Monday, 3 February 2014

10 learning points from html

I have recently learnt how to create a html website, so these are my learning points from the lesson.

1) I have learnt the different tags and their purpose and what they are used for.

2) I have learnt that using Notepad, a basic text reader, I can make a html file which can be viewed on a web browser, however if there is no server which the html file can be transferred to, then the file is practically useless.

3) However (elaborating on my previous point) a html file is much more customisable than a .txt file, and the font and font size and images can be uploaded. Html files can be formatted much more so it is a better option over a .txt file.

4) Some tags have to be used in pairs as they contain content after they are used, like the tags <html> and </html> ; <p> and </p>.

5) Through research, I have found out that there is no difference between htm and html, as htm uses the tag <html> as well, and the only difference between these two file extensions is the presence of the letter "l".

6) I have tried the w3 schools html tutorial and have realised that they do not use notepad, but a different type of file loader, however the codes are still the same, as it is the same file format.

7) There is also a newer html called html5, which has some codes which are different but html5 has more elements and has video and audio, making it much more customisable.

8) Also, html5 is device-independent, which means it can work on any device, including phones, tablets, and computers. This allows html5 to be used for app making.

9) From making the html files, I have learnt that html coding is actually quite interesting although time consuming.

10) I have learnt how to make a hyperlink that would lead to another website and open it in a new window.

Web 2.0 Learning Points

I have written about Web 2.0 before this, although it was very brief.
Here are 5 learning points from the lesson of Web 2.0.

1) Web 2.0 is a web where there is not only one group that controls the website, but everyone can share and comment on the website. An example is Facebook or Flickr, where anyone can just comment on other's posts and photos. The largest online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, is also a major example of Web 2.0, where anyone can edit and post.

2) Web 2.0 is much more social, is more organised and categorised. Thus, everything found on the web would be easier to find.

3) Web 2.0 is also very beneficial to the market, as advertisers like Google AdSense can customize what types of ads to show on your website dependent on your content of the website. This creates many opportunities for advertisers and that would maximise revenue.

4) Web 2.0 has made those so-called specialised web designers not so much in control of web content anymore, as now anyone can upload whatever they want onto the web, and the web would therefore be a more democratic personal DIY medium of communication.

5) Web 2.0 has enabled more people to collaborate through the web and has made a great leap in advancing the internet.

If the jump from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 has been such a great leap, what would Web 3.0 be like?

My learning points from the 57 slides

Wow, I have learnt so much from this assignment and have read much about the internet and its history. Some things I did not even know they existed, like ARPANET and what it is, and I had no idea what html was for. Let me list 10 of my learning points.

1) I had always thought that the internet had originated from the 1990s and that it was actually pretty new but actually, it originated in September 1969, as the ARPANET, which was a networking project. It stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and the NET, well, stands for net (connection). This allows scientists at different locations to share information, so it was the birth of the internet. I had never known this before so it is something new to me.

2) I never knew what ".com" was called in the technical way and now I know it is a domain. The domain is a text version of the IP (internet protocol) address and the IP address is the number that uniquely identifies each computer or device that is connected to the internet.

3) What is the World Wide Web? I know that "www" stands for the World Wide Web from a movie called "Transformers" but never really understood what it was for. Now I know that it is a world wide collection of electronic documents. I know what a website is, so the Web (WWW) is a compilation of most of the websites. If there was no triple w, all our electronic documents would be scattered and we would not have a universal way of viewing them, and everything would get extremely complicated. This has thus answered my question.

4) I now know what URL stands for. Uniform Resource Locator. It is a unique address that every single webpage has and when people type the URL of a webpage into a web browser, it would load that web page.

5) I did not even know what a subject directory is so after I read the 57 slides, I learnt that it is a search tool with an organised set of topics and subtopics. It is easier in a way that it allows people to search information, by clicking on links, but it does not allow the person the freedom of searching what is not in the subject directory.

6) I have learnt the 9 different basic types of websites, which include the portal, news, informational, business/marketing, educational, entertainment, advocacy, blog and personal. All of these different types of websites have different domains, and they all serve their purposes, which is obvious in their names. For example, advocacy contains content that approves and promotes a certain idea or action.

7) I have learnt the different image formats that are used for the web pages. There are many which include BMP, JPEG, TIFF, GIF and PNG. I have actually realised that when my father uploads the images from his camera onto the computer, they are usually in the JPEG format. However, some of my images from my phone have a PNG format. From research, I have found out that the difference between JPEG and PNG are that JPEG actually compresses the image but makes the image of lower quality saving space. However, PNG is a lossless sort of format that, unlike GIF, has many more different colours and thus it looks nicer.

8) (Actually I have already posted this learning point in one of my earlier posts, about the thumbnails.)

9) I have found out that transactions made over the internet (usually business) are called e-commerce. I have bought some goods over the internet and found out how efficient it is and how fast it actually is. 

10) (Last but not least!) I thought before that email came quite late after the internet was created because of Gmail, which came out in around 2007. I have always used Gmail so I was quite confused when the Powerpoint mentioned that emailing was one of the original services on the internet, so emailing is actually pretty old, but I do not know how people sent emails then, with no email addresses. It is actually an extreme convenience to have emailing, as we can send people messages and they would receive it almost instantly. However, now with technology becoming better, what would come after email?