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Monday, July 6
Computers, the Internet and the Web:
Hypertext, history & concepts

Goals for today:

• Meet some of the important people, places and dates in Internet, Web and computer history.
• Deconstruct Web addresses and some HTML.
• Review or preview the tools we'll use to work with the Web: text editors (SimpleText), Netscape, Telnet and FTP (Fetch), and simple HTML coding.
• Get comfortable with running two programs at the same time.
• Prepare to E-mail your preliminary research topic proposal to me by the end of class tomorrow. Tell me something you already know about the subject and how you plan to make it flexible enough to use in business, government and journalistic sources. Suggest some of the keyword strategies you will use. This is not a graded assignment, it's just so that I can send back some advice if a topic looks too narrow or too broad. But this is a School of Journalism and Mass Communication class, so write clearly and concisely!
• Check out the answers to All Your Questions (so far, at least).

Assignment:

• Read Vannevar Bush's 1945 article, As We May Think, to learn why he thought the "memex" was a good idea, especially sections 1, 6 and 7. (If it's busy, here's another copy.)
• If it's not clear how Bush's ideas led to this Macintosh lab, see The Loneliness of a Long-Distance Thinker, a chapter about Douglas Englebart in a book by Howard Rheingold.
• Read about Internet pioneers and history in the Dead Tree, pgs. 123-134
• Read from start of section 7A pages 152 to 171 in Dead Tree (So, You Always Wanted a Web Page of Your Own?).

Related sites: 

• A quick introduction to HTML Codes. For more good advice, check out the same author's answer to computer disk-housekeeping confusion, Hey--where did my files go?, which inspired my own little rant on files and folders for your Web pages.
• CNET's list of 20 Questions (and answers) about the Internet that help explain the basic principles.
• A Map of the Internet
• Internet Pioneers
• Evolution of the Computer focus especially on the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.
• Two examples of information entry points on the Web: Yahoo and AltaVista.
• Why important Internet people are going to Geneva in July. If you haven't had enough Internet history yet, back up to the home page of that Website and investigate "isoc.org," one of the most important organizations related to Internet. You also might want to look at The World Wide Web Consortium, and InterNIC, just to see what they do. While you're at InterNIC, look up "domain" and "domain name system" in its glossary

So, What Did You Learn Today?