Question 1

I used the following search engines to compile this assignment.
(a)Alta Vista.Com
This I found to be the best in providing links to other sites. The number of hits returned far exceeded those of the other search engine. This in itself caused its own problems when it came to separating the wheat from the chaff. The sheer volume of information returned was staggering. Unfortunately not all of the links provided any useful information either because they could not be contacted or that the search criteria which I had used related to sites with similar names but with information unrelated to the topic which I was investigating. E.G. "Oak Tree" brought in such diverse hits as:
Oak Tree Lodge Motel
Oak Tree Realtors. etc.
I noticed that the speed at which it conducted it searches was quite good most of the time but fell off considerably during peak use times. Early in the day was the fastest period, with late evening being the worst. This I put down to fact that the time delay between ourselves and America resulted in less traffic on the system while the Americans are in bed.

(b)Yahoo.com
Yahoo is one of the longest established search engines. It has a mirror site at Yahoo.uk which helps when searching during peak american periods.The search results are good although not as comprehensive as Alta Vista's
(c)FILZ
Is a search engine for FTP sites and files. It is very fast and provides a large volume of hits.

In all cases the search string is entered into a dialog box. The user interface is cluttered with advertising which can be distracting. Alta Vista in particular tries to target advertising at you depending upon the search string entered. In fairness there is no such thing as a free meal so advertising is the price we have to pay for having these marvelous search facilities at our finger tips.

Question 2

Unfortunately because of a problem which the tutors identified as a being caused by my trying to access the FTP site from behind a Fire Wall I was unable to use traditional FTP to access files
I did use Filz to connect to Redoak to download a file which I hoped would contain information regarding the subject of this assignment. The "idgames"in the middle of the address should have been a dead giveaway. It turned out to be a patch for some game.

Question 3

The File hpg13.zip was downloaded from www.filelibrary.com.
It is a DOS based HTML editor which I was going to use to compile this assignment.
In the end I decided not to use it but to stick with what I knew already.
The file hp13.zip is stored in the hpg folder on this disk. It is in zip format as it would have taken up too much space on the disk if I had unzipped it.

Question 4

I am afraid my first encounter with a mailing list has not been too successful.
I received no replies to my request for information.

Question 5.

To build my web site I used HTML V3 which I had used in the past and I felt comfortable using it. It does mean that all of the HTML code has to be typed manually. Although this slows down development, it does allow you the freedom to lay out pages as you wish them to appear.

I have experimented with WORD, FRONT PAGE and PUBLISHER and I must say for the beginner they are quite good at creating acceptable web pages. The design wizards take much of the drudgery out of the design process. The one critism I would have with all three is that the layout is limited to the available design wizards, but for anyone new to the WWW they provide a code free method of web publishing.