English 122: Free Speech, Censorship and Copyright
from the Declaration of Independence to Napster

Professor William Warner

English, UCSB, Winter 2003


Web Workshop

"The fundamental principle behind the Web was that once someone somewhere made available a document, database, graphic, sound, vido, or screen at some stage in an interactive dialogu, it should be accessible (subject to authorization, of course) by anyone, with any type of computer, in any country."
Tim Berners-Lee, Weaving the Web, 37

The three basic components of the Web:

  1. URL: universal resource locator. Look at the address line in your browser. You will see the three key elements of your URL: the server (e.g. "english"), the network node (e.g. "ucsb"), and the domain ("edu"). There are a group of different domains: .com, .net, .gov, etc. This address scheme means that address designation is decentralized, and endlessly extendable. Imperial note: the only country that has no country extension is the USA. But all other countries have an extension, like .uk for the United Kingdom, at the end of their address. The frontslash that follows the URL denotes the highest level file on the server that is hosting the webpage.
  2. HTTP: hypertext transfer protocol: rules for how computers speak with one another, and which speaks first, next, etc. This enables many different kind of computers, running very different software, to "talk" with each other. Key feature of this system: packet switching: messages are broken into small packets, with address, and then reassembled at the destination. HTTP was first designed to use the silent spaces in telephone voice and data communication.
  3. HTML: hypertext markup language. The use of tags in documents, enclosed in triangle shaped brackets < >.....<\ >tells each computer how to express what is finds between paired brakets. For example, <b>example<\b> will make the word "example" bold on screens around the world.

Getting started with making a simple webpage with Word, and posting it up to your space on the uweb server (put this in your browser and push 'enter'):
http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/resources/guides/tech/uwebpublishing.asp

Getting started with Dreamwever
http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/resources/guides/tech/dreamweaver.asp

Transcriptions general help and advice with web authoring: http://transcriptions.english.ucsb.edu/resources/guides/tech/learningweb_authoring.asp


In addition to posting your page to a server to Things you should learn how to do in editing a simple webpage:

  1. opening a new webpage, adding a little content and saving it
  2. importing content: cutting and pasting text or images from a word document, or another web page
  3. basic formating: bold, itallics, indent, center, sizing font, choosing different font styles
  4. tables: using tables to center your page, and separate the regions of your page
  5. going on the web and copying an image to your file, then adding that image to your page
  6. including a link from your page to another page on the web, and to a second page on your site
  7. posting your web page to the server, by using the FTP (file transfer protocol)

Good luck! Today you can get help from Jennifer and me.

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