. forms, tables, etc.)
• Missing text

Microsoft Windows TM! Microsoft Windows !
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Browser Standards

• How can I test the site?
• W3C validation, Lynx, Mozilla, Netscape, Opera,
  etc.
• How easy are these to fix?
• It varies. A search replace command, which can
  be found in most development environments, to
  replace garbage characters.

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Accessibility Standards

• The Problem
• Accessibility standards are often ignored
• Can be difficult to test.
• How will these issues affect the user?
• Confusing site navigation, jumbled layout.
• Use of colour, alternate text, scripting
• Javascript sections are inaccessible.
• The use of image-based anti-robot identifiers
  limit blind-users. The W3C have recently released
  a working paper on the subject
  (http//www.w3.org/TR/2003/WD-turingtest-20031105/
  )

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Accessibility Standards

• How can I test the site?
• Focus groups, ask NOF support for comments.
• How easy are these to fix?
• Bobbie performs machine-testing.
• WAI guidelines allow qualitative testing.
• Also read Jakob Nielsons book on designing web
  usability

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Migrating to new standards,but which one?

• "The good thing about standards is that there are
  so many to choose from (A. Tanenbaum)
• Quicktime 1.0 1992
• MPEG-1 1992
• Real Media 1995
• MPEG-2 1996
• RealVideo 1997
• MPEG-4 1999
• Quicktime 5.0 1999
• Active Streaming Format 1999
• DIVX 5.0 2002
• The number of A/V de-facto standard formats has
  exploded in the past five years, and this does
  not cover the dozens of audio and video codec
  combinations!

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Measuring longevity of standard

• Who developed it?
• Microsoft, Motion Picture Expert Group, etc.
• Has it received mainstream support?
• Can your hardware save data in that format?
• What organisations are using it?
• Is it used in industry
• Is it widely accepted by the professional and
  amateur community?
• Technology watch check web sites, developer
  forums and newsgroups.
• Has it been submitted as an ISO standard?

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Measuring longevity of standard

• Are there any legal actions to change the
  standard?
• Is there a licensing fee?
• What tools are available to create and manipulate
  the format
• Open source vs. proprietary
• PRONOM National Archive database of 250
  software products, 550 file formats and 100
  manufacturers
• Can I execute these tools on my computer?
• Java, Windows-only, Mac-only

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Choosing a suitable migration path

• What are the main features?
• Small file size, streaming support
• Will it support your specialist needs?
• Subtitles, DRM, Internet delivery, etc.
• Does it provide sufficient quality
• Lossless vs. lossy compression.
• Will it impose any restrictions on use?
• Can it actually be played by your target
  audience?
• Is the standard stable or does it change
  frequently?
• How will this affect your desire to use the
  format?

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Best Practice solutions

• In addition to format standards, you need to
  consider best practice solutions to content
  delivery
• Frame size
• Frame rate
• Bit-depth
• Audio quality

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Migration Problems

• Have you encountered any problems when accessing
  these files in other applications?
• Quirks (text not displaying, desynchronised
  audio/video, upside-down video playback).
• Version incompatibilities
• Migrating to other formats
• Are there any other problems when exporting to
  other formats? E.g. lossless-to-lossless
  conversion, in-editable
• Document quirks incompatibilities for later.

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Updating hardware

• Hardware has changed dramatically in the last 3
  years
• Memory DDR vs. SD-RAM
• CPU pin compatibility
• Graphics cards AGP 2x, 4x, 8x
• Operating system will Windows NT4/98 run on
  newer hardware?
• Do you upgrade existing hardware or replace it
  with new equipment?

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Updating software

• Operating system lifecycle

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Updating software

• Software changes on a frequent basis
• Four service packs available for Windows 2000.
• Microsoft issues 3 patches per week on average.
• Legal action force changes to plugin handling.
• In addition, there is an estimated 20 un-patched
  vulnerabilities in Internet Explorer alone (PivX
  Solutions).
• Do you upgrade to a later operating system or
  continue to use an operating system software
  with known security flaws?

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Useful URLs

• QA Focus - http//www.ukoln.ac.uk/qa-focus/
• W3C - http//www.w3.org
• WAI - http//www.w3.org/WAI/
• MPEG - http//www.chiariglione.org/mpeg/index.htm
• PRONOM - http//www.pro.gov.uk/about/preservation/
  digital/pronom/default.htm