NET11 - Module 3: HTML tags, standards, ftp & blog

HTML tags
Using content from one of my own posts on a discussion forum I followed the instructions to create a HTML 3.2 document as per the tutorial.

I am familiar with later HTML standards and noted that some of the tags in HTML 3.2 such as <b> and <i> are now deprecated (not included in later versions). Since HTML 4.0 there has been a move for semantic markup to completely separate style and layout from page elements, through the use of cascading style sheets (CSS).

An excellent article recommended by Keith (a fellow NET11 student), Bulletproof HTML: 37 Steps to Perfect Markup by Tommy Olsson answers common questions about the most current markup standards and why validation is important.

Standards
As well as HTML markup standards there are standards for online content. 'Usability' of a web site has become a common benchmark as a way to ensure effective communication in the digital environment:

1. Text must be easily scannable - concise, main points accessible. People tend to 'scan' text on the screen, instead of reading it word for word so it is easy to miss information that is buried within a wordy document.
   
2. Consistent navigation - as a non-linear form of writing, readers will arrive and end at different points, and take entirely different paths. Navigation needs to be easily grasped without requirement for specific instruction, and consistent. This is probably one of the most obvious and important standards for web page authoring - consider 'back', 'next' and 'home' links on a web page.
   
3. Write in the language and style of the reader - the text should be easily and quickly understood without having to decipher its meaning.
4. Effective use of links - make them meaningful. Links can be a distraction - or they can be used to help highlight important points. A page should not be overloaded with links and they should not be gratuitous - they should fulfill the purpose of pointing to where further information is to be obtained.
   
5. Chunking - segment information to make it easily accessible, may be repeated on each page to make it 'portable' for non-linear reading. Apparently chunking is a concept that dates back to the 50's. It was put forward by a Harvard psychologist George A. Miller and describes the capacity of short term memory. Miller's theory states that by grouping similar items into a small collection or 'chunk', short term memory can be expanded.
   

The 'usability king' Jakob Nielsen was studying interface usability before the world wide web phenomena even began. His 1997 report on Writing for the Web is still very relevant today, as it addresses common human behaviour such as the way people read content on a web site (by 'scanning').

W3C validation
My first page did not pass W3C validation because no character encoding had been specified in the document. I uploaded a second page which includes a meta tag specifying character encoding of ISO-8859-1 and it passed validation.

In my browser these two pages look identical, but this particular tag is important for accessibility across different languages and platforms. If the character encoding is not specified there may be unpredictable results. A good article about character encoding by Tommy Olsson is The Definitive Guide to Web Character Encoding.

Copyright
Have you used images or words on your web page or website that contravene copyright laws?
On my WebCT presentation space I have used an image of a smiling coffee cup which I obtained from a clip art web site claiming the material was 'free for personal use'. If a copyright dispute arose I would at least be able to demonstrate that I had acted in good faith, and that my use of the image was not commercial.

Would you be in breach of copyright if you put the Curtin logo at the top of your web page for an assignment?
In this circumstance I believe use of the Curtin logo would be allowable under the 'fair dealings' provisions of the Australian Copyright Act, since it is being used for academic purposes. This provision is mentioned in the copyright statement on the Curtin web site.

FTP
The url to the page I uploaded via FTP is mod3task.html

FTP is a tool I am very familiar with, and I used space on my own server so I did not experience any problems with this task - although I note some of the other students were having problems uploading to web space on OASIS. I believe the problem related to students being unaware of the requirement for specific security settings to access the OASIS server. This information was found in the relevant OASIS Help page. I later did a test connection to my OASIS space and uploaded a file at http://www.student.curtin.edu.au/~13713634/

Blog
The task calls for pasting a screenshot of my blog, which seems a little redundant since this learning log is being written on a blog provided by blogger.com!

Blogger.com, now owned by internet behemoth Google has been around since the early days of blogging and shares credit for the popularity of blogging today. It is a hosted, easy to use, free service and users don't have to worry about any of the technical aspects of running a web site.

Top five tips for new bloggers

• Decide a purpose or theme of your blog!
  
• Commit to regular posts - nothing worse than a dead blog
• Look at other blogs, participate, leave your url with comments
• Get to know your blog software/service - know the possibilities
• Observe blogging 'etiquette'

A good guide for beginners to blogging is Beginner Guides: Creating a Weblog/Blog at PCStats.com

I love blogging. I use a wonderful app called WordPress on my own personal site mja.blog. Even though I know how to create webpages 'from scratch', building and maintaining a website through blog or CMS software is so much quicker and easier. WordPress and other applications like it are quite flexible and dynamic, with support from a large developer community and multitude of plugins available to extend functionality.