by Curtis Carmichael

In writing this book, we felt that you, the Webmaster, would be interested in learning about some of the popular Web technologies available to you. Although most of these technologies require some sort of plug-in, they are sometimes well worth the hassle for the visitor to download and installing one. You might want to consider creating a different site version that doesn't require a plug-in. (This is useful for people that don't want to download the necessary plug-in if they don't have it, for people that don't have the knowledge installing typical programs, and for people that want quick access to the information they came for.)

Popular Web technologies include Macromedia (http://www.macromedia.com) Flash media, JAVA applets (introduced by Sun Microsystems, http://www.sun.com), and most media formats developed by RealNetworks (http://www.realnetworks.com) such as their RealMedia file formats: .ra, .rm, and the RAM meta file formats: .ram, .rmm. Besides the mentioned audio technologies on the World Wide Web, JavaScript, developed by Netscape Communications is also incredibly popular for adding quick and advanced interactivity within Web pages. As discussed earlier, the CGI and PERL script languages are popularly used for form processing and other functionality.

VRML is also becoming increasingly popular as connection speeds allow for faster download time. VRML makes it possible for a user to interact with 3D worlds in a unique "virtual reality" environment.