Mike Patterson
CMPS-290B
5/3/07
Assignment #2 v2
4. UNDERLYING TECHNOLOGY
Generating and maintaining a modern database-driven website involves understanding and utilizing a large
variety of technologies. The following sections separate the technologies by functionality and provide
summaries of what current global inequality websites use and projections as to what we will need.
4.1 Backend
The details of how these organizations host their websites are not publicly available and, aside from the UC
Atlas of Global Inequality Production Team, it is unlikely that any are willing to divulge such information.
However, by analyzing the HTTP responses from each website, it is clear that the most common setup includes
a combination of Apache and PHP on a Unix-based OS. Worldbank deviates slightly from the norm and uses a
variety of web servers including Sun-ONE-Web-Server, IBM_HTTP_Server, and Microsoft IIS. Additionally,
NationMaster’s HTTP responses are encoded with gzip, thus reducing the bandwidth consumption per user; this
is something we should consider in our implementation.
According to appendix one in the UC Atlas proposal [1], a SUN V880 over a T3 connection has been capable of
sustaining their current level of traffic. They also rely on Perl, Tomcat, and MySQL and it is safe to assume
that the other sites utilize similar technologies. For our purposes, running Apache on a SUN V880 or
comparable system should be more than sufficient to start with as long as it’s extensible as traffic increases.
Depending on our needs, it may be beneficial to use JSP instead of PHP to generate our dynamic pages, in
which case we would need to run a JSP module such as Tomcat or Resin. The advantage of JSP stems from the
fact that it is compiled into a Java program. This provides access to the full Java programming language,
seamless integration with other Java programs, and increases in runtime efficiency at the cost of a more
involved configuration process.
4.2 Frontend
In all cases, global inequality websites expose their user interface using one or more of the following
technologies: HTML or XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Flash. For text and static images, our focus should be
on generating XHTML, JavaScript and, to maintain a consistent look and feel throughout the site, a small
hierarchy of CSS2 style sheets that are referenced by all pages. Google Maps is excellent demonstration of the
level of interactivity that can be achieved with just these technologies. Flash imposes a software installation
requirement, longer initial page load times, and it is, in general, very difficult for users to extract data and
images. Despite these disadvantages, Flash has a clear advantage when it comes to interactive visualization and
can be used to great effect, as illustrated by Gapminder. Another possibility for interactive graphics is
embedded JOGL (https://jogl-demos.dev.java.net/applettest.html) applets. JOGL exposes the OpenGL API via
Java, thus utilizing the client’s video card to render high quality 2D/3D graphics.
4.3 Development Tools
There are a handful of tools that each website undoubtedly uses to create its deliverables. The primary
development tool will range in complexity from a standard text editor to a fully-featured IDE such as Adobe’s
Dreamweaver. Sites using Flash technology will also need a version of Adobe’s Flash to generate the
executable. For vector graphic manipulation, sites will likely be using either Adobe Illustrator or the free, opensource Inkscape. Similarly for raster graphic manipulation, sites will likely be using either Adobe Photoshop or
the free, open-source GIMP. UC Atlas additionally uses the Arc products to generate their maps and MyAdmin
for MySQL management. We will need a version of each of these tools during the development of our new site.
Dataset Sources
UC Atlas (http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/data.html)
Database Graphs Maps Tables
X
Major Sources
X
X
The World Bank's World Development Indicators 2002 CD-ROM
X
X
X
World Health Organization (WHO) (http://www3.who.int/whosis/menu.cfm)
X
X
X
United Nations Human Development Report (http://hrd.undp.org/)
Other Online Datasets (http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/metadata/metadata.html)
Gapminder (http://www.gapminder.org/links/data/)
GeoHive - the World in Regions (http://www.gapminder.org/links/data/geohive---the-world-in-regions.html)
Nationmaster (http://www.gapminder.org/links/data/nationmaster.html)
OECD Data (http://www.gapminder.org/links/data/oecd-data.html)
Social Watch (http://www.gapminder.org/links/data/social-watch.html)
Statistics Sweden (Satistiska Centralbyrån) (http://www.gapminder.org/links/data/statistics-sweden-satistiskacentralbyra%C2%A5n.html)
Sustainable World (http://www.gapminder.org/links/data/sustainable-world.html)
The World Factbook (http://www.gapminder.org/links/data/the-world-factbook.html)
United Nations Common Database (UNSCB) (http://www.gapminder.org/links/data/united-nations-commondatabase-unscb.html)
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (http://www.gapminder.org/links/data/unesco-institute-for-statistics.html)
World Bank: World Development Indicators (http://www.gapminder.org/links/data/world-bank-worlddevelopment-indicators.html)
WorldHistory.com (http://www.gapminder.org/links/data/worldhistory.com.html)
NationMaster (http://www.nationmaster.com/statistics/sources)
WorldMapper (http://www.sasi.group.shef.ac.uk/worldmapper/credits.html)
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