getting started

hello

Welcome to the Fall 2021 Internet Seminar.

• course basics : what (everything about the internet & the web) & goal (growing your skills and practice from wherever you are on a bunch of topics) & how (small to medium individual & group open-ended projects, shared and explained)
• what's here on the course website : resources, syllabus, assignments, wiki, shared work, ...
• introductions ...

the screenshot

... is of the "web developer tools" in FireFox; a front-end developer view of the course homepage.

possible topics & schedule

... though this is just a starting point; we'll see what we actually do as we go.

 Sep       01      1       (0) big picture
      06   09      2       (1) html + css 101
      13   16      3           dns ; hosting ; box model
      20   23      4           javascript 101, DOM, forms
      27   30      5           client-side projects ...
 Oct  04   07      6           security : cross-site scripting , https
      11   14      7       (2) networks : http , other protocols
           21      8           packets, wireshark, ipv6, tcp vs udp, ...
      25           9       (3) server-side 101 : cgi
 Nov  01   04     10           php
      08   11     11           flask dynamic sites
      15   18     12           sql ; injection
      22          13           ajax , client-server DIY
      29   02     14           server-side projects ...
 Dec  04   09     15       ...

today

(0) "the big picture" : first let's see if we get an overview of the various topic categories and how they connect by discussing the definitions of some buzzwords .

The categories are :

• networks
• client-side : browsers
• server-side

(1) static web sites : HTML & CSS 101

The second thing that we'll do this week is look at two core client-side technologies : HTML, CSS, and how to deploy a static web site.

The first assignment asks you to use an editor to create a .html file, a .css file, and upload them with at least one image to a folder in this website . I'll start to discuss that today, and continue on Monday.

If you're new to this material, then this is a good chance to dive into some tutorials and get going. I have some listed on the resources page and in the assignment.

If this is familiar to you, then take the opportunity to think about design, looking at some interesting choices of what sorts of visual choices you can make to display the information. There are discussions of design on the resources page and examples at places like csszengarden.com and alistapart.com.

(2) anatomy of a web request

The other thing I ask you to do in your first assignment is to describe what happens when a static web page is loaded in a browser ... in as much specific detail as you can find. We'll perhaps start to talk about this today, and continue next week. (The point is to connect the "big picture" buzzwords that we started with to the HTML and CSS files that you deployed.)