Requirements
Books
The following books, both optional, will be used in the course, and are available in the campus bookstore (look under Hist 377), or through any number of online vendors:
- Dan Cohen and Roy Rosenzweig, Digtial History: A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past on the Web (Optional purchase; Full text available online if you’d prefer.)
- Julie Meloni, Sams Teach Yourself HTML and CSS in 24 Hours (8th Edition).
Software, Hardware, Hosting
Since this course uses computers and the Internet extensively, familiarity with both is essential. Please obtain an internet account at the earliest available moment and become comfortable with the software and protocols. Should you work at home or off-campus, learn how to do remote access so that you can be productive no matter your location. Although the university does not require the purchase of a computer, I would encourage you to consider the investment. You might also find a laptop handy if you are accustomed to a particular OS and web editor. Because of the nature of the course, you cannot depend on the university’s public clusters or the availability of software. Your enrollment in the course indicates your interest in computerish things, and your tool set should reflect that interest.
Standards-based design is, on the whole, much more tractable than its predecessor, convoluted table-based design. Semantic HTML is much easier to write, but Internet browsers carry the baggage of the Browser Wars and, as result, render pages styled with CSS differently. As any experienced web design and developer can attest, you will need several browsers to test your web work. For Macintosh, you’ll need Firefox 3, Safari, and Opera. For Windows, you will need to test on Firefox 3, IE 7, and IE 6. While IE 7 is rapidly replacing IE 6 on Windows machines, IE 6 still has a significant market share, so testing on it is required.
You will need access to an image editing program. For those who envision using new media as an ongoing part of their history graduate work, Adobe Photoshop is the de facto standard. For those who see their new media work as occasional, Adobe Photoshop Elements (5.0 for Wintel and 4.0 for Mac) is an extremely powerful (and inexpensive) program that, except for some advanced color capabilities, has the same features as Photoshop CS4. There are open-source alternatives to Photoshop (Gimp is one such alternative) that you are free to use.
A good text editor is also a must. Adobe Dreamweaver is a good option, but there are many text editor applications. Mac folks, for instance, can use Textmate, BBEdit, or Coda, among others. For Windows folks, there are Notepad ++ and TextPad. But remember: this class focuses on how to write clean, semantic code, regardless of the text editor you use. I can try my best to help troubleshoot software questions in and out of class, but you should rely primarily on the software’s documentation and company for support.
This class also requires access to web hosting that has, at minimum, PHP5 and MySQL5. Good web hosting is extraordinarily cheap: Dreamhost, for instance, provides a variety of plans that, after paying upfront for a year, end up costing $8/month. If you decide to go this route, consider teaming up with classmates to share an account and divide costs. Alternatively, I can provide free access on my own hosting account. This would include your own folder, username, and MySQL database. With this option, however, you work will be wiped at the end of the semester. If you are serious about making digital work an integral part of your history career, I highly recommend getting your own server space, to host your own blog/website and develop your projects.
A few suggested providers:
- Dreamhost (http://dreamhost.com)
- Bluehost (http://bluehost.com)
- GoDaddy (http://godaddy.com)
To connect to your server, you’ll need File Transfer Protocol (FTP) software. There are plenty of cheap or free options here too. For Mac users, Cyberduck (free) or Transmit (~$30) are good choices. SmartFTP (free) and SSH Secure Shell (free) is available for Windows. FileZilla is a free, cross-platform options. There are a host of Firefox addons available as well.
You should also register a domain for your class weblog/portfolio, if you do not already have one. Domains, like hosting, are also incredibly cheap. Most web hosts will offer a free domain registration if you purchase server space.
Social Media, Publishing, and Research
- Blog – We will install WordPress on your server space in class.
- Twitter – Sign up for a Twitter account at twitter.com
- Zotero – Download the browser add-on, and sign up for a Zotero account at zotero.org.