Read about the History of the Internet
We are in an information age. Now more than ever, moving vast amounts of information quickly across great distances is one of our most pressing needs. From small one-person entrepreneurial efforts, to the largest of corporations, to educational institutions, more and more people are discovering that technology is advancing at a break-neck pace --- and they must somehow keep up. Likewise, researchers from all corners of the earth are finding that their work thrives in a networked environment. Immediate access to the work of colleagues and a "virtual" library of millions of volumes and thousands of papers affords them the ability to use a large body of knowledge. Work groups can now conduct interactive conferences with each other, paying no heed to physical location---the possibilities are endless.You have at your fingertips the ability to talk in "real-time'' with someone in Japan, send a 2,000-word short story to a group of people who will critique it for the sheer pleasure of doing so, see if a computer sitting in a lab in Canada is turned on, and find out if someone happens to be sitting in front of their computer (logged on) in Australia, all inside of thirty minutes. No airline could ever match that travel itinerary. The largest problem people face when first using a network is grasping all that's available. Even seasoned users find themselves surprised when they discover a new service or feature that they'd never known even existed. Once acquainted with the terminology and sufficiently comfortable with making occasional mistakes, the learning process will drastically speed up.
Key Questions and Answers:
In a simple sense, the Internet is simply millions of computers (actually networks of computers) linked to one another. The Internet means literally, a network of networks. It is a collection of computers linked by software and transmission lines. If your computer is linked to the Internet, you can retrieve information from computers throughout the world. The Internet is an amazing story of worldwide collaboration that has benefited students, universities and colleges, the medical communities, businesses, organizations, clubs, libraries, and individuals.
Often when we think about the Internet, we think of the World Wide Web (WWW), the ability to view web pages that include text, graphics, sound, and video. Yet the Internet is much more than the WWW and many of the uses of the Internet predate the WWW. One of the most popular uses of the Internet is email, but the Internet is also used for File Transfer Protocol (FTP), Telnet, Usenet Newsgroups, and Gopher, among others.
The Internet is a rapidly evolving collection of networked networks which may, some day, allow everyone access to digital information and communication world-wide. It does not do so yet because many people around the world lack the equipment and ability to access networks. Yet things are improving daily. A few short years ago it was thought that men would always significantly outnumber women on the Internet, but recent statistics suggest that the numbers are equalizing fast in North America: an estimated 48% of Internet users are women.
The positive side: The Internet has the ability to shrink the world and bring information (even knowledge) on almost any subject imaginable directly to an individual. Some claim that the Internet is the most significant achievement in the history of humankind and that it will change civilization permanently. "What happens when millions of people gather in a safe place to talk and share?" (Harley Hahn, The Internet Complete Reference, Second Edition, 1996)
The negative side: The Internet may be creating a rift within the human family. Increasingly there will be two kinds of people: those who understand the Internet and have access to it, and those who do not. How can we deal with this potential problem?
How much detailed, technical information must one have to use
the Internet? Hint: The Internet is easy to use but it is not easy to use well.
To maximize the benefit of Internet access, we must dedicate ourselves to learning
at least the basic skills and concepts involved.
Here's a brief diagram to help illustrate how the Internet works.
Click on any individual area for a more in-depth description.
The history of the Internet begins in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Computers were large, heavy and very expensive and used many different operating systems. Because of these features and the limited access many people had to travel far to use computers and often time was limited. Thus scientists wanted to find a way to network computers and ease access as well as create a scholarly network. J.C.R. Licklider was one of the early pioneers of the Internet. In 1960 he wrote the seminal paper, "Man-Computer Symbiosis," that inspired many working on the networking of computers. From 1957 to 1963, Licklider worked for Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN), the company that would successfully bid to build the first Internet. In 1962, Licklider was recruited by the Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and was a critical force behind the development of ARPANET. In a 1968 essay entitled "The Computer as Communication Device," Licklider argued that "in a few years, men will be able to communicate more effectively through a machine than face to face."
Created in in 1969, ARPANET linked four mainframe computers at Stanford Research Institute, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the University of Utah. The network was designed to be like a distributed web with several nodes that branched off rather than one central communication center. This design was developed almost simultaneously by three researchers who all had knowledge of each other's work: Leonard Klienrock of MIT, Paul Baran of Rand Corporation and Donald Davies of the British Particle Physics Laboratory. The design was based on the technology of packet switching. This technology meant that instead of having each computer connected with every other computer moving data between them in a steady flow, packets of information were sent. Data was broken into chunks or packets and the packets were sent on a number of lines to reach the final destination. This allows a number of users to be using the same line at the same time. By June 1970, MIT, Harvard, BBN, and Systems Development Corp (SDC) in Santa Monica, California, were added. By January 1971, Stanford, MIT's Lincoln Labs, Carnegie-Mellon, and Case-Western Reserve U were added. In months to come, NASA/Ames, Mitre, Burroughs, RAND, and the U of Illinois plugged in. After that, there were far too many to keep listing here. For a few of the companies involved, the Internet was designed in part to provide a communications network that would work even if some of the sites were destroyed by nuclear attack. If the most direct route was not available, routers would direct traffic around the network via alternate routes (however, most of the researches were more interested in connecting computers).
The early Internet was used by computer experts, engineers, and scientists. There was nothing friendly about it. There were no home or office personal computers in those days, and anyone who used it, whether a computer professional or an engineer or scientist, had to learn to use a very complex system. The Internet matured in the 70s as a result of the TCP/IP architecture first proposed by Bob Kahn at BBN and further developed by Kahn and Vint Cerf at Stanford and others throughout the 70s. It was adopted by the Defense Department in 1980 and universally adopted by 1983. Ethernet, a protocol for many local networks, appeared in 1974, an outgrowth of Harvard student Bob Metcalfe's dissertation on "Packet Networks." The dissertation was initially rejected for not being analytical enough. It later won acceptance when he added some more equations to it. The Unix to UNIX Copy Protocol (UUCP) was invented in 1978 at Bell Labs. Usenet was started in 1979 based on UUCP. Newsgroups, which are discussion groups focusing on a topic, provided a means for exchanging information throughout the world . While Usenet is not considered as part of the Internet, since it does not share the use of TCP/IP, it linked UNIX systems around the world, and many Internet sites took advantage of the availability of newsgroups. It was a significant part of the community building that took place on the networks. Similarly, BITNET (Because It's Time Network) connected IBM mainframes around the educational community and the world to provide mail services beginning in 1981. Listserv software was developed for this network and later others. Listservs provided a way to do mass emailing to groups of users. Gateways were developed to connect BITNET with the Internet and allowed exchange of email, particularly for email discussion lists. These listservs and other forms of email discussion lists formed another major element in the community building that was taking place.
In 1986, the National Science Foundation funded NSFNET as a cross country 56 Kbps backbone for the Internet. They maintained their sponsorship for nearly a decade, setting rules for its non-commercial government and research uses. As the commands for email, FTP, and telnet were standardized, it became easier for non-technical people to learn to use the nets. It was not easy by today's standards by any means, but it did open use of the Internet to many more people in universities. Other departments besides the computer, physics, and engineering departments found ways to make good use of the nets--to communicate with colleagues around the world and to share files and resources. Libraries, which had been automating their catalogs went a step further and made their automated catalogs available to the world.
While the number of sites on the Internet was small, it was fairly easy to keep track of the resources that were available. But as more and more universities and organizations connected, the Internet became harder and harder to track. There was more and more need for tools to index the resources that were available.
The first effort to index the Internet was created in 1989, as Peter Deutsch and his crew at McGill University in Montreal, created an archiver for ftp sites, which they named Archie. This software would periodically reach out to all known openly available ftp sites, list their files, and build a searchable index of the software. The commands to search Archie were UNIX commands, and it took some knowledge of UNIX to use it to its full capability. McGill University, which hosted the first Archie, found out one day that half the Internet traffic going into Canada from the United States was accessing Archie. Administrators were concerned that the University was subsidizing such a volume of traffic, and closed down Archie to outside access. Fortunately, by that time, there were many more Archies available.
At about the same time, Brewster Kahle, then at Thinking Machines Corporation, developed his Wide Area Information Server (WAIS), which would index the full text of files in a database and allow searches of the files. There were several versions with varying degrees of complexity and capability developed, but the simplest of these were made available to everyone on the nets. At its peak, Thinking Machines maintained pointers to over 600 databases around the world which had been indexed by WAIS. They included such things as the full set of Usenet Frequently Asked Questions files, the full documentation of working papers by those developing the Internet's standards, and much more. Like Archie, its interface was far from intuitive, and it took some effort to learn to use it well.
In 1991, the first friendly interface to the Internet was developed at the University of Minnesota. The University wanted to develop a simple menu system to access files and information on campus through their local network. A debate followed between mainframe adherents and those who believed in smaller systems with client-server architecture. The mainframe adherents "won" the debate initially, but since the client-server advocates said they could put up a prototype very quickly, they were given the go-ahead to do a demonstration system. The demonstration system was called a gopher after the University of Minnesota mascot--the golden gopher. Gopher proved to be very prolific, and within a few years there were over 10,000 gophers around the world. It takes no knowledge of UNIX or computer architecture to use. In a gopher system, a user would type or click on a number to select the menu selection he/she wanted. You can use the U of Minnesota gopher today to pick gophers from all over the World
Gopher's usability was enhanced much more when the University of Nevada at Reno developed the VERONICA searchable index of gopher menus. It was purported to be an acronym for Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Netwide Index to Computerized Archives. A spider crawled gopher menus around the world, collecting links and retrieving them for the index. It was so popular that it was very hard to connect to, even though a number of other VERONICA sites were developed to ease the load. Similar indexing software was developed for single sites, called JUGHEAD (Jonzy's Universal Gopher Hierarchy Excavation And Display). Peter Deutsch, who developed Archie, always insisted that Archie was short for Archiver, and had nothing to do with the comic strip. He was disgusted when VERONICA and JUGHEAD appeared.
In 1989 another significant event took place in making the nets easier to use. Tim Berners-Lee and others at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, more popularly known as CERN, proposed a new protocol for information distribution. This protocol, which became the World Wide Web in 1991, was based on hypertext--a system of embedding links in text to link to other texts. The text pages of the Internet are called lexias. Although started before gopher, it was slower to develop. The development in 1993 of the graphical browser Mosaic by Marc Andreessen and his team at the National Center For Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) gave the protocol its big boost. Later, Andreessen moved to become the brains behind Netscape, which produced the most successful graphical browser and server until Microsoft declared war and developed its MicroSoft Internet Explorer. A browser is an application that allows users to "browse" the Internet by downloading web pages onto their computers. A browser is used by a client (you) to access the web pages on the Internet. A server (a regular computer but often faster and with larger memory and storage capacities) "serves" the pages to clients. The web pages are stored on the hard drive of the server and through the use of server software it is able to do its work.
Since the Internet was initially funded by the government, it was originally limited to research, education, and government uses. Commercial uses were prohibited unless they directly served the goals of research and education. This policy continued until the early 1990s, when independent commercial networks began to grow. It then became possible to route traffic across the country from one commercial site to another without passing through the government funded NSFNET Internet backbone. Delphi was the first national commercial online service to offer Internet access to its subscribers. It opened up an email connection in July 1992 and full Internet service in November 1992. All pretenses of limitations on commercial use disappeared in May 1995 when the National Science Foundation ended its sponsorship of the Internet backbone, and all traffic relied on commercial networks. AOL, Prodigy, and CompuServe came online. Since commercial usage was so widespread by this time and educational institutions had been paying their own way for some time, the loss of NSF funding did not change costs.
Today, NSF funding has moved beyond supporting the backbone and higher educational institutions to building the K-12 and local public library accesses, on the one hand, and the research on the massive high volume connections, on the other hand. Microsoft's full scale entry into the browser, server, and Internet Service Provider market completed the major shift over to a commercially based Internet. The release of Windows 98 in June 1998 with the Microsoft browser well integrated into the desktop shows Bill Gates' determination to capitalize on the enormous growth of the Internet. Microsoft's success over the past few years has brought court challenges to their dominance.
A current trend with major implications for the future is the growth of high speed connections. 56K modems and the providers who support them are spreading widely, but this is just a small step compared to what will follow. 56K is not fast enough to carry multimedia, such as sound and video except in low quality. But new technologies many times faster, such as cable modems, digital subscriber lines (DSL), and satellite broadcast are available in limited locations now, and will become widely available in the next few years. These technologies present problems, not just in the user's connection, but in maintaining high speed data flow reliably from source to the user. Those problems are being worked on, too.
By 1989, 100,000 computers were linked to the Internet, but this would soon be dwarfed by the explosive growth of the 1990s. Today, there is really no accurate count of the number of individual machines connected to Internet. Recent figures place the number Internet users worldwide at 150 million. It is estimated that by the year 2000, 327 million people around the world will have Internet access. The top 15 countries will account for nearly 82% of the these worldwide Internet users (including business, educational, and home Internet users). By the year 2000, there will be 25 countries where over 10% of the population will be Internet users.
1957: USSR launches Sputnik, the first satellite. In response, the U.S. forms the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) within the Department of Defense to establish a US lead in science and technology.
1962: The first theoretical paper is published by a US scientist dealing with the creation of a communications network using a revolutionary new computer networking technology. This leads to the first discussion of an "Inter-networking" of computers connecting the nation's research centers and colleges.
1969: ARPANET is commissioned by the Defense Department to begin research into computer networking. Later that year, the first portions of the experimental system go online at UCLA, Stanford Research Institute, the University of Utah, and the University of California at Santa Barbara.
1971: 23 computers are now connected to the early Internet, and can exchange information between each other in experimental ways.
1972: The first email program is created to send messages across the network. Thus, email holds the title as being the first official Internet communications tool.
1973: First international connections to the ARPANET go online in Norway and England.
1979: Usenet newsgroups established between Duke and the University of North Carolina.
1982: The Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is approved as the communication standard for ARPANET. This leads to the first definition of an "Internet" as a connected set of networks using the protocol, which remains in use today.
1983: Desktop computers become widely available to the public at somewhat affordable prices.
1984: Number of computers on the ARPANET breaks 1,000.
1986: The National Science Foundation creates a new part of the ARPANET which allows for nongovernment online traffic (NSFNet). Later that year, the first nongovernment citizens begin to hook up to the ARPANET.
1987: Number of computers on ARPANET breaks 10,000.
1988: First K-12 schools in the United States connect to the system, mostly to utilize its email capabilities.
1989: Number of computers on ARPANET breaks 100,000. First email relay begins between a commercial online service (CompuServe) and the ARPANET goes live.
1990: ARPANET ceases to exist. The network is now officially referred to as the Internet.
1992: The World Wide Web is created by a research facility in Switzerland. Number of computers on the Internet breaks 1,000,000. First audio multicast (March) and video multicast (November).
1993: US White House comes online just after the National Information Infrastructure (NII) Act is passed. Stephen King is the first author to publish a short story via the Internet (September). Businesses and media start to take an interest in the Internet as the number of users climbs above 10 million. The World Wide Web grows at a 300,000 percent annual growth rate of service traffic.
1994: US Senate and House bring information servers online. First flower shop (Grant's Florist in the US) begins taking orders via the Internet. Shopping malls, advertising, and mass marketing find their way online. Total number of computers hooked to the Internet: 2,864,000. Number of countries reachable by email: 140. Total Internet users by the end of the year: 14 million.
1996: The controversial US Communications Decency Act becomes law in the US in order to prohibit distribution of indecent materials over the Net. A few months later a three-judge panel imposes an injunction against its enforcement.
1997: US Supreme Court declares Communications Decency Act unconstitutional and unenforceable.
1998: Compaq, Intel, and Microsoft team up with
major local phone service providers GTE and four of Bell companies (all except
Bell Atlantic) to develop technology that would improve Internet access to a
speed of 1.5 million bits a second.
Further information about the World Wide Web is available
at these sites:
The Internet is a massive, cooperative enterprise run by lots of people -- and nobody. It has no president, no CEO, no single authority figure. The lack of a strict, centralized focus of power means that the Internet can be described as a free-spirited, creative environment, as well as the ultimate in disorganization and chaos.
The Internet Society
So far, the ultimate source of guidance for
the Internet rests with a voluntary membership organization - the Internet
Society. The Internet Society is a nongovernmental, International
organization for global cooperation and coordination for the Internet and its
internetworking technologies and applications. The Society is governed by its
Board Of Trustees elected by its membership around the world.
In turn, the Internet Society recruits volunteers to the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). The InterNIC is a cooperative activity between the National Science Foundation, AT&T, and Network Solutions, Inc. It is a good source for information and the latest news regarding the Internet. As of this writing, it is also responsible for overseeing the domain name system (but this important task will soon be handled by another group).
Internet accesses and interfaces vary greatly. How you connect will depend upon your particular situation (i.e., do you work at a university or a large business, or are you an individual wishing to connect from home?). While there are many paths to the Internet, currently there are two basic types of connection: dial-up access (via a modem and telephone line) or a "hard wired" direct connection. To use the Internet you will need: a computer; client program(s) running on your computer; and a way to connect your computer to the Net (communications software and a link to a host computer that is tied to the Internet backbone).
Internet Access via telephone: Dial-up to a local network
What you need:
Example: John attaches a modem to his computer and installs
some communication software (so that the modem will dial-up and connect his
computer to another computer on the Internet). John may subscribe to an Internet
Service Provider (ISP) that will provide his link to the Internet. He may also
run TCP/IP software on his computer so that he has full Internet access (a graphical
user interface) with a PPP (point to point protocol) connection.
Internet Access via Direct connection ("hard-wired")
What you need:
Example: A university has set up a local area network (LAN) on its campus, linking all of its computers with an Ethernet system. This LAN gets access to the Internet by making a connection via a leased phone line to a regional network (which has a gateway to the Internet). A student or staff person who has access to the university local area network then has 24-hour access to the Internet.
The World Wide Web (variously referred to as "the Web", WWW, or W3) is a part of the Internet that allows users to traverse systems of linked documents simply by clicking on highlighted items. Increasingly, the WWW is becoming the unifying interface of the Internet because of its ease of use, its graphical interface, and its comprehensive coverage of an amazing range of Internet resources. WWW is based on the concept of hypertext data that links to other data.
Hypertext is the non-linear presentation of text (vs. the more traditional linear approach of the hard-copy print world). Hypertext allows one to jump back and forth between ideas and related resources. Hypertext documents have words that are underlined (and often appearing in a different color or font). Clicking on one of these "links" will move you to another text document (not necessarily on the same machine as the original document), or to a graphic, sound, or full-motion video clip. Like hypertext, hypermedia refers to the nonlinear presentation of a wide range of other media such as graphics and sound.
All Web pages are written in a language called HTML -- Hypertext Markup Language. HTML is also described as a "document page description" and is simply ordinary ASCII (plain text) with embedded codes (called "tags"). These tags give the instructions on how the text is to be displayed by the browser. We will explore HTML in greater detail in later cybermodules.
All Web documents are written in HTML. HTML tags describe the content or structure of a Web document. It is simply a method of marking a document in such a way that Web browser software will display it properly. While HTML seems like a simple language, it is a powerful means of creating your own interactive hypermedia presence on the Internet. An HTML tag is a specific word or abbreviation enclosed between a "lesser than" symbol < and a "greater than" symbol > . Often an HTML tag is actually a pair of tags - the starting tag (a word) and the end tag (the same word preceded by a slash / ). The pair of tags effects everything between them. For example, you will enclose your entire home page between a beginning tag <HTML> and a closing tag </HTML>. [See "A Beginner's Guide to HTML" for a complete list of tags.]
Versions of HTML
HTML was first developed at CERN (European Particle Physics Laboratory) in 1989. There are several versions of HTML in use right now: HTML 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.2, various beta versions, etc. The current, official standard is HTML 3.2. Newer, enhanced versions of HTML are always under development and are constantly under consideration by the W3C - the WWW Consortium) as the next possible standard. Important Note: Each Web browser is designed to read a particular version of HTML. It is probably not possible to create an HTML text that will work well with all Web browsers. When designing a page, keep in mind your target audience. Many people do not (or cannot) run the most current Web browsers capable of reading the state-of-the-art HTML tags. While the temptation may be great to incorporate the latest HTML tags, remember that they may not be visible to some of your readers. In some circumstances, it may be wise to be conservative and opt for the use of older HTML standards.
Browser Extensions and Plugins
Many people have been frustrated with the lengthy process involved in standardizing new-and-improved HTML tags and innovations. And some have decided to forge ahead without the blessings of the W3C. For example, Netscape has created some "extensions" (additional tags and attributes) to both HTML 2.0 and HTML 3.X. Netscape is trying to work closely with the W3C and many of the Netscape extensions are being proposed for inclusion in the next official HTML standard. However, be aware that in using Netscape extensions, your Web page may not display properly in all browsers (i.e., not all browsers can read Netscape extensions). Plugins have been designed to help browsers do other kinds of things such as display multimedia and animation. More on this later.
The Web is built on the client-server software model. Some computers run World Wide Web server software (and therefore are sometimes referred to as "Web Servers".) These Web servers make hypertext and hypermedia documents available to those computers running Web clients, most often known as "browsers". In order to read a hypertext document on the WWW, you will need a client software program or browser installed on your computer.
Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer are the most common browsers in use today (You may also still encounter Mosaic and Lynx). Netscape Navigator is the program we will use in this program.
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS FOR NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR:
NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR for WINDOWS. You will need the following:
Netscape Navigator is available free to those affiliated with an educational institution. Several different versions of Netscape Navigator are currently in circulation. The higher the version number, the more features that are incorporated into the program. However, remember that more features will require more computer resources (more memory, speed, storage space). While you will certainly want to run the latest, snazziest version possible, try to match the best program version to your computer's capabilities. (Also, be aware that only Windows 95 and Windows NT can run the 32-bit version of Netscape Navigator.)
Every computer on the Internet has a unique address. Understanding the Internet addressing system is crucial to using the Internet.
How Computers Communicate with Computers:
Computers identify each other by IP (Internet Protocol) addresses.
IP numbers range from 0.0.0.0. to 255.255.255.255
For example, the computer ah4.cal.msu.edu has an IP address of 35.8.224.103
ah4.cal.msu.edu = 35.8.224.103
You can use an IP address anywhere you would use a regular address.
Dynamic vs. Static IP addresses:
Once you connect to the Internet, your computer is considered
a "host computer" (no matter whether it is modest desktop computer
or a large mainframe). All Internet hosts must have a unique IP number. You
may have a permanent IP number (called a Static IP address) assigned
to you and your computer system will automatically use this same number each
time you connect to the Internet. Alternatively, you may be assigned a Dynamic
IP address by your ISP (Internet Service Provider ). This number will be
different each time you connect to the Internet (your PPP connection will take
care of this automatically for you).
How People Communicate with People
People communicate with each other by exchanging and using
addresses. email addresses identify both the person and the computer. UserID@host.domain.top-domain (penning2@pilot.msu.edu)
How People Communicate with Computers:
People use "host" names or the Domain Name System (DNS) to identify computers. A DNS server keeps track of addresses on the Internet, converting domain names back and forth from IP addresses. There are two types of top-level domains: organizational and geographical. host.domain.top-domain (pilot.msu.edu.us)
More on Domains
Getting where you want to go can often be one of the more difficult aspects of using networks. The variety of ways that places are named will probably leave a blank stare on your face at first. Don't fret; there is a method to this apparent madness. If someone were to ask for a home address, they would probably expect a street, apartment, city, state, and zip code. That's all the information the post office needs to deliver mail in a reasonably speedy fashion. Likewise, computer addresses have a structure to them. The general form is:
a person's email address on a computer: user@somewhere.domain a computer's name: somewhere.domain
The user portion is usually the person's account name on the system, though it doesn't have to be. somewhere.domain tells you the name of a system or location, and what kind of organization it is. The trailing domain is often one of the following:
com: Usually a company or other commercial
institution or organization, like Convex Computers (convex.com).
edu: An educational institution, e.g.
New York University, named nyu.edu.
gov: A government site; for example,
NASA is nasa.gov.
mil: A military site, like the Air Force
(af.mil).
net: Gateways and other
administrative hosts for a network (it does not mean all of the hosts
in a near.net.
org: This is a domain reserved for private
organizations, who don't comfortably fit in the other classes of domains.
One example is the Electronic Frontier Foundation, named eff.org.
us domain includes each of the fifty states. Other countries
represented with domains include:
au:Australia
ca:Canada
fr:France
uk: The United Kingdom. These also have
sub-domains of things like ac.uk for academic sites and co.uk
for commercial ones.
The proper terminology for a site's domain name (somewhere.domain above) is its Fully Qualified Domain Name (FQDN). It is usually selected to give a clear indication of the site's organization or sponsoring agent. For example, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's FQDN is mit.edu; similarly, Apple Computer's domain name is apple.com. While such obvious names are usually the norm, there are the occasional exceptions that are ambiguous enough to mislead---like vt.edu, which on first impulse one might surmise is an educational institution of some sort in Vermont; not so. It's actually the domain name for Virginia Tech. In most cases it's relatively easy to glean the meaning of a domain name---such confusion is far from the norm.
More on Internet Numbers
The Internet uses a 32-bit number, but is most commonly represented
as four numbers joined by periods (.), like 147.31.254.130.
This is sometimes also called a dotted quad; there are literally
thousands of different possible dotted quads. The ARPAnet (the mother to today's
Internet) originally only had the capacity to have up to 256 systems on it because
of the way each system was addressed. In the early eighties, it became clear
that things would fast outgrow such a small limit; the 32-bit addressing method
was born, freeing thousands of host numbers.
Each piece of an Internet address (like 192) is
called an "octet,'' representing one of four sets of eight bits. The first
two or three pieces (e.g., 192.55.239) represent the network that
a system is on, called its subnet. For example, all of the computers
for Wesleyan University are in the subnet 129.133. They can have
numbers like 129.133.10.10, 129.133.230.19, up to
65 thousand possible combinations (possible computers).
IP addresses and domain names aren't assigned arbitrarily---that
would lead to unbelievable confusion. An application must be filed with the
Network Information Center (NIC), either electronically (to hostmaster@nic.ddn.mil)
or via regular mail.
More on Resolving Names and Numbers
Computers can be referred to by either their FQDN or their Internet address. How can one user be expected to remember them all?
They aren't. The Internet is designed so that one can use either
method. Since humans find it much more natural to deal with words than numbers
in most cases, the FQDN for each host is mapped to its Internet number. Each
domain is served by a computer within that domain, which provides
all of the necessary information to go from a domain name to an IP address,
and vice-versa. For example, when someone refers to foosun.bar.com,
the resolver knows that it should ask the system foovax.bar.com
about systems in bar.com. It asks what Internet address foosun.bar.com
has; if the name foosun.bar.com really exists, foovax
will send back its number. All of this "magic'' happens behind the scenes.
Rarely will a user have to remember the Internet number of a site (although often you'll catch yourself remembering an apparently obscure number, simply because you've accessed the system frequently). However, you will remember a substantial number of FQDNs. It will eventually reach a point when you are able to make a reasonably accurate guess at what domain name a certain college, university, or company might have, given just their name.
URLs (Uniform Resource Locator)
To navigate the Internet, we will need to understand the URL, the Uniform Resource Locator. A URL is a way of naming network resources in a consistent fashion. A URL includes not only the electronic address of a resource, but its "prefix" identifies the protocol of the transmission. Some examples are:
Telnet: telnet://uwinfo.uwaterloo.ca (login: uwinfo)
FTP: File Transfer protocol : ftp://ftp.io.org/pub/human-rrghts
Gopher:gopher://gopher.micro.umn.edu:70/1
Hypertext Transfer Protocol: http://www.msu.edu [Note: WWW URLs are case-sensitive]
Electronic Mail Address : email://matrix@pilot.msu.edu
We make use of the Internet by running various client/server
programs. Each type of client makes it possible for us to take advantage of
a different Internet resource. For example, when you want to send a piece of
electronic mail, you use a mail client. When you want to browse the Web, you
use a Web client, and so on. Servers are programs that provide Internet resources.
Clients are programs that we use to access those Internet Resources. Therefore,
the Internet is basically composed of two types of computer programs: servers
and clients. Client/Server applications give us the "tools" to make
use of the Internet.
The Internet Toolbox
The three basic tools of the Internet Toolbox (the screwdriver, hammer, and pliers) are electronic mail, telnet, and ftp. If you have a basic understanding of these three activities, you can do anything-and-everything on the Internet!
Electronic mail is the most widely used service on the Internet.
telnet
Allows you to connect remotely to another computer.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
File Transfer Protocol allows you to move files from one computer to another. Also known as "Downloading/Uploading". Anonymous ftp is one of the most important services on the Internet (you can copy from other computers valuable information and software for free).
There are many client programs available for each of these activities. For example, you may choose to use Pilot, PINE, Pegasus, Eudora, Netscape Messenger, or Outlook for your email client. Telnet and file transfer protocol are such important tools that most computer operating systems (i.e., Windows. 3.X, Windows 95/98/NT, Macintosh System 7.X/8.X/9.X) include some basic version of these handy programs. However, many users like to upgrade their system software and choose to install more full-featured versions of telnet and ftp. Many telnet and ftp applications are available at no cost (freeware) or a modest fee (shareware). For example, two popular telnet applications for Windows 95 are QVT/Term and WinTel . A powerful, full-featured ftp program is WS-FTP LE. But there are many choices and much depends upon your computer system and your personal preferences. See the large Internet software database at http://www.tucows.com for a wide selection of downloadable applications.
NOTE: Web browsers are now incorporating these three basic tools into their interface. This means that you may perform email, telnet, and ftp without having to leave the web browser.
Telnet
Telnet is the main Internet protocol for creating a connection with a remote machine. It gives the user the opportunity to be on one computer system and do work on another, which may be across the street or thousands of miles away. Where modems are limited, in the majority, by the quality of telephone lines and a single connection, telnet provides a connection that's error-free and nearly always faster than the latest conventional modems.
Using Telnet
The command for negotiating a telnet connection varies from
system to system. The most common is telnet itself, though.
To open the connection, type the following in the host window:
Host: mail.telnet.msu.edu
Logon: username@mail.telnet.msu.edu
Password: yourpassword
Telnet Ports
Many telnet clients also include a third option, the port on which the connection should take place. Normally, port 23 is the default telnet port; the user never has to think about it. But sometimes it's desirable to telnet to a different port on a system, where there may be a service available, or to aid in debugging a problem. Using
telnet somewhere.domain port
will connect the user to the given port on the system somewhere.domain. Many libraries use this port method to offer their facilities to the general Internet community; other services are also available. For instance, one would type
telnet martini.eecs.umich.edu 3000
GOPHER
Gopher was developed at the University of Minnesota in 1991 (the gopher is their mascot). It also may be seen as a play on words--GOPHER software allows one to "go for" information.
It is an application that organizes access to resources (text files) throughout the Internet. The interface is always the same, no matter where you are. Gopher uses a hierarchical menu-driven system. Gopher is easier to use than any other service of the Internet and, until recently, allowed access to a larger variety of services and information than anything else on the Internet. Though it is quickly being superseded in many places by WWW, there are still many valuable gopher servers available. [see gopher://gopher.msu.edu]
Veronica is a gopher-based program that allows one to search gopher servers worldwide for a particular item. A Veronica server maintains a searchable database of all the known gopher menus (updated periodically). However, many of the search engines of the WWW (accessible through a Web browser) will also search gopher resources for you. So, in doing serious research, you may want to try both a Veronica server directly and a WWW search engine to thoroughly canvas gopher resources.
USENET NEWS
USENET stands for "User's Network". It is a huge system of discussion groups in which articles (email postings) are distributed throughout the world. The original concept was to create a virtual bulletin board in order to display news and notices. Usenet is often also called NETNEWS or simply, the NEWS. Over 13,000 Usenet groups exist! Each Internet site (such as MSU) makes a decision whether or not to have a "feed" for Usenet, and which groups to carry. Unlike subscribing to a listserv mailing list (where mail comes directly to your private email account), you must go to the local Usenet server in order to read the latest postings. You must have a client "reader" to read or post to Usenet. However, many web browsers (Netscape Navigator) are now incorporating a newsreader as part of their service.
WORLD WIDE WEB
The World Wide Web (WWW) allows users to traverse systems of
linked documents simply by clicking on highlighted items. WWW is based on the
concept of hypertext - data that contains links to other data. In order
to read a hypertext document, you will need a client software program commonly
called a "browser". Netscape Navigator, Mosaic, and
Lynx are the most common browsers in use today.
What makes the Web so powerful and useful is that a hypertext link might connect
to any type of Internet resource: a text file, a telnet session, a Gopher, a
Usenet newsgroup, a graphic file, a file containing 3-D animation, etc.
The following is a more complete list of all the activities on the Internet (Did I miss your favorite? Let me know!), some more widely used or popular than others. All of them may be referred to variously as Internet protocols, Internet client/server applications, Internet "tools" or services, etc. While the nomenclature may vary, one thing is certain: the Internet is changing constantly (on a hourly basis). The World Wide Web is quickly becoming people's first and most commonly used interface for accessing the Internet (but remember, even this could change!).
For now, you may choose to run your email, ftp, and telnet sessions, as well as read your Usenet newsgroups via a Web browser. Using just one client (the Web browser) to accomplish all of these tasks has many advantages. It may be most convenient to have only one application open on your computer and it is certainly easier to learn just one interface rather than many. We have a similar situation when must chose to go either the "one-stop-shopping" supermarket or the specialized GreenGrocer. On the other hand, while Web browsers are constantly improving these added features (such as email, newsreaders, talk, conferencing sessions) you may still wish to install and run additional, stand-alone clients (such as a ftp application) to take advantage of their specialized, full-featured capabilities.
To publish documents on the Web, you will need access to a "server". You will store your Web documents in a special directory (created just for your files) on that Web server's hard drive. A server is just a computer connected to the Internet which runs Web client/server software (meaning it uses HTTP Hypertext Transfer Protocol to listen for requests for files from browsers and then delivers the files). The Web server waits until a Web browser connects to it (via it's URL) and makes a request. The Web server then locates the appropriate file and sends it back to the browser. The first Web program ran on a UNIX system and therefore many Web server software programs continue to be written for the UNIX platform. The two most widely used are CERN'S HTTPD and NCSA's HTTPD both free. However, there is now a flood of PC and Macintosh software for running a web server.
Server access then is obviously very important: it's what allows an HTML file to really become a web page that can be accessed by everyone else on the world wide web. As a student at MSU, you have free access to a web server based on your email account. The server space is named after the file system used to run and organize the system, "AFS." But you do have alternatives:
- Geocities. This is a service that provides the server access for free web pages to anyone. They give you lots of space-- 20 megs-- and the interface for uploading files and setting up directories is very easy. There are some significant problems with Geocities, though. They make their money from advertising, so every time you bring up a Geocities web page, you also bring up advertising that appears in a separate window that is very annoying for those folks coming to visit your site. Plus, because the volume at Geocities is quite high, sometimes it can take a long time for pages to load.
- Another "free web page" service. There are a lot of other places to turn besides Geocities-- tripod and xoom are two that come to mind. I'm less experienced with these services, but as far as I can tell, they are similar to Geocities. One very useful resource for finding out more about getting free web pages is "FreeWebspace.Net," which is a searchable directory of free web hosting companies. The site features lots of links and information to the many companies-- large and small, good and bad-- that provide free web server space. One last thing to keep in mind with the "free" option: you do get what you pay for. If reliability and flexibility in your web design are going to be important in your work, you might want to consider one of the other options I describe here.
- A commercial Internet service provider (ISP) of your own. There are a wide variety of local and national services that provide email, Internet access, and Web server access for less than $20 a month. For some, this is a potentially useful option, and some of you who already have some sort of ISP that you're paying for may want to check with this company for details on what's available.
Sometimes also called Web documents or a Web page or a Lexia, a home page is a single file, stored on the hard drive of a Web server (a computer running Web server software), which is retrieved and formatted by a Web browser. Your Web page contains text and hypermedia (graphics, sound files, video clips, etc. if you chose) and is constructed (behind the scenes) with HTML. The home page is the first of your set of Web pages. It is the place where most people start exploring or "browsing " your set of Web pages. You may have just one "page" or you may develop a Web site that has many linked documents.
A Web page devoted to your course(s) makes it possible for your course syllabus, lecture notes, readings, and extracurricular materials to be available on-line 24 hours to your students. Also, the immediate nature of Web publishing can greatly accelerate and enhance the exchange of research data and ideas, and stimulate conversation among colleagues. Also, web pages are increasingly useful as a way of organizing and disseminating information within a business office or any institution.
For your own personal use, a Web page might be the place where you develop and store a copy of your curriculum vitae and publish your work. Also, a Web page can be used "off-line" (not connected to the Internet) as your own personal information manager. You can keep track of important references, addresses, notes, frequently visited Internet sites, etc.
Minimum Requirements:
Ideal Situation:
What may I put on my Web Page?
Each Network and/or local Web server administrator may post some version of an acceptable use policy. Check the MSUnet Acceptable Use Policy for an example of typical guidelines on the creation and appropriate use of a Web page [see the full policy statement under the MSU Gopher, gopher://burrow.cl.msu.edu:70/00/msu/policy/MSU]. As you might guess, common sense prevails here...one is not to use a Web page for harassment, private business or for-profit advertising.
Also, when designing and building your home page, you will want to be careful to observe copyright restrictions when displaying the works of other authors, artists, designers, etc.
See these related term(s): HTML , Java
See these related term(s): Internet
See these related term(s): Network
See these related term(s): Bps, Bit , T-1
See these related term(s): Bit , Modem
See these related term(s): ASCII , MIME , UUENCODE
See these related term(s): Bandwidth , Bps , Byte , Kilobyte , Megabyte
See these related term(s): Bandwidth , Bit
See these related term(s): Client , URL , WWW , Netscape , Mosaic , Home Page (or Homepage)
See these related term(s): IMHO , TTFN
See these related term(s): Bit
See these related term(s): Security Certificate , SSL
See these related term(s): cgi-bin , Web
See these related term(s): CGI
See these related term(s): Browser , Server
See these related term(s): Internet , Server , Network
See these related term(s): Browser , Server
See these related term(s): Cyberspace
See these related term(s): bit , bps , ISDN , Leased Line
See these related term(s): IP Number
See these related term(s): Listserv® , Maillist
See these related term(s): Bandwidth , LAN
See these related term(s): Bandwidth , Ethernet , T-1 , T-3
See these related term(s): Network , LAN
See these related term(s): Flame War
See these related term(s): Flame
See these related term(s): JPEG
See these related term(s): Byte , Megabyte
See these related term(s): Client , Server , WWW , Hypertext
See these related term(s): Browser , Web
See these related term(s): Node , Network
See these related term(s): Client , Server , WWW
See these related term(s): Client , Server , WWW
See these related term(s): TTFN , BTW
See these related term(s): internet
See these related term(s): Internet , Network
See these related term(s): internet , Internet , Network
See these related term(s): Domain Name , Internet , TCP/IP
See these related term(s): Internet
See these related term(s): Applet
See these related term(s): Applet , Java
See these related term(s): GIF
See these related term(s): Byte , Bit
See these related term(s): Ethernet
See these related term(s): T-1 , T-3, DSL
See these related term(s): BITNET , Email , Maillist
See these related term(s): Password
See these related term(s): Byte , Bit , Kilobyte
See these related term(s): Browser , Client , Server , Binhex , UUENCODE
See these related term(s): FTP , Web
See these related term(s): MUD , MUSE
See these related term(s): Browser , Client , WWW
See these related term(s): MOO , MUSE
See these related term(s): MOO , MUD
See these related term(s): Internet
See these related term(s): Internet
See these related term(s): Browser , Mosaic , Server , WWW
See these related term(s): internet , Internet , Intranet
See these related term(s): USENET
See these related term(s): Newsgroup , TCP/IP , USENET
See these related term(s): Network , Internet , internet
See these related term(s): Login
See these related term(s): SLIP , PPP
See these related term(s): Domain Name , Server , URL
See these related term(s): Newsgroup
See these related term(s): IP Number , Internet , SLIP , TCP/IP
See these related term(s): Network , Packet Switching
See these related term(s): Certificate Authority , SSL
See these related term(s): Client , Network
See these related term(s): Internet , PPP
See these related term(s): Client , Server
See these related term(s): Network , Router
See these related term(s): Maillist , USENET
See these related term(s): Browser , Server , Security Certificate , URL