Welcome
• CMSC102 Information Technology and
Internet Research
• I am John Arras
• Office: 1109 A.V. Williams Building
• Phone: 301-405-8411
• Email: jra@cs.umd.edu
– This is the best way to contact me.
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Class Materials
• 4 large brown envelopes
• 4 3.5” diskettes
• Nothin’ but Net by E.Golub and J. Plane (3rd
edition)
• Where Wizards Stay Up Late by Hafner and
Lyon
• WAM print account (get one in 1109 S
Campus Dining Hall. $20 to start)
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Grading
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7 Projects – Practice what you learn.
Paper (book report)
2 in-class exams
Final exam
Online skills exam
A file called duedates in the class account
will give approx. due dates for projects.
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Administrative
• Missed Exams
– No makeups. A Univ. approved excuse with
prior notice can drop an exam.
• Academic Honesty
– Do not discuss any assignments with other
students. Come to me or the TA’s for help.
• The waitlist generally clears up.
– I might oversubscribe, but not likely.
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Late Assignments
• Assignments are not accepted late.
• This includes being “just 10 minutes late”
or handing in to me in my office after class.
• This includes things like power outages the
night before the assignment is due.
• I do this to be fair to the people that hand
the assignment in on time.
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Late Assignments 2
• The one exception to “no late assignments”
is if you have a university-approved excuse
that says you were unable to do any work
for a long time.
• You have about 1-2 weeks for each
assignment, so any excuse would have to
excuse you from most of that time.
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Course Outline
• Introduction to computers, networks, and
UNIX
• Editors and email
• FTP, Telnet Usenet and online databases
• Browsers, the Web and HTML
• Javascript
• Spreadsheets
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Hardware
• Hardware consists of the physical pieces of
a computer.
• Different hardware can perform the same
task.
• Hardware may be interchangeable
• Some computers are more modular (like
PCs) and some are more monolithic (like
laptops).
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Operating Systems (Software)
• Low-level instructions between hardware
and applications.
• Examples: Windows, MacOS, UNIX, and
Linux.
• Usually hardware-specific.
– Each type of hardware has a specific way of
doing operations like “add two numbers”.
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Applications Software
• They run over the operating system.
• Examples: word processors, web browsers
and spreadsheets.
• Different programs perform similar tasks.
• Incompatible data files between programs.
• Incompatible data transmission between
programs.
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Hardware/Software Interaction
• Hardware physically processes instructions
to and from devices like the keyboard,
monitor, and printer.
• Applications software tells the hardware
what to do.
• The operating system acts as a mediator
between the hardware and applications
software.
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Compatability
• Generally software works on one kind of
machine and one kind of operating system.
• Some software can work on many machines
and operating systems.
• Examples:
– Netscape runs on many platforms.
– Java programs run on many platforms.
• They run many places for different reasons.
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Examples of Computers
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Desktop PC’s, Macs.
Laptops.
Servers.
PDA’s.
Game Consoles.
Some Cellphones.
Some Electronic Toys.
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Using a Computer
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Batch Mode vs. Interactive environments
Command Line interface
Graphical User Interface (GUI)
Some other kinds of interfaces:
– Electronic toys
– Talking to voicemail
– Buttons in home appliances
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Types of Networks
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Single Machine
Local Area Network (LAN)
Wide Area Network (WAN)
Internet (network of networks)
Topologies: point to point, bus, ring
Connections – Client/Server, Host/Terminal.
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Protocols
• A set of rules for communication.
• A network can have many protocols.
• Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol (TCP/IP) is used on the Internet.
• Machines send and receive information
from each other using these protocols.
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Internet Research Issues
• We will address this issue more as the
semester goes along.
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What kinds of research can you do?
What are some of the pitfalls?
How much use can the Internet be?
How accurate is the information?
Are you allowed to use the information?
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