Hints for Exercises: Chapter 1

  1. For each of the above committees find their Websites, determine their mission statements and write notes on their latest achievements.

    Links to committees. Finding out what these committees think they should be doing is sometimes quite difficult! IEEE committees have clear statements of intent and coverage of their actions, while some of the others are somewhat more vague.

  2. For your organisation (University, company or whatever) determine the administration of your computer network, e.g., who is responsible for new computer names, who is responsible for network security and so on.

    This can be revealing, both to the student and to the organisation. It is frightening how often there is nobody responsible for security or even security policy.

  3. Do some shopping: find out how you would buy a domain name of your own. Where is the cheapest place to buy? Don't forget to look at the terms and conditions of your purchase!

    There are very many domain sellers, with widely varying prices. The things to look out for include (a) what do you get for you money, e.g., just a domain name, or a name plus hosting, or more; (b) do you own the name you bought or does the seller keep title; (c) can you transfer the name later (and at what price); (d) and so on.

  4. Find some active Gopher sites. Compare the experience of using Gopher to that of using the WWW.

    Not many about. Gopher is really a directory browser and does not provide the multimedia experience of the Web. Which is why it is rarely used.

  5. Write an essay on what you see as the future of the Internet.

    Who knows! Convergence of TV, games, Web, music, video, telephony and others is a good bet, but there are rumblings from the traditional providers of such services. Some want to move ahead, others want to preserve the current state of play (and profit), so there will be large opposing forces all trying to make the future as they want to see it.

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