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8.0

INTERNET INFORMATION SERVICES

Internet gives a huge, valuable source of information for individuals, through various
services provided. It also plays a great role as a modern communication link that
connects people all over the world, crossing national and continental boundaries. The
following describes further more, regarding currently available services using the
Internet.
Web Mail Services

E-mail is the most widely used service of the Internet. Estimates suggest that
over one billion e-mail messages are sent on the Internet each month.

User can choose either a specific e-mail program (e.g. Eudora Light, Netscape
Mail) or Web sites that allow free Web mail services.
E-mail anatomy
i.

From address of the person sending the message.

ii.

To address of the person receiving the message.

iii.

Subject Identifies the contents (topic) of the message.

iv.

Cc carbon copy, an exact copy of the message.

v.

Bcc blind carbon copy, sending an exact copy to a person without the
other recipients knowing that the person received the message.

vi.

Signature area a short file of information about the sender that

stamps automatically onto each e-mail message a mailer sends out

Web-mail features
i.

It allows user to access e-mail from any computer in the world that has
access to the Internet.

ii.

User does not need an e-mail program installed in the computer to

access e-mail messages, therefore it is easy to set up and use.

iii.

User obtains an e-mail address that will not change, even if there is a
switch to a new Internet service provider.

iv.

To access e-mail messages from the web site, a user name and
password have to be entered to ensure the security of messages.

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E-mail program features

i.

E-mail programs usually store messages that have been sent,

received and deleted in separate folders to keep messages well
organized.

ii.

Some e-mail programs can automatically sort (filter) e-mail

messages received into folders for user.

iii.

A spell check feature is also included in most e-mail programs

for any word misspelled.

World Wide Web

The Web consists of a huge collection of documents stored on web servers.

Once a Web page is stored on a Web server, it is available to everyone on the
Net to view.

Each Web page has a unique address, called a URL (Uniform Resource Locator),
which user can instantly display any Web page if he knows the specific URL for
that page.

Hyperlink makes Web navigation much easier to users, which they can easily
jump to other Web page located ob the same computer or on a computer across
the world.

Web Portal

Web portal is a Web site that provides an excellent starting point for exploring
the Internet.

Web portals allow users to browse through categories, to find information that
suits the users interests. The various categories such as business, sports, online
shopping, up-to-date news headlines and articles, maps and driving directions,
free email services, chat services, even games.

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User can also customize many web portals to display the information that he
wants. For example, you could customize a Web portal to display the weather
forecast for your area. The information provided by the Internet as follow:

Shopping

There are millions of products that can be bought on the Internet.

The

transaction usually involves credit card holders.

Although many people feel it is unsafe to transmit credit card numbers via the
Internet, sending a credit card number to a secure Web page is much safer than
giving the number to an unknown person over the phone.

Travel

Travel Web sites are great resources of travel information, such as local
attractions, restaurants or a calendar of events for the whole year.

Users can also find reviews written by other travelers and tips for enjoyable trip.

News

Users may use the Web to keep up-to-date on the latest news stories and
images. Many newspaper sites offer headlines for latest news, as well as a huge
collection of past articles for users reference.

Banking

Many banks allow users to access their banking information over the Web. Users
may simply receive and pay bills online, loan/financial services, check account
balances and transfer money between accounts.

By using secure web sites, banks will keep the information private, therefore
forbid other people to view the information transferred.

Employment
There are many Web sites that can help job seekers to find the right career.
They can search for companies with specific vacancies, check a listing of
qualifications needed, store rsum on the website for potential employers to
review, even notify the job seekers when there is any job matching with the
posted rsum.

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For employers, they can also post any vacancies through the Internet to search
for qualified candidates.

Education

The Internet provides vast resources for individuals who need additional
information and research for specific topics/subjects.

Educational institutions often use the Internet for lecture notes, diagrams or
presentation files for easy access.

It also allows customers to get product

support from companies by getting product manuals and specifications from the
Web.

The Internet also provides many types of reference tools in many forms, such as
dictionaries for different languages, encyclopedias, translation services, books of
relevant topics and much more.

Usenet Newsgroup

Usenet is a global network and community. It began in the U.S. in the early
1970s as USEnix NETwork.

Usenet at that time was used to automatically

transmit news about the UNIX operating system and the UNIX world in general.

Since that day, Internet newsgroups have evolved into worldwide discussion
forums devoted to nearly any subject you can imagine. Usenet news represents
a way other than electronic mail for people who share similar interests to
communicate with one another.

Usenet is a separate computer network, but most locations in the Internet

provide access to a Usenet computer, making Usenet news accessible to most
people on the Internet.

Usenet newsgroups are arranged in topical hierarchies. Within the hierarchy, the
focus shifts from broader to narrower. The major hierarchies are alt, biz, comp,
news, rec, sci, soc, and talk.

There are other, lesser hierarchies based on

regions, countries, languages, and even campuses.

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Here how it works. A user posts a question on a relevant topic for the group, and
other users respond with messages that either answer the question or contribute
to the discussion.

Most interaction is quite similar to the interaction on the mailing lists. Unlike
mailing lists, nothing comes automatically into users mailbox.

Search Engine

Search engines are Web sites that will seek information anywhere on the
Internet. These search programs do not actually search through the Internet,
rather they search through a database of locator addresses and descriptors
(keyword entered by user) of the information located at various Web page sites.

Usually a search engine will display the search result in number of hits, or
possible sites that contain the information of the descriptors.

The search

provides a listing for each hit that includes a brief description of the content of
the site and the URL of the site.
Tips of using search engines:
i. Have the query proceed from the very specific to the more general. In the
event that the query produces few results, then proceed to the more
general phrase.
ii Limit the number of hits to be displayed. This limitation will take less time
to search. Chances are that ten or twenty sources will be adequate.
iii If results are not satisfactory, use multiple search engines, because different
engines produce different results.

Some of the more widely used sites include Yahoo, Lycos, InfoSeek, AltaVista
and MetaCrawler.

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Chat/IRC

Internet Relay Chat is a real-time computer conferencing on the Internet.

There are hundreds of IRC channels on numerous subjects that are hosted on
IRC servers around the world.

After joining a channel, your messages are

broadcasted to everyone listening to that channel.

IRC client program, such as mIRC, provide a graphical interface for all functions,
including logging onto popular servers and obtaining a list of their active
channels.

Mailing Lists

A mailing list is a discussion group that uses e-mail to communicate. There are
thousands of mailing lists that cover a wide variety of topics.

User has to subscribe to mailing lists that catch his/her interest by adding the email address to the mailing list. The user usually receives a welcome message
to confirm that his/her e-mail address has been added to the mailing list.

If the user no longer wants to receive messages from the mailing list, he/she
can simply unsubscribe from the mailing list at any time. Unsubscribe removes
the e-mail address of the user from the mailing list.

Here how it works.

When a mailing list receives a message, a copy of the

message goes to everyone on the mailing list, through mailboxes. Most mailing
lists let users send and receive messages, and some of them only let users
receive messages.

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Anonymous FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and Telnet

FTP provides a simple way to move files across the Internet by giving user
account and a password for authenticated users.

The term anonymous means that user does not have to have a previously
established user account and password on the system. In other word, a user
may log on as anonymous and use his e-mail address as the password.

Telnet is terminal emulation protocol commonly used on the Internet. It allows

a user to log onto and run a program from a remote terminal or computer.

Telnet was originally developed for ARPAnet and is part of the TCP/IP
communications protocol. As software, telnet is important to display text-only
information. Only primitive graphics can be displayed on a telnet application.
The terms VT100, VT102, VT220, and so on represent different standards for
displaying text on the screen.

Although graphical Internet applications like Netscape and Internet Explorer are
the most popular method of displaying information on the Internet, telnet
software is still necessary.

Most universities (especially libraries) must be

accessed using telnet.

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