Choosing Your Internet Access Device and Physical Connection: The Quest for Broadband. Over the internet, data is transmitted in characters or collections of bits. This data transmission is expressed in bps (bits per second, 8 bits equal 1 character), Kbps (kilobits—thousands of bits per second), Mbps (megabits—millions), and Gbps (gigabits—billions). Data is downloaded from a remote computer to a local computer or uploaded, the reverse.
Some internet physical connections, either wired or wireless, have more bandwidth—are able to transmit more data—than others. There are four principal types of internet physical connections: (1) Telephone (dial-up) modem connection is low-speed but inexpensive (up to 56 Kbps). (2) High-speed phone connections are ISDN (up to 128 Kbps), which transmits over traditional phone lines; DSL (up to 9 Mbps), also using traditional phone lines; and T1 (1.5 Mbps), a special trunk line. (3) Cable modems (Up to 50 Mbps) connect to cable TV systems. (4) Wireless systems include microwave systems, such as communications satellites or space stations (256 - 400 Kbps).
Choosing Your Internet Service Provider (ISP). With a physical connection installed, you then need an internet service provider, a company to help you connect or log on to the internet. The ISP will assign you a username and a password, as well as an e-mailbox. The ISP's local access number for your area is called its point of presence (POP).
How Does the Internet Work? When a user's modem connects to a modem at the ISP's location, the two modems go through a process called handshaking, whereby the fastest available transmission speed is established. ISPs either run their own data transmission lines called backbones or connect to an internet backbone through a network access point (NAP).
The key to exchanging data over the internet is the data transmission format. All computers must be able to understand the data transmission format to communicate. Protocols are a set of conventions (standards or rules), that govern the format of data transmitted electronically and thus ensure consistent format. The protocol that enables all computers to use data transmitted on the internet is TCP, or Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. TCP/IP breaks data into packets, which are the largest blocks of data that can be sent over the internet. IP is used to send the packets across the internet to their final destination, and TCP reassembles the packets in the correct order.
Sending and Receiving Email. Four alternatives for getting and sending email are to buy email software, get the software as part of a browser or other software, get it from your ISP, and get it free (for example, from CNN.com or Yahoo!). People will send email to you at your domain, a location on the internet consisting of your user name and domain name, such as user@domain.
Email allows users to send attachments, or separate long documents, with their email messages. It also allows instant messaging, in which incoming messages are displayed at once in a window, which is a rectangular area on screen. You can exchange email from people worldwide with similar interests through list-serves, or email mailing lists.
The two basic rules of online behavior, or netiquette, are these: Don't waste people's time, and don't say anything online you wouldn't say to someone's face. In particular, you should always first consult FAQs, or Frequently Asked Questions; avoid flaming, such as insults or obscenities; and smooth communication using emoticons, which are friendly graphic symbols.
To manage your email, filters or instant organizers are recommended. In addition, you will need to know about managing spam, or unsolicited email. Finally, assume email messages are not private, since anyone could read them.
The World Wide Web. What makes the web so graphically inviting is that it is in multimedia form—graphics, video, and audio, as well as text. What makes it easily navigable is that it uses hypertext, a system based on hypertext markup language (HTML) that uses "tags" or special instructions to provide links using words and phrases to many documents at various internet sites.
A computer with a domain name (.com, .org, and the like) is called a site,and a Website is the location of a web domain name in a computer somewhere on the internet. A web page is a document (with text, pictures, sound) on the web; the first page on the web site is the home page. A Web browser, software for viewing and connecting to web pages, is used to connect with the web site's address, or Uniform Resource Locator (URL). A URL, such as http://www.nps.gov/yose/camping.htm, consists of (1) the protocol, or communication rules—in particular, HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the protocol for connecting with web servers, (2) the web server name, (3) the directory, and (4) the file (perhaps with an extension, such as htm).
To get around the web with a browser, you start out from the home page (which you can personalize or customize), then use directional features (Back, Forward, Home, Search), history lists (to keep track of where you've been), and bookmarks (to mark favorite URLs). To interact with a web page, you use your mouse to click on hyperlinks, click on radio buttons (circles in front of options), and enter content in fill-in boxes. You can also click on scroll arrows to do scrolling—move up and down the web page.
A starting point for obtaining information is a Web portal, a site (such as AOL or Yahoo!) that provides popular features such as search tools. You can check the portal's home page; use a directory or category of topics; or use a keyword, or subject word, to search for a topic. You can also use a search engine to find specific documents through keyword searches and menu choices. Search engines may be human-organized, computer-created, hybrid, or metasearch. Among the search strategies are use of quotation marks around search terms and use of operators (AND, OR, NOT, +, 2).
Multimedia on the web may require a plug-in (or player or viewer), a program on the browser that allows certain files to be played or viewed. web-site developers use applets (small multimedia programs) written in Java, a programming language for creating animated, interactive web pages. Animation is rapid sequencing of still images. Streaming video transfers data in a continuous flow. Streaming audio lets you listen to a file as it is being downloaded. Push technology, such as webcasting, automatically downloads data to your computer—customized text, video, and audio. Internet telephony allows you to make phone calls on the Net.
The Online Gold Mine. Some of the internet resources are (1) FTP, a method for copying files; (2) Telnet, a means for connecting to remote computers; (3) newsgroups, electronic bulletin boards that take place on a special network called Usenet, which requires a newsreader (part of most browsers) to access; and (4) real-time chat (RTC), typed online discussions, which require a chat client (also part of most browsers) to initiate. (5) blogs (weblogs) serve as a publicly accessible personal journals that are maintained by individuals.
The internet offers personal resources—the ability to do online matchmaking, acquire an online education through distance learning, get health information, and amuse yourself. It also offers e-commerce, or online business activities, such as online auctions; online finance; online job hunting; and B2B commerce, for business-to-business commerce, or the exchange of goods and services directly between companies.
