Various embodiments of the present invention transform devices into Web services or special-purpose servers that are capable of communicating with personal computers. Various embodiments of the present invention allow various low-level aspects of device drivers to reside in the devices, eliminating the need for the devices to be compatible with legacy specification. Various embodiments of the present invention allow various devices to be shipped from the factory with low-level software already built in so that users are liberated from having to deal with the experience of installing and upgrading device drivers. In various embodiments of the present invention, each device is preferably a network node identifiable by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI).