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Larry Magid's Concise Guide to the Internet
by Lawrence J. Magid
Note: words in italics are defined in the glossary
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The Internet is a global network of computers. Any computer connected to the Internet can communicate with any other computer on the Internet. The Internet is neither a single computer nor even a single service. Think of it like a world-wide highway system. You can get from any highway to any other highway, though not necessarily via a direct route. The Internet has rules, called protocols that determine how data gets from one connected computer to another.
The Internet evolved out of the Department of Defense's "ARPANET" project that was started in 1969 to link military researchers at four universities. It was designed as a decentralized network so that it couldn't be knocked out by a single nuclear attack. During the 1980s, the Internet was adopted by the National Science Foundation that provided funding to make it available to a wider array of scientists and researchers. Later it was opened up to commercial traffic.
No one owns or even governs the Internet. It's a decentralized network that is supported by the companies and institutions that access it. There is no single governing body however there is a project, called InterNIC, which registers Internet domain (names).
You can connect to the Internet via a commercial online service such as Prodigy, CompuServe or America Online or through any of thousands of Internet service provider such as Netcom or PSI. Most home users connect to one of these services by using a computer equipped with a modem to dial in over a regular phone line. Many businesses, universities, government agencies and other organizations have a direct connection to an Internet provider, often via a special high-speed "digital" line. Regardless, once you are connected to a provider, the provider links you to the Internet.
The distinctions are starting to blur, but online services generally provide a connection to the Internet as well as proprietary data that is available only to their subscribers. Internet service providers generally provide a connection to the Internet but no special data. Online services like America Online, CompuServe and Prodigy, have been designed for ease of use, though the Internet, too, is getting easier to use over time.
The World Wide Web has become extremely popular because it is easy to use and rich in terms of the type of information it provides. It was developed in 1989 by CERN, the European Laboratory for Participle Physics, as a way to transfer information between researchers around the world. It is distinctive in two regards. First, it adds a graphical front-end to the Internet so that users can get where they want to go by pointing and clicking with their mouse on pictures as well as words. Second, people who create "web sites" are able to link users to any other web site. Users who "surf" the World Wide Web are able to quickly move from one site to another just by clinking on "links" that are part of the site they're on. A link transfers you to another web page anywhere on the World Wide Web.
A web site is a place on the World Wide web that is maintained by a person, organization or business. It can be as little as one screen or a vast number of screens, or "pages," containing enormous quantities of information. The Encyclopedia of Britannica, for example, is a single web site that contains as much information as the multi-volume printed edition.
How Do I Find places (search) on the World Wide Web?
There are numerous "search engines" that you can use to find places on the web. A search engine is itself a web site that is designed to search for information on other web sites. There are basically three types of search engines. Databases, like Yahoo are compendiums of sites whose names and addresses are entered by people. Automated search engines like Alta Vista and WebCrawler use software called a crawler, spider or worm, to search the entire web, looking for words. These sites create an index and through that index can find almost any site based on the word you enter. The advantage of these sites is also their disadvantage. They are incredibly inclusive, so if there is a site with the word you're looking for, there is a good chance that these search engines will find it. The bad news is that you may find far too many sites. Alta Vista, for example, will find about 10,000 references to United Airlines -- not a good way to find that airline's main web page. But Yahoo has only a handful of references to United Airlines, which is why Yahoo is often a better choice when looking for a site from a well-known company.
Whatever search engine you use be sure to check out its help system for rules, tips and syntax. Almost all use "Boolean logic" which allows you to narrow or broaden your search with terms like AND, OR, NOT or NEAR. If you entered United OR airlines you would get sites that use either word. If you typed United AND airlines you would only get sites that use both words. If you typed united NOT airlines you could get a site that mentioned united but did not mention airlines. When in doubt, consider putting the string in quotes. With some search engines typing united airlines would automatically give you all references to united and airlines while typing "united airlines" would give you only references to that string of text. More on searching techniques go to the Searching the Web section of "Learn the Net."
Click here for links to major search engines.
Messages sent over the Internet can travel directly from your Internet service provider to that of the person you're communicating with, but often they travel indirect routes. In fact, messages are sometimes broken apart into small packets or envelopes. Each one of these packets can travel a different route until it gets to where it is going. Then they are re-assembled to form a single message. This is called packet switching.
The Internet can handle all types of data including text, numbers, programs, illustrations, photographs, audio, animation and video. Anything you can view on a computer screen or hear through a computer's speakers can be transmitted over the Internet. It's not possible to transport objects or people -- at least not yet!
Think of the Internet as a series of pipes that carry data. Little pipes can carry only a small amount of data while larger pipes carry more data. Bandwidth refers to the size of the pipe or the amount of data that can be handled at any one time. Larger pipes, or more bandwidth, not only mean that more people can use the Internet at any one time but it also means that people can work with larger files. Text and numbers take up relatively little bandwidth but audio takes up a lot more and video a great deal more. A single photograph can take up as much bandwidth as thousands of words, making the old adage, "a picture's worth a thousand words," a bit of an understatement.
A web page is created using a language called HTML (hypertext markup language). This sounds complicated but it really isn't. HTML is basically text with some "tags" or commands that tell it how to display graphics or how to link to other sites. It's not that hard to learn HTML, but you don't have to know a line of HTML to create web pages or a web site. That's because there are numerous programs available that let you create web sites just as there are word processing programs that help you create documents. Programs like Microsoft's FrontPage, Claris Home Page, Corel WebDesigner and Netscape Gold are like word processing programs for creating web pages. They are very easy to use.
Although one of its most popular features, the World Wide Web is only one of many services available over the Internet. The most popular Internet service is electronic mail. Just about anyone connected to the Internet can now send mail to anyone else on the Net. Another very popular feature, called "Newsgroups," are like forums or bulletin boards. One person posts a message and others respond. Everyone can read what everyone else says and you don't all have to be in the same time zone or online at the same time. That's because newsgroup messages are saved so that people can look at them and respond at any time.
Another popular service is called "Chat" or "Internet Relay Chat." Unlike Newsgroups, chat sessions are "real time." Think of a chat session as a global party line where many people can speak and listen at the same time. Anything you type will instantly be displayed on the screen of anyone else who is turned into the same "channel" as you.
The Internet also lets you transfer files from one computer to another. This is called ftp or file transfer protocol. You can now use the Internet to listen to audio or watch short videos. It's even possible to use the Internet as a voice or video phone system.
It's hard to read a newspaper or even watch a TV program these days without seeing a web address, usually starting with http://. Actually, a web address is known as a Universal Resource Locator or URL and it's not that hard to decipher.
All web site addresses start with http://. But many sites no longer include it as part of their name and it's not necessary to type in http:// when you enter a web address in a browser.
The next part of an address, often, is www. This is optional and an increasing number of web sites aren't even using it. It stands for World Wide Web. The next part of the address is the domain name. This is actually a two part item. The first is often the name or an abbreviation of the company or organization such as Bankamerica, latimes, ucla, etc. The next part of it is the type of domain. It it's a company it is usually followed by .com (for commercial). Educational organizations are followed by .edu. Military is .mil and government agencies are .gov. So, http://www.ibm.com is IBM's web site. UCLA's is http://www.ucla.edu. The President of the United State's web site is http://www.whitehouse.gov.
Asking what is a "good" web site is like asking someone to recommend a good book. It's in the eye of the beholder. Yet, there are some very popular sites which lots of people like.
Newspapers:
Los Angeles Times (http://www.latimes.com)
New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com)
Wall Street Journal (http://www.wsj.com
USA Today (http://www.usatoday.com)
TV News Networks:
CNN (http://www.cnn.com)
MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.com)
Links to newspapers, news magazines and TV news networks can be found at http://www.larrysworld.com/newspapers.htm.
Searching Services
Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com)
Alta Vista (http://altavista.digital.com/)
Excite (http://www.excite.com/)
Links to popular search engines and other good web sites can be found at http://www.larrysworld.com/searching.html.
