A Web Activity

Welcome to our web activity! The intent of this small exercise is to become 100% comfortable with Netscape - our primary access to the World Wide Web. You could use Internet Explorer if you really want, but we would suggest against it... (personal preferences inserted here). Everything that you need to find can be found by using the resources throughout Netscape. So, if you think that you need to be using a shell and fishing through other random things, you are wrong :)

Start off by "surfing the web." Get a good feel for how links work, how the back and forward buttons work, how to open up new webpages (File-Open Location). Search for something and follow the links to where it takes you. Move through the information, soaking up as much as possible. Enjoy looking at random people's homepages.

A great page to start with (in terms of learning how to maneuver around the world wide web) is: http://www.word.com/index.html - Word. Word is also a very good example of an online hypertextual fiction piece. (Hypertext can be both fiction and non-fiction). Roam through the piece - it is a lot of fun.

Now the part where you have to do something! Rules:

Ok - Let's begin!

    Brown University
  1. Take the Brown Campus virtual tour.
    • When was the CIT finished? What is its complete name?
    • What is JOSIAH?
    • In what city was Brown founded? Under what name?
    • What is a Meiklejohn?
    • What resulted in University President Barnaby Keeney telling East Side residents that the University would teach them a new the meaning of "higher" education?
    • What does the Latin on the van Wickle Gates mean?
    • How many fraternities/ sororities are there?
    • Tell me about one of the many Halls.
  2. What day of the week is the opening of the 1997-1998 Academic Year for Brown?
  3. According to the April 3rd Brown Daily Herald, Chesea Clinton is going to Duke University. Why is this not true? What did she give as to her reason for not coming to Brown?
  4. At Brown, what is the Adam Lack case and why has it impacted Brown substantially?
  5. What announcement did former Brown President Gregorian make on March 6, 1990? In 1992, what happened as a result?
    Surfing Computer Science at Brown
  6. What are the six different active research areas at Brown? Tell me something about each.
  7. From where did Andy van Dam get his undergraduate degree? In what year?
  8. What does Tom Doeppner (another CS professor) do in his spare time?
    Surfing Computer Science
  9. What is SIGGRAPH?
  10. Give an example of a web page that has VRML on it.
  11. Sun wrote Java. Who wrote JavaScript?
  12. In JavaScript, what is the syntax to get a random number? What are the bounds on that random number?
  13. List 8 different search engines / web guides.
  14. What are some of the differences (technical not visual) between Internet Explorer (IE) and Netscape?
    Surfing for Information
  15. When was the last time that Danah modified her homepage? (tricky)
  16. What are the senators from your home state (also give your state)? And what are the names of the two senators from RI?
  17. What are President Clinton's grandparents names?
  18. Give an example of a fictional hypertext piece. (other than anything on Word). Read through it and explain what it is about. Also explain what hypertext is.
  19. Find a URL dedicated to your favorite musician.
  20. What is Danah's favorite musician? Name a few of that musician's songs.
  21. Describe Andrea's dog.
  22. Find a cheap (less than $400) flight for me to go from Providence to LA on August 2 and come back on August 9.
  23. When did the Grateful Dead come to a conclusion that the "long, strange trip" is over?
  24. Find an individual's homepage (non-Brown associated). What do people talk about on their homepages?
  25. Read a newspaper online- what are some of the ones online (list 4)?
    Using Netscape
  26. Change the size of your default font to 14.
  27. Change the font to a different one (one that you like more).
  28. Save an image of your choice into your home directory as MyPicture.jpg
  29. When does Danah's homepage expire? (tricky) (hint: use the document info tag)
  30. Add a bookmark to your favorite site and rename it to "My Favorite Site"
  31. Create a new text file (through Netscape) and tell us a silly story. Save it as "Silly Story." Play with changing the colors, fonts, sizes and anything else that looks interesting.
  32. Open the file "/u/dmb/Bridge/Hello.html" in the editor. What do I tell you?
  33. Open up netscape news. Open up the newsgroup brown.cs.general and read a message. Tell me about that message. (For example, read Michael Horn's message on 4/29/97 and tell me what the Workin' Stiffs are.
  34. Add your name to the Switchboard (www.switchboard.com)
  35. What does the History tell you? (under Window)
  36. Go to "Options" and drag down to "Network Preferences". If you "Clear Memory Cache Now" and "Clear Disk Cache Now" - what does it do?
  37. Under the same super menu, under "General Preferences", play with your fonts and change your home page location. What is the importance of home page location?
  38. What happens when you click on the comic strip character in Danah's homepage?
  39. What happens when you click on Andrea's email address on her homepage?
  40. Check out the Netscape Mail (Window, mail)


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