The last chapter was devoted to high-level issues involving the overall design and objectives of your Intranet. In this chapter you'll turn from abstract consideration of purpose statements and audience definition to some hardware and software specifics. Here you'll survey the software and hardware tools you need to get set up. I cover the subject of hardware (briefly) because it will affect some of your choices in software (for example, Intel versus RISC and NT Server versus NT Workstation).
Many of the software tools discussed in this chapter are available on the CD-ROM accompanying this book, although some are commercial packages. Mentions of specific commercial software packages are examples only and don't imply any endorsement of them by this author or by Sams.net.
This chapter is an overview. In subsequent chapters and appendixes, you find more detailed information about the tools discussed here. Even so, this book does not get into the internals of TCP/IP networking. I will highlight the setup of World Wide Web server software, particularly as it relates to the Intranet, but many of the technical details of Web server software are beyond our scope. Similarly, I'll refer to other Internet standard software you can integrate into your Web and leave some details to other references. Although I provide a good deal of specific setup information about several Web browser software packages, this book is not a complete reference on those packages. You'll find a variety of book-length treatments of these subjects in your favorite bookstore.
The hardware you select for your Intranet server(s) is dependent
on a number of factors including your anticipated traffic levels,
ease of setup, your in-house technical expertise, and other requirements.
Windows NT server software is quick and easy to set up with point-and-click
configuration. You can have a Web server running on a pc in just
a few minutes. If you choose to use the decentralized or mixed
models of Web administration described in Chapter 2,
individual users can easily take advantage of this software on
their own desktop pcs.
| Tip |
Except for personal Web servers, you probably should not plan on running a Web server on a pc that is also somebody's everyday desktop machine. As a simple rule, this will help ensure the best Web server performance for your customers. However, if you are on a tight budget, reconsider that general advice in light of the expected network traffic, the processing power of the computer in question, and the frequency and complexity of the other tasks running on that machine. |
| Caution |
Before buying any hardware to run with Windows NT, it is always a good idea to make sure it is on the Windows NT Hardware Compatibility List. This document is published by Microsoft and the most current version can be browsed at their Web site: http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/hcl/hclintro.htm. |
Windows NT 4 will run on just about any 486 or greater pc with at least 16MB of RAM. At least 32 MB of RAM is recommended. (Note that support for Intel 386 machines was dropped in this latest release of NT.) There are almost as many NT configurations as there are system administrators, so I will try to stick to giving broad and budget-conscious advice in this section. Listed here is a hardware configuration that is very similar to this author's small Web site (http://www.hqz.com):
| If you're thinking that a tape backup is a luxury, I should point out that you are probably going to be downloading tons of software from the Internet. You'll find that new software is announced almost every day, and you'll want to take
advantage of new tools to help you keep your Intranet server running efficiently.
In the event of a hard-disk failure, it is true that you can restore shrink-wrap software products from the original media, but when you consider the amount of download time it would take to recover all of your zipped packages, if they were ever lost, you'll probably agree that a backup device becomes an essential component. And if your customers are creating and storing any intellectual content on your Intranet server, the cost to re-create it could be so great that it could jeopardize the job of a system administrator who failed to back it up. Recently, there are several exciting alternatives to tape backup: 100MB Zip drives from Iomega, 135MB EZDrives from Syquest, 1GB Jaz drives from Iomega, and 4.6GB optical drives from Pinnacle Micro are worth mentioning. These drives function at the speed of hard drives and include replaceable media in the fashion of a huge floppy drive. The Zip drives go for around $200, and three 100MB disks run about $50. The Pinnacle optical drive costs about $1,500, and the optical disks are about $200. This does add to the cost of the computer, but there is no cheaper way to add an infinite amount of quick-access storage to your system. Once you have one of these drives, all you have to do is buy more media. |
In this section, I outline all of the tools that you will find useful in building an Intranet. Most of these packages are available on the Internet or on the CD-ROM with this book. As a Webmaster or an Intranet System Administrator, you will learn very quickly that the Internet contains a vast treasure of software to help you with your job. At the end of this chapter, I list a few helpful places you can visit online whenever you are looking for a new piece of software.
If you're already using the World Wide Web, you're already using TCP/IP, the fundamental Internet networking protocols. Only the TCP/IP networking protocols, the foundation of the world-wide Internet, support the Web over local area and wide area networks (which is the essence of an Intranet). Without TCP/IP there would be no Internet and no World Wide Web; without it on your LAN you'll have no Intranet. Designed from the very beginning to operate over different communication media, TCP/IP works on Ethernet and Token Ring LAN's; it even operates over ordinary telephone lines using modems.
There are dozens of excellent Web servers available for Windows NT. (Okay, so I lied a little; if you visit the URL following this sentence, you'll see that there are currently 23 Web servers available for Windows NT: http://www.webcompare.com/server-main.html.)
Netscape, Process, and O'Reilly have been the main players in the NT HTTP server business for more than a year. Just this year Microsoft entered the arena and promises to shake things up a bit because their Internet Information Server is free. The other vendors have lowered their prices and they do offer some features that IIS doesn't have.
Here is a quick list of a few NT Web server vendors (please see Appendix B for more information):
Remember, this is not intended as a complete list-just something to help you get started. I would recommend that you start with any one of these, try it for a few days, and see how far you can go with it. Chapter 7, "Running an Intranet Web Server," takes a look at IIS, but fundamentally all Web servers are similar to each other. They differentiate themselves with advanced features (such as database access), performance, security, ease of use, multiplatform support (Netscape leads in this category), and price. (IIS is the fastest according to pc Week, and now Microsoft claims that IIS 2.0 is 40 percent faster than version 1.0.)
You can create Web pages with the Hypertext Markup Language using any text editor you want, including Windows NotePad or your favorite word processor in plain text mode. Although HTML documents are plain ASCII text with simple markup codes, you might want to use a specialized HTML editor or conversion tool. There are a wide range of these tools, and they can be broken down into several categories:
You'll find a long listing of all sorts of HTML-related tools
at this URL:
http://www.w3.org/pub/WWW/Tools/.
In case you haven't heard, Netscape Navigator is the most widely used Web browser. (About two-thirds of all WWW pages are retrieved by Netscape clients.) Netscape is a commercial package, but you can download a copy from the Netscape home page, http://home.netscape.com/. Netscape is free for people in educational and nonprofit institutions and for personal use. Commercial users must pay for the package if they use it beyond an evaluation period. For details, see the licensing information that comes with the Netscape software.
Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 (available in a beta version as I write this), promises to be at least good enough to keep Netscape looking over its shoulder. IE 2.0 already supports most of the new proposals in HTML 3.2, most of the Netscape proprietary extensions (except Java), and a few of Microsoft's own proprietary extensions. IE 3.0 will add Java and ActiveX support. More importantly, in terms of market share, IE 3.0 will be bundled for free with Windows NT 4, Microsoft Windows 95, and the America Online service. (Microsoft is quick to point out that business users of Navigator should send money to Netscape for the proper license fee as they expect that will give corporate bean-counters a pause to consider using IE.)
Both Netscape and Internet Explorer are highly capable Web browsers, and many users hold near-religious views on which is "best." Netscape tends to be flashier, and its Release 2 version has a number of unique features, including support for the emerging Java technology. Netscape also implements a number of proprietary extensions to the HTML language that improve document formatting, but these extensions aren't very compatible with other Web browsers. (If you use these extensions in creating Web pages for your Intranet be sure to view the pages with other browsers to ensure they're readable unless your organization standardizes on Netscape for all users.)
Some of the decisions you make with respect to the design of your Intranet may have implications in Web browser selection, and vice versa. Netscape, for example, supports a significant set of semi-proprietary extensions to HTML standards, including special capabilities for image placement and font selection, along with Java and Frames support. These extensions might not be supported in other browsers, so you'll need to consider whether to use them in your Web server's HTML documents. This, in turn, affects your choice of a browser.
Specifically, if you want to take advantage of Netscape's or Explorer's HTML extensions on your Web, you'll probably want to standardize on either of these as a browser. If, at the other extreme, your Web will have large numbers of customers who don't have graphical capabilities, you might want to standardize on the lynx browser. This, choice, too, has implications for your Web design, because you must deal with the inability of many users to view images while still providing more-than-plain-text services to those who do have graphical browsers. The emergence of Internet appliances with built-in Web browser software could also be of relevance here.
Whether you choose to standardize on a particular browser also is a function of how you choose to administer and lay out your Intranet. The decentralized and mixed models described in the last chapter inevitably result in a wide range of Web services, some of which might use Netscape HTML extensions, for instance, while others use no special features at all. As a result, you might want to leave the choice of a Web browser to individuals.
Web browser software usually can display graphical images found on the World Wide Web. Other kinds of data, however, require the use of helper applications, also known as external viewers. As explained in detail in Chapter 12, "MIME and Helper Applications," Web servers and browsers use a common mechanism called MIME (Multi-Part Internet Mail Extensions) to match up types of data with helper applications. As a result, for example, although your Web browser might not be able to play an audio file you find on the Web, it can pass off that audio file to a sound-playing application on your computer.
The helper application mechanism using MIME is almost infinitely flexible. You're not limited to viewing videos. Imaginative use of this mechanism is one of the central themes of this book. I'll discuss how you can use almost any computer program as a helper application, including the standard office applications you use every day, to view and use your own organization's information. A few helper applications are provided on this book's CD-ROM.
Integration of everyday office applications into your Intranet is one of the most exciting topics you learn about in this book. I'll show you how (and how easy it is) to allow your customers to point and click using a Web browser to access live corporate information for use in their daily work. Moreover, they'll be able to do much more with that information than just look at it. Statistical data can be provided in the format your company's favorite spreadsheet package uses, for example. Managers can use their Web browsers to access this data and bring it directly into their local spreadsheet application for what-if analysis, graphing, or other manipulation of the data.
For example, you can setup Microsoft Excel as a Web helper application. All a user has to do to bring up data from the server in her local copy of Excel is click a Web page hyperlink. The browser will receive the data, identify it as an Excel spreadsheet, and hand it off to Excel for display. It's important to note a couple of things about this:
Naturally, the particular applications you use will vary depending on the needs of your customers, and you might not be able to anticipate all of those needs when you are first planning your Intranet. Nonetheless, the examples provided in Part V of this book should show you how to set up your own applications.
Besides the rich set of possibilities for your Intranet using helper applications, there's a wide variety of TCP/IP-based network services you can integrate into your Intranet. Although these services are commonly seen as over-the-Internet services, there's no reason you can't implement and use them locally as part of your Intranet even if your organization is not actually connected to the Internet. In fact, you should consider the ability to use these services a major dividend paid by your investment in the TCP/IP networking that underlies your Intranet. Without TCP/IP networking capabilities, you'd have no capability of using World Wide Web services, but having installed it, you now also have access to a much wider range of services that will extend and enrich your Intranet.
Web browsers know about many Internet services, including, but not limited to
Chapter 8, "Serving E-mail via TCP/IP," and Chapter 9, "Adding FTP and Gopher Services," discuss some of these additional, Internet-based services, where you focus on using them to provide added value to your customers in an Intranet.
The biggest source of information for your Intranet are your legacy documents: data you already have in some sort of electronic format that you might want to make available on your Intranet. A large share of these legacy documents are probably documents created by your office word processor. Although you want to set up your word processor as a Web browser helper application, a subject covered in detail in Chapter 13, "Word Processing on the Web," you also want to know how to get existing documents out of the proprietary format used by the program and into a form you can immediately use on your Intranet. Two methods are described. You can convert your documents into plain ASCII text. Second, using a two-step process, you can convert them all the way into HTML. Most of the examples here use Microsoft Word. If you are using a different word processor, you'll need to check its documentation for details on how to do these steps.
The fastest and easiest thing you can do with your word processor
documents is convert them to plain ASCII text. All Web browsers
can read plain text files, and virtually all word processors have
the capability of saving a document as a plain text file. Both
Microsoft Word and WordPerfect have Save As options on the File
Menu. Just select this option, and then using the scrollbar select
Text Only With Line Breaks (in Word) or ASCII Text (7 bit, in
WordPerfect), give the file a name, and click OK. Once you've
made this conversion, your document is a plain text file you can
use directly on your Web server. (Note that your original word
processing format document was not changed; you created a completely
new file.)
| Note |
In WordPerfect, be sure to select ASCII Text (7 bit). Other formats are described as 8 bit, but your objective is to create plain-text files without any binary data. Seven-bit ASCII files are plain text. |
Unfortunately, when you save word processing documents as plain text you lose the benefit of the special formatting features in the originals. Text enhancements such as boldface, underlining, and font selections all disappear. In addition, if you have tables or other specially formatted portions in a document, they are rearranged into something that might not resemble their original format, if not lost altogether. Graphics disappear too. So while large portions of your original documents survive the transfer intact, you can lose significant portions. Depending on the content of your original documents, the output document may well be usable on your Web, but it also may require more work.
It was the closely related problem of exchanging documents between
different word processors that led Microsoft to develop the rich
text format (RTF) for documents. RTF is an open standard for
saving documents to a format that can be read by a different word
processor or, as is important here, by another program on your
computer. Rich text format is an enhanced, ASCII plain-text format,
but which preserves your document-formatting information much
like PostScript. Common document-formatting features, such as
underlining, boldface, and footnotes can be preserved as a document
is moved from WordPerfect to Word-for example, through the intermediary
form of RTF. Both packages can save documents in Rich Text and
both also read Rich Text documents, including those created by
the other. Many other word processors and desktop publishing packages,
such as FrameMaker and Interleaf also support saving and reading
files in RTF; check your manual.
| Note |
RTF can be used by the Exchange client included with Windows 95 to allow the creation of formatted e-mail messages. This is fine (great) on a LAN where you know if your recipient is also using Exchange, but it isn't necessarily compatible with the e-mail client that other people on the Internet might be using. If you use Exchange for article submissions to listservers and newsgroups, be sure to turn off the RTF option. |
You've probably noticed both Word and WordPerfect have options in their Save As dialog to generate the other's datafile format directly, and you might wonder why RTF is needed at all. In fact, if your objective is to transfer documents between these two word processors, there is no need to use Rich Text. However, your initial objective was to get your legacy documents out of your word processor format and into HTML; RTF can help you do this.
Because the rich text format is publicly defined by Microsoft, anyone is free to write programs or modify existing ones to read it. This is what other word processor manufacturers have done to enable RTF compatibility in their own products. Chris Hector, at Cray Research, Inc., maintains a freely available program called rtftohtml, which converts previously saved RTF documents directly into HTML.
The current version of rtftohtml is a DOS-based program; so you must access the MS-DOS prompt to run it. (A native version for NT is promised, as well as support for most HTML 3.0 features.)
Operation of rtftohtml is amazingly simple. You supply it with the name of an RTF file, and it converts it to HTML using the same filenaming conventions as the original file. At your MS-DOS prompt, you would type the following (note the eight-character limit on the filename results in rtftohtml being called rtftohtm in DOS):
C:\>rtftohtm myfile.rtf
The program runs and unless you make a command-line error (for example, specifying a nonexistent input file), it creates the output file myfile.htm. rtftohtml supports a number of command-line options to modify its default behavior, which you can read about in the online manual for the package at this URL. You can also download this program here:
http://www.sunpack.com/RTF/rtftohtml_overview.html
While you're there, check to see if a later version is available. Note that the package not only deals with standard text formatting but also preserves tabular material, footnotes, and embedded graphics.
You'll find that rtftohtml does a superb job of basic conversion of RTF documents to HTML. Because the program is run from the command line, it will be simple for you to process several documents in a short time using a simple DOS command loop. For example:
C:\> for %file in (*.rtf) do rtftohtm %file
In this command, %file is called a replaceable parameter. The for loop will execute for every file in the current directory that has a file extension of .rtf. Each time such a file is found, the rtftohtm command will be executed on the matching filename.
Unfortunately, not every conversion is perfect, so you might find that you need to do some fiddling with the output files rtftohtml generates, particularly if you have tabular material in your documents. Maintaining table column and row alignments is a particular sticking point, as is dealing with embedded graphics, a subject covered in more detail later in the section "Image Conversion and Manipulation."
Recent Windows versions of Microsoft Word and Novell's WordPerfect allow you, with add-ons available at no cost from the vendors, to save existing documents directly in HTML. WordPerfect version 6.1 users can get Novell's WordPerfect Internet Publisher (IP) at the URL http://hp.novell.com/elecpub/intpub.htm or by calling WordPerfect (Internet Publisher on disk costs $9).
For Microsoft Word version 6.0 users, Internet Assistant (IA) is available at the Microsoft Web page. Internet Assistant is now also available for Word for Windows 95 but is not yet available for Macintosh Word users. As with your other documents, take care with conversions between Word version 6 and the newer one. You'll find conversion tools at Microsoft's Web site:
http://www.microsoft.com/MSOffice/MSWord/fs_wd.htm.
Both of these packages allow you to use your familiar word processor
to create HTML documents and, most importantly in the context
of this chapter, to save existing documents in the HTML format.
Conversions are as simple as selecting Save As from the File menu
and then selecting the HTML format from the menu.
| Tip |
Both Internet Publisher and Internet Assistant allow you to view HTML documents and see their formatting onscreen. Both also include ancillary World Wide Web browsers with which you can access Web servers and/or view HTML documents. Although both contain nonstandard HTML features, primarily to enable creating and viewing of formatting that is unique to the underlying word processor, both can render normal HTML as well If your documents have special formatting requirements that rely on these unique features, the HTML documents these packages generate might or might not be viewable in standard Web browsers such as Netscape or Explorer. Depending on your needs, you might want to provide your users with copies of the stand-alone Microsoft Word Viewer or WordPerfect Envoy Viewer. Both of these packages can be used as stand-alone Web browsers, outside of the word processors, allowing you to view HTML documents created by IA and IP, respectively, which contain these special formatting features. Chapter 13 shows you how to set up these packages as helper applications so your customers aren't forced into giving up their favorite Web browser just to look at a few specially formatted documents generated by IA or IP. |
FrameMaker version 5 also supports direct creation of HTML-formatted documents as well as the conversion of existing frame documents in HTML. You'll also find other major desktop publishing and word processor packages are adding either direct or indirect support for HTML, though you may be required to upgrade to the current version of your particular package to get this support. See FrameMaker's home page at http://www.frame.com/.
Legacy graphics files you might want to include on your Intranet generally fall into two main categories, those that are embedded in word processing documents and those that are stand-alone image files. Both are discussed here.
As you might imagine, rtftohtml conversions of word processing documents with embedded graphics don't quite complete the job. rtftohtml stores embedded graphics in separate files with hyperlinks added to the output HTML file pointing to the separate image files. The graphics files created by rtftohtml, however, are not immediately usable in Web pages. This is because they are stored as either Windows Metafile (WMF) or Macintosh Picture (PICT) formats (the former in Windows and on UNIX systems, the latter on Macs). The text of the hyperlinks created by rtftohtml pointing to the WMF or PICT images, however, specifies GIF image files. That is, even though rtftohtml takes your embedded images and turns them into WMF or PICT images (with filenames such as filename.wmf), the HTML source code it generates contains <img src=filename.gif> hyperlinks. As you might recall, most Web browsers support a few kinds of image formats, including GIFs, but don't support all formats, with WMF and PICT files being among the unsupported ones.
Although you can change the HTML source documents to specify <img src=filename.wmf>, for example, and then set up Web browser helper applications to view WMF files, this is inconvenient because anyone who might want to view your documents must also obtain and set up the correct helper applications. The solution to this problem is to run a conversion on your image files, turning them into GIF images, the most widely supported format in graphical Web browsers. There are a number of packages available to do this sort of conversion, including
These packages take WMF or PICT files as input and convert them to the GIF (or other) format.
Outside of your legacy word processor documents, you might also have stand-alone image data you'd like to use on your Intranet. Subsequent chapters in this book will extensively discuss helper applications for viewing different kinds of image files. Here, you concentrate on simple conversions of existing images into formats widely supported in Web browsers. The two most widely supported image formats for Web browsers are the GIF (Graphic Interchange Format) and JPEG (Joint Photographics Experts Group) format. Both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator support these formats natively.
If you're using computer-aided drafting (CAD) packages or other application programs that create files containing images, check the package documentation for an export feature. Many packages allow you to save datafiles in other formats much like your word processor's Save As feature. The CorelDRAW drawing package, for example, has an Export selection on its File menu. Selecting it opens a dialog box with a range of export formats, including familiar image formats such as pc PaintBrush (pcX), TIFF, and PostScript. Once you've exported your drawing into one of these formats, you can use one of the image-conversion packages described to move the exported image files into formats directly supported by your Web browser (for example, GIF or JPEG format). As with rtftohtml, this process takes a couple of steps, but it does provide a relatively easy way to move your legacy image data into a format you can use on your Intranet.
The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standardized way of passing data that a user enters in Web fill-in forms to back-end programs (usually referred to as CGI scripts) you provide on your Web server. I discuss CGI, and the newer high-performance derivative, ISAPI, in Chapter 19, "Getting the Most Out of HTML with CGI." For now, let me just point out the four main parts of the CGI mechanism:
Any program you might write, using almost any programming language, can function as the back-end script as long as it can negotiate these four steps. Whether your CGI script does a simple search for a text string in a group of files or does elaborate SQL (structured query language) searches in your corporate database, these four steps apply in pretty much the same fashion. Specifically, your CGI script, running on your Web server, must be able to accept incoming data from another program (usually referred to as standard input) and process that incoming data in some way. Further, the results of the processing must be passed back to the CGI mechanism via standard output, and then formatted so a Web browser can interpret and display it. The latter step usually involves having the script create HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) data on the fly.
As noted previously, CGI scripts run on your Web server computer, and any programming language available on the server is available for you to use in creating the CGI scripts. You can write CGI scripts in the C or C++ languages, Visual Basic, or virtually any other language you want to use. The most widely used language for CGI scripts is Perl, which is available on the enclosed CD-ROM.
You'll want to learn about Perl and access important archives of no-cost Perl CGI scripts available on the Internet. To learn more about Perl, try the University of Florida's Perl Archive at http://www.cis.ufl.edu/perl/. Users in the UK might like to try something closer to home, such as the NEXOR Ltd Perl Page at http://pubweb.nexor.co.uk/public/perl/perl.html. Here are a few other Perl resources on the Net; the last one consists of a few newsgroups dedicated to Perl topics:
For more information about CGI and CGI scripts, check out these URLs. First, access http://hoohoo.ncsa.uiuc.edu/cgi/, ncSA's Common Gateway Interface tutorial, a great place to start. Next, try Yahoo's http://www.yahoo.com/Computers_and_Internet/Internet/World_Wide_Web/CGI__Common_Gateway_Interface/, a high-level index of CGI resources on the Web. In both places, you'll find not only documentation on using the CGI mechanism, but also archives of CGI scripts (mostly written in Perl) people have written and made available to others for unrestricted use.
Rapid development continues on the World Wide Web, with next-generation technology that might become an important part of your Intranet. Two important technologies you'll want to explore are Java and VRML.
With a Java-capable Web browser, users not only can access static Web pages but also dynamically download and run Java application programs just by clicking hyperlinks. Sun's Java technology is a recipient of a November, 1995 Award for Technical Excellence in the category of Internet Tools from pc Magazine.
In Part III, Chapters 11 through 15 describe how you can set up common office applications as Web helper applications. This is valuable information, but Java allows the concept of helper applications to be taken an important step further. Rather than requiring each user to preconfigure a Web browser for helper applications and making sure each user has a copy of the application, Java-capable browsers actually download the application to be run (applets, in Java-speak) as the user clicks hyperlinks. Once downloaded, the applet runs on the user's computer. Java applets can be interactive, so the user isn't left sitting looking at a static Web page containing somebody else's idea of what they want to see. More importantly, though, Java applets can actually do something.
Java is already being put to use on corporate Intranets. National Semiconductor, for example, uses Java to enable complex searches of its database of integrated circuits by electronics systems designers building new products (see http://www.national.com). Sun's HotJava browser is not the only Java-capable Web browser. Netscape Version 2 also has Java capabilities. Microsoft has promised Java in Explorer 3.0. Spyglass, Inc., the manufacturer of Spyglass Mosaic, has signed an agreement with SunSoft for the inclusion of Java in the next release of Mosaic (though a recent announcement seems to indicate that Spyglass will be changing focus to market a Web toolkit). For Web browsers without Java capabilities, Java applets can be run using Java as a helper application.
The Virtual Reality Modeling Language is somewhat analogous to HTML, but its markup describes three-dimensional graphics rather than plain Web pages. VRML encodes computer-generated graphics into a compact format for transmission over a network. Using VRML browsers, users cannot only look at 3-D graphics but also use them interactively to view and move around inside virtual worlds. Not just for game-playing, VRML can be useful to industrial and other designers, who can examine virtual designs from a near-real perspective. Interior decorators, for example, can design a room in VRML, and then use a VRML browser to actually go inside the room and view it in three dimensions.
VRML markup itself is heavily based on Silicon Graphics' Open Inventor file format but has been adapted to include HTML hyperlink compatibility, making VRML files accessible on the World Wide Web or on the Intranet. If you plan on using VRML in your Intranet, you'll need both VRML browsers and other related tools. A good place to start is The VRML Repository at the San Diego Supercomputer Center, URL http://rosebud.sdsc.edu/vrml/. Here, you'll find software, including several VRML browsers/viewers, documentation, sample VRML source, and fellow VRML travelers who share your interests, as well as plenty of virtual worlds to explore for new ideas. Microsoft Internet Explorer 2.0 (and greater) supports an add-on for ActiveVRML, which is an enhanced version of VRML that Microsoft is proposing to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
This section provides you with a basic description of many of
the programs you need to build a powerful and reliable Intranet
at the lowest possible price. Many of the programs mentioned here-with
the greatest exception being the Windows NT operating system itself-are
included on the CD (when noted).
| Note |
With publishing schedules being what they are, this book must go to final production sooner than the CD-ROM. Consequently, this section is by no means a complete list of the software available on the CD-ROM. And some programs might be available in a more current version. |
Obviously, you need the operating system and its built-in support for TCP/IP. If you run the Server version of NT 4, you will have IIS 2.0 available to you for free. However, note that the Workstation version of NT 4 is also a very capable Web server platform and it is a few hundred dollars less expensive. The Workstation version of NT cannot run IIS, but it can run several other Web servers, including the ones mentioned below.
This is an excellent 32-bit Web server from Ilar Concepts, Inc. This server can be installed and serving HTML pages in less than five minutes. Although IIS comes free with Windows NT Server, FolkWeb is worthy of consideration for those readers who are running Windows NT Workstation. E-mail: [email protected]. Web: http://www.ilar.com/.
This is a very well-known freeware Webserver from The European Microsoft Windows NT Academic Center for Computing Services (EMWAC). The Webserver is the main program on which a Web site is based. For a summary of other Webservers for Windows NT, including the commercial version of this program, see Appendix B. If you would like more information about EMWAC, the e-mail address is [email protected].
The WAIS Toolkit enables you to create searchable indexes of the information stored on your Web site. We will describe the full operation of this amazing freeware program in Chapter 20, "Indexing Your Intranet with WAIS." E-mail [email protected].
This is an evaluation copy of commercial SMTP and POP servers that operate together as a 32-bit NT service. These servers are configured via your Web browser. This is an interesting technique that enables you to configure and administer your mail server remotely. Contact [email protected] or http://software.com.
This is an excellent free mail server that originates at the European Microsoft Windows NT Academic Centre (EMWAC), located at Edinburgh University Computing Service. Contact http://emwac.ed.ac.uk/ or [email protected].
This is a public domain Windows command utility that e-mails a file to a user via SMTP. Blat is very useful for mailto functionality in HTML forms. (See Chapter 5 and Chapter 19.) Contact Mark Neal [email protected] or Pedro Mendes [email protected].
Perl (Practical Extraction and Report Language) is an interpreted language designed for scanning arbitrary text files, extracting information, and printing reports. It's also a good language for many system management tasks. Perl for NT is distributed under the GNU General Public License, which basically means that it is freeware. Despite its name, this program also runs on Windows 95. Contact Hip Communications: http://www.perl.hip.com/.
CGI Perform is an easy-to-use Web server extension that allows you capture HTML form data into a database. The best part is that you can do this with no programming! The URL is http://www.rtis.com.
You have probably already heard about Cold Fusion. If you browse the Web for any length of time, you will likely land on an NT server that is using Cold Fusion as a back-end database engine. You will see in Chapter 16 that Cold Fusion is easy to use. Allaire Forums is a Web collaboration package, which is discussed in Chapter 27. Thise programs are included together on the CD-ROM. The URL is http://www.allaire.com.
This section lists several tools that are key to building the HTML pages that comprise the heart of an Intranet. We will revisit many of these tools in subsequent chapters. Some of these are on this book's CD-ROM.
Internet Assistant for Word lets you browse the Web from within Word or edit your document with an HTML expert looking over your shoulder. Contact http://www.microsoft.com.
Using this add-on, you can easily save your Excel spreadsheets as HTML files. Contact http://www.microsoft.com.
Using this add-on, you can easily save your PowerPoint slides as HTML files. Contact http://www.microsoft.com.
This is an excellent shareware HTML editor for Windows. Once you start putting your Intranet online (see Chapter 7), you will see that this tool can be an invaluable assistant as you create HTML pages. Contact Kenn Nesbitt, http://www.nesbitt.com/.
This is an excellent Windows shareware graphics program. If you want to put graphics in your HTML pages, this program can probably help. Contact http://www.jasc.com/index.html.
This is a 32-bit Windows GUI program, written by Todd Wilson, to automate the creation of Imagemap *.map files. After you try this program, you won't believe it's free. Contact Todd Wilson via e-mail at [email protected] or via the Web, http://galadriel.ecaetc.ohio-state.edu/tc/mt.
As discussed above, rtftohtm can easily convert rich text format documents into HTML documents. This comes in handy for legacy Word Processing documents that don't have a Save As HTML feature. For more information, contact
http://www.sunpack.com/RTF/rtftohtml_overview.html.
Let's approach the topic of software from both the client side and the server side. Although a Web site needs to run server software, any Webmaster will tell you that you're also going to need good client tools to help you explore the Web and keep up with the latest developments (almost a full-time job in itself at the rate the Web is changing). The client tools discussed in this chapter (and included on the CD-ROM) will help you take advantage of all the great Internet resources that are listed throughout the book and in Appendix C, "Resources for the Windows NT Webmaster."
This section covers the highlights of the major client programs found on the CD-ROM. Also consult Appendix D for the CD-ROM directory structure and a brief description of all the software. Better yet, pop in the CD and give it a spin!
Compressed files are often half their normal size and therefore travel through the Internet twice as fast. It usually takes a lot less time to compress and decompress files than it does to transmit them. WinZip provides a nice drag-and-drop graphical interface on top of the ever popular PKZIP compression technology. Some of the software included on the CD-ROM is in .zip format, and WinZip will decompress those files during installation to your hard disk. It is also very handy to keep around for all of your Internet file acquisitions. Contact Nico Mak Computing via e-mail, [email protected], or via the Web, http://www.winzip.com/winzip/.
This is a very good native Web browser for Windows 95 that Microsoft has built to compete with Netscape. Future versions will be bundled with Windows 95 and Windows NT. Contact http://www.microsoft.com/ie/.
Eudora is the most popular Windows e-mail client on the Internet today. Its popularity comes from its ease of use and its price; Eudora Light is free! The current version of Eudora Light is 1.5.4, and it will install as either 16-bit (on Windows 3.1) or 32-bit (on Windows 95 and Windows NT). Although Eudora is freeware, the author of this program states the following in the readme file with the software:
If you try out Eudora and decide that you'd like to use it on a regular basis, then just send a postcard to the following address:
Jeff Beckley
QUALCOMM Incorporated
6455 Lusk Blvd.
San Diego, CA 92121-2779
USA
Eudora Light lacks a few of the advanced features found in the commercial version, such as automatic uuencoding of attachments and spell-checking. For more information on the 32-bit commercial version, see http://www.qualcomm.com/quest/.
This is an excellent shareware GUI for reading (and posting to) the Internet newsgroups. See Chapter 15, "Other Client Applications on the Intranet," for more information about using this. E-mail [email protected].
This is an outstanding Windows GUI FTP client application. It supports drag-and-drop between directories, so it beats the socks off of the command prompt program included with Windows NT or Windows 95. E-mail [email protected].
Archie is a 16-bit GUI Archie client that enables you to search Archie servers to find the contents of published FTP directories throughout the Internet. It can come in handy when you know the name of a file or program that you need, but you don't know where to go to download the file. It was written by Clifford Neuman with changes by Brendan Kehoe and George Ferguson. Contact David Woakes, [email protected].
These free programs will help you avoid the cost of purchasing and installing the full license.
This program allows the clients to view, but not edit, Word documents retrieved by the Web browser. For further information, see http://www.microsoft.com.
This program allows the clients to view, but not edit, Excel spreadsheets retrieved by the Web browser. For further information, see http://www.microsoft.com.
This program allows the clients to view, but not edit, PowerPoint presentations retrieved by the Web browser. For further information, see http://www.microsoft.com.
WinZip is shareware developed by Nico Mak Computing, Inc. It is necessary that you use some form of a Pkunzip file decompression utility in order to install many of the software programs that you find on the Internet. Most of the programs on the CD-ROM are already compressed. Also, you will usually need WinZip to help you install software that you retrieve from the Internet.
WinZip is a self-extracting archive on the CD-ROM. The file is called WINZIP95.EXE. The CD should have version 6.0., which runs on Windows 95 and Windows NT. It uses 32-bit code and supports long filenames. Nico Mak also makes a version 6.0 that runs on Windows 3.1. (See http://www.winzip.com/.)
All you need to do to install WinZip is copy the file to a \WinZip or \Utilities directory on your server and then double-click the file on the CD from within Explorer. After the file extracts itself in a DOS Prompt window, you can run the WinZip setup program. Just double-click SETUP.EXE in the directory in which WinZip was extracted. The setup program will install WinZip and start WinZip for you. You should see the main WinZip screen, which is shown in Figure 3.2.
Figure 3.2: The WinZip 6.0 main window.
If you are not happy with any of software mentioned here, there is a wide variety of other products available on the Internet. In most cases, you can download immediately with your Web browser or FTP client.
Here are a few Web pages with good information to get you started searching for evaluation software and freeware available.
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This chapter has been a survey of the basic hardware and software infrastructure you'll need to implement an Intranet in your organization. You've learned about
Chapter 4 continues laying the foundation for your Intranet and talks about the people skills that your team will need.