Browsers, Plugins, Editors, Content Management Systems, Blogs

1
Browsers, Plug-ins, Editors, Content Management
Systems, Blogs

• A big messy presentation
• (maybe too messy)

2
What will we talk about?

• Browsers
• History, Functionality, Future
• Plug-ins and helper applications
• Definition, Examples
• Editors
• Advantages and Disadvantages
• Content Management Systems
• Definition
• Blogs

3
Browsers The Current Landscape

• From thecounter.com
• Statistics for January 2004
• MSIE 6.x 74
• MSIE 5.x -- 18
• Other -- 8
• Includes Mozilla, Opera, Netscape 1-4, IE 1-4
• Statistics compiled from 376,171,358 visitors

4
A Long Time Ago...

• 1991 - Tim Berners-Lee invents the WWW
• Actually creates his own web browser
• http//www.w3.org/History/1994/WWW/Journals/CACM/s
  creensnap2_24c.gif
• 1992 - ViolaWWW developed at UC - Berkeley
• 1993 - Cello developed at Carnegie-Mellon
• 1993 - NCSA at UIUC releases Mosaic

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Mosaic

• First browser with cross platform support
• Mac, PC, UNIX
• First browser to support sound, video clips,
  forms, bookmarks, history file, etc.
• 1994 - Andreessen leaves to found Netscape
• August 1994 - Mosaic assigns commercial rights
  Spyglass, Inc.
• Spyglass, Inc. licenses this technology to
  Microsoft

6
Netscape 1 through 3

• Things are going pretty well for Netscape
• Netscape wisely builds three important Internet
  applications into the program
• email, newsgroups, and WWW
• Netscape 2 builds in support for Javascript,
  cookies, Java applets, and more plug-ins
• 1995 -- Netscape has the third largest IPO in
  Nasdaq history
• Netscape 3 is considered by many to be the most
  popular computer program on the planet

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What is a Plug-In?

• Browser has built in ability to reliably handle
  HTML, ASCII, GIF, and JPEG
• A plug-in allows a user to view or play media
  that the WWW browser cant handle alone
• Integrated into the main HTML window
• A popular example of this is Adobe Acrobat Reader
• Not to be confused with a helper application
• opens a separate window

8
Browser Wars Episode IThe Phantom Menace

• 1995-1996 -- Microsoft declares war on Netscape
• Internet World, March 1996 article
• Microsoft releases Windows 95
• bundles Internet Explorer with the system
• Netscape decides it will charge users after a
  trial period
• Netscape doesnt worry, IE is a bad browser
• no frames support, bad plug-in support, pathetic
  Javascript support

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Would you have invested?
10
Browser Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones

• Internet Explorer 3.0
• Released mid-1996
• Improved support for plug-ins, better support for
  HTML 3.2
• Also includes new support for JScript
• own version of Javascript
• Nominal support for CSS standard
• Netscapes market share begins to dwindle

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Browser Wars Episode 4A New Hope

• Level 4 browsers released in 1997-98
• Both contain support for CSS, Push technology,
  and Dynamic HTML
• combination of Javascript, CSS and other
  technologies
• IE -- more JScript, CSS and ActiveX
• Netscape -- Finally CSS support, more Javascript
  and tag
• A headache of incompatibility

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Netscape gets a little cocky
13
Browser Wars Episode 5The Empire Strikes Back

• November 1998 -- Netscape sold to AOL
• Early 1999 Microsoft releases IE 5.0
• more reliable, nifty search feature, small
  download
• much faster than Netscape 4.x, esp. cached
  documents
• Netscape decides to completely rewrite browser
  and make it open source
• Mozilla project -- http//www.mozilla.org

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What is a cache?

• The cache stores information from downloaded web
  pages like text and graphics
• Netscape contains two caches
• Disk cache -- persistent information
• Memory cache -- emptied upon exiting
• IE calls their cache Temporary Internet Files

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Mozilla

• Early code name for Netscape
• Mozilla.org was a project supported by Netscape
  that
• makes Netscape Communicator free
• makes it open source
• allows other browser manufacturers to use Mozilla
  components for their own browsers
• K-Meleon, IBM Web Browser for OS/2
• Camino for the Macintosh
• Now Mozilla is a non-profit called the Mozilla
  Foundation

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Browser Wars Episode 6Return of the Jedi (?)

• November 2000 -- Netscape releases version 6
• The product is full of some pretty bad bugs
• some cant install, wont load, wont show
  images, loses mail, wont save bookmarks
• Mozilla project is ticked off
• Worst browser upgrade in history

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Future of things to come

• Cool sidebar concept
• Neato skins make interface customizable
• Faster surfing, better HTML rendering
• Gecko engine
• Great cookies/security management
• Almost complete standards support
• CSS, XML, HTML/XHTML, ECMAScript, DOM

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What are Web standards?

• Developed by W3C (directed by Berners-Lee)
• Make development faster
• Ensure information on the web is available to all
• Enhance inter-operability between web
  applications minimize incompatabilities

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Important Web Standards

• HTML
• all browsers need to be able to read this
• XML -- eXtensible Markup Language
• the future of markup languages define your own
  tags!
• CSS -- Cascading Style Sheets
• consistently define the appearance of an entire
  site outside of your code!

20
Web Standards continued

• DOM -- Document Object Model
• gives scripting language consistent access to
  structure, content, and presentation
• ECMAScript
• International standard version of Javascript
• XHTML
• XML compliant version of HTML

21
Mozilla Today

• Currently up to version 1.6
• Tabbed browsing
• Ability to turn off pop-up windows
• Excellent cookie maintenance capabilities
• Multiple skins or themes to change appearance
  and functionality of browser
• Type-ahead find
• Many, many different add ons
• http//www.mozdev.org/projects.html
• Splitting development suite Firefox,
  Thunderbird, Composer

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Plug-ins

• Browsers can only handle certain types of media
  HTML, text, GIF, JPEG
• Plug-ins extend the functionality of the browser
  and fully integrate themselves into the browser
• Helper applications open outside of the browser

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Common Plug-ins

• Adobe Acrobat Reader
• for PDFs (portable document format)
• RealPlayer
• for audio and video streaming
• Apple Quicktime
• still an important video format
• Windows Media Player
• Quickly becoming the media player of choice

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Other Common Plug-ins

• Macromedia Shockwave
• Allows for animation, video, sound, and
  interactivity all in one
• Commonly used to create games
• Created by Director files dont have to be web
  based
• Macromedia Flash
• quickly becoming most popular plug-in
• Stream for quick download, smooth graphics,
  sound, interactivity
• Allow designers to spruce up pages without
  creating huge downloads

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Nielsen Flash 99 Bad

• Breaks Back button
• Cannot make text bigger or smaller
• Reduces accessibility for blind users
• Find in Page feature does not work
• Can be disconcerting
• Encourages gratuitous animation
• http//www.useit.com/alertbox/20001029.html

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Flash Examples

• http//www.shagthesheep.com
• Fun example
• http//www.smallblueprinter.com/garden/planner.htm
  l
• Practical example
• http//www.leogeo.com/
• Artistic example
• http//www.yannarthusbertrand.org/
• Photographic example
• http//www.sixtailer.com/
• I want you to be impressed example
• http//www.vectorlounge.com
• Bad example
• http//newman.baruch.cuny.edu/about/
• Library example select Virtual Tour

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Editors

• Two types of editors
• WYSIWYG
• What you see is what you get
• Composer, Dreamweaver, FrontPage
• Text Editor
• Pure HTML code
• Has the ability to insert code for you, but only
  if you know what you want
• Homesite, Editplus

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Advantages

• Makes HTML page creation easy
• Create HTML pages more quickly
• WYSIWYG No need to know HTML
• Can also include Javascript, CSS, Java, etc.
• Color codes and indents
• Especially easy to use when converting an Excel
  spreadsheet to HTML

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Disadvantages

• Adds goofy code
• proprietary code
• extraneous code
• WYS in one browser/editor is not always WYG in
  another browser/editor
• Discourages learning HTML
• Discourages innovation

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Free Editors

• HTML-Kit
• http//www.chami.com/html-kit/
• 1st Page 2000
• http//www.evrsoft.com/
• Netscape/Mozilla Composer
• http//www.mozilla.org
• http//channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/download.
  jsp

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Browsers, Plugins, Editors

• Typically a webmaster must be fluent in all of
  these
• Obviously this creates a lot of work for the
  webmaster
• Content Management Systems try to lighten this
  load
• Diffusion of responsibility
• Maintains look and feel

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Content Management System (CMS)

• Manages the content of the web site
• Approved templates and styles separate the
  content from the design
• Web based publishing
• Format management (Word, PDF, HTML, etc.)
• Easy page ownership tools and admin.
• Approval processes
• Revision control
• Search tool, indexing, easy retrieval
• Authors need no knowledge of HTML, FTP, CSS, etc.

33
Blogs

• Blogs are simple content management systems
• Blogs are web pages made up of usually short,
  frequently updated posts that are arranged
  chronologically
• Content and purposes of Blogs varies greatly
• links and commentary about other web sites
• news about a company/person/idea
• diaries, photos, poetry, mini-essays, project
  updates, even fiction
• Blog software makes it easy to add content to the
  web no need to know HTML

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Anatomy of a Blog
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Examples of Blogs

• Political Blogs
• InstaPundit http//instapundit.com/
• Talking Points Memo -- http//www.talkingpointsmem
  o.com/
• Blog for America http//blog.deanforamerica.com/
  
• Humor Blogs
• Allah is in the House - http//www.allahpundit.com
  /
• Sports and Entertainment Blogs
• Aarons Baseball Blog - http//aarongleeman.com/
• TwinsGeek http//www.twinsgeek.com/

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More Examples

• Multi author blogs -
• The Volokh Conspiracy - http//volokh.com/
• Technology blogs
• Slashdot - http//slashdot.org/
• Subject Specific
• Little Green Footballs http//littlegreenfootbal
  ls.com/
• Timely
• http//dear_raed.blogspot.com/
• Average Jo/Jane blogs
• The Bleat http//www.lileks.com/bleats/

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Demonstration

• Movable Type

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Todays Blog Landscape

• 4.12 million blogs on hosted services
• 2.72 million have been abandoned
• Active blogs are updated on average once every 14
  days
• Only 50,000 of above are update daily
• 92.4 of bloggers are under 30, 56 are female
• Most blogs have between 25 - 250 readers
• The Blogging Iceberg -- http//www.perseus.com/blo
  gsurvey/thebloggingiceberg.html

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Blogs in Libraries

• Advertise Library events and local events
• Easy way to publish library news
• New resource alert blogs based on different
  disciplines/subjects
• Syndication of content
• Timely event blogs
• Librarian blogs also help foster communication
  and connection

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Examples of Library Blogs

• Catalogablog - http//www.catalogablog.blogspot.co
  m/
• The Shifted Librarian - http//www.theshiftedlibra
  rian.com/
• UNC Undergraduate Library - http//www.lib.unc.edu
  /house/ul_blog.html?blogfileullibrary
• Business and Government Information at the U of M
  - http//blog.lib.umn.edu/staff/bgi/