2. History of the WWW
• To understand why there became a need
for dynamic websites it helps to know a bit
about the evolution of the World Wide
Web...
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3. History of the WWW
• The Internet as we know it today was not so much
a single invention, but the culmination of many
different technologies and fields of research.
• We might categorise some of these as:
• The physical (network infrastructure)
• The logical (information organisation and
transport)
• The representatioal (how we represent the
data - usually visual)
• The interactive (how we interact with the
data - interfaces)
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4. 1958
• US Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency (DARPA) created.
• Early research included the development of
robust networking technologies for
connecting remote military assets.
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6. 1969
• The Advanced Research
Projects Agency Network
(ARPANET), was the world's
first operational packet
switching network and the
core network of a set that
came to compose the global
Internet.
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7. 1988
• US National Science Foundation (NSF)
commissioned the construction of the
NSFNET, a university network backbone.
• NSFNET was decommissioned in 1995
when it was replaced by new backbone
networks operated by commercial Internet
Service Providers
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8. US Internet backbone networks (colours
represent different ISPs)
http://source-report.com/internetbackbone/internetbackbone_20.htm
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9. 1989 - 1990
• Tim Berners-Lee, while working
CERN invents the World Wide
Web in a proposal for an
information management system
that presented data in a common
and consistent way.
• He creates the HyperText Transfer
Protocol (HTTP), the HyperText
Markup Language (HTML), the first
Web browser and the first HTTP
server software
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10. 6 August 1991
• First website goes online.
• It defines Defines the WorldWideWeb
as “a wide-area hypermedia
information retrieval initiative aiming
to give universal access to a large
universe of documents.”
• Makes no mention of anything we
might associate with visual interface
design.
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11. An archived copy of the first webpage
http://www.w3.org/History/19921103-hypertext/hypertext/WWW/TheProject.html
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12. 1992 - 1995
• early adopters of the World Wide Web
were primarily university-based scientific
departments or research laboratories
• A turning point was the introduction of
Mosiac - a graphical browser released in
1993
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13. • Mosaic was the first web browser to display
images inline with text (this was seen as a
huge leap forward at the time)
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14. 1992 - 1995
• Bandwidth was limited by the network
technologies.
• Web began to grow from a few hundred
web pages.
• Any sense of web design was severely
limited by these constraints
• but, there is a clear trend towards a more
visual, more accessible web
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15. Web organisation
• In 1993, CERN agrees that anyone can use
the web protocol and code royalty-free
• In 1994,Tim Berners-Lee founds the World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - the main
international standards organization for the
WWW
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16. 1995 - 1998
• Commercial interest in capitalising on the
growth of the web (eCommerce)
• Increased commercial investment pushed
the technology to a point where there was
a legitimate role for web designers.
• Early examples of User Created Content
(UCC) - e.g. GeoCities
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17. 1995 - 1998
Browser wars (Netscape vs Internet Explorer)
• Feature ‘arms race’
• Tables and frames
for more complex
layouts
• Animated gifs
• Javascript (button
rollovers etc)
• ...
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18. 1995 - 1998
• Trend towards advertising a “web presence” rather than offering useful
content or services.
• This lead to websites which were stuffed full of attention seeking ‘bells and
whistles’ whether they served a purpose or not
• Splash pages
• Tiled background images
• Crazy background and text colour combinations
• Animated gifs/flash
• Blinking/scrolling/marching ants etc. text effects
• http://www.htmlprimer.com/articles/90s-web-design-nostalgic-look-back
• http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com/gorgeous-websites-from-the-late-90s-
to-inspire-you-if-you-have-no-taste.html
• More often than not this approach distracted from the content and made it
less accessible
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20. 1998 - 2000
• ‘Traditional’ interface design principles start to be seriously
applied to web site designs.
• Web development tools like Dreamweaver promote a more
‘visual’ approach/workflow to web-interface design.
• Content is becoming more important and web-design begins to
focus on servicing that content
• But... presentation and content are still combined –specified
within html markup. It is not possible to update one
independent of the other.
• Website layouts of this period still look square, based mostly on
HTML tables (an abuse of their intended use) and sliced images.
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21. "A
List
Apart"
website
c.
1998
1998 - 2000
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22. 1999–2001: "Dot-com" boom and
bust
• Everyone wanted to jump
on the dot-com bandwagon
at the end of the 20th
Century.
• A lot of money was thrown
at entrepreneurs without
solid business plans because
of the novelty of the dot-
com concept, leading to the
tech bubble and subsequent
bust.
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23. 2000 - 2004
• High-speed Internet connectivity becomes more affordable
• Push towards web standards, headed by the World Wide Web
Consortium (W3C)
• Continuing trend of more content, more often.
• Separation of presentation and content allowing each to be
updated independent of the other.
• Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for presentation
• HTML for content
• Move away from static web pages towards
dynamic web sites. (more on this later)
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25. 2004 – 2007
• Web 2.0 era
• Web applications vs websites
• Highly dynamic
• Community oriented
• User-contributed multi-media content (lots of it!)
• Interactivity and functionality approaching native
desktop applications
• Social networking takes off
• Purchasing goods and services online via sites like eBay
and Amazon becomes mainstream to the point where it
threatens traditional retailers.
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29. So what are the trends?
• More content
• More frequently (up-to-date and on-demand)
• From more sources (crowd sourcing,
mashups etc)
• On more devices
• Moving away from a static web towards a
dynamic web.
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30. So what are the trends?
• More contributors. As a web designer you need to at least have
an understanding of all these areas and how they fit together.
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31. Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP)
• HTTP functions as a request-response protocol in the
client-server computing model.
• In the most common example the web browser is the client and an
application running on a computer hosting a web site is the server.
• The client submits an HTTP request message to the server.
• The server returns a response message to the client containing
completion status information about the request and may also
contain requested content in its message body.
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34. Static website
• each logical page is represented by a
physical file on the web server
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35. Advantages of static
websites
• Lower entry barrier for development (just
plain old html and css files).
• Simple hosting requirements
• Easily cacheable
• Can be viewed “offline”
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36. Disadvantages of static
websites
• Much less scope for personalisation,
interactivity.
• Every little change/update needs to be
done manually...
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37. Some stats
• 24 hours of video is uploaded toYouTube
every minute. (source)
• More than 30 billion pieces of content (web
links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo
albums, etc.) shared each month in over 70
languages. (source)
• 50 million tweets are sent per day. (source)
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38. Disadvantages of static
websites
• Can you even fathom updating this much
content by hand? And these numbers are
growing at an exponential rate.
• Fortunately computers are very good at
automating repetitive tasks in a dynamic
way.
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39. Dynamic website
• Website content is stored in a database
(and/or other external sources) and
assembled with markup and output by a
web server script or application.
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40. Advantages of dynamic
website
• Content can be updated in a decentralised
way. (a single “webmaster” does not have
the sole privilege/responsibility of updating
the website)
• Modularisation and reuse of common code
(e.g. headers, menus).
• Automation
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41. Disadvantages of dynamic website
• Higher entry barrier / learning curve for
development
• More complex web server requirements
• Issues with pages being indexed by search
engines.
• Overall the benefits will almost always
outweigh the disadvantages.
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42. LAMP Architecture
• most common (but not the only) Web Server Stack
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAMP_(software_bundle)
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43. Installing an AMP Server Stack
on your local computer
• MAMP (OSX) http://www.mamp.info/en/
index.html
• WAMP (Windows) http://
www.wampserver.com/en/
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45. How do you get your files onto a
remote Web Server?
• FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
QUT-CIF FTP details as entered into FileZilla
*note if you are connecting to the QUT Web Server from outside the QUT intranet, you must first connect via aVPN
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46. Why we don’t recommend using the
QUT Web Server for your portfolio
• A QUT login is required to view your site
• Once you leave QUT you will want to migrate
your portfolio to an external server anyway.
Setting up external hosting now will avoid this
hassle
• Don’t have access to configure the Web Server
• Security locked down
• Tech support
• ...
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47. Web hosting & Domain Name
Registration
• Web hosting – a service that provides
space on a web server for you to store
your website files and serve them to the
world.
• Domain name – what you would most
likely refer to as the “name” of a website –
e.g. google.com. This will “resolve” to the
“real” ip address of the website –
e.g. 74.125.39.103
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48. Web Hosting Providers
• http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/
companies_web_hosting
• http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/
65599
• http://www.webhostingdirectory.com.au/
index.php?do=listcomp
• http://www.geekcertified.com/node/1
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49. • Web hosting providers will usually offer
various hosting packages that cost different
amounts depending on features and how
heavily trafficked your site will be.
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50. Web Hosting Requirements for
KIB216
• To host a WordPress site, your only
2 requirements are
• PHP version 5.2.4 or greater
• MySQL version 5.0 or greater
• These are features that should be included
with most ‘basic’ plans.
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51. OK I’ve purchased a web hosting package, now what?
• You should receive an email containing the details you need to
login, setup and administrate your web server.
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52. Domain Name Registration
• Selecting a domain name registrar is a bit simpler than selecting
web hosting as they all provide essentially that same one feature/
service (securing a particular domain name for your sole use for
a period of time). In fact the most difficult thing will be coming
up with a domain name that isn’t already taken.
• Some domain name registrars:
• http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/domain_registration
• http://www.domparison.com/domain-name-price-comparison/
• http://lifehacker.com/5683682/five-best-domain-name-
registrars
• You will pay different amounts for different domain suffixes
(called top-level domains). .com and .com.au domains will cost
more than .net or .org domains for example.
• List of top-level domains: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
List_of_Internet_top-level_domains
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53. Pointing a domain name to a web-server
• If your web hosting package includes domain
name registration, than this should already be set
up.
• If you purchased your domain name from a third
party domain name registrar then you will likely
receive email instruction from the domain name
registrar and/or the web hosting provider. It is a
relatively simple process that involves entering
the name server(s) of the web hosting company
into your account settings of the domain name
registrar site. For more detailed instructions
see http://www.justweb.com.au/review/web-
hosting-australia.html.
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