INTERNET

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The Internet started in the 1960s as a way for government researchers to share information. Computers in the
'60s were large and immobile and in order to make use of information stored in any one computer, one had
to either travel to the site of the computer or have magnetic computer tapes sent through the conventional
postal system.
Another catalyst in the formation of the Internet was the heating up of the Cold War. The Soviet Union's
launch of the Sputnik satellite spurred the U.S. Defense Department to consider ways information could still
be disseminated even after a nuclear attack. This eventually led to the formation of the ARPANET
(Advanced Research Projects Agency Network), the network that ultimately evolved into what we now
know as the Internet. ARPANET was a great success but membership was limited to certain academic and
research organizations who had contracts with the Defense Department. In response to this, other networks
were created to provide information sharing.
January 1, 1983 is considered the official birthday of the Internet. Prior to this, the various computer
networks did not have a standard way to communicate with each other. A new communications protocol was
established called Transfer Control Protocol/Internetwork Protocol (TCP/IP). This allowed different kinds of
computers on different networks to "talk" to each other. ARPANET and the Defense Data Network
officially changed to the TCP/IP standard on January 1, 1983, hence the birth of the Internet. All networks
could now be connected by a universal language.
Types of Internet Protocols
There's more to the I nternet than the World Wide Web
When we think of the Internet we often think only of the World Wide Web. The Web is one of several ways
to retrieve information from the Internet. These different types of Internet connections are known as
protocols. You could use separate software applications to access the Internet with each of these protocols,
though you probably wouldn't need to. Many Internet Web browsers allow users to access files using most
of the protocols. Following are three categories of Internet services and examples of types of services in
each category.
File retrieval protocols
This type of service was one of the earliest ways of retrieving information from computers connected to the
Internet. You could view the names of the files stored on the serving computer, but you didn't have any type
of graphics and sometimes no description of a file's content. You would need to have advanced knowledge
of which files contained the information you sought.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
This was one of the first Internet services developed and it allows users to move files from one computer to
another. Using the FTP program, a user can logon to a remote computer, browse through its files, and either
download or upload files (if the remote computer allows). These can be any type of file, but the user is only
allowed to see the file name; no description of the file content is included. You might encounter the FTP
protocol if you try to download any software applications from the World Wide Web. Many sites that offer
downloadable applications use the FTP protocol.


An example of a FTP Protocol Window:


Gopher
Gopher offers downloadable files with some content description to make it easier to find the file you need.
The files are arranged on the remote computer in a hierarchical manner, much like the files on your
computer's hard drive are arranged. This protocol isn't widely used anymore, but you can still find some
operational gopher sites.
Telnet
You can connect to and use a remote computer program by using the telnet protocol. Generally you would
telnet into a specific application housed on a serving computer that would allow you to use that application
as if it were on your own computer. Again, using this protocol requires special software.
Communications Protocols
email, newsgroups and chat
These are the messaging protocols that allow users to communicate both asynchronously (sender and
receiver aren't required to both be connected to the Internet at the same time; e.g. email) and synchronously
(as with chatting in "real time").
Email
This method of Internet communication has become the standard. A main computer acts as a "post office"
by sending and receiving mail for those who have accounts. This mail can be retrieved through any number
of email software applications (MS Outlook, Eudora, etc.) or from Web based email accounts (Yahoo,
Hotmail). Email is an example of asynchronous Internet communication.
Usenet
Usenet is something like a bulletin board or an email list without the subscription. Anyone can post a
message to or browse through a Usenet newsgroup. Usenet messages are retained on the serving computer
only for a predetermined length of time and then are automatically deleted, whereas email list messages are
retained on the serving computer until the account holder downloads them. Many email applications, as well
as Web browsers, allow you to set up Usenet newsgroup accounts.


IRC (Internet Relay Chat)
This protocol allows for synchronous communication: users on different computers anywhere in the world
can communicate in "real time" or simultaneously. You can instantly see a response to a typed message by
several people at the same time. This protocol requires a special software application that can be
downloaded from the Web, generally for free.
Multimedia Information Protocol
Hypertext transfer protocol a.k.a. "The Web"
The World Wide Web is the new kid on the block having only been developed in the late 1980s by the
European Lab for Particle Physics in Switzerland. This Internet protocol was quickly embraced by the public
and has become the most popular way to provide and obtain information from the Internet. The Web offers
not only access to files to download, but offers a way to jump from site to site through a series of connecting
hyperlinks.
The most distinguishing feature of the Web is the way that text is formatted. A series of "tags" is used to
encode and format text, graphics, animation, sound, and other types of files. These tags are called HTML
(HyperText Markup Language). These HTML files appear on your computer screen as determined by the
tags used in its coding. You can see the "source" HTML coding for any Web page by choosing to "View
Source" from your browser's menu bar.
Most browsers allow for access through FTP, Gopher, telnet, and email as well as through the hypertext
transfer protocol, although installation of helper applications may be required. These are programs that work
with the browser and allow access to a variety of protocols and file types.
Browsers and Navigation
Your transports around the World Wide Web
A browser is an application you use to view files on the World Wide Web. There are text or terminal-based
browsers (such as Lynx) that allow you to view only the text of a file on the Web. Most browsers now are
graphical browsers that can be used to view text, graphics, and other multimedia information.
There are many types of Web browsers available, but the most widely used are MS Internet Explorer and
Netscape. Both claim to be better and faster than the other, but the choice of which one to use usually
becomes a personal one. Because some Web pages are created for specific browsers, it can be important
which browser you use. Web pages may look different when accessed by different browsers.
Browsers
Microsoft Internet Explorer
Internet Explorer holds the lion's share of the browser usage today, but it came into the game later than its
main competitor.
Microsoft has met with a good deal of criticism in recent years concerning Internet Explorer because of its
alleged intent to make IE an integral and necessary element of the Windows operating system. Competitors
complained that Microsoft tries to lock them out of the market by making IE the only Web browser
effectively usable by the Windows system.


Netscape
Netscape was one of the first commercial browsers on the scene and dominated the browser market until
Microsoft got serious about Internet Explorer. There are some Internet users who are fiercely loyal to
Netscape and there are sites on the Web that are best viewed using Netscape.
In either of these browsers, if you want to save a Web site that you find useful and want to return to, try
using the Favorites (MS Internet Explorer) or Bookmarks (Netscape) function found on the menu bars at the
top of the browser screen.
Navigation
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
The Uniform Resource Locator or URL is the "address" of a computer connected to the Internet. While
surfing the Web, you'll notice that there is an address or location box at the top of your browser. It's here that
you'll see an individual site's address displayed. This address allows you to find the site again, should you
forget to bookmark it. You can simply type the URL into the address box, press the Enter key on your
computer keyboard and you'll be taken back to the site of the address.
The general format of a Web address is as follows:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
The http in the address stands for "hypertext transfer protocol", the protocol for the World Wide Web, and it
tells your browser to look for a site on the Web. A URL could also appear as:
ftp://12.456.789
or
gopher://gopher.uzxy.edu.
The first part of the URL before the colon tells the browser what type of protocol to use. The colon and two
forward slashes are standard to all URLs. Commonly, the letters WWW (World Wide Web) appear after the
two forward slashes in many Web addresses, but other letters are also used.
After the first dot, or period, in the URL, is the name of the particular computer followed by another dot and
what is known as the domain (.com, .edu, .gov, etc.). The domain indicates the type of group or organization
using the address. For instance, all educational institutions have a URL that ends with the domain of .edu.
Search engines
Search engines are really just massive databases in which information from Internet documents are stored.
The information in these databases is collected using a computer program (called a "spider" or a "robot")
that scans the Internet and gathers information about individual documents. These special programs work
automatically to find documents or they are asked by a creator of a Web site to visit the site to be included in
a database.
When you do a search in a search engine, the order in which the results are listed also varies between search
engines. Many search engines list the results using relevance ranking. Factors such as:
how often your search terms are on the Web page;
where they are located on the page; and,


how many other Web pages link to the page
...influence how high on the list of hits a page is listed. Many search engines allow Web sites to pay to have
their pages listed higher in the results.
There are hundreds of these search engines available on the Web, but they all work in unique ways to collect
and organize the information found. The information from Web sites might be gathered from all the words
in a site, just the first few sentences in the body of a site, or only from the title or metatags (hidden
descriptors of a site's content). Different search engines collect different information, that's why you'll get
different results from the same search from different search engines.

Metasearch engines
These type of search services offer sort of a "one-stop shopping" to the Internet. You can form one search
and a metasearch service will send the search to several other search engines and directories simultaneously
so that you get the results from all of them in one place. The only problem with this is that you only get the
first few results from each listing. If the site you're looking for happens to be listed in the 10th position in a
search services results list and the metasearch engine only provides the first 5 results from that list, then you
won't find the site you need. If you're only trying to get a general idea of what information is available on
the Web, then a metasearch engine would be a good place to start.
Domain suffix
The term "dot.com" has become a ubiquitous phrase in the English language. The "dot.com" really refers to
the domain of a Web site. Sites on the Web are grouped by their URLs according to the type of organization
providing the information on the site. For example, any commercial enterprise or corporation that has a Web
site will have a domain suffix of .com, which means it is a commercial entity.
The domain suffix provides you with a clue about the purpose or audience of a Web site. The domain suffix
might also give you a clue about the geographic origin of a Web site. Many sites from the United Kingdom
will have a domain suffix of .uk.
Here follows a list of the most common domain suffixes and the types of organizations that would use them.
.com
Commercial site. The information provided by commercial interests is generally going to shed a positive
light on the product it promotes. While this information might not necessarily be false, you might be getting
only part of the picture. Remember, there's a monetary incentive behind every commercial site in providing
you with information, whether it is for good public relations or to sell you a product outright.
.edu
Educational institution. Sites using this domain name are schools ranging from kindergarten to higher
education. If you take a look at your school's URL you'll notice that it ends with the domain .edu.
Information from sites within this domain must be examined very carefully. If it is from a department or
research center at a educational institution, it can generally be taken as credible. However, students' personal
Web sites are not usually monitored by the school even though they are on the school's server and use the
.edu domain.
.gov
Government. If you come across a site with this domain, then you're viewing a federal government site. All


branches of the United States federal government use this domain. Information such as Census statistics,
Congressional hearings, and Supreme Court rulings would be included in sites with this domain. The
information is considered to be from a credible source.
.org
Traditionally a non-profit organization. Organizations such as the American Red Cross or PBS (Public
Broadcasting System) use this domain suffix. Generally, the information in these types of sites is credible
and unbiased, but there are examples of organizations that strongly advocate specific points of view over
others, such as the National Right to Life Committee and Planned Parenthood. You probably want to give
this domain a closer scrutiny these days. Some commercial interests might be the ultimate sponsors of a site
with this suffix.
.mil
Military. This domain suffix is used by the various branches of the Armed Forces of the United States.
.net
Network. You might find any kind of site under this domain suffix. It acts as a catch-all for sites that don't fit
into any of the preceding domain suffixes. Information from these sites should be given careful scrutiny.
Country domain suffixes
.au Australia
.in India
.br Brazil
.it Italy
.ca Canada
.mx Mexico
.fr France
.tw Taiwan
.il Israel
.uk United Kingdom

Links
An informational Web site in which all the hyperlinks are broken might not be a very reliable resource.
Broken hyperlinks are not uncommon, due to the ever changing nature of the Web, but when there are many
broken links on a Web site, it might be an indication that the site isn't maintained on a regular basis.
URL
The site address can give you clues as to ultimate sponsorship of a site. If you can't determine who wrote the
site or who or what is sponsoring the site, try truncating the URL to its root address. This will tell you where
the site is being hosted. For example, this site provides information on nutritional RDAs:
http://www.mikeschoice.com/reports/rda.htm.
If you truncate the URL to its root address http://www.mikeschoice.com, you will discover that this is a site
selling a mineral supplement. Given the obvious bias, this is probably not the best source of nutritional
information.