CS 107: Midterm Review

Tuesday, March 7, 2006

1. How does the Web work?

Terms: HTML, HTTP, DNS, Server, Client, Cache, Domain, IP, URL, Static web page, dynamic web page, ICANN, Domainers.

What happens when a browser makes a request for a URL?

How does CSS work? How does it ease the task of a web site developer?

What does HTML code look like? What is the underlying code for a link on a web page? For a table?

2. How do computers work?

Anatomy: Motherboard, CPU, RAM, Hard Disk

What are the key differences between RAM and a Hard Disk?

What is byte-addressable memory?

What is a bit? A byte? A kilobyte? A megabyte? A gigabyte? A terabyte? A petabyte?

How many bits are in a petabyte? How many books could be stored in a petabyte machine?

How is the string 'cat' stored in a computer? What is ASCII? Unicode?

What is 9 in binary? What is 01010101 in base-10?

What is the largest base-10 number that can be stored with 4 bits?

3. Lego Programming

Given problems similar to what we've programmed, can you solve them by drawing the necessary "blocks" ?

Conditionals, Iteration, Event-Processing

NQC language

task main ()

conditional statements

while loops

setting and checking sensors

 

4. Innovative Research Tools

How can the following tools be used for research? How would you characterize each?

1. Wayback machine at Internet Archive

2. Technorati

3. BlogLines

4. Del.icio.us

5. Wiki

What is a taxonomy? How is it different from a folksonomy? How is del.icio.us different from Yahoo's web directory?

How is the Internet Archive like the legendary library of Alexandria?

Why is the idea of self-publication through blogs, etc., important given how media has changed in our society?

What technical advancements has made things like the Internet Archive and del.icio.us possible?

What are the disadvantages of sites like wikipedia and del.icio.us? How can these problems be mitigated?