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This is Lesson 1 of Internet Publishing.
Objective:This lesson gives an overview of what we will work with in this subject. It will also cover some basic concepts about the Internet and information servers on the Internet.
This lesson builds upon the book by Liu [Liu94]. I have taken material from Chapters 1, 2, 29 and 30. This book is not required reading. The same material is covered in Chapters 1 and 2 of the assigned book. If you have questions or comments, please send e-mail to <Per.Borgesen@idb.hist.no>.
The services we describe in this course build upon complex layers of networks and software. You don't need to be an expert in order to run a service like Web or FTP, but you have to understand the basic concepts involved.
The Internet is talked about in newspapers almost every day ( and many of them can be found on the Internet), but what is the Internet really?
The Internet is an association of computer networks which speak the same protocol (TCP/IP). Protocols on the Internet are just like protocols used between people: protocols make it possible to communicate.
There are three different roles on the Internet that need to be defined. This course will concentrate on the information provider. The provider makes information accessible for the user (or customer). The user is the second role. The third role is the connection provider- hereafter called Internet Service Provider - ISP, those who make it possible for customers and information providers to connect themselves to the Internet. TISIP dial-up is an example of the third roll. Others, for example Schibsted Net (in Norway), are both ISP and information providers.
There are three main ways to get connected to the Internet:
What's out there on the Internet that makes everyone think connecting to it is one of life's little necessities? A lot of people (50 million?), millions of machines, more and more firms and organizations.
An important tradition on the Internet is that many of the services which exist on the Net is implemented with a client/server-architecture. The client/server concept is often misused or misunderstood.
Client/server software consists of two parts:
The client and the server can run on the same machine, but they normaly run on separate machines.
The client in an information service will typically receive questions or other input from the user, send these requests to the server, and then display the answer from the server. The server receives the requests fromt the client, executes the search or other commands, and sends the result back to the client.
In this manner, user management takes place near the user while the execution of search and other commands occurs where the data is located. This will minimize the net-traffic. At the same time, it becomes easier to allow several clients to use the same server and just as easy for a client to use several servers.
This course covers the set-up and maintenance of servers, but we will also talk about clients, because it is often relevant to the server's set-up.
Any computer on the Internet can offer services to any other computer. A server can in some situations be the client for other servers. A computer can handle many different clients and servers at the same time.
In the future, information services on the Internet may be the primary means for people to access publications and databases. Internet technology is so simple and inexpensive that it is possible for individuals and small organizations to set up and maintain their own information servers. Internet architecture makes it possible for anyone to become a specialized information supplier for people worldwide.
The Internet is no longer just a high-tech toy. It's on the verge of becoming a very important business tool; take for example, the possiblity for pay-per-use-services with secure transferring of financial transactions and security so that only the buyer receives the service. Not everything is in-place today, but enough exists to make on-line businesses possible.
Let's look at what others use the Internet for. We differentiate between internal and external services. Internal services are services which serve the users of your own organization, and inside your own firm. External services are services which you offer to the rest of the world.
Many firms already have Internet connection and run TCP/IP on their local networks. It is, therefore, tempting to use Internet software also within the firm. This concept was dubbed Intranet last year. It applies whether the organization is geographically collected, or if it is has several offices in different places. In the latter case, it is possible to make a virtual business network over great distances. This can be less expensive than relying on, for example, Lotus Notes. Here are some ideas of what people have done with this technology:
External services are of the type services you use in connection with the Internet, or to your customers (for free or for profit). Much of this is already done across the world.
The advantage for a firm to run these external services is obvious: They help the customers to find information about products and services, help them to use these products more effectively and introduce them to new products.
What if you want payment for the information? Is it possible to earn money doing this? It's possible, but it's not easy. But things are under development.
Encryption which is built into Netscape's WWW client has begun to solve these problems. Electronic money is also a keyword in this connection. However, lack of security and authentification are basic problems on the Internet, and it's a problem that won't be solved over night.
Even though some bits of information are easy to copy, it may not be so easy to copy how the information is organized. This metainformation or context is often just as important as the information itself.
Example: The lessons in a distance learning course can be freely downloaded from the Net. Metainformation can then be found in Newsgroups and e-mail related to the course. The teaching institution charges the candidates an entrance fee for exams.
There are at least to sides of running a information server on the Internet:
The first part of this problem falls most often under the responsibility of a systems manager.
The other half of the task is normally solved by a publisher or librarian.
We'll try to do both tasks. The first task, hardware and software, is the simplest. You need a machine, the right software and a book which tells you what to do. Often, it doesn't take more than a couple of clicks of a button and you're up and running. The other task is much more comprehensive. It consists of among other things:
This lesson is a pretty dead document. It isn't very ecstatic. (An ecstatic document is one which points to external information or problem descriptions).
In this exercise, we will try to think of ways to make this lesson more ecstatic by adding hypertext links to some of the topics discussed. Your task is to find sites on the Internet which can expand on some of the topics in this lesson. The technical procedure for adding links will not be taken up here.
I have chosen 3 topics about which you should find your own more in-depth information. They are:
You should turn in one text (or HTML file) where you cite the text from the lesson which you would have made "clickable" and give the pointer to the more in-depth information on the Internet. This pointer is called a URL.
Send your response via e-mail to your teacher's assistant. You will find E-mail adresses to the assistants by following links from the startup-page for this course.
The deadline for Exercise 1 is Wednesday, 12 March.