Contact Information

• Instructor: David J. Malan
• TFs: Rei, Dan, Eugenia
• Course Staff Email:cscie1@fas.harvard.edu
• Meetings available by appointment

Content is King

What is content?

• Information or material
• Something to be experienced as opposed to its mechanism of delivery

Examples

• Music is content.  Its mechanism of delivery might be CDs or streaming media over the Web.
• A textbook is content.  Its mechanism of delivery might be a printed book or an online PDF.

Web Servers

A bit of review

• What is a server? -- Depending on the context, the term "server" can refer to one of the following:
  • Hardware: The term "server" can refer to a "server-class computer" which is designed and optimized specifically for the purpose of serving content (web pages, files, printing, etc.) to multiple users.  Examples of server-class computers are:
    • Dell: PowerEdge 6850
    • IBM:  System X3950
    • Sun: Sun Fire X4500
    • Apple: Xserve
  • Hardware: The term "server" can refer to a host, a computer, which serves content.  Examples of hosts are:
    • www.dce.harvard.edu
    • web.mit.edu
    • www.tufts.edu
    • 128.103.60.223
  • Software: The term "server" can refer to a program whose purpose is to serve content in a specific way (such as over HTTP).  Multiple software servers can coexist on a single host.  For example, the following software servers (also called services) run on fas.harvard.edu:
    • web
    • ssh
    • sftp
    • email
• What is a web server? -- For the purposes of this section, we will say that a web server is a piece of software running on a host which serves content via HTTP.  It serves clients (usually web browsers) by communicating with them using the "language" HTTP over the "mechanism" of TCP/IP transmitted on the physical layer of the Internet.  Some popular web servers are:
  • Apache
  • IIS
  • WebObjects
• How does a web server work?
  • Detailed explanations available on howstuffworks, wikipedia, and elsewhere.
  • In summary:
    • A content owner has material that they want to share.
    • The content owner puts their content on the files system of computer running a web server.
    • The web server listens for HTTP requests on port 80.
    • A client (typically a web browser) requests a resource from the web server.
    • The web server replies either transmitting the content or informing the client of an error.
• Things that make you go Hmm:
  • Why use a web server?
  • What is the difference between making files available on a web server and sharing files via other means such as:
    • file and print shaing
    • p2p

Demonstration

• Installing and Configuring the Apache Web Server!
  • Go to the Apache website
  • Go to the HTTP Server page
  • Download the appropriate version
  • Follow the installation instructions for your system
    • Windows
    • UNIX and UNIX-like systems
  • Configure httpd.conf as needed
  • Start the service!
• Evaluating Apache
  • Pros
    • Free!
    • Available for most modern platforms
    • Highly configurable
    • Many avenues of support
  • Cons
    • Highly configurable -- big learning curve
    • Easy to make a mistake in configuration files
    • Some avenues of support are worse than others

Content Management Systems

What is a Content Management System

• The "Reader's Digest" version -- A Content Management System (CMS) is a tool used to manage the content of a website.
• A deeper explanation -- A CMS is a web tool used to facilitate the maintenance of web content by simplifying the means of creating, posting, expiring, and archiving "live" content on a website.  Good CMS tools allow content contributors to have no knowledge of web technology (XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.) in order to create pages and applications (such as forms).  Content is typically stored in a database.  Most CMS have two major components: one for displaying content (essentially acting as a web server) and one for creating, maintaining, and modyfying content.  The process by which content is managed is called a "workflow".  A CMS is often managed through some scripting or programming environment and is often configurable through the same.  There are systems based on Perl, PHP, Python, Visual Basic, etc.
• Further discussion of what makes a CMS
  • whatis
  • wikipedia
  • CMS Matrix
  • CMS Watch

How does a CMS work?

• CMS workflows vary by "make and model".  Some CMS have very different intentions: publishing, news, records management, online shopping, corporate portals, human resources, ERP, blogging, etc.
• A "generic" CMS workflow:
  • A content owner has material that they want to share.
    • A content "contributor" posts content through the CMS (usually a web form).  The content is assigned a status of "POST".
    • An "editor" either:
      • approves the post and upgrades its status to "LIVE".
      • rejects the post and (possibly) sends it back to the contributor for further editing.
      • The approval process may involve multiple tiers -- editors, proofreaders, etc.
  • The "LIVE" content is made available on a website for users.
    • The web server listens for HTTP requests on port 80.
    • A client (typically a web browser) requests a resource from the web server.
    • The web server replies either transmitting the content or informing the client of an error.
  • Most CMS-based sites (e.g.: news websites) have a built-in expiration for content.  For example, a news article might only be "front page" material for 12 hours.
    • Once an expiration date has been reached, the content is moved from the live website to an archive area.
    • The archive area might be made available to the public for seaching (suh as with a KB) or it might be archived for a company's internal use only.
• Companies sometimes physically separate the "POST", "LIVE", and "EXPIRED" content using different servers and databases.

Why use a CMS?

• Lower technical barrier for contributing content
• Static content is dead
• Customize content and presentation for individual users
• Manage user roles more efficiently

Sample CMS

• Microsoft Sharepoint
• My.Harvard / Harvard iSites
• SAP Enterprise Applications
• Zope & Plone

Demonstration

• Installing and Configuring Plone!
  • Go to the Plone Website
  • Go to the Products page
  • Download the appropriate version
    • for Windows
    • for Mac OS
    • for UNIX/Linux
  • Follow the installation instructions for your system
  • Configure as needed
  • Start the service!
• Sample workflow walkthrough
  • Login
  • Creating a directory
  • Creating a page
  • Editing a page
  • Publishing a page / Changing page "state"
• Evaluating Plone
  • Pros
    • Simple
    • Powerful
    • Available for most modern platforms
    • Free!
    • Used by many groups big and small:
      • City of Lowell, MA
      • Duke Institute for Genome Sciences & Policy
      • Boston.com
      • UCLA Office of Instructional Development
      • Viacom 
      • Wal-Mart Events
  • Cons
    • Deceptively simple level of entry
    • Requires much up-front work to customize
    • Requires knowledge of Python
    • Not great for hosting large amounts of static content
    • Some avenues of support are worse than others

Extras

• Drupal
• Wordpress
• Records Management
• More about Records Management