CS73N Meeting 06 Notes: IP, representation
Started by Gio Wiederhold, 26 Jan 2000, updated 25 Feb 2002, 21 Feb 2004, 13,14 May 2005, 26,27 Apr il 2006. Topics Covered briefly.
Mackenzie Banks presentation of her "Bricks and Clicks' project
Writing
Write with conviction, authority, direct. Assume the reader is interested in the contents, not in you.
"I believe that most people will have mobile access in 5 years" --> "Most people will have mobile access in 5 years"
"Global warming may affect hurricane strength" doesn't convey anything. --> "Global warming affects hurricane strength [ref]"
Avoid parenthetical expressions. They either (in many cases) convey uncertainty or address an in-group audience (as this class). After updating how to write for the web I did find an instance in Science "The peaks of the electromagnetic radiation are separated by about 2 femtoseconds (a femtosecond is 2-15 seconds)." Is that use okay?
Projects
We have now have project definitions for everyone, but only half have pointers to webpages on the classlist.
Also check the CS73N - Class Administration page to see if the assignments you submitted were properly logged in. If you append the assignements to your webpage, do send us a pointer, so we are aware of them.
What I expect for the final submission is a pointer to a working public URL. Check that it works externally by having a friend or family log-in remotely. If background is needed that can be on a linked web page, but in general the page(s) should be self explanatory
It is most important to define the audience and then what benefits your project provides to them. That avoids wasting the reader's time. (I am likely not in the intended audience you address, but my job is to read your work anyhow).
Note that in this course programming is not the end objective, but understanding is.
Reading or using your web page provides value to the reader that is generated by your intellectual input. It is secondary how you can profit from the exchange: collect money directly, help a business that might pay you for your work, get others – as advertisers – to chip in because your page is so popular to some interesting segment of the population, or just become famous. Once you are famous other benefits are sure to follow.
Motivating introduction -- not so sales-ish that person will be misled into reading irrelevant stuff
Have an overview on the initial page, with links to details.
Reread
Since during your writing you were involved with the material in depth, that writing will reflect your background. When done, take a break and reread what you have written a day later, from a clean point-of-view, or have someone else read it.
Test all your links, to make sure they don't create the dreaded "Error 404 page not found" message.
Links
Do have good navigation to top, to next item, back, to overview, citations, etc. on all pages.
In-depth material reached by hyperlinks. Create easy returns to the page and section where the reader came from, and to the top.
If you provide a link to another site, keep your page available, so your readers can go back. Use an option as `New page' when you create links or manually insert target="blank_" after the URL link, before the closing > bracket.
If leaving the current page will cause a loss, maybe because you have collected an interaction, then bring up a pop-up window with some warning, as `Are you sure you want to loose the collected information?"
IP protection
We will talk about protecting the material you present on your web page –i.e., your intellectual property. You may wish to protect it, but enforcement is hard – lawyers are expensive.
There are three means to potect IP, each suitable for different forms of IP:
Copyright: a work is public, but cannot be copied (or translated) except small parts a `fair use' excerpts Patents: protect an idea or concept of a mehod, a process, or an original material (DNA?!) Trade secret: just doon't tell anyone, and make those that work with you sign non-disclosure agreements.
Copyright is automatic (too automatic?), but you can strengthen your legal position
1. by inserting `© your name, year'
Manually the copyright symbol can be inserted in HTML as © or ©
2. depositing a copy with the library of congress's copyright center
For code you only have to deposit enough to assure its uniqueness, that reduces the risk of being effectively copied
You may decide to follow open source conventions, and just keep things public, with a request that copiers acknowledge you. There is a tradeoff between money and fame from your work.
If a website is kept up-to-date, that lowers the benefits to the copier, since then keeping the copies up-to-date, while diverting the benefits is then much harder.
Patents must be formally filed and approved as being unique and novel by an examiner in the U.S. Patent abd Trademark office. New technologies are very confusing for them, and bad patents are hard to eradicate, There are patent trolls, who collect patents, good and bad, that make a business of suing folks for infringement of thsoe patents. Even if the patent is bad or does not really apply the accused often rather settlr and get the issue out of the way than spend the money to fight it.
Trade secret protection depends on the honesty of your employees. Not easy to enforce, but since nothing is published can work well for a limited time.
Representation
How your data is stored in computers and on the web may look like magic, but you should know a bit about it
See Note Representation
