Browsers: The Next Generation

That thinking is wrong. Browsers are changing, in fact, they will become harder and harder to find as individual entities because they will be built into about every piece of software you use.

What exactly is a browser?

Way back in the dark ages (e.g. the late '80s) there were programs that enabled you to view documents created in Wordperfect, Microsoft Word, Lotus 1-2-3, etc. Like a HTML browser you could view the document but couldn't change them.

Even now there are other browsers besides HTML browsers. Adobe Acrobat, a common Netscape/IE plugin is a browser. It allows you to view Adobe PDF files, but you can't edit them without Adobe Pagemaker.

Microsoft has several viewers that can plug-in to Netscape and it's own browser - Internet Explorer, can view just about any Microsoft created document (such as a Word document or Excel spreadsheet or a Powerpoint presentation) without installing extra-plugins.

Topping it off is the fact that HTML is just plain text (ASCII text for purists) with instructions for display in a program capable of reading those instructions. This is why notepad (Windows) or simpletext (Macintosh) or vi (UNIX) are the most common HTML 'editors' and also why nearly all the modern word-processors are capable of at least translating their propietary formats to HTML if not in fact capable of displaying HTML.

The Next Generation

What I'm getting at is the fact that with the next versions of both Netscape and Internet Explorer the way you will be able to compute will be different. I'm currently beta testing Netscape 4.0 (you can too if you go to http://home.netscape.com) and will test Internet Explorer 4.0 (keep checking out http://www.microsoft.com) as soon as it's ready.

• There is Navigator for browsing files on the Internet.
• There's IBM Host-on-Demand for logging onto mainframe computers.
• There's Collaborator for network wide group collaboration, which includes a white board (think of Paintbrush but more than one person can use it at the same time), two-way real-time chat (IRC without the confusion), a network based calendar program (Something like Groupwise but viewable from anywhere in the world) and a shared browsing function (Instead of having to try and tell everyone those long URL's instead, you can lead them there).
• There's also an email and news reader that supports both regular text and HTML.
• Finally there is Composer which is akin to the HTML editor built into the current version of Netscape Gold, but it is now included in the regular package.

Composer can be used as a standard HTML editor (it's almost on par with Microsoft Frontpage, the current best editor, if you have Win 95), or it can also be used to write your e-mail message or newsgroup posting.
This goes along way towards making HTML the language of the overall Internet

This initiative is designed specifically for enterprises (such as UNT) that have various types of entrenched computer users - Windows users, Mac users, UNIX users, etc. - who want to be able to access the same interface (that they have spent hours/days on "perfecting") regardless of which computer they are logged into and what platform they are on.

Netscape intends to make this a reality by placing the desktop on the network. You will login to a machine and start up Netscape. This will bring up your desktop which can include links to your favorite web sites, the latest headlines can scroll across the bottom and also links to your other applications, if those applications reside locally on the computer you are on.

Constellation will also require the use of Netscape's server software, called Suite Spot. Netscape is also working with leading developers in creating programs written in the JAVA programming language so that your favorite software will also reside on the network instead of locally.

So far only Corel has done anything. They have a very early version of their Wordperfect Office Suite written in Java available for download at http://officeforjava.corel.com.

What Active Desktop means is that it will make it easier for users to more seamless interact with Internet as if it was just another part of their local network. Active-X Controls which are the tools with which drives the Active Desktop environment enable you to hit a web site and if the HTML is correctly encoded the correct browser will be opened.

If you don't have a browser (in this case a browser also means software like audio and video players) for the document then one will be installed for you. Also you will be able to look for files locally on your local machine with the same interface that you look for files on the Internet. All Microsoft products will come with hooks in them to access Internet resources such as HTML documents or audio files. You can insert hyperlinks into any Microsoft Office document and these links can take you to a web site (your Office program will load IE inside your program to view the web site) or to another local Office document or to a location inside the same document.

Finally Microsoft has taken much of the pain out of creating a fully functional web site with their program Frontpage. It uses the same basic interface as the rest of the Office suite and uses the Word spell checker. It also provides many templates and utilities to ease the maintenance of your web site as well as the ability to translate many other common document formats to HTML. Finally if the web server has the Frontpage extensions installed on it, then publishing your web site is as easy as saving a file. In fact you use the same File Save As command as you would with a word processor. It takes the pain out of FTP.

You use their software to request information or programs be sent to you on a regular basis. This can range from the latest news, sports, weather, etc. to new interactive games. Both companies make it easy for institutions/corporations set it up to serve up their own Push information. With Castanet you can even set it up to download and install software updates. They are not browsers per say but both companies technologies will be integrated into both Netscape and Microsoft products.

Conclusion

The past four or five years have been perhaps the most exciting years in the history of computing and as these new technologies emerge they should help the Internet get beyond the fancy billboard, hip stage to an actual productive, interactive environment.

If the term "spam" caught your attention, you may be interested in the articles, The Network Connection, List of the Month, and Dealing With Junk E-Mail.

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