HTML is an evolving technology—so much so that it will probably evolve itself out of existence. Now don’t panic: All technology—even widely successful technology such as HTML—moves on to greener pastures. The key to this transition—as these series of articles will stress continually—is planning for that inevitable transition to make it as smooth as possible.

XHTML is the planned successor to HTML. The current W3C recommendation is XHTML 1.0; additional recommendations are currently under. Because XHTML 1.0 utilizes the feature set of HTML 4.0 (and 4.0.1), with some general modification you can use it in existing browsers.

Why should you be interested in XHTML? Consider the following:

There are so many capabilities you can work with in ImageMagick! We are going to study the most popular of them and then we will see how to use these features as programmers in our practical projects. Some of the topics and features that will be studied in this book are summarized as follows:

•    Format Conversion: Convert an image from one format to another (about 100 formats supported)

•    Text & Comments: Inserting descriptive or artistic text in images

Keeping in step with the mission and goals of the W3C, HTML continues to be an evolving technology. Indeed, since the early days of the Web, HTML has seen some major changes in both its infrastructure and its implementation. Given the explosive growth of the Web in general and the tremendous (did someone say infinite?) range of applications that are being Web enabled, HTML has needed to keep pace with these changes to deliver on its goal to be a primary vehicle for the successful implementation of all of the Web’s promises.

Along the way, the W3C has presented various recommendations and related initiatives and work on HTML and HTML-related standards. From early tag standards to the now recent pairing and collaboration with HXTML, there is much you should be aware of in terms of how HTML has developed and how that development has been spearheaded by the W3C in many cases.

The history of HTML has gone through four basic iterations over the past several years. They are

All databases, including those that you create with SQL Server, are made up of specific components. Some of these (such as tables and indexes) will be discussed in the chapters of this project; however, for this chapter you should at least have a cursory understanding of what each component is and how it functions in relation to the other database components.

Tables
Perhaps the quintessential database components, tables are the information repositories where all of your data is stored. All databases should have at least one table, and each table will consist of columns and rows, which are defined in the following sections.

Columns
Columns contain specific information that, when taken collectively, comprise a complete table. Each column has specific attributes assigned to it.

Clearly, the goals listed in the previous section are ambitious, to say the least. Yet the W3C has been very successful in meeting the challenges of these goals, and they have a strong foundation to continue to meet the challenges these goals will present in the future.

In addressing these goals, the W3C bases much of its activity on the work of specific working, interest, and coordination groups. These groups consist of representatives from member organizations, the W3C Team, and outside experts. To help develop the work of these groups to the highest efficiency and potential, the activities of the W3C are divided into four major domains.

1)            Architecture Domain. This domain develops the underlying technologies and infrastructure of the Web.