IAT Infobits - August, 1995
No. 26
ISSN 1071-5223
About INFOBITS
Infobits is an electronic service of the Institute for Academic Technology's Information Resources Group. Each month we monitor and select from a number of information technology and instruction technology sources that come to our attention and provide brief notes for electronic dissemination to educators.
CGI -- Common Gateway Interface
NewJour Listserv
Remembering the Birth of the Atomic Age
Less Commonly Taught Languages Project
Illustrated French Newspaper on the World Wide Web
Digital Video on the World Wide Web
English Language Resources
CGI -- COMMON GATEWAY INTERFACE
Creating basic World-Wide Web homepages for a Web server is an easily-mastered skill (see "Weave Your Own Web Pages," IAT Infobits, No. 21, March 1995). But if you want to add more operations to your Web server that allow user interactivity and reader feedback, you soon find yourself facing the prospect of learning to write CGI (Common Gateway Interface) scripts. A gateway script can link the server to a database and permit users to search for information on your site. It can present a blank form to a user and then process the information gathered from the completed form. In short, CGI scripts allow your Web server to go beyond simply serving up screens of information to your users.
If you are planning to program CGI scripts or just want to find out more about them, here are some sources of information.
World-Wide Web resources:
A Common Gateway Interface overview
http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/intro.html
or
http://paulina.elkraft.unit.no/ncsa/cgi/overview.html
Beginner's tutorial
http://www.catt.ncsu.edu/~bex/tutor/index.html
The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) List
http://www.best.com/~hedlund/cgi-faq/faq-general.html
Web Developer's Virtual Library: CGI
http://www.charm.net/~web/Vlib/Providers/CGI.html
Yahoo's CGI page
http://www.yahoo.com/Computers/World_Wide_Web/CGI___Common_Gateway_Interface
Books that contain chapters on CGI:
Chandler, David M., with Bill Kirkner and Jim Minatel. Running a Perfect Web Site. Carmel, IN: Que, 1995. 457 pages. ISBN: 0-7897-0210-X.
Graham, Ian S. The HTML Sourcebook. New York: Wiley, 1995. 416 pages. ISBN: 0-471-11849-4.
Lemay, Laura. Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML in a Week. Indianapolis, IN: Sams Publishing, 1995. 397 pages. ISBN 0-672-30667-0.
Liu, Cricket, Jerry Peek, Russ Jones, Bryan Buus, and Adrian Nye. Managing Internet Information Services. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly & Associates, 1994. 668 pages. ISBN: 1-56592-062-7.
Magid, Jonathan, R. Douglas Matthews, and Paul Jones. The Web Server Book: Tools & Techniques for Building Your Own Internet Information Site. Chapel Hill, NC: Ventana Press, 1995. ISBN: 1-56604-234-8.
NewJour is a listserv that announces new electronic journals. The traffic on this list has grown so much that NewJour, in an effort to reduce the number of messages subscribers receive, is now available in digest form. To receive one daily listing of new electronic journals, send email to: mjd@ccat.sas.upenn.edu with the following message:
subscribe newjour-digest
Do not put anything in the email subject line.
Do not include your name or any other information in the message.
REMEMBERING THE BIRTH OF THE ATOMIC AGE
The August/September 1995 issue of Technology Review is a special edition devoted to reflections on "Hiroshima and Nagasaki, their aftermath, and the future." Four articles from the publication are available on the World-Wide Web at URL http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena/org/t/techreview/www/articles/aug95/atomic.html
Technology Review [ISSN 0040-1692] is published eight times a year by the Association of Alumni and Alumnae of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Subscriptions are available from Technology Review, P.O. Box 489, Mount Morris, IL 61054 USA; tel: 800-877-5230 or 815-734-1116; fax: 815-734-1127; email: trsubscriptions@mit.edu
Back issues are available at Technology Review's World-Wide Web home page at URL http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena/org/t/techreview/www/tr.html
Pointers to other atomic age articles on the Web are available at URL http://web.mit.edu/afs/athena/org/t/techreview/www/articles/aug95/linksatomic.html
For more information on nuclear energy, weapons, and related topics check out "Todd's Atomic Homepage" (created by Todd Postma, a Nuclear Engineering graduate student at the University of California at Berkeley) at URL http://neutrino.nuc.berkeley.edu:80/neutronics/todd.html
Other related World-Wide Web sites to explore include:
The Manhattan Project (in French) at URL http://www.netfrance.com/Libe/manhat/index.html
The Leo Szilard Home Page (physicist, 1898-1964) at URL http://www.peak.org/~danneng/szilard.html
Remembering Nagasaki at URL http://isaac.exploratorium.edu/nagasaki/
Peacewire's articles on Hiroshima-Nagasaki at URL http://www.peacewire.org/pw/harticles.html and the Hiroshima-Nagasaki Project at URL http://www.peacewire.org/pw/hiromenu.html
John Davis' World War II - "50 Years Ago" Archives at URL http://www.webcom.com/~jbd/ww2.html
Military history sites at URL http://www.vestnett.no/vulcan/index.html and at URL http://kuhttp.cc.ukans.edu/history/milhst/m_index.html
LESS COMMONLY TAUGHT LANGUAGES PROJECT
The Less Commonly Taught Languages project (LCTL), through the Center for Advanced Research on Language Acquisition (CARLA) at the University of Minnesota, collects and disseminates information on all languages other than French, German, Spanish, and modern English. The main objectives of the LCTL project are to bring together and then disseminate information about teaching of less-commonly-taught languages. The LCTL Gopher server presents an alphabetical list of less commonly taught languages, and for each language, lists the institutions where the language is taught in the U.S. and Canada, along with the name, address and phone number of a contact person at that institution.
The Gopher site is located at URL gopher://lctl.acad.umn.edu/ The project also has a World-Wide Web site at URL http://lctl.acad.umn.edu/
For more information, contact LCTL Project, CARLA, UTEC Suite 111, 1313 5th Street SE, Minneapolis MN 55414 USA; tel: 612-627-1872; fax: 612-627-1875; email: LCTL@maroon.tc.umn.edu
The mission of CARLA (sponsor of the LCTL Project) is to study multilingualism and multiculturalism and to advance the quality of second-language teaching and learning by conducting high-quality research, sharing research-based and other forms of knowledge across disciplines, and extending, exchanging and applying this knowledge in the wider society. For more information about other CARLA projects, check out their World-Wide Web site at URL http://134.84.235.92/
ILLUSTRATED FRENCH NEWSPAPER ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB
Liberation, a French daily newspaper (circulation 230,000), has launched a World-Wide Web version of "Multimedia," its weekly illustrated supplement. It is available at URL http://www.netfrance.com/Libe/
DIGITAL VIDEO ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB
"Playing the Web: Digital Video in Cyberspace" by Allan Lundell (DV: Digital Video Magazine, vol. 3, no. 7, July 1995, pp. 38-43, 46, 48, 50) provides a survey of some digital video resources on the World-Wide Web. Along with a hot list of sites to check out, Lundell discusses some of the tools that promote digital video use on the Internet, including CU-SeeMe (allows videoconferencing on the Internet) and QuickTime VR (allows ability to navigate 360 degrees in a virtual or photographed environment; eventually may include live video capabilities).
Lundell's hot list is also available on the World-Wide Web at URL http://gate.cruzio.com:80/arts/lib/sun/hotlink1.html
His homepage is at URL http://www.cruzio.com/arts/lib/sun
The "Index to Multimedia Information Sources" at URL http://viswiz.gmd.de/MultimediaInfo provides an online connection to more digital video information and sites.
Digital Video Magazine [ISSN 1075-251X] is published monthly by ActiveMedia, Inc., 600 Townsend St., San Francisco, CA 94103 USA. Subscriptions are $29.97/year (US), $44.97/year (Canada), $42.97/year (Mexico), $84.97/year (elsewhere, airmail). Send subscription inquiries to Digital Video Magazine, Subscription Services, IMI, 501 Second St., 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94107 USA; tel: 800-998-0806; email: subs@dv.com
The IAT has a new addition to our Information Resource Guides series: "English Literature and Composition Resources on the Internet: Selected Sites." The document is available on the World-Wide Web at URL http://www.unc.edu/cit/guides/irg-30.html.
URL: http://www.unc.edu/cit/infobits/bitaug95.html
Infobits editor: Carolyn Kotlas
© Copyright 1995, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. All rights reserved.
May be reproduced in any medium for non-commercial purposes.
Center for Instructional Technology
Academic & Technology Networks
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
