Dear Aoir's - Thanks, Jeremy and others for replying. It's also good to think about the split between comm & DB as differnet aspects of the net. I am not really trying to take this on academically, so to speak, but to understand it for myself. I guess it's the problem of transport that is still bothering me. I can see that cmc helps out with the transport idea, because communication always includes some sort of broadcast/reception, send & receive model. I've never thought of DBs that way. I did think, however, of the power of the query. It is clear that the query starts the transport mechanism for internet, that as one inputs or clicks on an address, that invokes TCP/IP for server to send the file to the desktop making the query. So the query would work as a sort of mechanism to activate the database, that model works out great for the search engine. How one arrives at the database, especially a proprietary DB as you were talking about, it doesn't seem to be a send & receive option but with the query invoked, maybe that makes sense, but . . . Ok, maybe I'm the only one interested in this . . . Denise ===== "it's easier to use your mouse than your brain" Denise Rall, Sustainable Forestry Mentoring Coordinator & PhD student, School of Education, Southern Cross University, PO Box 157, Lismore, NSW, 2480 Australia Phone +61-2-6624-8627 Fax +61-2-6624-8637 Office (Tuesdays) (02) 6620 3577 Mob 0438 233 344 http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/edu/research/deniserall/index.html __________________________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now. http://mailplus.yahoo.com