INTERNET
The Internet: A vast source of knowledge on absolutely anything in existence.
The Net is extremely useful and if you know how to use it properly it can help you find out about whatever you want.
What is the net? Getting Online 
Emailing Problems Web/PC jargon
What is the net?
The Internet started out as two Universities wanting to share electronic information with each other. They decided to link the two Universities computers with wires and software to achieve this.
More universities joined in and then other people joined in and before long there were hundreds of computers all connected to one-another.
A network is the term used to describe a number of computers connected together. The Internet is, therefore, the largest computer network in the world.
The Internet needs more than wires and satellites to work. As computers come in all shapes, sizes and makes and all operate differently, software needs to be implemented between them to convert data and commands into a language they understand. This software is called a Gateway.
The Internet sends and retrieves data from many computers around the world. It achieves this by splitting the data into packets. These are small blocks of data, each stating how they should be ordered, where they come from and where they are going. Each packet is sent on the quickest or most available route to its destination and the packets are reassembled there.
Servers are large computers that store information and connect other computers to the Internet. These servers are what store the Web pages that you see online and when you ask to see a page a request is sent to the appropriate server and it sends back a copy of the page you wish to see.
For more on the history of the Internet check this out.
How do I get online?
Well, seen as you are viewing this web page you are online! However, you may be at work or on a friends PC so here is what you need to do to get yourself online at home
1. The hardware
First things first, to get on the net you are going to need:
- A computer, the newer the better
- A modem (or router with built in modem). This is normally supplied to you by your ISP
- A telephone line
2. The software
To get on the net you will need a browser. All the latest versions of Windows© come with Internet Explorer© built in so you've no need to worry. If you dont have one click the IE© link above or click the following link for Mozilla Firefox©.
3. The ISP
You need an Internet Service Provider to get online.
There are a lot of them out there like NTL© and Pipex© to name only two.
Emails
"How do I get my own email address?"Before you can start sending emails to people you need to have your own email address so that people can reply to you.
You can get an email address in two main ways:
- 1: When you first get connected to the Internet at home and you register with an Internet Service Provider they will most likely provide you with a number of email address for you and your family/business to use. In this case, simply follow the instructions to give each of your addresses a name (e.g. your real name or a nickname, note email addresses have to be unique so you may not be able to use the one you want to if someone else has it!)
Once your addresses have been created (the names you have given plus the '@' sign followed by the ISPs address, e.g. user3000@freeserve.co.uk) you can use them via some email software on your machine. This is most likely to be Microsoft Outlook© on if you are using Windows©. - 2: If you dont have the Internet at home or just want to use another email there are plenty of online companies who will gladly provide you with free email addresses (because they get paid by advertisers!), such as Yahoo, Hotmail and others (as you may have noticed, I use Yahoo for my email but they're all as good).
Simply go to one of these companies pages, find the 'Register' or 'Sign up' link and follow the instructions, again creating a name for yourself, and submit the details. Your account will be created and you will now be able to login with your new username and send and recieve emails.
"How do I send an email?"
Once you have your own email address you are now ready to send one to a friend. Firstly, you will need to know they're address. You can just ask them for this! As before, it will be in the form username@somecompany.com/.co.uk/.ie/.net, etc.
Next, login to your email and find the 'Compose', 'Create mail' or 'New message' link. This will present you with a screen with various fields (text areas) for you to fill in, namely:
- TO - This is where you put the email address of the person you want to send a message to.
- CC - Carbon Copy. Sends exactly the same email but it implies to the receiver that they aren the main recipient. You probably wont need to worry about this.
- BCC - Blind Carbon Copy. These people will receive the email but there address won be shown anywhere so none of the other reciepients will know about it. You probably won't need this either.
- Subject - This is a short sentance describing the contents of the email and can be seen by the recipient next to the senders name (you!) before they open the message.
- Message - This will be the large field and may not be labelled. This is where you can type out your message, the same way you would type a normal document on your computer.
"How do I read emails sent to me?"
Once you have logged in to your email account or opened up your email software you can click the 'Inbox' link to check your new mail.
The name of the person who sent you the message, the subject and the date recieved will be displayed. To read a message just click on the subject and it will open up.
"How do I reply to an email someone has sent me?"
After you have opened a message from someone to read it, simply find and click the 'Reply' link. This will take you to a create-message screen, only now the TO field is already filled and the original message that was sent to you will already be in the message field. Now just add your message on top of it and click 'Send'.
"How do I send an email I've recieved on to other people?"
After you've opened the email, find and click the 'Forward' link. You will be taken to a create-message screen with the original email in the message field. Add the names of the people you want to forward the email on to (seperated by commas ', ') and click 'Send'.
"How do delete my emails?"
Emails dont take up much space but if you store up enough of them you'll find you cant hold any more.
To delete emails, select them (by clicking on them once) and either press the 'Delete' key on your keyboard or find and click the 'Delete' (or red X) link.
Problems connecting / viewing web pages
"Why is my internet connection going slowly? / Why am I getting 'Page cannot be displayed'?"If you find that your internet connection starts going very slowly or that you cant view any websites or maybe you cant get online at all then you may be infected with a virus and/or spyware
"What are viruses?"From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_virus:
"[A] computer virus is a self-replicating computer program that spreads by inserting copies of itself into other executable code or documents"
Basically its malicious software that infects your computer and tries to do it harm
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware:
"spyware is a type of program that watches what users do with their computer and then sends that information over the internet"
This generally does less physical harm to your computer but can still cause problems
There are several vital pieces of software that anyone who acesses the Internet should have:
Anti-virus, Anti-spyware, firewall
Anti-virus software looks for known viruses on your machine and removes them. You need to download one, manually run it often and keep it updated as more and more viruses are created.
One particular Anit-virus program you can try is called AVG© and can be downloaded via this link: Download AVG© anti-virus
Download it, install it, run it and make sure you keep it up to date
For more info on this go to www.grisoft.com
Anti-spyware software works in a similar way to anti-virus but, obviously, deals with any spyware on your machine.
A good free anti-spyware tool is Spybot: Search & Destroy© which can be downloaded via this link: Download Spybot© anti-spyware
As with anti-virus, download it, install it, make sure you run it often and keep it updated.
More info on this can be found at www.safer-networking.org
Viruses and spyware get onto your machine without you knowing it. This is due to the unfortunately inherent lack of security on the Internet. A firewall acts as a barrier between your computer and the Internet to help prevent unwanted data transfer in both directions. If you dont have a firewall yet you definately need one.
A well known and used free firewall is Zonealarm© which can be downloaded via this link: Download Zonealarm© firewall
Again, download & install. This will always run in the background. At first it may seem annoying as it continually asks you whether you want a certain program to have access to the Internet but it remembers the choices you make. The golden rule is if you dont know what it is dont let it have access.
More info can be found at www.zonealarm.com
Another thing worth mentioning is that most people who create viruses and spyware target the Internet Explorer© web browser as
a) The majority of people use it and
b) It has a serious lack of security
Because of this I would seriously recommend you use Mozilla Firefox© instead. It looks and behaves very much like Internet Explorer© but is much more secure and has some cool features like tabbed browsing (being able to have several web pages open at once in the same window).
I have been using Firefox© for quite some time and have even used my firewall to completely block IE© from accessing the Internet to help stop any more spyware getting through.
Firefox© is available for free and can be downloaded via this link: Download Mozilla Firefox© web browser
For more info on this go to www.mozilla.com/firefox
Web/PC Jargon
Confused by all the PC related words you are seeing? Want some clarification? Here is a list of a lot of commonly used terms on the web and in general PC discussion. Some of them it will be helpful for you to know, others less so, but it'll ease your curiosity all the same. The ones of no real importance to beginners have been written in italics to help you.
URL: Uniform Resource Locator - This is simply the address of a website. It always starts with 'http://', usually (but not always) followed by 'www.' and typically ends with '.com' or '.co.uk', etc.
HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol - The type of protocol needed to decipher a HTML web page.
HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language - The computer language that web pages are written in. The coding of HTML involves tags that are placed before text and graphics to make them do certain things (change colour, etc).
FTP: File Transfer Protocol - The type of protocol needed for the transferring of files on the net.
ISP: Internet Service Provider - The company that allows you access to the internet through your PC and phone lines, such as AOL© (America OnLine) and Freeserve©.
Browser: The peice of software that allows you to view the web on your screen such as Internet Explorer© and Mozilla Firefox©.
Links: Links (short for Hyperlink) are the things you click to move from page to page. Usually underlined-text but can also be images.
Frames: Frames seperate an Internet window into sections with each section containing a different web page.
Cookies: Little files stored on your computer that keep track of websites you have been to. They store information like passwords and usernames so you dont have to re-enter them everytime you need to. They are encrypted for security.
JavaScript: A simplistic programming language used on websites to make them more dynamic, e.g. making things on the screen change colour or move around or to make messages pop up.
Encryption: The process of changing a files contents in a certain way so that only the intended user can access it properly.
Smilies: Now commonplace due to text messaging, smilies started out on the net. Smilies are a series of characters that, when you tilt your head (usually left) they look like faces. E.g. :-) is a smiley face where the colon is the eyes, the dash is the nose and the close-bracket is the smile.
Broadband: This is a type of very fast Internet connection. It is most commonly available in ADSL and cable formats
ADSL: Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line. A method of receiving broadband down a phoneline. Utilises frequencies not used by voice data.
Cable internet: A method of receiving broadband over a cable television connection.
LAN: Local Area Network - A network of computers linked up over a small area, e.g. a school or an office.
WAN: Wide Area Network - A network of computers linked up over a larger area, e.g. accross seas.
WLAN: Wireless Local Area Network - A small network connected without any wires.
Modem: MOdulation-DEModulation. The simplest description of this is a device that acts as a translator between a computer and a telephone line.
Router: As it's name suggests this is a device that routes information around a network. Often routers also contain a modem.
Hardware: Any physical component of a computer that you can touch like a monitor, keyboard, printer, etc.
Software: Any non-physical program that runs on the CPU like the Operating System or a web browser.
Firmware: Software that lives on a hardware device other than the computer itself.
Peripheral: Any hardware that is plugged into the main computer like a keyboard or mouse.
CPU: Central Processing Unit - The big, square thing that makes all the noise. It contains the computers processor, hard disk (ordinarily), sound and graphics cards, etc.
Gb, Mb, kb: Gigabyte, Megabyte, Kilobyte - Measurements of computer memory. 1 byte = 8bits (Binary digITS, 0 or 1).
kbps: Kilobytes per second - A measure of connection speed. The amount of kilobytes that can be sent or revieved through the modem in one second.
Driver: A peice of software used by the CPU to communicate with a hardware device like a printer, scanner, etc.
VDU: Visual Display Unit - This is a computers monitor
LCD: Liquid Crystal Display - This is the display on a laptop and other flat screens
TFT: Thin Film Transistor - Very simialr to LCD
OS: Operating System - This is the software that looks after the running of your machine, e.g. Windows© or Linux.
RPM: Revolutions Per Minute - A measure of the rotational speed of (in computing) a disk.
Pixel: The image on your computer screen is actually made up of thousands of little dots called pixels. Each pixel can be one colour and all these different colours together make up the picture.
Resolution: The amount of pixels making up your screen. Given in measurements such as '800x600', meaning '800pixels by 600pixels'. The more pixels you have, the clearer the picture but the smaller the image.
Serial: Data in a computer can travel down a single wire or be split and travel down many. Serial data transmission means the data is going single-file, one bit after another down the line
Parallel: When data split up and its parts are transmitted simultaneously down seperate wires. Only suitable for short distances as data can become unordered.
USB: Universal Serial Bus - A type of connection between peripherals and the CPU. A CPU will typically have 2 or 3 sockets in which to connect USB compliant peripherals.
Firewire: Very simialr to USB but faster