(Note: This will be presented first at the InterWorks conference held April 25-30, 1998 in Santa Clara, CA.)

Outline For "Automating Tasks With the Web"

Other presentations covering related material are available on this Web site.

Automating Tasks With the Web

• Introduction
• What Will We Cover?
• How the Web is changing
• What is being automated now?
• Automation examples at Interex
• Ideas for you to consider
• What is next?
• How the Web is changing
• Specifications
• HTML 4.0 Specification
• Endorsed by W3C December 1997
• New features (e.g. LABEL, OBJECT, and OPTGROUP)
• Deprecated (e.g. CENTER and FONT)
• Extensible Markup Lanugage XML 1.0
• XML application MathML
• What is being automated now?
• Relatively simple tasks seen frequently
• e-mail feedback
• responses to surveys
• on-line shopping cart
• Business interactions
• Decreasing "I'll FAX that right over to you"
• Proposals, contracts, specifications, invoices, etc.
• Make changes and reload, print locally
• Inside the fire wall
• Web front-ends to internal applications (e.g. problem reporting)
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) free senior admins
• Netscape's Web server administration
• Web database accesses (personnel, salary plan)
• Project records, designs, and policies
• Database access and database driven pages
• Have a database?
• Consider DBI - The Database Interface
• Standardized interface, easier migration
• Interfaces available at CPAN
• Have data but can't afford an engine?
• Consider free engine PostgreSQL
• Object-Relational DBMS
• Sources and some binaries available
• Network monitoring
• Analyze license status/configuration of ClearCase
• Make tuning recommendations
• Monitored off-site over Web
• W. M. Richards' InterWorks '95 ALERT script
• Had text and Tk GUI interface
• Added CGI interface
• Administration via the Web
• Linuxconf (freely available under GPL)
• Start or stop daemons
• Configure a network interface or route
• Mount volumes, etc.
• Handles http protocol; no Web server needed first
• "Hands-off" administration
• Cobalt Microserver Cobalt Qube[tm]
• 7.5-inch cube file sharing and Web server under $1,000
• OS (Linux 2.0 on a64-bit MIPS RISC) hidden from user and administrator
• Admin via Web browser to Cobalt Qube's Apache Web server
• Automation examples at Interex
• Conferences
• Application enhanced for InterWorks 98 and HP World 98
• Configuration files control differences (track names, rooms, features, etc.)
• Build static agenda page
• Personal selections/schedule
• Local User Group and Exhibitor Pages
• Submit, edit and create index and individual Web pages
• Configuration files again
• 2 new blocks added to expand entries (leaders, agenda items, future dates)
• Pull-down for "new" or "updated" splash
• Page updates by authorized staff or volunteers
• No webmaster bottleneck, HTML, or style guide learning
• Password on pages and CGI script for authentication
• Script tailors form content to admin or volunteer
• Ideas for you to consider
• Delivery and review system
• Forget "I'll overnight it to you", use Web
• Password scheme or alternate port for privacy
• Web faster and cheaper
• Make/review changes during teleconference
• Master on the Web
• Official document repository
• Latest copy of official procedures
• Different authoring applications
• Large native word processing format (bandwidth)
• Post the material, e-mail the URL
• Point new team members to Web: "It's in there"
• Web page control
• Use configuration management (CM) system
• Using CVS? Look at CVS Web
• Static page generation
• Generate static pages from dynamic data, save ovehead
• Server-side include: your resources for every page fetch
• "make" your Web by preprocessing
• What is next?
• Can't predict
• Hope for
• more HTML 4.0 and XML features in browsers
• lossless Portable Network Graphic (PNG) support
• use of style sheets for page appearances, not force-fitting tags
• retention of document structure
• style sheet support: browsers, authoring tools, designers
• decreased use of depricated tags
• Current HTML authoring and conversion tools inadequate
• There is no "browser war" to be won!
  Without standards, competition, and tool choices, we all lose!
• There is hope
• Project Mnemonic alpha release
• Lynx 2.8 now Y2K ready
• Source code for Netscape Communicator available via mozilla.org
• Other authoring and conversion tools under development
• Other hot new topics by next year

Selected Web References in this presentation (for people with printed copies)

Full paper for this presentation

http://www.arde.com/Papers/AutoTasks/paper.html

HTML 4.0 Specification

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/

DBI - The Database Interface

http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local/CPAN.html#dbi

Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN)

http://www.perl.com/CPAN-local/CPAN.html

PostgreSQL

http://www.postgresql.org

Simple Cross-Platform Network Status Monitoring Using Perl

http://www.interex.org/conference/iworks95/Honeywell/AlertPerl/index.html

Linuxconf

http://www.solucorp.qc.ca/linuxconf/features.html

Linux

http://www.linux.org/

Cobalt Microserver

http://www.cobaltmicro.com/

Apache HTTP Server Project

http://www.apache.org/

Cyclic Software (CVS)

http://www.cyclic.com/

CVS Web

http://www.freebsd.org/~fenner/cvsweb/

PNG

http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Graphics/PNG

Mnemonic

http://www.mnemonic.org/

Lynx

http://lynx.browser.org/

mozilla.org (Netscape sources)

http://www.mozilla.org/

(Updated 20 APR 97)