Computer Fundamentals

Computer Fundamentals
Understanding Web Development

I have taught web development in various forms over the past many years. This website contains information from courses that I taught including my notes, transcripts, insights, and other material. It has been edited to make sure that it is readable, but all of the content is derived from my own course content. Courses include CMU 95-881 Web Application Development, CMU 95-882 Enterprise Web Development, Pitt CS/CoE 1520 Computer Languages for Web Development, Pitt CS 134 Web Site Design and Development, and IUP COSC 415 Internet Architectures. Comments have been turned off, but you can feel free to contact me personally.

There is nothing special about the posts on the front page, as it is simply whatever Wordpress wants, which is typically the most recent items that I’ve uploaded.

  • Making the About Page

    So with the social web—when we’re talking about the “about” or vanity page—I could literally use a word processor to create the HTML and then just upload it. That’s it. I don’t need to spend a lot of time on it. I certainly don’t need to spend a lot of money on it, because it…

  • Vanity or About Page

    It’s presentation‑oriented. Because of that, we don’t want to look at Burger King’s site, or any of these others—or even my own vanity page—and say, “I want to build something that looks just like that.” No. That’s old technology, and it works only because you don’t have to sink a lot of money into it.…

  • Brand Information Websites

    So let’s talk about information web products. This is the easy category. These are vanity pages—homepages. You see the word homepage all the time. As example, Burger King has a homepage. And here’s the key thing: the real value isn’t the website itself. The value is the external entity. If the Burger King website were…