HIST 390-001 The Digital Past Fall 2013

This is a slide show about the differences between Apple computers and computers that are deemed "PCs". It compares everything from design to software. I thought it was interesting to see how people see these computers and what the actual difference between them were.

I see that both you and Marion have shared links from HowStuffWorks.com -- that site usually has pretty good information, especially for basic stuff. I find it interesting that they're classified as an "entertainment" site; they pay people a little (not much) to write the articles, and then they sell ads on the content. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_stuff_works I know a guy who works there -- Jonathan Strickland. Great guy and great podcaster.

Interesting, Taylor, although I wish that article had a date on it. I bet it's a couple of years old: both Macs and PCs change a lot. Still, those differences still apply. Technically, of course, Macs are PCs, since PC stands for "Personal Computer," which a Mac is. But what can you do -- language is slippery.

A brief history of the Internet written by some of its founders. From the website of the Internet Society.

A full, handy reference for HTML and CSS. Allows you to try out the code in the browser.

Definition of a LAN, with pictures. The Internet can be thought of as a network of LANs.

This animated video is British, and that affects some of its perspective (Internet history books will tell you more about the American side), but it's particularly good for showing the structure of the Internet.

An article often cited as "inventing" the web, or at least the idea of it. Vannevar Bush worked in information intelligence during the Second World War, and his work in that field led him to conceive of a better way of finding and managing information. I don't know that the web has really solved that, though!

A timeline of the Internet (with portraits!) from the Computer History Museum. This timeline begins in 1962 and ends in 1992 with the invention of the World Wide Web -- or, rather (though I'd say it's the same thing), with the 1992 invention of the first web browser, Mosaic, at the University of Illinois.

 The World Wide Web Consortium's definition of the difference between the Web and the Internet is understandably technical. It annoys me that there's a typo in which "TCP/IP" is misspelled "TPC/IP". Way to confuse people. 

Wikipedia page about the History of the Internet that I showed in class. Note that the first Internet connection (really, the first ARPANET connection) was made between UCLA and Stanford -- most early work on the Internet was done at universities and was funded by government grants. It was only after the launch of the Web in the early 90s that businesses began devoting resources to the Internet and the Web.

The New York Times website is down today (by some reports it's because Syrian hackers have attacked it), but here's a (probably illegal) copy of a helpful column on "Tech Tips for the Basic Computer User" by the New York Times's technology reviewer, David Pogue. This documents also contains all the comments. All 1149 of them. :) Many of those comments have helpful tips as well. Even though this was published in 2008, it's still helpful.

I've added a new avatar for our course Diigo group. It's based on a 1974 map of ARPAnet, the first "network of networks," and thus the precursor of today's Internet. I got it from Wikimedia Commons, which is a great source for all kinds of media that you're allowed to reproduce on the Internet.

This link gives information on the difference between a directory and a folder. The reason I found this link so useful was because it outlines the difference between the two for Mac and PC users.

Congratulations, Gordon, on being the very first to post! :) I will say I'm not very impressed with the link, though -- it's a bit fuzzy on whether there is or is not a difference between a directory and a folder, except in a technical sense on Windows Vista. (I'd argue that in general there isn't, though I grant you there are special cases.) And you can't tell who wrote that piece, and it comes from the support database of a particular software company rather than from a site that's dedicated to explanations / teaching / learning / education. At least Wikipedia is deliberately trying to educate people, and it's better on this issue, I'd say, and provides a clearer argument that a directory is something structural in an OS whereas a folder is a visual "metaphor" for a collection of files, which may or may not be an actual directory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory_(computing)#Folder_metaphor

There is information here covering everything from keyboard shortcuts to virus protection. There is even information about physical hardware protection.

That's a great site, James -- definitely some useful info there, and it's very clear. I like that there's a Computer "Word of the Day"! Wish it had an RSS feed or Twitter account. :)

This website shows the basics of writing HTML, and gives a rather long list of tags.

This is an article about a new system used to organize and trace tweets. I thought it was a good reflection of the permanence of things we put online.

Here's a useful list of keyboard shortcuts -- I'll put one or two (no more than that) from the "General Shortcuts" section on the test. I'll list them in the study guide, as well.