((((((((((((((((( WEBREFERENCE UPDATE NEWSLETTER )))))))))))))))))
MARCH 08, 1999
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Now with over 56400 subscribers
http://www.webreference.com <- link to us today
http://www.webreference.com/new/ <- archive, subscribe/unsubscribe
New this week on WebReference.com and the Web:
1. GIORDAN ON GRAPHICS: Composite GIF Animations using Photoshop
and Imageready
2. 3D ANIMATION WORKSHOP: Modeling and Animating, Part 1
3. E-COMMERCE WATCH: Payment Systems 101
4. NEW LINKS: Web Color, Agents and Robots, Graphic File
Formats
5. INTERVIEW: Netscape's Dariusz Paczuski
6. NEW AWARD: Cool Tool of the Day
7. OTHER VOICES:
* RealAudio Guide - WebDeveloper.com
* Inside Microsoft's AI Labs - Botspot.com
* Databases from Perl - devhead.com
* Untangling the Open Source/Free Software Debate - oreilly.com
* Optimizing Microsoft.com's Server Performance - microsoft.com
8. NET NEWS:
* Microsoft admits privacy problem, plans fix
* RealNetworks To Support MP3
* GNOME puts a friendly face on Linux
* Start-Up Gives Away Virtual Hard Drives
* Sun Runs Linux On Solaris
* Inside LinuxWorld
* Quark highlights Web template technology
Like what you see? Get our front page e-mailed to you every
business day with our HTML newsletter. Just send an e-mail to:
mailto:subscribe-html@webreference.com
Spread the word! Feel free to send a copy of this newsletter to
your friends and colleagues, and while you're at it, snap a link
to WebReference.com.
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1. GIORDAN ON GRAPHICS: Composite GIF Animations using Photoshop
and Imageready
What Ron Popiel's Vegomatic did for the kitchen, Dan Giordan's
GIFoMator technique does for Web sites. It slices and dices and
makes everything byte size and tasty. Dan shows how to slice up
your animations and assemble them into low-cal seamless tables.
http://www.webreference.com/graphics/column9/
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2. 3D ANIMATION WORKSHOP: Modeling and Animating, Part 1
With arms akimbo our models are posed for success. But it takes
more than a shove to get them to sashay down the runway of
realistic motion. Model master Robert Polevoi shows how to make
them come alive with modeling, animating, and everything be tween.
http://www.webreference.com/3d/lesson61/
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3. E-COMMERCE WATCH: Payment Systems 101 - Building SET
Applications For Secure Transactions
In this exclusive excerpt of his new book Mark Merkow gives an
overview of the payment process with a brief history of charge
cards and how they operate, SET lingo, and how charge processing
works on-line with SET.
http://www.webreference.com/ecommerce/mm/books/c2-0.html
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4. NEW LINKS: Web Color, Agents and Robots, Graphic File Formats
>Web Color Resources
Roses are red. Violets are blue. Make your palettes neat, and
non-dithering too.
http://www.webreference.com/authoring/graphics/color.html
>Agents and Robots
What bot's hot, what's not? We got the hot, not the not. These
bots do a lot.
http://www.webreference.com/internet/software/agents.html
>Graphic File Formats
Don't know your PNG from your TNG? Well, here are some links that
will help. Find out why choosy artists chose GIF.
http://www.webreference.com/authoring/graphics/formats.html
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5. INTERVIEW: Netscape's Dariusz Paczuski
What do you get when you cross a Yahoo-like directory with open
source-like editorial? A scalable Yahoo with very few broken links.
Netscape's new Open Directory Project aims to out-Yahoo Yahoo by
doing just that: combining their recently acquired NewHoo! directory
with thousands of volunteer editors to categorize the Web in an
open-source-like project with the lofty goal of becoming the largest
and highest quality Web directory on the planet.
We interviewed Dariusz Paczuski, the Program Manager of the Netscape
Open Directory Project (which is the Netcenter version of the Open
Directory Project), to find out more about this new way of making
Web sites.
>Describe the Open Directory Project.
The Open Directory Project's goal is to produce the most
comprehensive directory of the web, by relying on a vast army of
volunteer editors.
>What's the difference between the Mozilla version and Netscape's?
The Open Directory Project (ODP) is the home of the editors and all
directory development / maintenance. Consider it the "mother"
directory of the Netscape Open Directory (NOD) which is the
commercial Netcenter version made available to all our Netcenter
users.
ODP exists on its own as the home for the editors and the "open
content" development. It will not have advertising / sponsorships
on it in order to give the editors the "peace and quiet" they need
to what they do. The NOD (in the next few months) will include
value added search features and services that will not be available
in the ODP.
The Netscape Open Directory is the version that will be seamlessly
integrated into the Communicator client (through Smart Browsing)
and the Netcenter web site (through search, channel content, and
services).
http://home.netscape.com/escapes/keywords/
>How will you integrate the directory into your other services?
Will keyword searches go to matching directory pages?
Yes, and the taxonomy will be used for future services coming
online soon.
>How many editors do you have now?
Today, 7,789 editors, but see http://dmoz.org/ for the latest
numbers.
>What does it take to become an editor?
Expertise in or passion for a specific subcategory - We take
applications from people who select a category they wish to edit.
We then look at their application to see if we think they make a
good editor. We take on about 1/5 of the applicants into the
editor ranks. The applications are fascinating - We have people
from 229 countries and all 50 states, in hundreds of professions.
The Netcenter version of the Open Directory Project is available
at http://directory.netscape.com/index.html?cp=ltrnod and is
replacing our current http://home.netscape.com/directory/ Web
Directory by Excite this month.
>Licensing the database, tell me more about that. What are the
terms for licensing?
Basically, anybody may license a copy of the Open Directory Project
from http://dmoz.org/rdf.html and use it as long as there's
attribution back to the Open DIrectory Project. The idea is that
anyone can do whatever they'd like - but they have to give back
to the effort by giving their users the opportunity to participate
in growing the directory and becoming editors. In this way we hope
to build the largest and most comprehensive directory of the web.
>How do you compare to Yahoo!?
Although Yahoo is still bigger overall, we have some real
differentiators. First, our directory has almost no "dead" links
in it - Our editors are informed if there are unreachable links,
and they go in and fix them. We are down to 1/4 of one percent
"unreachable" links. Yahoo is estimated to have between 10-15%
"link rot," Also, we provide "freshness dating" (time stamp of
last update) to every directory subcategory. Finally, we have almost
8,000 people working on our directory, all over the world. Yahoo's
founders have written about the lack of scalability of their model -
We think we've got a much more scalable way to catalog the web in
the long run.
http://dmoz.org
http://directory.netscape.com/index.html?cp=ltrnod
http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/
Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and Syntax Specification
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6. NEW AWARD: Cool Tool of the Day
Congratulations to Stephanos Piperoglou for winning Cool Tool of
the Day on Wednesday for his nifty Colorizer color picker applet.
http://www.webreference.com/html/tools/colorizer/
http://www.cooltool.com/tool.cgi?id=807
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7. OTHER VOICES: RealAudio Guide, Inside Microsoft's AI Labs,
Databases from Perl, Untangling the Open Source/
Free Software Debate, Optimizing Microsoft.com's
Server Performance
>Tutorial: WebDeveloper.com's Secret Guide to RealAudio
Learn the secrets of streaming without a server, encoding for the
least common denominator, and how to beat MP3 at its own game.
http://webdeveloper.com/categories/multimedia/multimedia_guide_realaudio.html
WebDeveloper.com, Mar. 8, 1999
>Inside Microsoft's AI Labs
Microsoft's advance research labs gives BotSpot a rare look at
their work on natural language processors.
http://bots.internet.com/pcai/
Botspot.com, Mar. 1999
>Perl Wisdom: Databases from Perl
Nathan Torkington shows how to access SQL databases from Perl.
http://www.zdnet.com/devhead/stories/articles/0,4413,2220157,00.html
Devhead.com, Mar. 4, 1999
>Whence the Source: Untangling the Open Source/Free Software Debate
The battle for ideological control of computing's next wave is
being waged between two factions. One seeks to increase the
collective IQ of the software development community by loosening
industry's grip on intellectual property. The other wants to do
away with intellectual property altogether. (Actually the FSF and
OSI have some common goals, pitting them against each other just
makes good copy).
http://opensource.oreilly.com/news/scoville_0399.html
O'Reilly, March, 1999
>Optimizing Microsoft.com's Server Performance
See how Microsoft tweaks their NT Servers for maximum speed.
http://www.microsoft.com/backstage/
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8. NET NEWS: Microsoft admits privacy problem, plans fix,
RealNetworks To Support MP3, GNOME puts a friendly
face on Linux, Start-Up Gives Away Virtual Hard Drives,
Sun Runs Linux On Solaris, Inside LinuxWorld,
Quark highlights Web template technology
>Microsoft admits privacy problem, plans fix
Microsoft has acknowledged that a feature in its Windows 98
operating system (unique ID numbers) can be used to collect
information on authors of electronic documents without their
knowledge, and has vowed to fix the problem.
http://www.news.com/News/Item/Textonly/0,25,33413,00.html
News.com, Mar. 7, 1999
>RealNetworks To Support MP3
RealNetworks is reportedly developing MP3 playback capability into
a new version of its streaming media player, due later this year.
http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/stories/news/0,4164,2221383,00.html
ZDNet.com, Mar. 8, 1999
>GNOME puts a friendly face on Linux
Linux on your desktop? That's the idea behind the Free Software
Foundation's GNOME 1.0, released last week at Linux-World.
http://www.zdnet.com/pcweek/stories/news/0,4153,393040,00.html
PCWeek.com, Mar. 8, 1999
>Start-Up Gives Away Virtual Hard Drives
Get your free 50MB Web-based hard drive at docspace.com.
http://www.docspace.com
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990308S0001
>Sun Runs Linux On Solaris
At LinuxWorld Sun demonstated LX Run, which provides platform
level support for Linux applications.
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990304S0008
Techweb.com, Mar. 4, 1999
>Inside LinuxWorld
Get the inside scoop to the first LinuxWorld convention.
http://www.wired.com/news/news/linux/
Wired.com, Ongoing
>Quark highlights Web template technology
Quark is planning to enable its large base of designers to create
Web templates with a new technology, code-named Troika. Troika
enables the rapid creation of Extensible Markup Language (XML) and HTML
documents from Quark XPress files with a drag-and-drop feature that
populates data fields that match a publisher's Document Type Definition.
http://www.infoworld.com/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?99036.whquark.htm
InfoWorld Electric, Mar. 6, 1999
That's it for this week, see you next time.
Andrew King
Managing Editor, WebReference.com
update@webreference.com
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Download Internet apps 4 WIN 3.x/95/NT http://www.stroud.com
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The Web Developer's Virtual Library http://www.wdvl.com
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