Last updated: 3/2/2000
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Computers, the Internet, and Society
Agenda for Class 5
3/2/2000

1. Announcements
   1. Online grade reports are working - see me if you need to be reminded of your password for this system
   2. Do sign-in.
   3. Handouts to bring every week
      1. Windows Common Elements
      2. Internet
      3. Forms of Computer Information
   4. Thursday, March 9, there is a conference at WSU on "Teaching in the New Millennium", the use of new technology. If you want to see the schedule, go to http://www.tltr.wayne.edu/techconf2000.html. You can register online there as well (using the CLL web server).
   5. Because of the conference, next week, March 9, I will not be holding office hours from 4 - 6 PM at the Macomb University Center, and the lab session will be 7 - 9:40 instead of 6 - 9:40.
   6. The Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) for this course will be held in class on Thursday April 6. This is an important part of the academic program at WSU, and I will appreciate your participation. Participation is fully anonymous.
   7. Quiz 2 is scheduled for the next class, Thursday March 23. (Change to April 6?)
   8. Online courses - example of Creativity
   9. Online tutor - Math at http://www.cll.wayne.edu/olmt
   10. Essay 2: This essay should have the same length and form as Essay 1 (five pages with header, title, introduction, body and conclusion). For the topic, pick either The Lexus and the Olive Tree or Release 2.1, and choose any two of the topics from the Internet Issues handout. Integrate these two topics into a single subject for your essay, using material from the book you chose. Be sure to tell me in the header at the beginning of your essay, which book and which topics you are writing on.
2. Internet News Stories
   1. Automotive B2B web. Previously, Ford and GM had started separate web systems to communicate with their suppliers. Specifications, requests for bids, bids, orders -- all communications would use this medium. Now, Ford and GM will be joined by Daimler Chrysler, with other auto manufacturers and suppliers invited to join, to create a single web site. This announcement was made so quickly that the details, especially for DaimlerChrysler, are not clear yet. The web site will be operated by third parties, making small commissions on each transaction. It will use systems from Microsoft and Oracle, perhaps with a third company for DaimlerChrysler. Other industries have created commodity web sites -- iron, metals, chemicals, etc. -- but this will be by far the largest. The companies expect a broader reach, faster procurement, and lower procurement costs.
   2. Arizona primary to be first online election. Online voting for the Arizona Democratic primary will start on March 7, and continue until March 10. The primary itself is on March 11, on which day both paper ballots and online voting as specified terminals will be used. A lawsuit by the Voting Integrity Project in Virginia has charged that online voting would discriminate against minorities and others without Internet access.
   3. The Digital Divide may be narrowing. In a new survey, African-Americans with incomes of $30,000 and above have the same computer and Internet usage rates Vs income as others. Many in the groups with lower usage rates say that money is not the problem; they just don't feel the need.
   4. NYSE Vs NASDAQ. "The Fed" (OK, Alan Greenspan) has been raising interest rates because the strong economy has led to such a competition for workers that it is felt that employers will have to raise wages even above the combined inflation and productivity rates. Wage increases above this level can lead to inflation, which leads to a loss of investment and a wage-price spiral. Now, the NYSE has had decreases in stock prices, presumably because these older companies, including blue-chips, make investments by borrowing money, so they may cut back on investments, leading to lower prices and dividends. The NASDAQ exchange, whose index is dominated by computer and networking companies, has been growing as fast as ever. These companies, with their high and growing stock prices, simply issue more stock or buy other companies with their valuable stock, in order to grow. Their stock prices do not seem to be affected by interest rates. Can this last?
   5. With Internet companies paying new hires at ever-increasing salaries, stockbrokers have had their stars and prospective new hires leave for eBusiness start-ups. Stockbrokers raised slaries by 40% over the last few weeks in order to compete.
   6. PayPal.com, started a few months ago, handles electronic payments between individuals. The person making the payment must have a PayPal account. The payment is made from either a bank account or a credit card account, to an email address. The person receiving the payment gets an email form to fill out, directing the payment to a credit card or bank account, or check. This is becoming popular on web sites such as eBay. PayPal is partially owned by Nokia, the Finnish cell phone company. Nokia is demonstrating PayPal on its cellular phones for what it is calling m-commerce (m for mobile). The demonstration is an online pop machine, where the user walks up tot he machine, dials the number on the machine, sees what is available, makes a choice, and then the pop machine dispenses. With a single cellular standard, Europe is further ahead in wireless Internet, compared to the US, which has three non-compatible standards.
3. Quiz 1 Review
   1. Regarding the URL and the path, most people could identify and describe the parts of each - congratulations! But many did not know what they were called. Does it make sense to blow the simple part and ace the hard part?
   2. On the essays, many people gave only one side of an issue. I make the point again - I will want you to be able to give pro and con arguments.
4. Items not covered on Quiz 1 (II on Topics for Quiz II)
5. Excel review
   1. Spreadsheet composed of cells arranged in rows and columns.
   2. Entering information into cells
   3. Formatting before entry, during entry or after entry. Text formatting like word processing. Number formatting for currency, percentage and date.
   4. Formulae. Entering (starts with ...). Using +, -, *, /, sum and average
   5. Charts
   6. Excel Tables and Charts can be copy-pasted into Word
   7. Sorting (on which menu item?).
   8. Information is more structured, can be manipulated - example of tracking the number of posts
6. Windows common elements - go to handout
   
7. Forms of computer information
8. Update on web pages
   1. Browser cache
      1. Cache = local special storage, in this case, for web pages you have visited
      2. Maintained by web browser, separate sections on hard drive and in working memory
      3. When Browser requests a file from server, by means of a header, it asks the Browser to return the current date of the file. If the date of the file in the cache is the same as the date of the file on the server, the Browser provides a faster response and reeuces the load on the server by displaying the copy in the cache. Normally this works pretty well, but the date comparison (apparently) does not include time. So if you view a page from the server in the morning and change it on the server in the afternoon, and then view it the same day, your Browser will still display the older cache copy.
      4. There are solutions. Each Browser has a method for overriding the cache and forcing an update from the web server.
         1. Netscape - <Shift>Reload
         2. Internet Explorer - Reload or <F5>
         3. You can also clear the cache in both Browsers to force going tot he server. Be sure to clear both the disk and RAM cache.
         4. If you normally work on a quickly-changing web site, you might consider zeroing the memory devoted to cache storage. Again, be sure to zero both the disk and RAM cache.
   2. How the web handles different file types
      1. When the web server receives a URL specifying a certain file, for most file types in most folders, the web server simply returns the file to the Browser, letting the Browser figure out how to handle it. Exceptions: executable files (*.exe) in specified directories (e.g. cgi-bin, cgi-win) are executed on the server with an output file returned to the Browser. "Server-side script files" (e.g. Perl, *.pl) in any folder are also executed on the server with an output file returned to the Browser. These are the mechanism for "interactivity" - taking input from the user via a form, processing that information on the server, and returning a customized file to the Browser.
      2. Web Browsers handle certain file types internally. These types are HTML, GIF, JPEG, PNG and a few other minor types. All of these "automatic" types are displayed on the screen by the Browser.
      3. For many other file types, the Browser may have been configured to use "plug-in" or "helper" applications to handle the file type. Many of these applications are proprietary, and may even be pre-configured in the Browser. Usually the Browser plug-in can be downloaded for free, as a means to building traffic and therefore sales for the server-side software. Examples:
         1. *.pdf (portable document format). Use Adobe Acrobat Reader to display the file on the screen.
         2. *.rpm. Use RealPlayer for this multimedia (sound, graphics and video) file.
         3. *.mov. Use QuickTime movie player
         4. *.wav. Use Windows sound player
      4. Many desktop applications will, by default, install themselves as viewers for their file types. Examples are Word (*.doc), Excel (*.xls), Access (*.mdb) and PowerPoint (*.ppt). When one of these file types is returned, the Browser starts the corresponding application to display the file. These files are not displayed in-line in the Browser window, but as separate windows. There may be a choice between saving to disk and displaying the file.
      5. The Browser can also be configured to execute scripts (e.g. javascript, java, vbscript) embedded within an HTML file.
      6. If the file type is not one of 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6, then the Browser will ask the user what to do with the file. The normal option is to save it to disk for later offline processing.
9. Advice on passwords
   1. Minimum of six characters
   2. No words or common names - hackers can easily try out an entire electronic dictionary
   3. If you are on a case-sensitive system such as Unix, mix uppercase and lowercase
   4. Include at least one numbers. Also, if allowed, include at least one special characters, such as "%".