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LIS 390W1A - Course Technologies, Links & Instructions

Introduction

This page contains a series of links both to useful applications and to useful resources. You should be able to find most of what you need to get started here.

This page will be updated as the class continues. I will try to make announcements when important links are added to the page.

Additionally, in this course we will be using many different technologies. Because it will be difficult to keep track of them all, I am using this page as a reference guide that should provide instructions for how to use these technologies and links that will help you find them. It might be useful to use this page as a reference page when you run into technical difficulties.

This page will be updated as the class continues. I will try to make announcements when important links are added to the page.

Table of Contents

Course Management

Learning Materials

Standards Conformance

Useful Applications

Other Links

Other Links

Course Webpage

It is somewhat ridiculous that we have multiple locations of the course website. However, with the technical difficulties encountered at the beginning of this course, I could not use the school resources to post the website, and because it is too confusing to keep moving the location of the page, I will continue to maintain the website at all the locations where it currently exists. Therefore, whenever updates are made to the course website, they will be propagated to all of the following locations. You may use any of these locations when you need to find a copy of this site.

Course Technologies

Web Technologies

  • Click here to change your GSLIS password. If you need more help with passwords at UIUC, click here.
  • LIS 390W1A Moodle Page
    • We will be using the Moodle page for this class for its forums, but for little else. I will not be uploading the schedule for this class or anything into the GSLIS Moodle space.
    • I will make some announcements via the News and Announcements forum, and the Open Discussion forum is for exactly that. If you have anything you wish to discuss with your classmates, just post it to the Open Discussion forum. I suggest you subscribe to getting email notification for the Open Discussion forum, as traffic is likely to be low, and therefore it will be easy to forget to check it for new posts.
    • Moodle Forums
    • GSLIS Moodle Homepage
  • CITES Netfiles
  • Confluence Homepage for LIS390W1A - If you want to learn how to use a wiki, this is a great space for messing around and teaching yourself. Feel free to use it for whatever purpose you like.

GSLIS Tutorials

Help Desks

  • CITES Help Desk
    • For help with Netfiles and other CITES technologies
  • GSLIS Help Desk (help@support.lis.uiuc.edu, (217) 244-4903) - For help with everything else. The GSLIS Help Desk people are usually very helpful, and willing to do whatever it takes to help you with your problem, so feel free to talk to them if you need some tech support.

Useful Learning & Reference Materials

Issues in Design

Learning Materials and Guides

Here are some CSS Tutorials that students in the class have found useful:

Reference Sites

  • W3 Schools - An excellent resource for learning about HTML and CSS, W3 Schools has a page for every HTML tag and every CSS property, as well as tutorials, examples, and quizzes.
    • I use W3 Schools most often by googling an HTML tag or CSS property, usually in the following manner: "HTML ul", "CSS font", etc. Usually the W3 Schools site is in the top 5 hits, and I go there first, because they are pretty exhaustive, and I know what to expect.
    • You can also use this technique to guess tag or property names. By typing in your best guess as to the name, and seeing whether the W3 Schools site is in the top 10 hits, gives a good indication of whether the tag or property name exists or not. This method of using W3 Schools is a bit less reliable, but can prove useful at times.

Useful Articles on Particulars

Javascript:

Demonstrations and Samples

Need samples of CSS, HTML, or javascript? Check out these resources and learn via example.

This section is clearly incomplete. Please feel free to suggest examples you come across which you find particularly useful!

CSS

  • CSS Zengarden:
    • CSS Zengarden is a beautiful demonstration of the power of CSS. All the pages linked in the "select a design" section have the exact same content, i.e., the exact same html. Each, however, is associated with a different cascading style sheet (CSS). From those stylesheets, and from those stylesheets alone, come all the vast variations in look-and-feel that you see. Check them out!
    • In particular, notice the Zen Army style sheet by Carl Desmond. Notice how the words in the headers were replaced. How was this done? By setting the {display: none;} for the header block, and then setting an image as background for that header block that has different words embedded in the image. This is but one of the many tricks you can do once you become familiar with CSS.

Validation Links

HTML/XHTML

CSS

Accessibility Links

Accessibility Checkers

Accessibility Standards

Secure Remote Login and File Transfer

Secure remote login programs such as SSH and secure telnet allow you to login to a server (computer) remotely. Thus, if you want to work on files stored on your GSLIS H: drive, you can ssh into the classroom server and access your files that way. A typical command would be "ssh netid@classrm05.lis.uiuc.edu". For more detailed instructions as to how to SSH into your GSLIS home directory, click here. Secure remote login programs tend to be command-line based. While not as intuitive as graphical user interfaces (GUIs), the command line can be much more powerful, and once you are familiar with it, it can be much quicker to use.

Secure file transfer programs allow you to copy files to and from remote servers (computers). There are several standards for secure file transfer, but the most common are secure file transfer protocol (SFTP) and secure copy (SCP). For more detailed instructions on using secure file transfer programs, click here. For Mac users, I recommend getting used to scp, rather than using Fetch. SCP comes free with your computer, and using it helps build familiarity with the command line. Once you leave UIUC, Fetch will no longer be free, and you will find that, if you are dependent on many commercial products, keeping up with the latest versions will quickly become quite expensive.

A third option for working remotely is WebDAV. WebDAV will be covered in the following section.

In order to access your GSLIS space through SSH, you will have to type in the following command from the command prompt (be sure to substitute your netid for the "netid" portion of the command):

ssh netid@classrm04.lis.uiuc.edu

At the prompt, type in your GSLIS password. Once you are logged in, you will be in your H: drive. This is your private space--it is not web accessible. If you want to access your I: drive, you will need to type in the following command (be sure to substitute your netid for the "netid" portion of the command):

cd /homei/users/ifloyd2

Please see either my Unix Tutorial or the GSLIS Unix Tutorial for more information about how to use the Unix/Linux command prompt.

Windows

  • WinSCP download page, click here to download the most stable version directly.
    • Only file transfer
    • One of the best of the open source, free applications being developed
  • PuTTY, or download direct.
    • Most useful for remote login. From the download page there are also file transfer clients available, but generally, WinSCP works better.
  • SSH for Windows (approx 5.4MB)
    • Both remote login and file transfer functions
    • Used to be free and open, is now proprietary. This is the last free version before it became proprietary.

Macintosh

Any macintosh running OS X should come with SSH (remote login) and SCP (file transfer) installed and available through the command line.

Linux and other operating systems

WebDav

WebDAV is another standard which supports remote file access via a set of extensions to the HTTP protocol. The benefit of the WebDAV standard is that most operating systems allow you to integrate files on remote computers directly into your file system. Thus, you can edit the files using the applications you are familiar with directly from your personal computer.

WebDAV is an abbreviation for "Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning". For more information about WebDAV please see the WebDAV Resources site. You may also find the WebDAV wikipedia article useful.

WebDAV Links

  • https://webdav.lis.uiuc.edu/homei/users/ifloyd2/ - I: Drive
  • https://webdav.lis.uiuc.edu/ifloyd2/home/ - H: Drive
  • https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/ifloyd2/ - Netfiles

Enabling I: Drive

In order to use the GSLIS web space, you will have to enable your I: drive. This process is somewhat complex, and you will have to take a quiz at the end which, once completed, will enable your I: drive. If you run into any problems in this process, please do not hesitate to email me or email or call the GSLIS Help Desk (217-244-4903; 1-800-377-1892; open M-F 8:00 am to 5:00 pm) to get some help. I have already activated my I: drive, so I can't actually go through the process again, so the GSLIS Help Desk might be better able to assist you.

  1. First, open the following link in a new window or tab: https://ldap.lis.uiuc.edu/extend-access/webspace.pl
  2. Click on the "Show URL Tutorial" button on the left-hand side of the page (it is the bottom button).
  3. Take the Tutorial
  4. Once you are done, you should be able to click on the "Enable Web Space" button
  5. Take the quiz. You may need to copy one of the following URLs and paste it into the quiz in order to take it successfully, but remember to substitute your NetID for "NetID" and whatever file name is required in the quiz for the "filename":
    • For the url to access people_html copy: http://people.lis.uiuc.edu/~NetID/filename
    • For courseweb_html copy: http://courseweb.lis.uiuc.edu/~NetID/filename
    • For courseweb_htmls copy: https://courseweb.lis.uiuc.edu/~NetID/filename (NOTE the https).
  6. If everything went well, you should have successfully enabled your web space.

Instructions

For the GSLIS documentation of how to use WebDAV, click here.

Windows XP

Unfortunately, the GSLIS implementation of the WebDAV standard and the Windows XP implementation of the WebDAV standard don't always play nicely together, so we may need to develop some workarounds. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you run into any problems.

  1. Click on the "Start Menu"
  2. Click on "My Network Places"
  3. A directory window (windows explorer window) will now open
  4. Click on the "Add a network place" link located on the left-hand side of the window in the "Network Tasks" box.
  5. A wizard will open. Click the "Next" button.
  6. Select the "Choose another network location" option, and then click the "Next" button.
  7. In the "Internet or network address:" box, paste or type in the URL for the drive or other network location you wish to connect to via WebDAV
    • For the addresses of GSLIS drives or of UIUC Netfiles, see the WebDAV Links section.
  8. Hit the "Enter" key or click on the "Next" button
  9. Type in your username and password in the appropriate fields in the popup window and hit the "Enter" key.
    • For GSLIS drives, this is your NetID and your GSLIS password; for Netfiles, this is your NetID and CITES password.
  10. Type in a name for the network place. Make sure this is something that clearly distinguishes this network location from other ones you have or may wish to create.
    • The default name that Windows XP gives is not very helpful for the GSLIS Drives. I suggest something like "ifloyd2 on the GSLIS I drive" (it won't let you use colons), but what you type in here is up to you.
  11. Click on the "Next" button
  12. Click the "Finish" button
  13. Now you are done. A popup login window may appear, in which case log into the network place
    • For GSLIS drives, this is your NetID and your GSLIS password; for Netfiles, this is your NetID and CITES password.
  14. You should see your remote files now

Windows Vista

  1. Click on the Start Menu
  2. Click on My Computer
  3. Click on the button called, "Map Network Drive" on one of the menu bars in the top portion of the window; OR:
    1. Right click on the "My Network Places" icon.
    2. Select the "Map Network Drive" option
  4. Select a drive letter. It is likely that your default is the Z: drive, this should be fine. Remember the drive letter.
  5. Type the appropriate address into the text box.
    • For the addresses of GSLIS drives or of UIUC Netfiles, see the WebDAV Links section.
  6. You will be prompted for a password.
    • For GSLIS drives, this is your GSLIS password; for Netfiles, this is your CITES password.

Macintosh

  1. Switch applications to "Finder".
  2. Click on "Go" in the menu bar at the top of your screen.
  3. Click on the "Connect to Server..." menu item.
  4. In the window that opens, type in the appropriate address in the text box labeled "Server Address:".
    • For the addresses of GSLIS drives or of UIUC Netfiles, see the WebDAV Links section.
  5. If you want to add this address to your "Favorite Servers:" list, click on the button with the "+" sign (I recommend you do this).
  6. Click on "Connect", or press the "Enter" key.
  7. In the window that opens, type in your user name and password in the appropriate fields.
    • For GSLIS drives, this is your NetID and your GSLIS password; for Netfiles, this is your NetID and CITES password.
  8. If you want "Finder" to remember your password, check the check-box.
  9. Click "OK" or press the "Enter" key.
  10. A new "Finder" window should open and you will see the contents of the network location you just added. You can now use the files as you would use any files stored locally on your computer.

Text Editors

Windows

  • Textpad is an excellent text editor. It is not free, but you can download a trial version and use it indefinitely. However, I think it is well worth the cost to purchase, and have bought my own license for the software.
  • EditPad Lite (download directly) is the free version, there is also EditPad Pro. Editpad is a pretty good text editor. It is pretty reliable. However, it is often difficult to know whether you are actually saving documents in a particular encoding. I gave up using Editpad Lite when I had to use command-line functions to check the encoding format of my files.
  • Notepad is the text editor that comes with windows. It is a really poor text editor, that is unreliable, crashes on occasion with files that are too large, and sometimes screws up the display so that you are not typing where you think you are typing in a particular file. I strongly advise you not to use notepad for anything except the simplest HTML.

Mac

  • TextWrangler is a good editor. It comes with full Unicode support, line numbers (see below), and text highlighting to make coding easier. And now we have it installed on our classroom computers! When you use TextWrangler, there may be a number of default settings you will probably want to change. First, if you are planning to open multiple files, you probably want to use the "Documents Drawer" by clicking the icon in the upper-right hand corner of the editor (it has an arrow on it). Second, in the preferences menu (click the TextWrangler dropdown menu, then click Preferences):
    • Editing: Keyboard - "Home" and "End" keys: Move cursor to beginning and end of current line.
    • Editor: Defaults - Soft wrap text, Wrap to: Window Width.
    • Editor: Defaults - Default font: (Set...) - Change size to 11? 12? Whatever you can see best.
    • Click the "open drawer" icon.
  • JEdit is a multiplatform text editor written in Java. Unfortunately, it is often slow, somewhat unstable (it crashes a lot), and has some unexpected behavior that can make it confusing or frustrating to use. While it is free, I don't really recommend using it. It does, however, support Unicode properly, and has line numbers and text highlighting. It is one of the text editors currently available in our classroom.
  • TextEdit is the text editor that comes with Mac OSX, but I have found it to be problematic. First, while it supposedly supports unicode, and can save in UTF-8 format, it does not always save symbols properly. I have had files which were corrupted before because TextEdit used the wrong UTF-8 code for a particular symbol. Second, it does not have line numbers. While this is not a big deal for the early labs we will be doing, once you start creating files that are longer, and are required to validate them, finding validation errors without line numbers becomes extremely difficult. Therefore, while TextEdit is ok, I much prefer to use TextWrangler.

Web Browsers

Browser Extensions

Firefox Extensions

Internet Explorer Plugins

Free, Downloadable Images

Sites with free, downloadable images which you can use on your own websites as long as you adhere to the licenses. Most are under one of the Creative Commons licenses, so make sure you understand the terms of use before using the images in your own websites. Ask me if you have any questions about what the licenses mean; I'll do my best to answer them (but I'm not a lawyer).

Website Evaluation Schemes

Some website evaluation schemes suggested in the Website Evaluation Assignment:

Internet and Web Statistics

It is sometimes interesting to look at the growth of the internet and at demographic issues such as the digital divide. The following sites give some resources for doing such research. Be a bit wary of the sites listed below. For example, the Pew foundation is probably one of the more reliable sites for statistics, but they do have a pro-internet bias which colors their results. OCLC is also reliable, but it is not so clear how reliable some of the other sources are. Use your best judgment when evaluating these other sources.

Course-Related Links

UIUC Course-Related Links

General GSLIS Links

Other Links

Created by Ingbert Floyd (email me), drawing on materials created by Cameron Jones, and David Nichols.
Last updated: Monday, 8th of October, 2007
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