Internet Fundamentals

Presented by the Tech Team

What is the Internet?

• Also Known As “The Net”

• World’s Largest Computer Network

• Connects networks all over the world

In the Beginning...

• ARPANET– Department of Defense

• ARPANET Wildly Successful– MILNET

• Military Sites

– ARPANET• Non-Military Sites

• There are 1.46 million new Internet users each month.

• At year end 1999, the average internet user received 13.8 e-mail messages per day, was online for 6.7 hours per week, and expended an annual $479 for online goods.

Source: eMarketer, http://www.emarketer.com/

Interesting Facts

What’s in it for me?

• Electronic Mail (e-mail)

• On-line conversation

• Information retrieval

Which way to the Internet?

• Items Needed to Access Internet– Computer (Recommend: Pentium III, 500 Mhz, 4.o gig hard

drive, 17 in monitor, 32X CD-ROM, Windows 98)

– Modem 56 bps (cable access)– Browser (Internet Explore or Netscape)– Telephone Line– Internet Service Provider (ISP)

Internet Service Provider (ISP)

• A company that connects your computer to the Internet– Examples: AOL, COX at home, Earthlink,

USWest, Neonramp, etc.

• Locate an ISP on the webhttp://thelist.internet.com

Interesting Fact

• In a survey of 7,000 Internet user ages 50+, Excite! Search engine discovered 83% log on every day and spend more than ten hours a week online.

• Source: Excite! http://www.excite.com

Computer Protocol

• The Internet works because all the machines speak the same language.

• The information is chopped into pieces called packets and then sent over the network.

Internet Vocabulary

• The Internet Language– FAQ

• Frequently Asked Questions

– FTP• File Transfer Protocol

– HTML• HyperText Markup Language

– HTTP• HyperText Transfer Protocol

Technology Facts of Interest...

• The greeting card that plays “Happy Birthday” features more computer power than existed in the ENTIRE world before 1950!!

• Computer power is now 8,000 times less expensive than it was 30 years ago

• Web use is growing by 2,300% a year.

World Wide Web

• Invisible Network Within “The Net”

• Hypermedia Exchange– Linked Text– Images– Sounds

• WWW Files are Encoded– HyperText Mark-up Language

World Wide Web Browsers

• Netscape

• Microsoft Internet Explorer

• A browser allows you to surf the Net and see movies, hear sounds, and use linked text.

Uniform Resource Locator

• Otherwise known as URL or the Internet address.

• Starts with http:// or ftp://, etc.– http://www.yahoo.com

• Is found at the top of the browser.

• You type in the URL to go to a new web site.

Links

• Any underlined text you see on a Web page is referred to as hypertext (link)

• Links are a graphic or text that take you to an Internet page.

• Clicking a link takes you to that page and the information is transferred to your computer.

This is a link

Links

Congratulations! • By clicking on the link, you moved to this

slide! The same thing happens on the Internet . When you click a link you connect to the page you requested. The information from that page is transferred to your computer!

Domain Names

• Identifies a website on the Internet• Domain names are interpreted into IP

address• IP addresses are a series of digits separated

by a dot– Example: 233.166.13.281.

• IP addresses are the actual physical address of the server on the Internet

Bookmarking

• You can mark a favorite site by clicking on Bookmark and add bookmark

• Bookmarks can be organized into folders

• Bookmarks can be saved on a disk or on the hard drive of the machine

Search Engines and Directories

• Search Engines are controlled by a robot and computer. Contains thousands of databases of information.

• Directory (Subject Guide) are lists of information organized by a human. Information is divided into categories and subcatagories.

Search Engines

• Search Engines allow you to search for documents– Yahoo– WebCrawler– Lycos– Alta Vista– Excite

Secrets to Searching

– Capitalize names and titles, such as December and Star Wars

– Use double quotation marks to group words– Put a + sign in front of words that MUST be in

documents – Put a - sign in front of words that SHOULD

NOT appear in documents

Common descriptive names

• Com - Commercial Organizations

• net - Organizations managing networks

• org - Miscellaneous organizations

• mil - U.S. military organization

• gov - Government organization

• edu - Educational Institution

Geographical Abbreviations

• uk - United Kingdom

• jp - Japan

• au - Australia

• se - Sweden

• ca - Canada or California

E-Mail

• Allows communication with anyone, anywhere, anytime

• Save, reply, delete, forward, read or print the e-mail

• Address books allow you to save e-mail addresses

Netiquette

IT’S NOTPOLITE TOSHOUT!

Emoticons (Smileys)

• :-) Happy

• :-( Unhappy

• :-D Laughing

• :-O Shocked

• :-& Tongue-tied

• ;-) Winking

• @-->-- Cyber Rose

Newsgroup Netiquette

• Check Out FAQ’s

• Listen to Conversation Before Joining

• Send Your Flame to Flamer Only

• Include Your E-mail Address

• Don’t Change the Subject

• Private E-mail/Chat for Long Conversations

Enjoy “Surfing”