ACCOUNTS--To keep track of who is online, the servers are set up to give accounts
to the other computers that wish to connect. The most common accounts you can get
today are Email, Web site logins and online commerce, each wish has it's own interface to learn about.
DIRECT CONNECTIONS--the kind of account you have may be determined by the kind
of connection you have. If you work in a large corporation, university or school system,
you may have a direct connection to the Internet. This means that your building's main server is
"hard wired" or permanently connected with it's own wires to the Internet service provider..
There are hubs are connected to the main server and your computer is connected to one of several
hubs located throughout your building. With a direction connection, you can be "always online" or
can disconnect as needed at your workstation computer. Cable modems and DSL modems are making direction
connections available to home users as well, for a fee that is higher than that of the older dial-up
phone modems.
DIAL-UP CONNECTIONS--Many folks today still have a dial-up connection to the Internet.
Dial up connections are slow and are reached through your computer's modem, which is
a telephone in your computer that dials the internet service providers phone number and
relays your service over your
phone line.
PROVIDERS--The organization that provides you with your Internet service is your
Internet Service Provider or ISP. This may be a commercial server like America On Line,
Roadrunner, Earthlink, Knowlogy or it may is a local business with a web address that is familiar
in your local area.
There are two kinds of providers-content providers like
AOL and service providers that do not give you any of their own content. National providers tend to
give you their content if you choose to receive it. Local providers may give local content or
just give you the connetion to the Internet. Most providers
will charge you around 15-20 dollars a month for dialup use of your account or 20-50 dollars for
a direct cable or DSL connection.
DSL CONNECTION-- or "Digital Subscriber Line", is a high speed internet connection over your existing phone lines. DSL is available through your local phone company.
CABLE CONNECTION--is an digital internet connection through your local cable TV company. The service is provided over coaxil cable also called "coax" like your television service, but is used
with a Cable Modem box which enables your computer to read the signal. Cable modems are one
of the fastest connections to the internet available to home users, and work on a neighborhood network. Each neighborhood hub is called a "Node".
BANDWIDTH--is the amount of signal being sent over the wire. The biggest lines carry the signal from the internet service provider. The signal is divided and boosted when it reaches certain points
in the network, at nodes, routers, and hubs, but is divided among the computers on the network. If you are on a large busy network, the internet service may be slow during some parts of the day when there are more people online. Like automobile traffic, internet traffic has it's rush hours when the bandwidth is being shared by a large number of users. Ten PM local time is usually the busiest, and early Saturday and Sunday mornings are often the least busy. Many people find the middle of the night is also a good
time to get a fast connection, as less people are online.
FREENET ACCOUNT--is another free way to access the Internet. Freenets offer a
limited text-based access to the Internet, but it's extensive menuing system allows
connections to thousands of sites around the world. The Freenets are open to anyone
who registers, and do not require a fee in most cases for local access. Freenets are not
as widely available as they were fifteen years ago as more folks are willing to pay for advanced connections,
or can access the internet at their public library. Most freenets now have a web interface.
SHELL ACCOUNT--A shell account is for programmers and other computer folks
who wish to learn Unix. Shell accounts existed long before other types of accounts
and are still used by university students and systems administrators who run
mainframe servers. The average person does not need to learn unix anymore,
but it is interesting to learn a few simple commands, which resemble DOS.
Providers do not automatically give you a shell account anymore, so if you want
want you will have to ask for it. Shell accounts use a $ or a % for a prompt and you have to
know what commands to type at that prompt.
PROTOCOLS--formatting language for the Internet. There are many protocols
which run the Internet and many of them work together. They are basically
patterns of zeros and ones, positive and negatives, that remote computers use
to understand the way the data is being transferred between them.
PPP or POINT TO POINT PROTOCOL--is an underlying protocol
for the Internet that you never see. Your internet provider will give you PPP access, which
enables multimedia activities on the Internet. With PPP you can see pictures, hear
sounds, watch small movies, play interactive games, etc.
TCP/IP or TRANSMISSION CONTROL PROTOCOL/INTERNET PROTOCOL--
is the other important protocol to know about. This is the protocol that actually
transmits data, and the PPP protocol rides on top of TCP/IP. This TCP/IP
protocol is actually a stack of files and protocols which make the internet work.
It allows, for instance for your computer to connect to the server
which uses unix for an operating system. You can configure your TCP/IP "stack" or connection,
in the Windows Control Panel. Newer versions of Windows have a "Connection Wizard" to help you with this process.
CLIENT-SERVER--A client/server environment means that the remote computer
that you connect to is the server and you use client software to manipulate your
access once you have connected to the server. The local server of your
Internet Service Provider has an "IP address" or internet Protocol address number
and you connect with your tcp/ip stack. There are
various clients you can use to do many things on the internet (the "net") that you open after
you are connected. Common client software includes Internet Browers, FTP programs, chat programs.
Many functions that used to require individual client software now can be handled on the webpage
of the organization providing the service. Large popular search engine websites now offer a variety
of client applications right on their site, like web-based email, web-based chat and file sharing.
Financial institutions offer web based financial services like banking online, stock trading.
Other websites allow you to make purchases at the website, like Amazon.com, Ebay.com and thousands
of others.
BROWSERS--One of the most popular uses of the Internet is
the World Wide Web,
which is a windowed, multimedia approach to computer connections.
To view the
vast array of information on the "Web", you need a browser.
Netscape version 7.0 is now available.
Internet Explorer from Microsoft, probably the most common, is available in version
7.0. Other browers included Mozilla Firefox, from the original developers of Netscape, and Opera.
Other browsers may be priority to the service provider, like AOL browser. All of them
read HTML and other more complex codes and translate it to a user-friendly interface for the
web.
WORLD WIDE WEB--The Web is an exciting collection of information posted
by folks all over the world to promote whatever they chose. Hard drive space
on their
servers is filled with files that display text in many fonts and colors,
colorful background
patterns, pictures, photos, graphics, and icons to click on
to hear sounds and see videos. The text includes hyperlinks, which are
underlined words, and these are programmed to connect to other remote
computers instantly if you click there for cross reference or to bring up more
pages put up by the same organization.
WEBSITE--a website is a group of screens or "pages" on the Web connected
by hyperlinks and dealing with the information put out from one source or
organization. The main page you see first is called the HomePage. Homepages
are then linked to other pages for more information as well as to related sites
that the programmer, or web designer choses.
SEARCH ENGINES--Due to the huge number of
sites available on the web today, several programs to keyword search the World Wide Web are now available.These include Google.com, Yahoo.com, MSN.com, and many others. You can use Google or Yahoo, the most
popular search engines to find smaller search engines or those that search specific types of information. Many large websites have internal search engines which allow you to search their site
or the entire web for information. These search engines give you varying amounts of information in various forms and you should try them all to see what fits your research needs.
Google.com will find almost anything, but you may get more info than you can handle
if you are not used to limited keyword searches using Boolean language Search engines also include links to sponsored sites, so you may end up connecting to a commercial site that paid to be listed on the first page.
Most search engines do notify the user that the first or sidebar links have paid advertising dollars to be priority listed on your results pages.
NOTE: If you are in school or doing advanced research on a topic, you may need to use the search features of speciality or premium databases only available through subscription or in your library, especially if you are
looking for peer reviewed articles, evidence-based research, or primary source documentation. Ask your librarian for help with these special search engines, as many of them have advanced searching capabilities.
EMAIL--Another popular use of the Internet is email. You can do email on simple
clients like Netscape Mail, Microsoft Outlook, or on webpages designed for online
email. Mail clients allow you to recieve, send
and edit mail messages and store them in folders,
but with fancy windowing interfaces. Once you
are registered for with your Internet Service Provider, use can use their web-based email or
you can register for Popmail, which allows you to actually download all your email automatically each time you log on and not have to keep it on the server.
With POPmail, you can then read and answer and edit your mail "offline" and send it off next
with the click of a mouse through the SMTP server from your provider if you are online or save it for the next time you connect with dialup. Or you can use services like Yahoo.com, Hotmail.com, Msn.com and AOL.com which allow you to do all your email online, and bypass your Internet Service provider by
typing your email right on the webpage of the Email providers website. Remember, however, that if you do not download
your email, your web-based email provider can limit how many messages you can keep in your folders. As online email improves, some email sites like Yahoo are now allowing unlimited storage of email. This
added storage service allows them to show advertising when you look at old email, and allows the email to be available for searching online.
NEWSGROUPS--Newsgroups are message
databases that collect group email
much like on a list, but they are all in text
fed to us from Unix servers. You
use can now use many of the email clients to access newsgroups or use a special client like Free Agent, Agent. or NewsWatcher
to access special newsgroup
servers and download any of thousands of newsgroups from around
the world.
You may want to be careful about letting young children subscribe to these newsgroups,
as most are "anything goes". Today, most Newsgroups are available on the web as well.
LISTS OR EMAIL GROUPS - Today lists and email groups are becoming a popular way to connect with others with the
same interests. Most of the online web-based email and search engine providers also offer groups, including Yahoo Groups,
Google Groups, MySpace groups, etc. Some groups are open to all, some are moderated or limited and most ask that you keep to the topic
at hand. You might want to read the group archives before joining a group to see if you want to receive all their email.
Messages posted to a group go to all members at once, so it is important to be careful what you say. Even your typos will
be sent to dozens or hundreds of users! Groups are a great way to make friends with common interests, even when the other praticipants may
be hundreds or thousands of miles away. Many groups allow for picture and video sharing, and might have "in person" meetings
as well. Be sure when meeting folks met online to meet them first in a public place for your safety.
IRC or INTERNET RELAY CHAT--IRC is the old
way to chat on the
Internet. Special servers are set up around the world to forward all
text typed into
them immediately to all other servers in their network. So you can
chat with folks
on several continents at once! It really gets amazing, because
your conversation
can cross not only time zones, but day and night, seasons of the year and
language borders due to the varying access to the sun in different areas of the
globe at anyone time! There are special commands for using IRC servers, and
the latest software allows you to use multimedia as well. It is possible to chat in
colorful text and send sounds and files to the folks you talk to. The most
common software clientsfor IRC include mIRC, Pirch, and Ircle.
INSTANT MESSENGING-- Newer clients for chatting that allow direct messaging,
notification of who is online, searches for other users, info and history of chats with
each user. ICQ is available from www.mirabilis.com. AOL Instant Messenger is availabe
from www.aol.com or comes free with Netscape Browsers. Yahoo now offers Yahoo Instant Messenger
with voice, where you can hook up your webcam and share video and voice with those whom you are
chatting with, play games, send funny pre-recorded sayings, and share files live online. Some
messenger programs even allow you to text message your cell phone, so that you can use up your
cell phone minutes reading your messages!
BLOGS--Short for "Weblog", blogs on online web-based diaries and journals where people post whatever is on their
mind. Some are very personal, some advicate political causes, following local community events,
deal with community problems or tell stories of personal survival in disasters or war. One of the
popular sites where you can start your own blog is Blogspot.com. Yahoo 360 is another blogging
site. MySpace.com also offers blogging. Any of the common search engines will turn up many more places for you to read and participate
in blogging. Some search engines will search blogs for topics as well.
OTHERS CLIENTS--other types of software clients also exist, including FTP clients such as
CuteFTP
or WS_FTP
for File Transfer Protocol, Flash, RealPlayer, and Real Audio for video and audio
broadcasts
on the Internet, and Acrobat Reader for reading PDF files, such as
government forms, business forms, and
documents and electronic reserves from university and other libraries. Many of these clients are "plug-ins" which enhance
the capabilities of your browsers.
The list of new clients grows everyday!
HTTP--Hypertext Transfer Protocol - the protocol used to transfer webpages
from one computer to another, preseving the links.
HTML--HyperText Markup Language-a simple programming language
that uses
embedded commands to format text into proper code for display as a web page.
It includes the addresses of the links, the colors of the backgrounds, the files for
the pictures, sounds, graphics, movies, etc and the size, color and fonts of the
text.
Some programs will put your text in HTML for you, but the best sites are done by someone who understandswhat can be done with the individual commandsand uses their own
creativity to make the site unique.
ADDRESSES--The Internet keeps track of itself through an addressing
system using numbers like the phone system. These are called IP addressesfor Internet Protocol addresses.
People remember words better, so sites also have word addresses and must
go thru a computer called a Domain Name Server (DNS) to match the two. The first
word denotes the computer server name, the second the owners of the computer
and last word or words usually give a geographical location for the server or type
of organization that owns the computer. For example in mail.yahoo.com, mail is the
name of the mail computer, yahoo is the owner, and com means it is an commercial
organization. pinellas.k12.fl.us means Pinellas County Schools server,
k-12 (grades kindergarten thru 12) domain, Florida, United States. Folks with accounts on
these systems have an id name or number and then the @ symbol before listing
the server address. I am centans@tampabay.rr.com, which means my email is on the "tampabay" server for the
company RoadRunner, a commercial entity.
URLs-UNIVERSAL RESOURCE LOCATIORS-- The addresses that a browser
uses to find websites.
Usually they start with the prompt http://
and are followed
by the word address of the server.
For instance, my homepage is at:
http://home.tampabay.rr.com/centans/sharon4.html.
Home is the server name.
The word /centans/ with the slashes
denote the directory on the
server that has my page. The sharon4.html is the file name.
DOMAINS--Some of the common domains you will find in Internet
addresses are:
- edu = education
- gov = gov
- mil = military
- com = commercial
- net = network
- org = organization
- biz = business
Two letters many also denote the state or the country of origin:
- de = germany
- it = italy
- au = australia
- uk = united kingdom
- fr = france
- ca = canada
- mx = mexico
- ie= ireland
New domains have recently been added to allow for more addresses worldwide.
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