The fact that the Internet is used widely and has changed the way we live our lives is a "given." The challenge for all of us is to learn how to intelligently, effectively and efficiently use the Internet to work for us. It is relatively easy to use the Internet for games, chat, surfing, and socializing. However, it is a bit more difficult to learn to use the Internet in a productive manner--to use it as a time saver vs. a time sink. Once we learn to use the Internet effectively and intelligently, we can make better choices, become more productive, and learn useful facts. "We are clearly dealing with a transforming technology. The trick is to make sure that we stay in charge of the transformation."

In order to enjoy all that the Internet offers, you need to be aware of how much memory certain Internet applications consume. A page of plain text may be as low as 5 KB; a color cartoon on a Web page can consume 50 KB of memory; three minutes of music in compressed MP3 format can be 3 MB; 3 minutes of music uncompressed can be 45 MB, one standard web site with text and graphics can consume 50 MB, and 60 minutes of compressed video can consume 390 MB. File compression can save space--large files can be reduced by as much as 50% or more when compressed. Internet connection is fast or slow depending on the kind of connection you have. Broadband is quite fast. Standard telephone connection with a modem is slower. You can discover if your connection is "bogged down" by visiting the PC Pitstop and taking a ping test. A ping is "a request for a fast reply" or a way to measure the speed of data transmission between two computers. Ping values between 200 and 300 milliseconds (ms) are typical for computers connected via phone lines. Taking ping tests at different times of day will give you an idea of how the traffic on the Internet during various hours slows down transmission rates.

The Internet is not one network, but a network of networks. The name, Internet, comes from "Internetworked networks." The structure of the Internet is heterarchical. This means that the connections (or nodes) on the network are interconnected randomly with no specific connection of greater importance than another. Other networks are considered to be hierarchical--organized in a manner of most important node (root node) downward to less important positions on the network. The original research that resulted in the Internet was motivated by the need for what is called a robust network--if one part of the network failed, the rest of the network would continue to function. This results in the use of dynamic routing. Dynamic routing is a transmission path selected at the time of transmission and based on current network conditions. "No one site is responsible for the operation of the entire network. The computers that decide how to route data across the Internet are called routers." There are thousands of routers on the Internet. The Internet had its beginnings in 1968-70 as ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network)--a Department of Defense/College Research (Stanford, UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, and Univ. of Utah) project to set up a method of keeping communications available in the event of a nuclear disaster. ARPANET was an outgrowth of the Cold War mentality. It eventually led to a joining of forces with the National Science Foundation in the 1970s to give U. S. computer scientists network availability. It was, therefore, used primarily by researchers and academics. The evolvement into full use by the public was pushed by students and researchers who had been given experience and access to it in the research facilities where they worked.

The World Wide Web was introduced in 1993 with the introduction of Mosaic--the first web browser.There were only 130 web sites in 1993. In 1994 Mosaic was given widespread distribution and the Internet explosion began. (Today there are over 2.1 billion pages on the Web and that’s growing by more than 7 million pages a day!)

The Internet is a moving target! Web sites come and go.It is difficult to know if a site you visited a few weeks or months ago will still be on the Internet in the future. The life of a web page averages 6-12 months only!

The Internet now consists of over 150 million computers (approximate doubling within a year) interconnected via regular analog telephone lines, digital cables, optical fiber, and satellite transmissions. There is no central control or authority over the Internet and it is not owned by any business, individual, or government. There are more than 275 million users and the number grows daily, almost tripling in a year.

NOTE:In the approximate 30 years of Internet evolution, the PC industry coincidentally created and gave widespread public marketability to personal computers.

The World Wide Web is the fastest growing Internet service, but email is still the most popular and widest used service.

Web pages have a unique and uniform method of addressing. It is referred to as Uniform Resource Locator (URL). Some examples of web sites are:

"Although each host machine has a unique IP address, some hosts have more than one DNS address. An althernative name for a host machine is an alias. No one polices the aliases that a machine can us or the selection of DNS names beyond making sure that each DNS address is unique." When you see a URL, you might assume that it is a legitimate web page for the organization it appears to represent. However, this may not be true. Anyone can register a host machine under any available, unclaimed address. Practice caution when determining a legitimate web site. Many sites actually are satirical pages, counterfeit operations, or teases.

The Internet follows what is called a client/server model. This means that a host machine can act as either a client (an information consumer, accessing pages by web browsing and clicking) or a server (an information provider, serving information on a publicly accessible Web page).

Full Internet Service includes:

Hypertext can be images (image maps) or words. The words are usually another color (mostly blue) or underlined. When your cursor moves across a hyperlink, it changes to a hand with an index finger pointing. It is a "pointer" to another document. Once you click on a hyperlink, it will move you to another site. The association can be across multiple sites/authors.

Once a web page is installed on the Internet, you can scroll through it using the scroll bar on the right. Browsing is a term used when you traverse links and explore the Internet through the World Wide Web. Each time you start your Web browser (software that enables users to view information on the Web), you will begin from a default home page--a web site where you will always start. This page can be changed to a Web page of your choice. The Find command enables you to find a string of text within the Web page that you are currently viewing.

As you browse through the web, your browser keeps a history list of where you have been. You can easily and quickly go to one of them by clicking the Back button or selecting Go from the menu line and choosing where you want to go. You can set a bookmark, which is a pointer to a web page, allowing you to return to that page whenever you wish.

In order to get online, you will need to gain access to the Internet through an Internet Service Provider (ISP), which is a company that provides access to the Internet for a fee. Examples of ISPs include America Online, Earthlink, Mindspring, or Roadrunner.

Always fully exit the web (via your modem) and close your browser before shutting down your PC from home. However, when you are browsing, you do not need to leave a site or a page before moving on to another. Just open a new site by:

1. Pressing Ctrl + O; enter the URL and press Enter.

2. Selecting File….Open Page; enter the URL and press Enter.

3. Enter the URL in the Location textbox toward the top of your screen and press Enter.

Some Other Useful Tips When Browsing:

Some Important Internet Terms
 

Host machine	IP address	DNS address
Host name	Domain name	Client/Server
Web page	Memory	Bandwidth
Browsing	Top-level domain names	ASP
History list	hyperlinks	downloading
Binary files	ASCII characters	uploading

Related sites:

PC Pitstop: http://www.pcpitstop.com/

Internet Traffic Report: http://www.internettrafficreport.com/

Internet Errors Explained: http://www.daviestrek.com/computrek/error.htm

How MP3 Files Work: http://www.howstuffworks.com/mp3.html

Your textbook online resources: http://www.aw.com/lehnertweb101/