WEBMASTERS COMMITTEE MEETING MINUTES

October 12, 2004

Members present: Jamie Bethel, Marty Fettman, Tom Harmon, Jill Lenz, Erin Napier, Mary Pridgen, Sallie Varner.

Jamie Bethel, Chair, began the meeting at 9:05 am.

Old Business

  1. Since last meeting, Jill posted the new XHTML version of the college homepage. It was validated by the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) HTML Validator at http://validator.w3.org/ as valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional. The results are at http://validator.w3.org/check? uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cvmbs.colostate.edu%2F. Per the W3C, XHTML 1.0 is a reformulation of HTML 4.01 in XML, and combines the strength of HTML 4 with the power of XML. For more details on this topic see http://w3.org/MarkUp/.

    Erin asked about coding in XHTML. Most webmasters create new pages by modifying existing pages and saving with a new name, however, for those that do create new pages from scratch, there is a preference you can check in Dreamweaver to make new documents XHTML compliant. It is found in the bottom right corner of the New Document dialog box (File > New) in Dreamweaver 2004 MX called "Make document XHTML compliant".
    Dreamweaver New Document dialog box with Make HTML compliant preference checked

    As long as webmasters remember to verify this HTML compliant preference is checked next time they create a new page from scratch, Dreamweaver will create a blank page with the minimum XHTML compliant tags.

    In the two examples below of new documents, notice how the DOCTYPE tag on line 1 differs. The first screen shot specifies HTML 4.01 Transitional and the second specifies XHTML 1.0 Transitional.

    Jill pointed out some differences between HTML and XHTML code. In XHTML, all tags except the DOCTYPE tag, are in lower case. Tags without matching end tags now have a closing slash at the end of the tag. Some examples include the stand-alone break, image and meta tags. Since XHTML requires all tags be closed, this is accomplished by adding a space and forward slash before the closing right bracket. Compare the ending of the meta tags in the two examples below.

    New HTML document


    New XHTML document


    For webmasters that create from existing pages, Jill will create new XHTML compliant templates for the individual departments and units. She will also convert existing HTML 4.0 pages to XHTML for the webmasters so they don't have to do this. The first folder will probably be the "cvmbs" folder maintained by Linda Tarnoff. Jill will coordinate this individually with each webmaster and train them to use the new XHTML templates.

    Side issue on college computers not mounting all network drives: Dr. Fettman mentioned to Tom that his laptop doesn't consistently mount all the network drives every time. Jill mentioned Opal has been investigating a similar issue on Jill's autologin lab computers that are Windows XP and won't mount any network drives on start up, only after a log off. Dr. Fettman mentioned maybe other users are experiencing this, too. Tom will look into this with the Computing Resources Group.

New Business

  1. Server cleanup. Look at the directories on the server and see what needs to be cleaned up – old stuff.

    As Jamie familiarized himself with the web server, he noted there is about 2.5 GB of used space equaling more than 35,000 files. There could be even more as there are a few folders like Budgets that report space as zero to users without viewing permissions.

    An example of areas to clean up would be subfolders in the anatomy folder that refer to old AY courses. Since the college department reorganization, many courses have been renamed and there are many old files that could be removed and archived elsewhere. Sallie mentioned she will clean up the anatomy folder.

    The best way to clean up is to archive the old pages to a new location like a CD, then delete them off the server. Due to the vast amount of folders and sub folders, sometimes its hard to know if the pages are still active, so archiving "just in case" will ensure that they can be reposted if necessary. Tom also mentioned that the web server is backed up to tape twice a year and archived forever so this would be another method of retrieving accidentally deleted files.

    Another clean up task would be to repair broken links and archive orphaned files, files that are on the server but not linked to from any other pages. Dreamweaver has a report function that will check all internal links and produce a report of orphaned files within a defined site. Dr. Fettman suggested the report be run on the entire w drive on a loaner laptop overnight when server traffic is low. Tom suggested he login to the loaner laptop as administrator and run the broken link and orphan file report since he has wider access to the server.

    Jamie requested a list of owners of web server folders. Tom said he could generate a list of owners of the folders on the web server for Jamie to review.

    Side issue on WebCT: Per Jamie, WebCT certified that there are no problems with the new Windows XP Service Pack 2. However, some students experienced problems with the new pop up window blocker and firewall features. Once they knew how to disable these new features, there were no problems. Recently WebCT wrote a server patch specifically for CSU. If you or your coworkers have any complaints of WebCT, contact Jamie and he will get in touch with their support people.

  2. Copyright dates at the bottom of the pages. These need to be updated. Is there a way to make the update easy or automated? Tom Harmon researched options. If they have to be manually updated should they just be updated to 2005 since we are only a couple of months away from 2005?

    It was agreed just the current year would be listed vs. a span of years.

    Tom researched some options to make the change smoother in the future, although there is no easy way to fix it currently with so many variations. Some options once the copyright is standardized includes Visual Basic, JavaScript, or a footer image. Server Side includes are not supported. Jamie will see if the copyright date can be added to the current Javascript statement used in the CVMBS templates.

    Someone asked about copyrighting web page images. Dr. Fettman said for the public pages this wasn't necessary. Tom mentioned that if someone did want to protect their images from the right mouse click save function, it can be done with Javascript. Jill mentioned images can also be protected with HTML Protector, the encryption software Jamie researched and purchased. Jamie mentioned he used this software to encrypt his email address on his web pages. The browser renders the email address as visible to the user but if you view the HTML source, you'll see the email address is encrypted with junk code. This was intended to block automatic bots that harvest email addresses. Please note that each time an encrypted page is modified, is needs to be encrypted again.

  3. Homepage – I would like for the committee to look at adding a link on the CVMBS homepage to seminars in the college. The link would go down by News Archives and Photo Gallery and would link to a currently maintained page http://www.cvmbs.colostate.edu/cvmbs/thiswk.html which is on the home page, but is "buried" in the Alumni Activities and College News flyout. Since there are many seminars given in the college this would give better visibility to the seminars.

    Dr. Fettman agreed that due to the volume of seminars, it is easier to post this information online in one location vs. sending out emails or hard copy notifications for individual seminars. It was agreed a "Seminars" link will be added to the home page in front of the News Archive and Photo Gallery links, all on the same line, in a smaller font size.

  4. Jill gave a demo of the Vet Med image database from Washington State University at http://imagedb.vetmed.wsu.edu. We did a few searches with the graphic filter turned on and off. If you use any of these low resolution images in WebCT, PowerPoint or other electronic materials, they ask that you credit them and add a link back to their website. Please note these are not high resolution print quality images. Jill will add a link to this on the Webmaster home page.

    Jill will show the updated XHTML version of the Web Style guide at the next meeting.

The meeting concluded at 9:55 am.

The next meeting will be held on Tuesday, November 9th, 9:00-10:00 am, W1 A/Z.

Minutes submitted by Jill Lenz.

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