Laboratory work for 11/17:
Start the multimedia with Start>Run uc, which launches the multimedia
for The Univesal Computer. This week you will study the last two sections
of the User interface and web design, the Flash tutorial
and Dreamweaver tutorial. Then you will start working on exercises
creating web pages (in Dreamweaver) and Flash movies, which will be part of
your last homework assignment. I do recommend that start these exercises in
lab, when the TAs and I will be available to help you. You can continue working
on these homework exercises in lab after completing the multimedia for each
of the next two weeks. I recommend that you show your work on web page and Flash
movies for the homework exercises below to the TA in lab, to save you the trouble
of submitting it. Otherwise, upload your html, fla and swf files with the rest
of your homework assignment, here.
Laboratory work for 11/24:
Multimedia for Social and ethical issues.
Laboratory work for 12/1:
Multimedia for Artificial intelligence, then
complete a web-based survey; the password is lehigh!
(Note: this password doesn't seem to work within Blackboard, so shut down the browser and start it up again,
then go to address bar and enter www.cse.lehigh.edu/~glennb/cse12/ex8-12.htm to see this page outside of Blackboard,
then click on the above link and the password will work.)
When you get to the Thanks screen, make sure the TA sees that have completed the survey.
This survey is anonymous, but your feedback is important.
If you aren't able to complete this survey in lab, email me as soon as you have completed them, before the final exam.
Homework exercises:
Do the following exercises in The Universal Computer:
Exercise 8.13: What are the first three words after the <title> tag and
where do these words appear in the browser?
Exercise 8.14: What does each of the parameters of the <body> tag do?
(If you can’t figure them out, check out documentation at hhttp://devedge.netscape.com/library/manuals/1998/htmlguide/.)
Exercise 8.15: Looking back at this page in the browser, what happens when you
roll the mouse over the picture of the book cover? What happens when you click
on the book cover? Viewing the source code again, how did the page get these
effects?
Exercise 8.16: Reload or refresh the page in your browser and notice what Knobby
does on the right side of the page. What does Knobby do? What did the web page
load in to give this effect? The effect is not something the browser does, it
just plays the embedded file. (To learn how the file does it, look at http://www.cse.lehigh.edu/~glennb/mm/gifcon/index.htm.)
Explain briefly how it works.
Exercise 8.17: There is a button at the bottom of this page that says “Contact
Us”. What does it do and how does it work?
Exercise 8.18: Navigate to http://www.cse.lehigh.edu/~glennb/um/weblinks.htm.
What happens when you click on different parts of the graphic on top? Explain
how it works, in terms of the HTML code.
Exercise 8.19: Design your own web page. Give it a title, use different text
formatting, heading levels, paragraphs and breaks. Include a couple of hyperlinks
and a graphic as a link to another page. Use alt tags in your images. Test your
work either by having a browser open your HTML file locally, or by uploading
your file to a web server and giving a browser the URL for your page. Make sure
it is clear and usable. Notes: learn
how to set up your own public web page on Lehigh's web server. You can use
Dreamweaver or Netscape Composer to create your web page, but you should also
understand the HTML code that the WYSIWYG creates.Exercise 8.22 (explore): Do
some research on the web to study the differences between GIF and JPG formats
and when to use which. Support your conclusions about the tradeoffs with a web
page including links to sample images, highlighting the strengths of each format.
Exercise 8.22 (explore): Do some research on the web to study the differences
between GIF and JPG formats and when to use which. Support your conclusions
about the tradeoffs with a web page including links to sample images, highlighting
the strengths of each format.
Exercise 8.28: You can find the document shown in figure 8.6 on the web at http://www.cse.lehigh.edu/~glennb/um/book/bgcolors.htm.
Load it into a web browser, and experiment with it. What are the first three
colors and their hex values? Explain how they are produced. Then press the browser’s
Refresh or Reload button and repeat the same experiment. Do you get the same
three colors? Is this what you expected? Why or why not?
Exercise 8.36: Explain how function bulbOff()gets invoked and changes the bulb
image.
Exercise 8.38: Taking into account the user interface design principles introduced
earlier in this chapter, when is a rollover effect a good idea and when might
it not be such a good idea?
Exercise 8.39: Why is Flash’s default rate of 12 frames/second usually
acceptable and also practical for its computer-generated animations?
Exercise 8.43: What is a motion guide for? Explain how to use it to get an animation
effect you couldn’t get without it.
Exercise 8.46: If you have access to Flash, experiment with motion tweens (changing
the location, size, color and orientation of different images) and shape tweens
(morphing between images and changing the alpha transparency of an image). Put
each effect on a different layer (you create a new layer on the timeline by
clicking on the + icon at the bottom of the timeline area).
Exercise 8.50: After experimenting with the ActionScript described above, try
writing a script that will play a movie three times.
Exercise 8.51: The default behavior of the above ActionScript is to open the
specified URL in a new browser window. To open the URL in the same browser window,
you need to add a parameter to the action. Use Flash’s context-sensitive
help facility (a little reference book icon with a question mark on it near
the upper right corner of the Actions window) to learn more about getURL and
its parameters. Then write the ActionScript that opens a URL in the same window.
Create a Flash movie with at least two different kinds of animation (e.g., motion,
shape, alpha, motion guide tweens) and buttons that starts and stop each animation.
(Be creative with respect to what the animations look like and how the buttons
work.)
Social and ethical issues:
Exercise 9.4: Prof. Barnes argued in 1984 that despite all the hype there hadn’t
really been a computer revolution yet. Do you agree? Or would you think the
sweeping social change of a revolution is more apparent now? If so, how? Either
provide at least three reasons one way or the other, or argue both ways.
Exercise 9.14: Leaving aside credit card information or other very personal
information, do you think it’s okay for your employer to read all your
ordinary e-mail messages? Why or why not?
Exercise 9.20: Does relativism seem attractive to you as an ethical theory?
Why or why not?
Discuss one of exercises 9.24 or 9.25 or 9.26, using the criteria given above
these exercises.
Exercise 9.27 (explore): In the 90's, Congress passed legislation keeping Internet
commerce tax-free. But many states are looking forward to the sunset of these
provisions so that they can get income from e-commerce. Should e-commerce remain
tax-free? Do e-commerce firms and their typical clientele have an unfair advantage
over brick-and-mortar counterparts? What are some of the difficulties of taxing
e-commerce and how might they be overcome?
Artificial Intelligence:
Exercise 10.5 (ELIZA).
Exercise 10.12: The algorithm of figure 10.5 is called a best-first search,
because it maintains heuristic values for all leaf nodes, picking the best of
the lot. Another heuristic algorithm, known as hill-climbing, avoids the overhead
of maintaining a tree of leaf nodes, instead just picking the best of the nodes
that the current best state can generate. Which is more like depth-first search—best-first
or hill-climbing? Which is more like breadth-first search? For the example of
figure 10.4, what happens to a hill-climbing algorithm that uses heuristic h1?
Exercise 10.20 (explore): Use the web and/or your library to learn more about
an expert system being used to solve a practical problem. Discuss how it works
and its benefits.
Exercise 10.25: Why are everyday tasks, such as recognizing words or faces,
though seemingly easy for humans, often surprisingly difficult for AI? (The
following question can be a starting point for discussion.)
Exercise 10.26: Why would a speech recognition program have difficulty telling
the difference between the sentences “He stops at the store” and
“His top’s at this door”? How do you think humans manage to
tell the difference?
Exercise 10.32: If you had an EMYCIN-based (backward chaining) shell, a forward
chaining shell, a frame-based shell, a case-based reasoner, and a back propagation
neural network tool, which would you choose for simulating the following experts,
and why?
a) An operator monitoring sensors on a nuclear reactor.
b) A hand writing expert.
c) A civil engineer designing bridges.
d) A mechanic troubleshooting Toyotas.
e) A help desk helping with problems with a company's line of printers.
Extra credit:
Exercise 8.20: Add an image map to your page. (Make sure the TA knows you added
this feature!)
Exercise 8.21: Use tables and/or frames to organize the layout of your page.
(Make sure the TA knows you added this feature!)
Exercise 8.23 (explore): Do some research on the web to discover some of the
differences between the two (or more) web browsers, and how web designers try
to accommodate some of these differences.
Exercise 8.31 (explore): We explained two JavaScript event handlers above. There
are many more. Use a web search engine to find the other event handlers. Describe
what at least three other event handlers do, with what HTML elements they are
associated, and discuss how you might use them.
Exercise 8.54: After going through the multimedia tutorial, create a Flash movie
with its own interactive drag and drop interaction. A couple of design questions:
1) Why is it important to provide clear instructions explaining what the user
should do to successfully perform this exercise, without giving away the solution?
2) Why is it important that the draggable object return to its original position
if the user drags it to the wrong place? And technical questions: 1) Why do
we need to use movie clips to create this exercise? Why do we need to give the
movie clips instance names?
Exercise 9.29 (explore): Speaking of Microsoft, the federal government recently
settled an anti-trust suit, but a couple of states and Europe are still holding
out. Is Microsoft violating anti-trust law? What are some of the arguments on
each side of the case? What should be done about it?
Exercise 10.7: Consider the following sentences:
The boat floated on the lake sank.
The boat left on the lake sank.
Is one of these harder for you (or if not you, a friend who hasn’t seen
these sentences) to process than the other? Why? Explain how the boundary backtracking
algorithm would process each of these sentences, i.e., when it saves and later
attempts to backtrack to states in registers.
Exercise 10.34 (explore): How are agents and softbots being used to facilitate
shopping and other activities on the web? Do some research on the web and/or
in the library.
Due: Friday, 12/5, anytime before midnight.
Hand in: Submit your homework here, in Blackboard.
Prof. Blank