Introduction to MathLAN

1. Log onto the Linux system.

2. Prepare to utilize the World Wide Web by clicking on the Mozilla Foxfire icon (the picture with blue globe at the bottom panel of the screen).

   [For those interested, note that the Mozilla organization distributes several browser products. Foxfire is one of the most up-to-date versions. The Mozilla browsers are all competitors of Microsoft's Internet Explorer; none of Microsoft's versions are designed for Linux, however.]

3. View the MathLAN home page by clicking the mouse on the Mozilla window, when it appears.

4. Practice scrolling material shown in the window up and down:
   • Scroll down by moving the mouse to the bottom part of the scroll bar and clicking the left mouse button.
   • Scroll up by moving the mouse to the top part of the scroll bar and clicking the left mouse button.
   • Move up or down by moving the mouse to the shaded part of the scroll bar, holding the middle mouse button down, and sliding the mouse up and down.

5. Practice moving and resizing the Mozilla window.
   • Move the Mozilla window by moving the mouse to the labeled bar near the top of the window, depressing the left mouse button, and dragging the window around the screen.
   • Resize the Mozilla window by moving the mouse to the small border of a window or to the small corner border, pressing the left mouse button, and moving the border to a new position.

6. If you wish, you may change your password by typing password in an terminal window. (If no terminal window currently is visible, you may create one by clicking on the picture of a terminal, found on the bottom control panel.) After you have typed password in the terminal window, the machine will ask you for your old password and your desired new one.

7. Scrolling down the home page for the Mathematics and Computer Science Department, click on the line The Mathematics Local-Area Network (MathLAN) in the Computer resources section. Next click on the ITS computer use policies link, to read the current rules and regulations regarding the use of computers at Grinnell College.

8. Go back to the Mathematics and Computer Science Home Page for Grinnell College by clicking on the Back button at the top of the Mozilla window. Scroll down to find the link Tutorial: Computing: Limitations and Promising Developments to find basic information for this course. Then click on Labs and Lab 1 to find this lab.

9. Move back to the MathLAN Home Page. Then, scroll down to find the entry Front-door pages. After clicking on this link, click on the link for the Grinnell College front door.

10. Explore the Grinnell College Home Page, by clicking on various highlighted entries. For example, find Campus Offices, then Registrar, then 2004-2005 Schedule of Courses Information, and finally Fall 2004 Finals Schedule to determine when the Tutorial's final exam would be (if the course were to have a final exam).

11. Move back to the Grinnell College Home Page by clicking on the Back button at the top of the Mozilla window. (You will need to go back several screens, so click Back several times.)

12. Investigate access to Burling Library by clicking on Libraries.
    • Try accessing the library catalog by clicking on Library Catalog.
    • Check for all books by Jack Copeland, by clicking on an author search copeland, jack
    • Prepare for a new search by going back to the Library Catalog .
    • Now check for all books with the title, ``The Limits of Computing,'' by clicking on a title search and entering limits of computing
    • Experiment with other options in the catalog.
    • Finish with the catalog by returning to the Library Home Page.

13. Try searching the Internet for information on the United Nations by clicking Internet Resources and then Internet search engines.
    • To do this, first use the general search resource called ``Google'' by clicking on the Internet Search Engines link on the Grinnell College Library page and then choosing Google.
    • Within Google, search for material on the United Nations by typing ``United Nations'' in the Yahoo search window.
    • Now follow links to United Nations' Peace and Security. Try to determine how many UN Peacekeeping Forces activities are currently active.
    • Also, find the United Nations Home Page.

14. Use the Google search engine to find out something about at least two businesses from one of the cities/regions: Dhaka, Bangladesh; Waterloo, Belgium; Nanjing, China. (In each case, you might try searching by city and country, and then following links you think might be productive. In some cases, you may want to extend your search with another search engine, such as YAHOO!.)

15. Within Yahoo (www.yahoo.com), follow the People Search link. Within Iowa, search for the name ``Henry Walker''.

16. Click on "map" to get further information; locate my address on a map. (Bonus question requiring further research: How close is my house to the location shown on the map?) Zoom out several times to find where my house is with relation to the midwestern United States.

    Note that for $25 and $45, you could request a background check on me. (While this might be fun, this is NOT part of the lab -- save your money -- I'm just not that interesting!)

17. Go back to the Mathematics and Computer Science Home Page for Grinnell College. Now follow the links to ``Faculty'', then ``John Stone'' and ``a collection of links''.

18. Follow the link W3C HTML Validation Service, in the ``Services'' section. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) sets standards regarding how Web materials should be displayed in Web browsers. When Web pages conform to these standards, authors can expect that their Web pages will appear appropriately on all Web browsers.

19. Check that this lab conforms to those standards.
    • Type the URL for this lab
      http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~walker/courses/tutorial.fa04/labs/lab-intro.shtml
      into the ``Address'' field of the validation page.
    • Click the Validate this page button.
    • Review the response returned by the validation service.

20. Note that a W3C validation marker appears at the bottom of this page, highlighting conformance to this standard.

http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~walker/courses/tutorial.fa04/labs/lab-intro.shtml

created August 18, 1997 last revised August 30, 2004
For more information, please contact Henry M. Walker at (walker@cs.grinnell.edu)