Frequently Asked Questions about the Internet

So now you are finally online! Great! You have joined the growing masses of those who join the online world daily. Soon, the Internet will be as common in homes around the world as the telephone and television are today.

If you are new to the Internet, here's a quick introduction to some of the questions you may have.

What is the Internet anyway? To put it in simple terms, the Internet is the mother of all computer networks. It a whole bunch of computers from universities, schools, government agencies, businesses, and ordinary folks all connected together.

What can I do with it? How about electronic mail for one. This service alone is saving lots of money for businesses and people who need or want to keep in touch with associates and friends around the world. Or maybe try newsgroups which are a sort of electronic bulletin boards that cover tens of thousands of specialized subjects. Mailing lists are another feature that are similar to newsgroups except the messages are automatically sent to you in your email. You can get software programs transferred directly to your computer by using something called File Transfer Protocol. On the World Wide Web you can get world and national news, retrieve a myriad of documents, photos, audio and video files. These are just a few of the activities available for you on the internet.

What about the Web? The World Wide Web is the graphical and sometimes commercial side of the Internet. It's the cool place to be. On the Web, text is displayed in pages that are viewed with a browser. Highlighted words or pictures are linked to other documents or pages of text that are relevant to the current text or pictures. With Web pages you can view photos and images and, some even have sounds and video. The best feature of the Web, though, is it's easy to navigate or get around in. Most are just a point and click operation.

But, What's a page? Pages are screens-full of information or pictures. Some Web pages are real fancy with lots of pictures and graphics that rival printed magazine pages. Others can be simple affairs that look more like a typewritten paper. You'll find both - and everything in-between. A collection of pages form a Web Site. The First page you come to from an organization or individual is often called the Home Page.

What is Surfing? Surfing is a term used to describe random wandering around the Web with no particular destination or function just to see what's out there cool to look at. It's also known in some circles as a waste of time. But surfing randomly can teach you a lot about the Web. Indeed, it's hard to use the Web without learning anything.

What's this http:// thing? The http:// in a Web address is actually an important part of the protocols the Internet uses to retrieve documents. It's an abbreviation for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. It tells the Internet network that you want to look at a Web site or page. For instance, the address for Microsoft's home page on the Web is http://www.microsoft.com. Typing this into your browser's address line will take you to Microsoft's Web site.

This is all fine but I haven't a clue as to where to start. That's okay. Most people on the net don't have any idea either, so you're not alone. There are places where you can search for Web sites that may interest you called Search Engines. At a search engine you are permitted to type in a word or phrase that describes a subject you're looking for. The engine then returns a page with suggested sites for you to go to. All you need do is click on the site and you're transported to it.

Some search engines to try out are:

• Yahoo
• Lycos
• Webcrawler
• Infoseek

And, there are a lot more search engines to choose from.

I've been reading a lot about pornography on the Internet. Should I be concerned about this? It's out there - just as it can be found at your local convenience store. A lot of people and organizations would like to censor the Internet in the hopes that it can eliminate what they consider pornographic. The trouble is, what one person may consider porn may just be bad taste to another. Who's going to be the judge? If you have children or young adults at home and would prefer that this stuff not be coming into your home you can purchase software that blocks these sites from your computer. The major online services such as America Online and Compuserve have built in parental controls that can be set up to control what you can search for and what comes into your home computer.

Do I need this Internet stuff?At one time, books were copied by hand. The expense of these documents kept their knowledgeable contents from ordinary people. Only the highest of the elite classes of the population had privilege to them and these privileged few could use the resulting ignorance of their populations as an advantage over them. Gutenburg's invention of movable type meant that books could be mass produced at a lower cost putting knowledge and entertainment in the hands of ordinary citizens. Information available only to the princes and priests of the world suddenly became available to everyone. Certain governments and religious organizations sought to ban and/or censor publications that did not conform to their thoughts and ideas.

The Internet today is producing a similar revolution in the way people can learn new things. In the homes and schools today that enjoy the vast resources of the Internet, children and ordinary citizens are learning to access information that was once sealed up in university libraries available only to a selected few. Available today are drafts of laws and congressional bills that can be read while still being debated and voted on as well as a direct link to their representatives to whom they can send comments to. In addition, they could read transcripts pertaining to law, justice, scientific research, medicine, history, and more. And, yes, they can also use the Internet to pursue personal interests and be entertained. Indeed, it's difficult to use the Internet without learning anything!

The Internet will only become more entrenched in the world society in the future. You're there now and a step ahead of everyone else.