An introduction to the basic principles underlying computer hardware and software and to the implications of the wider use of computers in society. Topics will include hardware, software, Web page design, applet and servlet programming, the Internet, privacy and security issues, as well as a survey of current research directions, including artificial intelligence and parallel computing. This summer we will focus on web programming as the central theme and we will learn how to create sophisticated web applications that take information from the user via HTML forms and use that information to send email, interact with databases, and generate response pages. This course has no prerequisites and we assume no prior background with computers.