Internet and HTTP

We start with an overview of some Internet basics, and a more in-depth look at the HTTP protocol. The video is below and here are the slides.

Watch on Vimeo website; you can download the video there.

With this one, as with all my upcoming videos, you can download a higher resolution .ogv version here using the username and password I gave out in class. You can use vlc to view .ogv files.

You also have to read the wikipedia entry for HTTP and go over the list of status codes, the list of HTTP headers, and the list of Internet media types (which we used to call MIME types). You need to acquire a solid understanding of how HTTP works.Knowledge of HTTP will not only help you when developing webapps, but it is also the foundation of RESTful web services, which we will hopefully be covering later in the semester. The above lecture and readings are due on January 21. There will be a quiz on that day covering this material.

If you want to learn a bit more about packets move around the Internet, and how to sniff them, I recommend watching Episode 406 of Hak.5 as well as Episode 408. It's a fun show and you'll also see how to use wireshark, which we use in CSCE 416. We don't cover networks in much detail in this class, you will learn about networks in 416. For this class you only need to be aware of IP numbers, hostnames, DNS, and NAT.

To learn more about the first few days of the web, watch the video of Tim Berner-Lee, inventor of the web. He describes the early days of the web as well as his vision for the future semantic web. After the talk he answers questions about the early days and the other people involved. Tim is always fun to watch and one always learns something new. I guarantee that, if you are paying attention, your mind will explode several times during the talk.

Emerging Technologies Conference Keynote