Last updated: 11/17/99
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Agenda for eCommerce Class #5
November 17, 1999

1. Details
   1. Viruses and virus hoaxes
      1. A computer virus is a computer program that can (a) damage information on a computer, and (b) spread from computer to computer. Simple documents or email messages are not programs and cannot be viruses. Viruses can be spread via email executable attachments such as *.exe files; the virus is not activated by saving the executable, but by executing or running the file, for example by double-clicking on it in Windows Explorer. Macros contained in a Word, Excel or Access file are executable programs and can also be viruses. Modern versions of these Office programs detect macros and ask if you want to disable macros before opening files with macros. MS Outlook has also had many virus problems, because (a) it has a macro language and (b) as an email client it usually has access to the Internet and can spread itself that way. Macro viruses are more often nuisances than outright destructive programs, because macro languages are generally not able to do a whole lot. Of course, overloading a network by flooding it with email.
         messages can be pretty bad. I do not know the current state of MS Outlook's being made virus-safe.
      2. Virus hoaxes are false warnings about computer viruses. Why do this? Creating a good virus can be difficult and can land you in jail. Creating a virus hoax is easy, and you probably would not go to jail if caught. And you can write a good scary email and sit back and watch it spread. Many virus hoax messages simply make small changes in a previous hoax and resend. I have gotten several virus hoax notices in these classes; hence this topic. A virus that destroys its host computer, or deletes all the files on its hard drive, cannot spread itself after it does that. Any notice of a virus that will destroy all of the files, destroy the computer, or something like that, is probably a hoax. A favorite phrase is that IBM, or AOL, or IBM and AOL, have verified that this hoax does all of those terrible things.
      3. Viruses can damage or delete files, and cause other grief. The best defense is a good anti-virus program and up-to-date virus definition data files for that program. McAfee, IBM and Norton are all well-recognized. A program that reminds you periodically to update data files and will update at no cost, over the Internet makes updating much easier. A good virus program should check email messages, documents, and Internet downloads as they are happening, in addition to periodically scanning all disks. It is important to update both the virus detection program ("engine") and its data files regularly.
      4. To check out notices of viruses and hoaxes, I like the following web sites:
         http://www.av.ibm.com/BreakingNews/VirusAlert/
         http://www.av.ibm.com/BreakingNews/HypeAlert/
         http://www.mcafee.com/centers/anti-virus/default2.asp
         http://vil.mcafee.com/hoax.asp
   2. The WSU Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) will be the next (last) class on December 15.
   3. Netscape Communicator Version 4+ as a WYSIWYG HTML editor. Ever since Version 3, Netscape Navigator has been a WYSIWYG HTML editor, but I didn't like Version 3 as an HTML editor (it is still my preferred Browser). I recently tried Version 4 as an HTML editor, and it's pretty good.
      1. Here are some advantages:
         1. It's very WYSIWYG, although slightly less so that FrontPage
         2. It does not let you get into trouble by using non-standard features such as the FrontPage Server Extensions.
         3. It's free, although you can pay for it. All WSU students can get a free copy of Version 4 on the system CD-ROM from C&IT.
      2. On the downside, it won't create new images or edit existing images, although you can insert existing images.
      3. Opening a page (file)to edit, Step 1
         
      4. Opening a page to edit, Step 2
         
      5. Composer menu and screen
         
      6. Be careful - two programs are open - don't get confused
         
   4. Using chat. go to the conference site, click the black-and-white chat button, and select the chat room.
      
   5. Name of Database and DSN are in Team conferences
      1. Mesage is titled More web site information or More information about course web site
      2. For other information see messages titled Web site information or Information about course web site
   6. Information about putting textbooks and similar materials online (re South End article)
      1. Copyright passes into the public domain after 27 years
   7. Uploading. The Rules
      1. Keep it simple. Avoid special effects. After you master the basics, then branch
         out. Use straight HTML text with links, colors, tables, and gif and jpg files
      2. Avoid generic file names such as the IMG00001.gif assigned by Word. If you
         see those after you save as HTML,
         1. First change the filenames
         2. Second, edit your HTML file(s) to delete the old filenames and insert the new
            ones.

         Good filenames for PERSONAL web sites in this course have your initials or
         name in them. That way, they won't exactly match anyone else's filenames.

      3. For PERSONAL web pages, the HTML file should be named with your first
         initial and full last name, no spaces or other non-alphabetic characters, up to a
         maximum of eight letters for the whole filename.
      4. For TEAM eCommerce sites, your top-level HTML file must be names
         welcome.htm
      5. If you see one of your files with a name such as filename.doc.htm or
         filename.htm.doc or anything else with two or more extensions (filename stands
         for anything before the extension(s), reload the file and check its format (the real
         extension is the last one) and fix the name and the format.
      6. Do not upload anything with an exe or hlp extension. Files that youupload for this course should have the following extensions:
         1. htm
         2. gif
         3. jpg
         4. iht (iHTML, eCommerce only)
         5. mdb (database, eCommerce only)
2. Schedule
   1. Lab open
      1. 11/24: 4 - 10 PM (day scheduled as a Friday)
      2. 12/1: 4 - 6 PM
      3. 12/8: 4 - 10 PM
      4. Also see lab schedule on class web site
   2. Last class on 12/15 - Final Report and working web site due
   3. Final Report should contain:
      1. Final information contained in first two reports, whether or not it has been changed.
      2. Specific and detailed descriptions of what each team member did for the team web site.
      3. Tracing an actual order placed by a team member through the process, as a narrative. A chronolgical description of what the user does, what the user's web browser does, what the web server does, and what the iHTML system does, as well as any other people and/or systems involved in the process.
      4. How the consumer issues presented during the course (e.g. Privacy and Security) are dealt with on your web site.
      5. How information and issues from the Kosiur and Seybold readings is reflected in the team web site.
      6. Reviews of the other Team web sites
   4. Business Plan Vs Business Process
      1. Business Plan is basically who does what and how much it costs
      2. Business Process is how does an order get processed, including computers and people
   5. In order to prevent people coming in from the outside and ordering, I will password protect the eCommerce web sites tomorrow (Thursday 11/18).
      1. User Name = Internet
      2. Password = stustu
      3. No change in uploading
3. eCommerce computer processing
   1. How HTML forms get processed
   2. CGI = Common Gateway Interface, a computer protocol
   3. The process:
      1. Browser collects information that the user enters on the form and sends it to web server
         1. The information is everything between the <form> and </form> tags that enclose the button
         2. Form method is nearly always "POST", otherwise the user's information could be truncated
         3. Also included is the "action" which must resolve to an executable program that acts on the form data
            1. fls.exe, uploade.exe or $webb.exe - directly an executable program, can be written in any language that can run on that computer, such as Visual Basic, C, C++, Pascal
            2. mailer.iht - the CLL web server has been told how (i.e. configured) to process this by calling iHTML.DLL and having it process the iht text file
         4. The executable program is called the "CGI program" or "Gateway" program (nothing to do with an Internet Gateway or with Gateway computers)
      2. Web server receives the form information, starts the CGI program and passes the form information to it, along with a lot of other information available to the web server
         ************* EXAMPLE for file uploading *************
         [CGI]
         Request Protocol=HTTP/1.0
         Request Method=POST
         Request Keep-Alive=Yes
         Document Root=C:\CLLWeb\
         Executable Path=/cgi-win/uploade.exe
         Logical Path=/upldcust/upload/upldlog/upload
         Physical Path=C:\CLLWeb\upldcust\upload\upldlog\upload
         Server Software=WebSitePro/2.3.7
         Server Name=fls.cll.wayne.edu
         Server Port=80
         Server Admin=d.r.bowen@wayne.edu
         CGI Version=WinCGI/1.3b
         Remote Address=141.217.142.24
         Referer=http://www.cll.wayne.edu/isp/copy/welcome.htm
         User Agent=Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 4.01; Windows NT)
         Content Type=multipart/form-data; boundary=---------------------------7cf1c71f19c011c
         Content Length=6379
         
         [System]
         GMT Offset=-18000
         Debug Mode=Yes
         Output File=C:\WebSite\cgi-temp\32328ws.out
         Content File=C:\WebSite\cgi-temp\32328ws.inp
         
         [Form Literal]
         UserName=drbowen
         PW=[No! I won't tell you!]
         DWS=\isp\copy
         UpLoad=Upload Now
         
         [Form File]
         FilNam=[C:\WebSite\cgi-temp\32328ws.000] 5752 text/html binary [C:\WebSite\htdocs\Aboutcll.htm]
         
         [Accept]
         image/gif=Yes
         image/x-xbitmap=Yes
         image/jpeg=Yes
         image/pjpeg=Yes
         */*=Yes
         
         [Extra Headers]
         Accept-Language=en-us
         Accept-Encoding=gzip, deflate
         Host=www.cll.wayne.edu
         *********************** End of Example ************
      3. CGI program
         1. May (as written by the programmer)
            1. Store the data in a text file, a database file, or any other type of file
            2. Perform calculations, e.g. total cost, sales tax
            3. Take any other action e.g. upload a file, send an email
         2. Must
            1. Receive and decode the information from the web server
            2. Prepare a response HTML file in a folder specified by the web server, with a file name specified by the web server
            3. Stop, and signal the web server that it is stopping
      4. When the web server sees that the CGI program has stopped, it gets the response file and sends it to the user
   4. CGI processing is called "interactivity" in web-speak. All other HTML is processed entirely by the web server and is called "passive". Any intelligence in the web comes through the intelligence programmed into CGI programs. Each one is different. When people speak about making the web smarter, mostly they are talking about taking the capacities of popular CGI programs and putting them directly into the HTML specification.
   5. SQL - Structured Query Language or "sequel". This is a common language for storing, changing and extracting information from databases. The same SQL code can be used with any SQL-compliant database, such as Access, Oracle, Foxpro, FOCUS, Banner, MySQL, Sybase, etc.
   6. ODBC - Open DataBase Connectivity. Includes SQL, but is also has standard methods for referring to, opening, closing, and running programs in database systems. Includes DSN, or DataSet name, a generic way of referring to a database.
   7. In this course, iHTML will put the form data into the database
4. iHTML again - handouts