In this set of exercises we start to develop your Web skills in earnest. You will gain firsthand experience with tools that work in concert with your browser, including downloading and unpacking utilities, e-mail, news groups, and search engines.

Lab 3.1: Down and Out
Lab 3.2: You Never Write
Lab 3.3: Been Searchin'
  1. Explore the historical background and technology of the Internet
  2. Extend your notion of a computer application to global, connected, multi-user applications common to the WWW
  3. Discuss some of the important applications of the Internet, including electronic mail, news groups, and the WWW
  4. Encourage you to use these applications in conventional ways
  5. Consider consequences and implicationis of the ever-more pervasive uses of the WWW
Module Quiz

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References

The text portion of this module describes the birth and history of the Internet, and its evolution to incorporate World Wide Web1 (WWW). What seems like an overnight explosion is based on ideas and technologies that have been maturing and converging for years. We examine the technologies that contribute to making the Internet2 so powerful, such as time sharing, distributed computing, computer networks, and the WWW, and discuss the most common current uses to which this global network is being put.

1pp. 9, 14–15, 67–71
2pp. 54–58, 73–79, 338

Our metaphor for this module is a village - albeit a global one. The Internet is a globe-spanning network of computer networks, which, like a village, constitutes a community with shared resources, and its own social, political, legal, and ethical structure3. Particularly with the advent of the Web, the Internet has grown from four linked computers into a global "hive mind," containing millions of computers used and controlled by tens of millions of people.

3p. 65-66, 73, 327

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