Hi !
I am a senior student and I am planning to be a member of team Canada
at IOI 2003. I was just wondering What is the best way to practice for
IOI (Internatinal Olympiad in Informatics) ? what sort of problems is
usually used in the competition  ? And finally where can I order some
books that have the problems from previous olympiads or books that can
help me do better !?

Hello.

Virtually all past IOI problems are available online from IOI
Secretariat.

From the 2002 IOI:
http://olympiads.win.tue.nl/ioi/ioi2002/contest/index.html

2001
http://olympiads.win.tue.nl/ioi/ioi2001/contest/index.html

2000
http://olympiads.win.tue.nl/ioi/ioi2000/contest/index.html

1999
http://www.ioi99.org.tr/tasks/index.html

1998
http://olympiads.win.tue.nl/ioi/ioi98/contest/index.html

1989-1997 problems are linked to from this page:
http://olympiads.win.tue.nl/ioi/tasks.html


Other than familiarizing yourself with previous problems, the best way
to prepare for a competition like this will be to develop your basic
programming skills. To do well at IOI, you'll need a solid foundation
in programming algorithms.

The IOI has a recommended a list of books.
http://olympiads.win.tue.nl/ioi/study/books.html


Two highly recommended books are:

The Algorithm Design Manual. Steven S. Skiena
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0387948600/

The Practice of Programming by Brian W. Kernighan, Rob Pike
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D020161586X/


You'll also want to keep your eye on the IOI 2003 web site. There's
not a lot of information there yet, but informational updates will
surely be added as the competition approaches.
http://www.ioi2003.org/

Finally, I'd like to wish you the best of luck in the IOI. And I
commend  you for beginning to prepare for the competition so soon!

Thanks you very much . The books that you recomanded are the ones that
I was looking for and the problems form the last IOI competitions will
also be very helpful.