Presenting the Internet

Internet
The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that use the Internet
protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link devices worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of
private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by
a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies.

Uses of Internet
Internet has been the most useful technology of the modern times which helps us not only in our
daily lives, but also our personal and professional lives developments. The internet helps us
achieve this in several different ways. For the students and educational purposes the internet is
widely used to gather information so as to do the research or add to the knowledge of various
subjects. Even the business professionals and the professionals like doctors, access the internet to
filter the necessary information for their use. The internet is therefore the largest encyclopedia
for everyone, in all age categories. The internet has served to be more useful in maintaining
contacts with friends and relatives who live abroad permanently.

Advantages of Internet
1. E-mail: Email is now an essential communication tools in business. With e-mail you can
send and receive instant electronic messages, which works like writing letters. Your
messages are delivered instantly to people anywhere in the world, unlike traditional mail
that takes a lot of time. Email is free, fast and very cheap when compared to telephone,
fax and postal services.
2. 24 hours a day - 7 days a week: Internet is available, 24x7 days for usage.
3. Information: Information is probably the biggest advantage internet is offering. There is
a huge amount of information available on the internet for just about every subject,
ranging from government law and services, trade fairs and conferences, market
information, new ideas and technical support. You can almost find any type of data on
almost any kind of subject that you are looking for by using search engines like google,
yahoo, msn, etc.
4. Online Chat: You can access many ‗chat rooms‘ on the web that can be used to meet
new people, make new friends, as well as to stay in touch with old friends. You can chat
in MSN and yahoo websites.
5. Services: Many services are provided on the internet like net banking, job searching,
purchasing tickets, hotel reservations, guidance services on array of topics engulfing
every aspect of life.
6. Communities: Communities of all types have sprung up on the internet. Its a great way
to meet up with people of similar interest and discuss common issues.
7. E-commerce: Along with getting information on the Internet, you can also shop online.
There are many online stores and sites that can be used to look for products as well as

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buy them using your credit card. You do not need to leave your house and can do all your
shopping from the convenience of your home. It has got a real amazing and wide range of
products from household needs, electronics to entertainment.
8. Entertainment: Internet provides facility to access wide range of Audio/Video songs,
plays films. Many of which can be downloaded. One such popular website is YouTube.
9. Software Downloads: You can freely download innumerable, softwares like utilities,
games, music, videos, movies, etc from the Internet.

Limitations of Internet

1. Theft of personal information: Electronic messages sent over the Internet can be easily
snooped and tracked, revealing who is talking to whom and what they are talking about.
If you use the Internet, your personal information such as your name, address, credit card,
bank details and other information can be accessed by unauthorized persons. If you use a
credit card or internet banking for online shopping, then your details can also be ‗stolen‘.
2. Negative effects on family communication: It is generally observed that due to more
time spent on Internet, there is a decrease in communication and feeling of togetherness
among the family members.
3. Internet addiction: There is some controversy over whether it is possible to actually be
addicted to the Internet or not. Some researchers, claim that it is simply people trying to
escape their problems in an online world. Children using the Internet has become a big
concern. Most parents do not realize the dangers involved when their children log onto
the Internet. When children talk to others online, they do not realize they could actually
be talking to a harmful person. Moreover, pornography is also a very serious issue
concerning the Internet, especially when it comes to young children. There are thousands
of pornographic sites on the Internet that can be easily found and can be a detriment to
letting children use the Internet.
4. Virus threat: Today, not only are humans getting viruses, but computers are also.
Computers are mainly getting these viruses from the Internet. Virus is is a program which
disrupts the normal functioning of your computer systems. Computers attached to internet
are more prone to virus attacks and they can end up into crashing your whole hard disk.
5. Spamming: It is often viewed as the act of sending unwanted email. This multiple or vast
emailing is often compared to mass junk mailings. It needlessly obstruct the entire
system. Most spam is commercial advertising, often for dubious products, get-rich-quick
schemes, or quasi-legal services. Spam costs the sender very little to send — most of the
costs are paid for by the recipient or the carriers rather than by the sender.

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Services of Internet:
1) World Wide Web (WWW)

World Wide Web is a way to access the information on the Internet. It‘s like the software
you need to run programs on the hardware of your computer.

Surfing the Web

―Surfing the Web‖ or ―Web Surfing‖ refers to browsing the World Wide Web by going from
website to website in search of something that interests you. Before we talk about how to surf
the web, it may be helpful to explain a few key terms. Take note of how they are spelled and
used.

 Web Browser: You‘ll need to have a web browser installed on your computer.
This is a software program that allows you to view web pages and navigate the
Internet. Microsoft‘s Internet Explorer is probably the most commonly used web
browser. It often comes pre-installed when you purchase a computer that has a
Microsoft Windows operating system. There are other free web browsers
available, including Mozilla‘s very popular Firefox web browser and Apple‘s
Safari. You can have more than one browser installed on your computer.

 Website: A website refers to a group of web pages identified by a single domain.

For example, all of the web pages on the Indian Hills website begin with
www.indianhills.edu.

 Web Page: A web page is a single page of information on the World Wide Web.

 Homepage: A homepage is the first or front page of a website. If you were to

type ―www.indianhills.edu‖ into your web browser, the first web page that came
up would be the website‘s homepage. For example: The Indian Hills website
contains many web pages, including the homepage.

 URL: A URL or ―Uniform Resource Locator‖ is the unique address of each web
page. URLs look like this:

type://address/path

In a URL, type specifies the type of server in which the file is located, address is
the address of the server, and path is the location within the file structure of the
server. The path includes the list of folders where the desired file is located.
Every single document on the WWW has its own unique URL.

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For example, the URL for the Indian Hills Bookstore is:
http://www.indianhills.edu/bookstore/index.html . Each URL has several parts
that appear in a specific order.

Let‘s look at each part by using the URL for the Indian Hills Bookstore as an
example: http://www.indianhills.edu/bookstore/index.html

 Protocol: A protocol is a set of rules, used to retrieve a specific

document. The ―http‖ in our URL refers to HyperText Transfer
Protocol. HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) is the set of rules for
transferring files, such as text, graphic images, sound, video, and other
multimedia files, on the World Wide Web. The ―http‖ is followed by a
colon and two forward slashes, then ―www,‖ which refers to the World
Wide Web.

 Domain Name: The domain name consists of two parts. In our

example, ―indianhills.edu‖ is the domain name. where, ―indianhills‖ is
the host and ―.edu‖ is the top-level domain. This suffix indicates the
type of organization to which the host belongs. As you can probably
guess, ―.edu‖ indicates that the host, ―indianhills,‖ is an educational
institution.

 Common Top-Level Domains

 .com Commercial or business websites, however anyone may
use this now
 .gov Government websites
 .mil Military websites
 .org Organizational websites (often non-profit organizations)

 Directory/Page: The next part of the URL tells the web browser where to
find the specific web page on the website. In our example, the
―/bookstore/‖ tells us that the web page we are looking for lives in the
directory/folder entitled ―bookstore.‖ The next part, ―index.html,‖ is the
name of the actual web page. The ―.html‖ refers to the programming
language used to create the page (in this case, HyperText Markup
Language or HTML).

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Knowing the URL of a web page is the fastest way to find the page you want to visit. Just
type the URL into the address bar of your web browser, hit the Enter key, and you‘re off to
that web page. However, if you don‘t know the URL, there are two other popular tools that
can help you find the information you need.

 Search Engine: A Search Engine is a website that searches the World Wide
Web for specific keywords, which you enter into a search field. The search
engine then displays a list of web pages that are somehow related to then
keywords you entered. You can then click the links to any of these web pages
that interest you. Search results are not perfect. You may be looking for a
specific website that does not appear right away. Most search engines have
advanced options that allow you to narrow your search. For example, you may
want to find information about jaguars (the animal not the automobile). If so, you
could use the advanced features of your chosen search engine to exclude search
results that include the words ―car‖ and ―automobile.‖ Each search engine does
this differently. So, you will have to explore the website of your selected search
engine for more.

Google (www.google.com) and Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) are two popular search engines.

 Subject Directory: A Subject Directory is a listing of websites organized by

topic. As mentioned earlier, not every web page that comes up in your search
results may have the most relevant or the most reliable information related to
your topic. Subject directories are usually more selective in what they include
than are search engines. To use a subject directory, select a main subject from the
directory, which then displays subdirectories or folders. Continue to drill down,
narrowing your topic, until you find a web page that interests you. Some search
engines include subject directories in their list of features and some academic
and professional websites include subject directories related to their specific
areas of interest.

In summary, there are three basic ways to begin to surf the web:

i. Enter the URL of a website you want to visit

ii. Use a Search Engine
iii. Find your topic in a Subject Directory

2) E-Mail
Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between
people using electronic devices. Email operates across computer networks, which today
is primarily the Internet. Some early email systems required the author and the recipient
to both be online at the same time, in common with instant messaging. Today's email

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systems are based on a store-and-forward model. Email servers accept, forward, deliver,
and store messages. Neither the users nor their computers are required to be online
simultaneously; they need to connect only briefly, typically to a mail server or a webmail
interface for as long as it takes to send or receive messages.

Here’s a basic explanation of how email works:

i. The sender composes a message using the email client on their computer.
ii. When the user sends the message, the email text and attachments are uploaded to
the SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) server as outgoing mail.
iii. All outgoing messages wait in the outgoing mail queue while the SMTP server
communicates with the DNS (Domain Name Server–like a phone book for domain
names and server IP addresses) to find out where the recipient‘s email server is
located. If the SMTP server finds the recipient‘s email server, it will transfer the
message and attachments. If the recipient‘s server can‘t be found, the sender will
get a ―Mail Failure‖ notification in their inbox.
iv. The next time the recipient clicks ―Send & Receive,‖ their email client will
download all new messages from their own email server. You‘ve got mail!

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3) Blogs
A blog (short for ―web log‖) is a public journal posted on the Internet. The word blog can
be used as both a noun and a verb. You may have a personal blog or you may blog about
your career field. People blog about a wide variety of topics. If you have a hobby or topic
which you enjoy, you can probably find any number of blogs related to the subject. One
distinguishing characteristic of blogs is that they usually allow readers to post comments
responding to the original blogger‘s post. In this way, large interactive communities can
develop around popular blogs.

4) Wiki
Wikipedia is a multilingual online encyclopedia, based on open collaboration through a
wiki-based content editing system. It is the largest and most popular general reference
work on the World Wide Web and is one of the most popular websites ranked by Alexa
as of June 2019. It features exclusively free content and no commercial ads, and is owned
and supported by the Wikimedia Foundation, a non-profit organization funded primarily
through donations.

5) RSS
RSS (originally RDF Site Summary; later, two competing approaches emerged, which
used the backronyms Rich Site Summary and Really Simple Syndication respectively)
is a type of web feed which allows users and applications to access updates to websites in
a standardized, computer-readable format. These feeds can, for example, allow a user to
keep track of many different websites in a single news aggregator. The news aggregator
will automatically check the RSS feed for new content, allowing the content to be
automatically passed from website to website or from website to user. This passing of
content is called web syndication. Websites usually use RSS feeds to publish frequently
updated information, such as blog entries, news headlines, or episodes of audio and video
series. RSS is also used to distribute podcasts. An RSS document (called "feed", "web
feed" or "channel") includes full or summarized text, and metadata, like publishing date
and author's name.

A standard XML (eXtensible Markup Language) file format ensures compatibility with
many different machines/programs. RSS feeds also benefit users who want to receive
timely updates from favourite websites or to aggregate data from many sites.

Subscribing to a website RSS removes the need for the user to manually check the
website for new content. Instead, their browser constantly monitors the site and informs
the user of any updates. The browser can also be commanded to automatically download
the new data for the user.

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RSS feed data is presented to users using software called a news aggregator. This
aggregator can be built into a website, installed on a desktop computer, or installed on a
mobile device. Users subscribe to feeds either by entering a feed's URI into the reader or
by clicking on the browser's feed icon. The RSS reader checks the user's feeds regularly
for new information and can automatically download it, if that function is enabled. The
reader also provides a user interface.

6) Podcasting
Podcasts are audio or video recordings available for download from the Internet. TV
shows, newscasts, and instructor lectures are some examples of content that can be
delivered via a podcast. While some audio and video recordings are streamed over the
Internet, meaning you watch them in your web browser, podcasts are different in that
they are downloaded for offline listening or viewing. Podcasts can also be subscribed to
via RSS feeds. An RSS feed allows your computer to automatically download a new
podcast whenever it is created, without your having to visit its website directly.

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