Author Description

TwENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO, the world was a different place. Talking to someone across the ocean was, for most people, an exceptionally rare experience. Sending a letter could take weeks. Listening to a shortwave newscast from a foreign land required technical skill, patience, and precise atmospheric conditions. Today, we think nothing of receiving an e-mail from South Korea, checking the weather in California, and reading the day's headlines in Germany-all in less than five minutes. Files zip across the global electronic network, allowing us to do every thing from managing investment accounts to seeing pictures of distant relatives. And yet, despite all that has happened in the last 25 years, the Internet is still in its infancy. It's a new technology, still growing. I wrote this book because the Internet is exciting. In the past few years, we've seen the rise of an entire industry that did not exist before. It's a place where inventors thrive. And that is what I hope you get from this book. I want this to be your lab manual-your guide for inventing things that make the Internet better. Organization This book is divided into five parts. The first part explains how the Internet works. You'll learn about the fundamentals oflnternet communication, and the examples provide you with the basic tools that you'll use to assemble your programs. Part Two covers web-based services and Part Three covers e-mail services.