What the WebMaster Used to Use:

Files on a Mac Server

BBEdit

commercial version
html extensions

File Transfer

Fetch
Anarchie
Timbuktu Pro

Netscape

The WebMaster kept the files for the Wilkes Web site on a Macintosh PowerMac 9150 from 1995 to 2000. I used the WebSTAR program from StarNine to serve the pages to the net (http server). But I still need all the capabilities listed previously.

For a text editor, I prefer BBEdit, the commercial version of BBEdit Lite. It costs around $119 (student discount cost is $79), but has some additional capabilities (save to FTP site). I also use the BBEdit HTML extensions. These convert regular text to html and place the correct container tags around selected text. But much of page creation is done with simple copy and paste using html source found on the net as examples.

For file transfer, I use Fetch, which is free to educational users. It allows you to upload and download files and folders and it can delete files and folders. You can also use Anarchie, which is $35 shareware. Anarchie is newer and allows several transfers in parallel, while Fetch only allows one transfer at a time. There are others such as NetFinder or CuteFTP. For many transfers, I use Timbuktu Pro from Netopia. It lists for about $200 (you need a copy for the server as well as the client) and the Netopia site allows you to download a free trial version. Timbuktu Pro allows you to control a server remotely over the Internet. It allows me to make changes to the server from home or from my office. In addition to controlling a computer remotely, Timbuktu Pro has an excellent file transfer capability.

Netscape is my preferred browser. Besides being free for educational use and being used by 60% of people on the web (now 90% use Explorer), it just works well.

This commentary is from 1995: It also has adopted most of the interesting and leading edge html extensions, such as <center> and <table>. Many sites design exclusively for Netscape, meaning other browsers cannot view the site reasonably. I try to use extensions is a moderate manner (I use <center>, but only use <table> in a limited fashion).

I cannot afford to create two versions of the pages, so I try to make most of the pages accessible to all browsers. This means for best viewing of the Wilkes pages, you should use Netscape, but other browsers (such as Explorer, Opera or iCab) will be able to view the site.

'The WebMaster Speaks....' 2-3

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