|
PPLP News/Construction History
(in reverse chronological order)
|
|
| March 19, 2002 |
I abandoned the telecom part of the PPLP. I'm still reading things on telecom, I'm just not writing about telecom on the site.
I started using a web page analyzer called Doctor HTML. I was surprised at how powerful a site QA tool this could be. I did not check all the pages. I simply familiarized myself with the tool (and corrected a boatload of spelling errors in under_contsruction.html). |
| March 17, 2002 | Added the first graphics to the site, the picture of my nephew Cam. Also, I learned a bit about the onMouseover JavaScript event handler to make the picture change. |
| February 28, 2002 | Added the Datemarker JavaScript to the History. This JavaScript places and reads a 30 day cookie holding a date value. Using the onLoad event handler, a link is generated that allows one to jump to the entry just past the recorded date. |
| February 26, 2002 | Downloaded CS-RCS version control software. This is a Windows based package based on GNU RCS. Unfortunately, unless I wanted to deal with a 30-day trial license expiration (or pay), I could not do all the things with the software that I wanted. So, I installed the non-server/non-workgroup installation. This gives me the advantages of efficient archiving of old versions (I had been manually saving old versions, redundant material and all) and emergency retrieving of past versions. However, in the non-server installation, each file/path has one corresponding entry in the repository, so you can't pull a working copy of a document into a new directory. |
| February 17, 2002 | Added a web form to make use of the Prodigy mailto CGI script. The script basically processes an HTTP POST and places the contents in an email that can be sent (only) to a Prodigy email account. Since Prodigy, understandably, will not let users put executables up on their servers, this is as close to server-side activity as I can get until I set up my own server. (On the other hand, my current JavaScript project shows me that client-side processes can be more powerful than I first thought.) |
| February 13, 2002 | Added A Basic Explanation Of PCS to the telecom part of the site. |
| February 7, 2002 | Started the telecommunications part of the project with a rudimentary index page. Also, added an inclompete version of A Conceptual Introduction To Protocols. |
| February 6, 2002 |
I fixed a typo in the JavaScript example and made it work.
I also fixed a broken link to Ars Digita. I had accidentally used a relative href rather than an absolute one. |
| February 5, 2002 |
I typed in a non-functioning copy of a JavaScript from JavaScript:
The Definitive Guide, published by O'Reilly.
Also, I learned that using IP address 127.0.0.1 would allow me to process requests using a webserver without being connected to the Internet. |
| February 4, 2002 | I continued adding text content to the main pages and FTPed the first version of the history, along with the summary, recipes, and an HTML representation of the postquery Perl script to the site. |
| February 3, 2002 | I searched unsuccessfully for a short time for a webserver emulator. I also decided that I should add a summary version of the history to the site because the main history was too longwinded. |
| February 2, 2002 |
I realized that I had just assumed #!/local/bin/perl would allow my Perl script
to run.
I also read something about Active Server Pages and figured out that a Windows NT server may not have any traditional CGI applications, but might instead have ISAPI applications running within IIS. I needed to ask Prodigy about their server. Finally, I realized that my experiments to play with HTML forms on my desktop were, I was pretty sure, misdirected without a server to at least process HTTP requests and probably to interact with CGI scripts. Since I was limited to expensive dialup, and was unsure what connectivity was required to set up a functioning server, I decided I should look for a server emulator for desktop experimentation. I did not think it was feasible to install IIS on my desktop. |
| February 1, 2002 |
I noticed that the Perl file was accidentally labeled postquery.pl.txt. That explained why the file wasn't found. The new
behavior was that the hypertext pointing to the script initiated a download of the file rather than execution.
I wrote the first version of the history on this day, brushing up a great deal on basic HTML in the process. |
| January 31, 2002 | I downloaded a shareware FTP client (WS_FTP, by Ipswitch) and put up my first HTML files (including my experimental form) into my web space on Prodigy, along with a Perl script to echo key/value pairs from an HTTP request that I stole off the Web. The Prodigy site told me it couldn't find the URL for the script. |
| January 30, 2002 |
The project began in earnest on this day. I experimented with HTML forms but could not pick up any information from HTTP
GET or POST. The experimentation lead me to the Common Gateway Interface (CGI).
I heard back from Prodigy confirming that I had space to put up a web page. I downloaded ZBServer, a shareware webserver for Windows 95, but did nothing with it. |
| January 29, 2002 |
I set up the computer that I had been given use of.
Further investigation showed that my original project was (mostly) infeasible. On top of problems of acquiring the software in England, my computer did not have adequate hard drive space. I shifted the emphasis of the project to learning JavaScript, HTML, and any other technology I could easily lay my hands on (probably including Perl). |
| January 26, 2002 | I committed to staying in England until 2/25/02. I decided to start a computer project centered around Linux, Oracle, and the Ars Digita Open ACS problem sets. |