The Internet

The Internet is the worlds largest network

It is also called the Net It is a worldwide collection of networks that links millions of businesses, government agencies,
educational institutions, and individuals.
What is a Network?
A network is a collection of computers and devices connected together via communications devices and media such as
modems, cables, telephone lines, and satellites.
Uses of the Internet
Access a wealth of information, news, and research material
Communicate with others around the world
Bank and investment
Shop for goods and services
Download and listen to music or download and watch movies
Take a course or access other educational material
Access sources of entertainment and leisure such as online games, magazines, and vacation planning guides
Access other computers and exchange files
Share and edit documents with others
Provide information, photographs, audio clips, or video clips
History of the Internet
It all started in a networking project by the Pentagons Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), an agency of the
U.S. Department of Defense.
ARPAs goals were to build a network that:
Allowed scientist at different locations to share information and work together on military and scientific projects; and
Could function even if part of the network were disabled or destroyed by a disaster such as a nuclear attack.
That network, called ARPANET, became functional in September 1969, linking scientific and academic researchers in the
United States.
The original ARPANET was a wide area network (WAN) consisting of four main computers one each located at the
UCLA, UC at Santa Barbara, the Stanford Research Institute, and the University of Utah. Each of these computers
served as the networks host nodes.
a host or node is any computer that directly connects to the network.
a host often stores and transfers data and messages on high-speed communications lines and provides network
connections for other computers.
In 1984, ARPANET underwent phenomenal growth, it had more than 1,000 individuals linked as hosts. Today, more than
100 million hosts connect to the Internet.
How has the Internet grown?
Today - More than 350 million host nodes
1984 - More than 1,000 host nodes
1969 - Four host nodes
In 1986, the National Science Foundation, connected its huge network of five supercomputer centers, called NSFnet,
to ARPANET. This configuration of complex networks and hosts became known as the Internet.
In 1995, NSFnet terminated its network on the Internet and returned its status to a research network.
Who controls the Internet?
No one it is a public, cooperative, and independent network
Several organizations set standards
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the group that oversees research and sets standards and guidelines for many
areas of the Internet.
Internet2 (I2) is a not-for-profit Internet-related research and development project. It develops and tests advanced
Internet technologies for research, teaching, and learning.

How can you connect to the Internet?

Slow speed technology
Dial-up access modem in your computer uses
a standard telephone line to connect to the
Internet
Connection must be established each time you
log on. Slow but inexpensive.

High speed connection

Digital subscriber line (DSL), cable telephone Internet
services (CATV), cable modem, fixed wireless, and satellite
modems
Connection is always onwhenever the computer is running

How the Internet Works

Service Providers
1. An Internet service provider (ISP) is a business that has a permanent Internet connection and offers temporary
connections to individuals and companies free or for a fee.
Regional provides access to one or more telephone numbers local to a specific geographic area;
National a larger business that provides local telephone numbers in major cities and towns nationwide. Some
ISPs of this kind provide a toll-free telephone numbers;
2. OSP (On-Line Service Provider) - supplies Internet access, but an OSP also has many members-only features that
offer a variety of special content and services such as news, weather, legal information, financial data, hardware and
software guides, games and travel guides. Examples are America Online (AOL) and The Microsoft Network (MSN).
3. Wireless Internet Service Provider is a company that provides wireless Internet access to users with wireless
modems (like notebooks) or Web-enabled handheld computers or devices (like cellular telephones, two-way pagers,
etc).
If you use a telephone line to access the Internet, the telephone number you dial connects you to an access point on
the Internet, called Point of Presence (POP).
How Data Travels the Internet
A server is a computer that manages the resources on a network and provides a central storage area for resources
such as programs and data.
A client is a computer that can access the contents of the storage area on a server.
A backbone is the communications lines that carry the heaviest amount of traffic on the Internet.
Internet Addresses
The Internet relies on an addressing system much like the postal service to send data to a computer at a specific
destination.
What is a domain name?
A domain name is the text version of Internet Protocol (IP) address and every domain name contains a top-level
domain (TLD) abbreviation that identifies the type of organization that is associated with the domain.
An IP Address is number that uniquely identifies each computer or device connected to Internet.
IP Address
Domain Name

216.239.39.99
www.google.com

top-level domain

Examples of Top-level Domains

Original Top-level
Domains
com

Type of Domain

Newer top-level
domains
museum

edu
gov

Commercial organizations, businesses and

companies
Educational institutions
Government agencies

mil
net

Military organizations
Network provider

name
pro

org

Nonprofit organizations

aero
coop

biz
info

Type of Domain
Accredited museums
Business of all sizes
Businesses, organizations, or individuals
providing general information
Individuals or families
Certified professionals such as doctors,
lawyers and accountants
Aviation community members
Business cooperatives such as credit
unions and rural electric coops

Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) the group that assigns and controls TLDs.
Domain Name System (DNS) is the system on the Internet that stores the domain names and their corresponding IP
addresses.
2

The World Wide Web (WWW)

The World Wide Web (WWW) or Web consists of a worldwide collection of electronic documents.
A Web site is a collection of related Web pages.
Web page is the electronic documents on the Web which contain text, graphics, sound, and video, as well as built-in
connection to other documents.
A Web browser, or browser, is a software program that allows you to access and view Web pages.
The more widely used Web browsers for personal computers are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape. Other
browsers include Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, and Safari.
Downloading is the process of receiving information, such as a Web page, onto your computer from a server on the
Internet.
A microbrowser, also called a minibrowser, is a software program that accesses and displays Web pages that
contain mostly text.
A home page, which is the starting page for a browser, is similar to a book cover or a table of contents for a Web site.
Navigating Web Pages
A hyperlink, also called a link, is a built-in connection to another related Web page or part of a Web page.
Links allow you to obtain information in a nonlinear way.
Surfing the Web is the process of jumping from one Web page to another.
Using the Uniform Resource Locator
Uniform Resource Locator (URL), also called a Web address, is a Web pages unique address.
It tells the browser where to locate the documents.
A URL consists of a protocol, domain name, and sometimes the path to a specific Web page.
http or hypertext transfer protocol, is the communications standard that enables pages to transfer on the Web.
A Web server is a computer that delivers (serves) Web pages you request.

URL:
http://www.intel.com/pressroom/index.asp
Protocol

Host Computer
Address (domain)

path, directory, filename

Searching for Information on the Web

a. A search engine is a software program you can use to find Web sites, Web pages, and Internet files.
b. Search text or keywords are word or phrase that you enter in the search engines text box.
c. A spider, also called a crawler or bot, is a program that reads pages on Web sites in order to create a catalog, or
index, of hits.
d. A hit is any Web page name that lists as the result of a search.
Widely used search engines:
AltaVista
altavista.com
Google
google.com
HotBot
hotbot.com
LookSmart
looksmart.com
WebCrawler webcrawler.com

Excite
Lycos
Yahoo!
Overture

excite.com
lycos.com
Yahoo.com
overture.com

Multimedia on the Web

Multimedia refers to any application that integrates text with one or more of the following elements: graphics, sound,
video, virtual reality, or other media elements.
A graphic, or graphical image, is a digital representation of information such as a drawing, chart, or photograph.
A thumbnail is a small version of a larger graphical image you usually can click. To display the full-sized image.
Animation is the appearance of motion created by displaying a series of still images in rapid sequence.
Animated GIF, is one of the popular animation and graphics software that combine several images into a single GIF
file.
Two of the most common file formats for graphical images on the Web are:
JPEG file, which stands for Joint Photographic Experts Group, is a graphical image that uses compression
techniques to reduce the file size.
GIF file, which stands Graphics Interchange Format, also uses compression techniques to reduce file sizes. It best
works on images with only a few distinct colors, such as line drawings, single-color borders or cartoons.
3

Graphic formats used on the Internet

Acronym Name
File Extension

Acronym

Name

GIF
BMP
PNG

JPEG
PCX
TIFF

Joint Photographic Experts Group

PC Paintbrush
Tagged Image File Format

Graphics Interchange Format

Bit Map
Portable Network Graphics

.gif
.bmp
.png

File Extension
.jpg
.pcx
.tif

E-mail (Electronic Mail)

E-mail is the transmission of messages and files via a computer network.
It was one of the original services on the Internet, enabling scientists and researchers working on governmentsponsored projects to communicate with colleagues at other locations.
E-mail program is used to create, send, receive, forward, store, print, and delete messages.
An e-mail address is a combination of a user name and a domain name that identifies a user, so he or she can
receive Internet e-mail.
A user name, or user-ID, is a unique combination of characters, such as letters of the alphabet or numbers, that
identifies you.
An address book contains a list of names and e-mail addresses.
A mailbox is a storage location usually residing on the computer that connects you to the Internet.
The server that contains the mailboxes often is called a mail server.
POP (Post Office Protocol) is a communications technology for retrieving e-mail from a mail server. The newest
version of POP is POP3, or Post Office Protocol 3.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is an Internet standard that allows you to upload and download files with other
computers on the Internet.
An FTP server is a computer that allows users to upload and download files using FTP.
An FTP site is a collection of files including text, graphics, audio, video, and program files that reside on an FTP
server.
The software that takes care of the packets is Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
TCP does the packeting and reassembling of the message.
The IP part of the protocol handles the addressing, seeing to it that packets are routed across multiple computers.
Instant Messaging (IM) is a real-time Internet communications service that notifies you when one or more people are
online and then allows to exchange messages or files or join a private chat room with them.
Instant Messenger is a software from an instant messaging software needed to be installed onto the computer with
which to use IM.
Netiquette, which is short for Internet etiquette, is the code of acceptable behaviors users should follow while on the
Internet; the conduct expected of individuals while online.
Netiquette includes rules for all aspects of the Internet, including the World Wide Web, e-mail, FTP, newsgroups and
message boards, chat rooms, and instant messaging.
Types of Websites
1. Portal - A Web site that offers a variety of services from one, convenient location, usually for free. Searching, sports,
e-mail, news, weather, auctions, Web communities (Web sites that join people with similar interests)
2. News - Contains newsworthy material, Stories and articles relating to current events, life, money, sports, and the
weather.
3. Informational - Contains factual information, created by organizations and government agencies.
4. Business/marketing - Contains content that promotes products or services. Allows you to purchase products or
services online.
5. Educational - offers avenues for formal and informal teaching and learning. Some companies offer online training for
employees, some colleges offer online classes and degrees.
6. Entertainment - Offers an interactive and engaging environment featuring music, video, sports, games, and more.
7. Advocacy - Contains content that describes a cause, opinion, or idea.
8. Blog - Uses a regularly updated journal format to reflect the interests, opinions, and personalities of the author and
sometimes site visitors.
9. Wiki - Collaborative Web site that allows users to add to, modify, or delete the Web site content via their Web browser.
10. Content aggregator - Business that gathers and organizes Web content and then distributes, or feeds, the content to
subscribers for free or a fee.
11. Personal - Web page maintained by private individual. Reasons: sharing life experience with the world or job hunting.
Guidelines for evaluating the value of a Web site
1. Affiliation
4. Audience
2. Content
5. Currency
3. Objectivity

6. Authority
7. Design