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Introduction to the Internet If you're like most, you gave into the PC era in order to access the internet. After all, everyone is talking about it. Companies advertise their internet address more than their phone number and whole companies exist completely online. You needed to get into it, right? I don't blame you. But, if you think the PC is daunting ( which I hope I've proven to you it isn't) then the internet can be just as daunting. Let's look into this: The internet is made up of computers. Each computer has files on it, just like any other. Some of these computers are called "servers". A server is a computer with the specific job of holding web pages on their hard drives and spitting them out over the internet when someone asks for it. Yes, that's right. All of your favourite web sites are just files on a hard drive somewhere. When you surf the internet from your computer, you type in internet addresses. These addresses are of the form "www.whatever.com". "WWW" means "World Wide Web", another term for the internet, of course. The middle term is whatever that particular web site decided to name itself. It's a unique address to identify them online. The "dot-com" is simply an extension. "COM" is most common, but "NET", "EDU", "ORG" and others are also used. Typing in an internet address and hitting enter sends a request out to your internet provider. The internet provider does the job of going out and finding the specific site you are asking for, accessing the server, pulling the files, and sending them to your computer for your viewing pleasure. Yes, it gets more complicated, but that's the simplicity of it. To do this,
you need an internet service provider, or ISP. There are hundreds of ISP's out
there. You can go with the more popular ones or check out your local scene and
get a more local provider. All ISP's do pretty much the same thing, provide WWW
access and email. I find that a lot of beginners end up going to AOL for their
internet access. Not to jump on AOL or anything, but there are much better ISP's
than them. AOL has done a supreme marketing campaign which is the reason many
people think of them first, but I would really check out other providers. AOL
markets its ease of use, but, in reality, the internet is not a complicated
thing to use at all. It is quite easy to get around online without AOL. |
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