The Internet

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Chapter
11
THE INTERNET
OBJECTIVES
After completing this chapter, you should be able to:

i. Explain the basic concepts, requirements and terminologies of internet.

ii. Identify the features of browser window.
iii. Browse the internet with the help of some features of the Browser window.
iv. Apply the rules and regulations in the use of the internet.

INTRODUCTION
The birth of the Internet has broadened and in some respect, given a whole new meaning to
the term, global village. The use of the internet has grown and keeps growing even faster than
anticipated. In this section, we are going to consider the internet and everything connected
with it. First let us have a look at the history of the internet.

CONCEPT, REQUIREMENTS AND TERMINOLOGIES OF THE INTERNET

The Internet is a computer-based global information system. The Internet is composed of

many interconnected computer networks. It is thus referred to as the network of networks. 141
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Each network may link tens, hundreds, or even thousands of computers, enabling them to
share information and processing power. The Internet has made it possible for people all over
the world to communicate with one another effectively and inexpensively. Unlike traditional
broadcasting media, such as radio and television, the Internet does not have a centralized
distribution system. Instead, an individual who has Internet access can communicate directly
with anyone else on the Internet, post information for general consumption, retrieve
information, use distant applications and services, or buy and sell products.

The internet is not owned by any person, organization or country and with this the Internet
technology allows interconnection of any kind of computer network. No network is too large
or too small, too fast or too slow to be interconnected. Thus, the Internet includes inexpensive
networks that can only connect a few computers within a single room as well as expensive
networks that can span a continent and connect thousands of computers.

INTERNET REQUIREMENTS

For a computer or computer network to be connected to the internet, it must get internet
access and an internet browser.

1. Internet Access

The term internet access refers to the communication between a residence or a business and
an Internet Service Provider that connects to the Internet. An internet Service Provider or ISP
is a company that sells access to the internet to individuals and organisations.

Internet access falls into three broad categories:

 Dedicated Access
 Dial-up Access
 Wireless Access

Dedicated Access
With dedicated access, a subscriber‘s computer remains directly connected to the Internet at
all times through a permanent, physical connection. Most large businesses have high-capacity
dedicated connections; small businesses or individuals that desire dedicated access choose
technologies such as digital subscriber line (DSL) or cable modems, which both use existing
wiring to lower cost. A DSL sends data across the same wires that telephone service uses, and
cable modems use the same wiring that cable television uses. In each case, the electronic
devices that are used to send data over the wires employ separate frequencies or channels that
do not interfere with other signals on the wires. Thus, a DSL internet connection can send
data over a pair of wires at the same time the wires are being used for a telephone call, and
cable modems can send data over a cable at the same time the cable is being used to receive
television signals.

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Dial-up Access
Dial-up is the least expensive access technology, but it is also the least convenient. To use
dial-up access, a subscriber must have a telephone modem, a device that connects a computer
to the telephone system and is capable of converting data into sounds and sounds back into
data. The user‘s ISP provides software that controls the modem. To access the Internet, the
user opens the software application, which causes the dial-up modem to place a telephone
call to the ISP. A modem at the ISP answers the call, and the two modems use audible tones
to send data in both directions. When one of the modems is given data to send, the modem
converts the data from the digital values used by computers—numbers stored as a sequence
of 1s and 0s—into tones. The receiving side converts the tones back into digital values.
Unlike dedicated access technologies, a dial-up modem does not use separate frequencies, so
the telephone line cannot be used for regular telephone calls at the same time a dial-up
modem is sending data.

Wireless Access
Another internet access, though less-popular option, is the wireless or satellite internet access.
In this internet access option a computer grabs an internet signal from orbiting satellites via
an outdoor satellite dish. The user usually pays a fixed monthly fee for a dedicated
connection. In exchange, the company providing the connection agrees to relay data between
the user‘s computer and the internet.

2. Browser

A browser is a program that enables a computer to locate, download, and display documents
containing text, sound, video, graphics, animation, and photographs located on computer
networks. The act of viewing and moving about between documents on computer networks is
called browsing.

Browsers allow users to access Web information by locating documents on remote computers
that function as Web servers. A browser downloads information over phone lines to a user‘s
computer through the user‘s modem and then displays the information on
the computer. Most browsers can display a variety of text and graphics that
may be integrated into such a document, including animation, audio and
video. Examples of browsers are Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Google
Chrome, Safari, Netscape and Mosaic, Most of these browsers are available
for free or for a small charge and can be downloaded from the Internet

INTERNET TERMINOLOGIES
The internet is like a country with its own language. Though most of the terms used is
English, they barely make any sense to the outsider. To be able to use the internet effectively,
it is advisable to know the basic terminologies accompanying it. Some of the popular internet
terminologies include: 143
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World Wide Web (WWW)

World Wide Web (WWW) is a computer-based network of information resources that
combines text and multimedia. The information on the World Wide Web can be accessed and
searched through the Internet. The World Wide Web is often referred to simply as ―the Web.
The World Wide Web is mostly confused with the internet, but in actual sense the World
Wide Web is just a section of the internet and depends on the extensively on the internet.

The World-Wide Web was developed to be a pool of human knowledge, and human culture,
which would allow users in remote sites to share their ideas and all aspects of a common
project. It offers a place where companies, universities and other institutions, and individuals
can display information about their products, services, facilities, or research, or their private
lives. The majority of Web pages are available to anyone who can access a computer that
connects to the internet. Only a small percentage of information on the Web is restricted to
subscribers or other authorized users. The Web has become a marketplace for many
companies selling products or services, and a forum for people to exchange opinions and
information.

Brief history of the World Wide Web

The World Wide Web was developed by British physicist and computer scientist Timothy
Berners-Lee as a project within the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in
Geneva, Switzerland. Berners-Lee combined several existing ideas
into a single system to make it easier for physicists to use data on the
internet. Most important, he added multimedia—the ability to
include graphics—to the hyperlink concept found in a previous
internet service known as gopher. Berners-Lee had begun working
with hypertext in the early 1980s. An early prototype
implementation of the Web became operational at CERN in 1989,
and the idea quickly spread to universities in the rest of the world.

Groups at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at

Fig. 17.4: Tim Berners-Lee
the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign researched and
extended Web technology. They developed the first browser that was used at many sites,
named Mosaic, in 1993. To allow the Web to be accessed from a wide variety of computer
systems, researchers built multiple versions of Mosaic. Each version was designed to be used
with a specific operating system, the software that controls the computer. Within a year,
computer programmer Marc Andreessen had formed a commercial company, Netscape
Communications Corporation, to build and sell Web technologies.

Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

Hypertext Markup Language or HTML is the standard text-formatting language for
documents on the World Wide Web. HTML documents are text files that contain two parts:
content that is meant to be rendered on a computer screen; and markup or tags, encoded
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information that directs the text format on the screen and is generally hidden from the user.
HTML is a subset of a broader language called Standard Generalized Markup Language
(SGML), which is a system for encoding and formatting documents, whether for output to a
computer screen or to paper.

Some tags in an HTML document determine the way certain text, such as titles, will be
formatted. Other tags cue the computer to respond to the user's actions on the keyboard or
mouse. For instance, the user might click on an icon and that action might call another piece
of software to display a graphic, play a recording, or run a short movie. Another important
tag is a link, which may contain the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) of another document.
The URL can be compared to an address where a particular document resides (more on URL
later). The document may be stored on the same computer as the parent document or on any
computer connected to the World Wide Web. The user can navigate from document to
document simply by clicking on these links. HTML also includes markups for forms, that let
the user fill out information and electronically send, or e-mail, the data to the document
author, initiate sophisticated searches of information on the Internet, or order goods and
services.
To be able to navigate the World Wide Web one must use a browser, which interprets the
HTML tag in a document and format the content for screen display. Since HTML is an
accepted standard, anyone can build a browser without concerning themselves with what
form various documents will assume, unlike documents produced by typical word processors,
which must be translated into a different format if another word processing application is
used. Most sites on the World Wide Web adhere to HTML standards and, because HTML is
easy to use, the World Wide Web has grown rapidly. HTML continues to evolve, however,
so browsers must be upgraded regularly to meet the revised standards.

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

File Transfer Protocol or FTP is a method of transferring files from one computer to another.
The protocol is a set of rules that ensures a file is transmitted properly to the receiving
computer. A computer that stores files that can be retrieved using FTP is called an FTP site or
FTP server. FTP is part of the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), the
system that enables different types of computers and networks on the Internet to
communicate.

Transmission Transfer Protocol

TCP/IP or Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol is a set of rules that enables
different types of computers and networks on the Internet to communicate with one another.
TCP/IP was originally developed by the United States Department of Defense for computers
using the UNIX operating system, but it is now used by every computer, regardless of
operating system, on the Internet. TCP defines how data are transferred across the Internet to
their destination. IP defines how data are divided into chunks, called packets, for

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transmission; it also determines the path each packet takes between computers.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL)

Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is an address that points to a particular document or other
resource on the Internet, used most frequently on the World Wide Web (WWW). A computer
user can visit an Internet document by typing its URL into a Web browser or similar
application used to access the Internet.

For example, the URL for the main page of someone‘s private Web site is
http://www.myself.net. The first part of the URL, the part before the colon, represents the
scheme, or protocol, used to retrieve the document. In this case, http indicates that the
document is a Web page viewable by a Web browser. Other schemes include ftp (for File
Transfer Protocol), a way of moving individual files between Internet computers; news (for
Usenet newsgroup), a forum where users can discuss topics by posting messages; and telnet
(for Telnet), a means of logging on to an Internet computer and using it remotely.

The next part of the URL, in this case www.myself.net, is called the domain name. It
represents the overarching Internet address used by a particular organization or individual.
Each domain name includes an extension, in this case .net, which identifies the type of
organization using the address. For example, a domain name with an extension .gov,
indicates that the user is a government organization. Other common extensions include .com
(for commercial) and .edu (for education—usually a school, college or university).

The domain name may be followed by the path, a list of additional names that identify
subdirectories within that domain. On its own, the domain name www.myself.net identifies
the main page of the person‘s Web site, but other pages on the site reside in various
subdirectories branching off the domain. For example, a page describing the food the person
likes best can be found at http://www.myself,net/favouritefood/, where favouritefood is a
subdirectory.

The path may be followed by a specific document name. The URL

http://www.myself.net/favouritefood/ identifies the first page within the favouritefood
subdirectory, but there are other pages within that subdirectory. For example, a page
describing the method of preparing that food resides at
http://www.myself.net/favouritefood/preparation.html, where preparation.html is the
document name.

URLs are case-sensitive, which means that uppercase and lowercase letters are considered
different letters, so a user has to enter a URL with all letters in the correct case. URLs on the
WWW are accessed with browsers, or computer programs that can connect to the Internet
and display Web pages.

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IP Address

Internet Address is the identifying number that enables any computer on the Internet to find
any other computer on the network. It consists of four sets of numbers separated by periods—
for example, 123.456.78.90. The Internet address, also called the IP address, is translated into
a word-based address.

Email
E-Mail is an abbreviation of the term electronic mail which is a method of transmitting data,
text files, digital photos, or audio and video files from one computer to
another over an intranet or the Internet. E-mail enables computer users to send
messages and data quickly through a local area network or beyond through the
Internet. E-mail came into widespread use in the 1990s and has become a
major development in business and personal communications.

Search engines
Search Engine is a software program that helps users find information stored on a personal
computer, or a network of computers, such as the Internet. A user enters search terms,
typically by typing a keyword or phrase, and the search engine retrieves a list of World Wide
Web (WWW) sites, personal computer files, or documents, either by scanning the content
stored on the computers or computer networks being searched or by parsing (analyzing) an
index of their stored data.

Search engines are most often used to find pages, files, news, images, and other data on the
Web. Some of the most popular Web search engines include Google Inc., Microsoft Network
(MSN) Search, Yahoo! Inc and America Online (AOL). Each can be accessed from any Web
browser, and each can be used for free.

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These engines operate by building—and regularly updating—an enormous index of Web

pages and files. This is done with the help of a Web crawler, or spider, a kind of automated
browser that continuously trolls the Web, retrieving each page it finds. Pages are then
indexed according to the words they contain, with special treatment given to words in titles
and other headers. When a user inputs a query, the search engine then scans the index and
retrieves a list of pages that seem to best fit what the user is looking for. Search engines often
return results in fractions of a second.

Generally, when an engine displays a list of results, pages are ranked according to how many
other sites link to those pages. The assumption is that the more useful a site is, the more often
other sites will send users to it. But this is not the only way of ranking results. Dozens of
other criteria are used, and these will vary from engine to engine.

Many times, search results will also include what are called sponsored links, links that are
ranked high in the search results or are prominently displayed because third-party companies
pay a fee to the search engine. More often than not, sponsored links are labeled as such, but
inexperienced internet users often have trouble distinguishing between sponsored pages and
unsponsored results. Sponsored links provide search engines with their primary source of
revenue.

Blogs
Blogging is the frequent and chronological publication on the Web of personal thoughts and
opinions for other internet users to read. The name, coined in the late 1990s, derives from
―Web logging.‖ The product of blogging is known as a ―blog.‖ There are millions of blogs on
the Internet. In addition to thoughts and opinions, many bloggers also use their
blogs to recommend books, music, and links to other sites on the World Wide
Web.

Blogging predates the late 1990s. People kept blogs long before the term was
coined, but the trend has gained momentum with the introduction of
automated publishing services. Tens of thousands of people use these services
to publish their blogs. Among the notable publishing services are Radio and Blogger and
MSN Spaces.

The form of a blog is very much dependent on the individual who keeps it. Most blogs are a
mix of what is happening in a person's life and what they feel about things they see on the
Web. In this respect, they are a kind of hybrid diary and guide, although there are as many
unique types of blogs as there are people who keep them. The popularity of blogging has
given rise to a number of tools that can remind you about blogs you read or that generate
more views of your blog.

For instance, Blogarithm is a service that lets users subscribe to blogs and be notified by e-
mail when they have new content. Despite being open to public scrutiny, blogs are not really
intended for mass consumption. The role of the blog is probably best expressed by Stefan
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Glanzer, one of the founders of blogging system 20six: 'If you want to reach millions you
book an ad on TV and if you want to reach one person you use e-mail or the telephone. But if
you want to reach between 5 and 500 people a blog is the ideal tool to communicate.'
However, some specialized search engines look principally at blogs, and as a result blogs are
available to anyone on the Internet with access to a good search engine.

Many critics of the mainstream media use blogs to present information reported by
international news or to critique what they see as the shortcomings or biases of the major
media outlets. Many journalists also maintain blogs as a form of reporting or commentary.
Academic experts have also adopted blogs to comment on developments in their fields or to
offer their analysis of domestic and international news.

Although primarily for personal expression, there is a trend to use blogs in business as an
informal discussion medium. Some companies have used blogs to provide a forum for
discussion of new ideas and products.

Chats
Chats are text communication between two or more people via computer which are
simultaneous. That is one person types a message on their keyboard, and the person or people
with whom they are communicating see the message appear on their monitors and can
respond. Unlike E-mail messages which may not be delivered, read and responded to until
some time elapses, chats responses are immediate, and that decisions
on something could be reached that very moment
Chat requires each user to have a computer connected to an electronic
network. The network might be a local area network within a
business, or it might be the Internet. Users also need a chat system,
software that controls the connection between the computers of the
people who are chatting. Many chat systems are free, though some of
them a done over secure links.
Chat is most commonly used for social interaction. For example, people might use chat to
discuss topics of shared interest or to meet other people with similar interests. Businesses and
educational institutions are increasingly using chat as well. Some companies hold large
online chat meetings to tell employees about new business developments. Such meetings are
particularly useful for companies whose employees are spread out. Small workgroups within
a company may use chat to coordinate their work. In education, teachers may use chat to help
students practice language skills and to provide mentoring to students.

Discussion board
A discussion board also known as forum is an online discussion site where people can hold
conversations in the form of posted messages. Unlike chats, the messages are not shown in
the actual time they were posted, and to see new messages the forum page must be reloaded.
Also, depending on the access level of a user and/or the forum set-up, a posted message
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might need to be approved by a moderator before it becomes visible. Messages must conform
to specific standards; otherwise the moderator will reject it.
Forums have their own language; e.g. A single conversation is called a 'thread'. A forum is
hierarchical or tree-like in structure: forum - subforum - topic - thread - reply.
Depending on the forum set-up, users can be anonymous or have to register with the forum
and then subsequently login in order to post messages. Usually you do not have to login to
read existing messages. A discussion board can look like the one below.

Synchronous communication
When devices exchange data, there is a flow or stream of information between the two. In
any data transmission, the sender and receiver must have a way to extract individual
characters or blocks (frames) of information. Imagine standing at the end of a data pipe.
Characters arrive in a continuous stream of bits, so you need a way to separate one block of
bits from another. In asynchronous communications, each character is separated by the
equivalent of a flag so you know exactly where characters are located. In synchronous
communications, both the sender and receiver are synchronized (made to work at the same
time) with a clock or a signal encoded into the data stream. In synchronous communications,
the sender and receiver must synchronize with one another before data is sent.

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Asynchronous communication
Asynchronous communication is a form of communication which does not require all parties
involved in the communication to be present and available at the same time. In asynchronous
communication, some amount of time may pass before a person responds to a message. In a
discussion forum, which is a form of asynchronous communication, a message sits in a
message queue for other people to read and respond to at any time, or until the message falls
out of the queue. In the case of discussion forums and e-mail, delayed communication gives
respondents time to think about their response and gather information from other sources
before responding. Another form of asynchronous communication is text messaging over
mobile phones.

Listserv
Listserv is a type of software that automatically manages computer mailing lists on the
Internet. It consists of a set of email addresses for a group in which the sender can send one
email and it will reach a variety of people These lists, sometimes called discussion groups,
focus on specific topics and membership usually is open to anyone who requests it. Listserv
replaces manual management and can add and remove members and distribute new messages
posted to the list to all members through e-mail.

Electronic discussion
Electronic discussion occurs whenever a group of users come together to discuss a particular
topic. This can happen in chat rooms, instant messaging, and listserv discussion lists.
Although there are several methods of electronic discussion, the purpose of each method is to
bring together persons of like interests to share ideas, opinions, problems and solutions.
Generally they get started because someone decides to offer discussion on a particular topic.
Then they find a networked computer that can "host" the discussion and put out an
announcement that the discussion group exists. Interested network users can then "subscribe"
to the discussion. From then on, any message sent to the discussion is automatically
distributed as e-mail to all subscribers. When a person initially requests to subscribe to a
listserv list, they will be sent an e-mail message that contains instructions on how to subscribe
and unsubscribe, suspend (such as when a person is on vacation and doesn't wish to have
their e-mail box clogged with messages in their absence), and other useful information. For
every list to which you subscribe, these instructions should be printed and retained in a handy
place for future reference.

Listserv lists can be "moderated" or "unmoderated." The distinction denotes whether

messages are automatically forwarded to all subscribers (unmoderated) or whether messages
are first screened and may be combined with other similar messages by a human being before
being sent to subscribers (moderated). All other things being equal, moderated lists are by far
more useful than unmoderated ones. When messages are automatically forwarded it is
possible for subscribers to receive a lot of spurious messages (for example, replies mistakenly
directed at the list rather than an individual, botched subscription or unsubscription messages,
or "junk mail" from groups selling products you don't want.).
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Electronic discussions can be extremely useful and professionally rewarding, but they can
also be useless. They are guaranteed to be time consuming and can consume all of your time
if you let them. Whether they are useful or useless depends upon a number of variables, only
some of which are under your control.

Electronic discussions can also be "open" or "closed." Anyone can subscribe to an open
discussion, whereas a closed discussion is constrained to a particular group of persons.

Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)

Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) is a method for making telephone calls over the Internet
by sending voice data in separate packets, just as e-mail is sent. Each packet is assigned a
code for its destination, and the packets are then reassembled in the correct order at the
receiving end. Recent technological improvements have made VOIP almost as seamless and
smooth as a regular telephone call.

Bandwidth
Bandwidth is the transmission capacity of the lines that carry the internet's electronic traffic.
The greater the bandwidth, the more data that can be moved at one time. Lack of bandwidth
can impose severe limitations on the ability of the internet to quickly deliver information.

DNS
Domain Name System (DNS) is a method of translating Internet addresses so that computers
connected in the Internet can find each other. A DNS server translates a numerical address
assigned to a computer (such as 123.46.228.91) into a sequence of words, and vice versa. A
DNS name, written in lowercase letters with words separated by periods, takes the form of
username@computer.zonename (for example: king@home.com). Username is the name or
account number used to log on. The hostname (home in the example above) is the name of
the computer or Internet provider; it may consist of several parts. Zonename indicates the
type of organization. Common zone names include com (commercial organization), edu
(educational), gov (government), and net (networking organization).

FEATURES AND USE OF BROWSER WINDOW

The growth of the internet and consequently websites has resulted in the creation of more and
more web browsers. Some popular web browsers such are Mozilla Firefox, Safari and Opera
are very common on computer systems world wide, but one web browser which is almost
ubiquitous is Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer is the most popular web browser in the
world because it accompanies the most popular Operating System in the world – Windows;
and whenever a person installs any Windows operating system, they automatically install
Internet Explorer. For this reason we are going to consider the features of Internet Explorer.

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A typical Internet Explorer window is made up of a:

 Title bar
 Menu bar
 Address bar
 Standard bar
 Main window
 Status bar

Address Bar Title Bar Standard Toolbar Menu Bar

Status Bar Main Window

Title Bar
The title bar displays the logo of Internet Explorer, the name of the current web page, the
name of the browser (Internet Explorer) the close, minimize and maximize buttons. The title
bar takes the theme colour.

Menu Bar
Next to the title bar is the menu bar which contains a list of options from which the user can
select in order to perform a desired action, such as choosing a command or applying a
particular format to part of the browser.

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Address Bar
The address bar contains the address that points to a particular document or other resource on
web. A user can visit any website by typing its address into the address bar.

Standard Bar
The standard bar contains tools which are shortcuts to some common commands such as
history, which automatically store web pages visited recently; favorites which contains
bookmarks or pages stored by the user, back and previous which navigate to web page view
before and after the current one etc.

Main Window
The main information of the web page is displayed in the main window. The main window
normally contains tabs with names for navigating to various categories of the website. It may
also contain scroll bars for scrolling to the parts of the page which extends the window.

Status Bar
This bar which is located at the bottom of the page displays the progress of file transfer from
the internet to the computer. It also shows the current website and the various files as they are
downloaded.

BROWSING THE INTERNET

One of the most interesting things to do when sitting behind your computer is flipping from
one web page to another; this is referred to as browsing or surfing the internet. To be able to
browse the internet with ease, you must be familiar with the features discussed above and
how they work.

Using the address

It is easier to visit a web page if you know the web address. To use the address:
 Launch your web browser (such as Internet Explorer)
 In the Address Bar, type the web address. For example, http://www.yahoo.com, or
you can choose to omit the http:// and straight away type yahoo.com. some web
address will require you to at least type the www.

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 Press Enter. The web page loads and the various files (such as text, graphics and
multimedia) are downloaded into the webpage.

Using the Standard Toolbar

The Standard Toolbar contains shortcuts to some web pages. To visit a page using the
Standard Toolbar, just click on the appropriate shortcut.

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