Q&A and more

Date: July 3, 1998
From: bob@unc.edu
To: JOMC050 students

Hi everybody,

The first two days of class added more than 40 email messages to my mail box -- more than I could reply to right away, and I guess I won't be able to keep up with personal replies every day to 20 people... but I will try to reply to urgent messages. It's best not to use the Daily "What did you learn today" survey form to send me an Important question, since it might get lost among 20 other messages all listing the subject as "Daily Survey Response." (Right now there are 247 email messages in my in-basket. Let's talk about Information Overload sometime!)

So, if it's a message you want to make sure I get to, send it to bob@unc.edu with your usual email program, and make the subject line "urgent j50 question" or "special j50 question" or "whimsical j50 question" -- whatever is appropriate.

And now, to catch up, here come some answers to questions from the first batch of email. (I've removed your name or anything to reveal who you are, since I didn't tell you in advance that your questions might "go public.")

Coincidentally, there's a phenomenon on the Internet called the "Frequently Asked Questions" or "FAQ" document, in which people try to solve problems before they arise for the umpteenth time. I guess this doesn't count as that kind of FAQ, because there were no duplicates!

Twenty questions, more or less...

Question for today: are there actually topics that aren't covered on the web in any form? kind of a rhetorical, silly little question, really.
Answer: Not silly. The Web is open to "publishing" by anyone with a computer and an Internet Service Provider (ISP) who gives them space for Web pages (such as UNC or America OnLine), so if there are some topics that "aren't covered," you can go out and cover them! Then the next problem is to help the people who want to know about that topic FIND your pages. One of the first questions to ask is "Who *are* those people?"

Question for today: I use Explorer at home and I don't think that I can view the source code page. Do you know how to view the source code page on Explorer?
Answer: Thanks for reminding me that I should talk about Microsoft Internet Explorer and Lynx as alternatives to Netscape. There are similarities and differences. You'll even find slight differences between the Macintosh and Windows versions of Explorer (or Netscape, or between the different "flavors" of Netscape). But they all let you view source code, even if they may put the command on a different menu or command key. On my Mac version of MSIE there is a View menu and Source is one of the commands. On Lynx you press the slash or backslash key, I forget which -- either / or \ By the way, America Online uses its own browser, loosely based on an early version of Explorer. I *don't_think* AOL's browser will let you look at the source, at least not AOL for the Macintosh.

Question for today: What is the short cut to open things on Macs? On a PC it's "CTRL" and "O." I tried that and it does not work.
Answer: I've forgotten whether the original Macintosh even had a CTRL (Control) key, but it did have the "Apple" or "Command" key (which also has a cloverleaf-shaped character on it). Anyhow, today's Macintosh keyboard has both, but most Macintosh programs use Command plus a letter the way Microsoft programs use CTRL plus a letter. So Cmd-O to open, Cmd-N for new, Cmd-S to save (in a text editor or word processor), Cmd-X to cut, Cmd-C to copy, Cmd-V to paste, Cmd-F to find, etc. Look at the pull-down menus for reminders of these keyboard shortcuts. Speaking of shortcuts, on the Mac you can also double-click the icon of any document and the Mac will go find the software it thinks created that document and open it.

Question for today: I am in the market for a first 35mm SLR. Any suggestions?
Answer: A *little* bit off the topic. I have a 25 year old Canon F1 myself and don't have enough money to tempt myself with something newer. Mike Williams or one of his students down in the basement might be a better source. My next camera will probably be digital, but digital SLRs are so expensive I'll have to hope my next university buys one for me! In case I forget to mention it later, digital cameras store images on chips, disks or memory cards, not on film... so you can transfer them into a computer, edit the pictures, print them or put them on a Web page. You can also get Kodak to develop regular film and give you prints *and* a disk with the images on it. (It adds about $5 to the cost of processing the film.) Some drugstores that offer Kodak processing may not know that you can use the photodisks in a Macintosh, but you can if you have photo-viewing software on the Mac already.

Question for today: How can these computers run both MAC and IBM fomatted discs? Are there any IBMs that can run both?
Answer: Good question! First, they don't "run" the disks, they "read" the disks. Run "programs." Read "disks" or "documents." OK? The Macs read the IBM disks because all Macs come with a (free!) program that tells them how to interpret the IBM disk format. You can *buy* a program to make a Windows95 computer read Macintosh disks, but I think it costs about $50.
  Speaking of running programs, the Macintoshes in this lab cannot run IBM or Windows programs... but a couple of companies sell programs that let Macs run Windows95 ("VirtualPC" is one of them). And some Macs have a Windows PC built into them--an extra circuit board with the same chips you find in a PC. There are (or were) a few of them in the big lecture halls on campus, but if they're still around, they're probably getting old and slow.

Question for today: I had no idea the hidden language was so complicated. Are we going to learn the commands in depth in order to make our own web pages?
Answer: You're going to learn enough HTML to make simple informative pages in your sleep! And you're going to learn how to look up more codes whenever you need to do something fancier.
  Then, after we've learned old-fashioned HTML codes, we'll look at programs that "hide" the HTML language and just let you make Web pages by clickinng and dragging things around the screen. A lot of the stuff that looks complicated isn't really necessary, but is dumped there by those "make it easier for the human" programs. Sometimes those extra codes create problems, and it's good to know the basics of HTML so that you can go into the "raw code" and figure out what went wrong.

Question for today: How do you get to the page where all the text is that programs the web page?
Answer: I think you mean "how do I view the HTML source code of the page?" Remembering that terminology will solve the question for you. Go to Netscape's "View" menu and look for the right command.
  Also, remember that they are the SAME page... you're just looking at it two different ways--the browser *interprets* the HTML code (made up of text and "tags") and presents the text and images the way the tags tell it to; the "view source" command (or just opening the page with a text editor like SimpleText or Windows Notepad) shows you the tags themselves.

Question for today: How do you know when you have reached the correct website using your keywords?
Answer: How do you know whether you've found the right book in a library catalog? Go take a look! And on the Web you don't even have to wait for the elevator! Actually "_the_ correct website" may not exist--there may be 20 "almost-correct" ones, one that seems to be correct but turns out to be all lies (or a joke), and another one that convinces you you'd be better off reading a book about the subject. That's a big part of this course--figuring out which information to trust and use.

Question for today: so far everything has been pretty cut and dry
Answer: Not too dry, I hope. Must have been the banjo playing.

Question for today: Is making a web page difficult?
Answer: You'll make one on Monday!

Question for today: Will we learn what the background codes mean?
Answer: Sure thing. If you mean "all those codes in the background," that's the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) we'll be learning. If you mean specifically the codes that create "backgrounds" for Web pages, we'll do that too. One code lets you make the background any solid color you want (like the lightblue on this page; view source and see how I did it). Another code lets you make the background a pattern or picture, and you'll see lots of pages using that (for better or for worse).

Question for today: Do any search engines work better with certain types of searches? Would it be better to use some search engines than others?
Answer: Probably, but the search engines are all being invented, reinvented and revised, so it's pretty hard to match one to a particular search. There *are* some special-purpose ones to look for things like email addresses, phone numbers, or maps. And places like UNC, wired.com or pathfinder.com have search engines to search just *their* information. In some cases these specialized Web search engines cost money to use, just like commercial database searches.

Question for today: How long have you been playing the banjo?
Answer: If you'd asked me in class, I could have been real cute and looked down at my watch and said, "aw... about three minutes..." But that's even less funny here than it would be in person. I've *owned* a banjo for more than 20 years, but I'm actually a better guitar player... and my mandolin-playing is catching up.

Question for today: How do I use e-mail on this computer? How do I e-mail you?
Answer: Using the Apple menu or the Launcher, find the program called Telnet or NCSA Telnet. Or (this may not work on all computers) just go to the "Location:" field at the top of the Netscape window and type in the word Telnet: (including the colon) where you would normally type a Web address. On some course Web pages you'll see a direct link to my email address, bob@unc.edu, and clicking it will take you into an email editor -- However, if you are using a lab computer, it may tell me the message came from whoever set up the Preferences for that copy of Netscape. Be sure to put your email address and name in the message so that I can be sure it came from you.

Question for today: Exactly what am I supposed to read online for tests that is not in the Dead Tree Addition?
Answer: That's a long one. Each daily Web page has a bunch of related Web links, and I'll talk about some of them in class. You should at least look at the top level of each of those links, see if there's something there you didn't understand in class, and go deeper into the links if you want to. As we get closer to the tests I'll review things so you can make sure you didn't miss the important stuff. When I can I'll make "what you're really really supposed to read" obvious on the Daily web page, such as the note about Vannevar Bush coming soon.

Question for today: is there anything i could not get through lynx in my email account that i should know about or is that a sufficent way to get online? i do not have easy axcess to netscape because i live off campus.
Answer: Yes, Lynx is another Web browser and it can be very useful, especially for the library catalogs, AltaVista and other text-only Web pages. But if a page uses lots of pictures, tables and frames to tell its story, Lynx won't be able to show you much. That's a good thing to think about when you're designing your pages -- do you want to "inform" only the people who have fast net connections and graphics monitors? The Web now can handle moving pictures and sound, too, so users of older browsers like Lynx will be missing a lot. But it could be a lot of the pictures and sounds, just like a lot of the pictures, will be *worth* missing!

Question for today: Since AltaVista will be used a lot in this course, is it the same in respect to search engines such as Excite that for advanced searches the '+', and '-' can be used?
Answer: Excite is another major search engine (there are a dozen or more) and they all have similarities and differences. You've found one of the similarities between these two.

Question for today: about my topic, but that's really my problem, so don't worry about it!
Answer: I'm looking forward to the answers you find for yourself most of all!!

---

Whew. That was a lot of work. So rather than send these answers to each individual, I'm turning them into a Web page for everyone to learn from. Maybe this is the best way to handle the questions, although I don't think I'll have time to do this more than once a week, at least not in this much detail. Tell me what you think.

Thank you for your contributions!

Bob

P.S. Some email and HTML Tips: Because I wrote this thinking I'd send it as email, I used typewriter-characters to provide *emphasis*, a common way to to help convey "tone of voice" in email without SHOUTING. (Upper case letters are generally offensive in email. Thank you for not shouting.)

On the Web you can use many kinds of emphasis, including changes of font size and style:

• bold
• italics
• COLO RS,
• and more.

(Just be sure you use text colors and font sizes that are attractive--or at least visible--against your background design or background color!)

--Hold down your mouse button and drag across that last parenthetical observation to "highlight" it if it's hard to read.
Also remember that if you use a dark background with light type it might inconvenience people who try to print your page's light type on white paper. Some browsers give you the option of printing everything in black, but I don't see that command on our version of Netscape. If you run into it, tell me!--

HTML and some special programs for Web pages provide other special effects, of which "blink" is the most annoying. Avoid "blink" unless you want to be annoying! In general, let your knowledge of your readers and the purpose of your page help you set the style. That is, don't do your business resume in odd-looking type or
C I R C U S   CO LO R s

unless you're looking for a job at the circus!

If you haven't guessed, you can learn a lot of HTML codes just by looking at this page with "view source" -- and you can also make a copy of it on your disk, rename it, and move the codes around to see what they do.

For a more formal introduction, you have links from our pages to lots of tutorials and lists of codes, some of which are also in the Dead Tree Edition. Personally, I like Paul Lutus's how-to instructions, which he calls HTML for the Conceptually Challenged. (It's so good that you should ignore his giving it that name.) You can also find it through Paul's main site, arachnoid.com, but it will take some browsing to find the right page--probably on the "programming" menu. When you get there, notice that his main Web site uses "frames," so Netscape only shows you the Web address (URL) of his fancy menu buttons, not specific address and filename for the window full of text.

Paul Lutus's pages also demonstrate some of very advanced Web programming tricks, using the languages called "Javascript" and "Java," which we won't have a chance to get to in this course. But through sites like his, and old-fashioned books, you could try teaching yourself that stuff in August!

Speaking of teaching yourself... Paul's a too-smart-for-school dropout and self-educated scientist who made a fortune with programs for the old Apple II. Now he lectures and gives things away on the Web! Unfortunately he only writes programs for Windows and UNIX computers, not for Macintoshes, but he does offer plenty of interesting things to read online, much of it good advice (including an essay on "why your files disappear" that I'll bookmark to look at in class).

Some of you might even be interested in reading his book about how he taught himself to sail then sailed around the world alone, and how that experience inspired him to give things away online as "Careware"!

-- Bob

-30-

Is an old newspaper code for "The End"