comprehensive book about WWW and Macintosh computers

[Eric Lease Morgan]

This text briefly describes a free book called Teaching a New Dog Old Tricks.


About the book

Teaching a New Dog Old Tricks explains the World Wide Web (WWW) in terms of
Macintosh-based applications. It includes:

  * 279 pages of text
  * 95 reviews of Macintosh-based software
  * 108 references to WWW-specific Internet resources
  * 102 references to Macintosh-specific Internet resources

It begins with a bit of history about the World Wide Web, outlines the
client/server model of computing, explains the syntax of uniform resource
locators (URLs), and describes how you can make the most out of the programs
MacWeb, MacMosaic, and Netscape.

It then describes how to bring up and maintain MacHTTP, the most popular
Macintosh-based WWW server. In the process it explains the hypertext markup
language (HTML) and reviews HTML editors, programs used to create such
documents.

Finally, it outlines principles for good information systems design and
demonstrates how your WWW server can be enhanced with common gateway interface
(CGI) scripts.


What some people have said

  * "What a fabulous set of pages!!!! This is stuff I've been looking for all
over! Especially the review of HTML editors. I'm not a new Web user on a mac,
but this area was incredibly useful to me. I can also see how it would be
useful to beginners. Thanks a lot!!"  -- Ryan M. Hill

  * "This looks great. Thanks for all your work, now I don't have to search." 
-- Jeff Barrosn

  * "I've spent the last few hours reading, printing, downloading, and viewing
source information. This site presents one of the most clearly written and
informative sources about WEB use. ... Your sincerity and quality are evident
and admired, if not down right inspiring."  -- Michael Kostiuk

  * "[The] book is useful and easy to read. Thank you very much"  -- Enzo
Mangrella

  * "Before I found your site, I probobly couldn't write a CGI to save my
life.  Now I am cruising along."  -- Matt Wedgwood

  * "I just wanted to *THANK* you with all my heart for taking the time to put
together such an amazingly helpful and instructive resource on web writing! I
am just blown away by your excellence. Truly amazing."  -- Lawrence V. Conley

  * "Thank you for these 'pages'. *Extremely* helpful .... I'll buy the book
even though it's available on-line."  -- Marc Langweiler


Distribution

This book is intended to be distributed as freely as possible and in as many
formats as possible. To that end, you can download and/or access this book in
any one or more of the following ways:

  * Live version (currently at version 1.0) - This is the full, online,
hypertext version. At sometime in the future this may be mirrored somewhere at
Apple Computer as well as <URL:http://tricks.lib.ncsu.edu/>, but for right
now, it can be found only at <URL:http://152.1.24.177/teaching/manuscript/>

  * Text-only (currently at version 1.0; 468K) - This format is a simple ASCII
representation of the text at
<URL:http://152.1.24.177/teaching/archives/tricks-text-only.txt>

  * MacWrite Pro (currently at version 1.0; 655K) - This is a MacWrite Pro
version of the text at
<URL:http://152.1.24.177/teaching/archives/tricks-macwrite.hqx>

  * HTML (currently at version 1.0; 1.6MB) - This is the set of HTML
documents, graphics, and scripts making up the book. Using this archive you
could set up a mirror of this book. Try:
<URL:http://152.1.24.177/teaching/archives/tricks-html.hqx> Alternatively, you
can search your favorite Info-Mac mirror and find a copy of the this archive
as well.

  * PDF for printing (currently at version 1.0; 3.3MB) - This PDF (portable
document format) version is intended for printing.
<URL:http://152.1.24.177/teaching/archives/tricks-pdf-print.pdf>.

  * PDF for viewing (currently at version 1.0; 3.9MB) - This PDF version is
intended to be read on our computer screen.
<URL:http://152.1.24.177/teaching/archives/tricks-pdf-screen.pdf>


The author

Eric Lease Morgan has been a systems librarian at the North Carolina State
University Libraries since 1991. Having written numerous articles on the use
of technology in libraries and given many presentations on the same topic,
this is his second book. His first book was entitled WAIS and Gopher Servers:
Finding Your WAIS Through a Gopher Hole.

Eric is also the author of Simple HTML Editor (SHE), one of the very first
HTML editors to be made available (December 1993), as well as email.cgi, a CGI
script enabling mailto-incapable WWW browsers to send email from a
Macintosh-based WWW server. In his spare time Eric has been seen folding
defective floppy disks into intricate origami flora and fauna.

Eric's home page is at <URL:http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/staff/morgan/>.