January 1998
Building Virtual Communities
9 Timeless Principles For Building Community
By Amy Jo Kim
While Web communities come in all shapes and sizes, not all are successful. Our virtual-community expert, Amy shares the nine fundamental principles every virtual community must consider, and examines the sites that are successfully using them.
Tools For Building A Web Community
By Jonathan Steuer
The community tools you choose will affect the options available to your users. Jonathan surveys the tools you should consider, while Bob Kaehms takes a look at Majordomo and other mail-list management programs.
Extending A Real-World Community
By Bart Marable and Raymond Simmons
The Diocese of Alexandria was building community long before the advent of the Web. Bart and Raymond share the insights they gained while developing this unique Web site.
A Graphical Internet Chat
By Andrew Davison
Andrew extends a previous project, in which he created a chat server using the C programming language. This month, Andrew creates a graphical client that talks with this or any other chat server.
C O L U M N S :
Webmaster's Domain
Webmasters are often reluctant to grant authors CGI-scripting privileges. So, Lincoln D. Stein describes a method for wrapping CGI scripts that keeps authors from interfering with each other's scripts.
Visual Designer
This month, Lynda Weinman examines visual-chat software and its potential for creating community. She also looks at some guidelines for successful community design.
Doing Justice to the Web
As online databases become more lucrative, database owners risk wholesale piracy of database content. Catherine Sansum Kirkman discusses the intellectual-property rights associated with online databases and the unique issues relating to their legal protection.
Virtual Worlds
As Andrea L. Ames sees it, there's still far too little compelling VRML content out on the Web. This month, she looks at what's currently out there, and what you can learn from it.
Programming with Perl
As users' connection speeds increase, so does the load on servers. Randal L. Schwartz presents a script that artificially decelerates the number of bytes sent over a limited period of time, thus easing the strain on your server.
Java Alley
This month, Bruce Eckel creates a server-side Java application and client-side applet that together collect email addresses and store them in a list.
D E P A R T M E N T S :
Script Junkie
Earlier versions of JavaScript only allowed you to validate input fields once a form was submitted. The addition of the event object in JavaScript 1.2 lets you filter data while the user inputs it. Reaz Hoque shows you how.
Lab Note
MySQL is a freely available, widely distributed database engine that offers a rich set of support tools to create dynamic Web applications, including catalogs, shopping carts, and contact lists. Mike Miller introduces MySQL and shows how to use it to develop a simple Web interface to a contact database.
Special Report
As Sue Wilcox reports, at the second annual Avatars conference, emphasis shifted from defining virtual presence to what avatars can do and whether anyone makes money from them.
The Home Page
Editor-in-Chief, Michael Floyd talks about how 1997 was "Discontinuous Yet Related."
News & Notes
Pandora's Web; A Server with a Silver Lining.
The Last Page
Michael Swaine and his "Body Parts."
