INFOTECH PRIVATE LIMITED

Kota's First Internet Service Provider

An Introduction of Internet

Growth of the Internet

No one person or country owns the Internet. Literally millions of governments, corporations, universities, commercial companies and citizens own the internet jointly. What this means is that no one can control it in its entirety. In the United States there is a group called the National Science Foundation (NSF) that over looks methods of improving the internet's performance. The NSF is supported by a group called the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) committee. This committee has to conform to guidelines that are set by the Internet Architecture Board (IAB). In reality, there are many groups that manage every facet of the internet. Unless you plan to devote your life to serving on one of these committees, you can probably live a very prosperous life on the internet without knowing they exist.

Where do all these services come from?

Luckily for you and me, the servers know who they are, and they know where the other computers are as well. When you make a request for a webpage, the servers work together to help you find the server where that webpage exists. If one computer is down between you and the server you're asking for, the other computers will help to find a path for your request to travel on. Once the path is finally resolved, the connection is made, and you will see your webpage. The same is true in regards to most of the requests over the internet.

           In Review

• The internet is a huge collection of computers world wide.

• They are connected to each other by a method that guarantees access (provided that computer is operational and connected to the network).

• There are servers (also referred to as "hosts") that provide services of all types.

• No one person or group owns the internet, yet there are many committees and organizations that supervise its developmental evolution.

TERMINOLOGY

This page has been designed to teach you very quickly, without lengthy explanation, terms that are used in relation to the internet. Here is your first lesson.

Downloading This is a term used for when you get a file from a remote computer to your computer. This is known in the FTP language as a GET command

Uploading This is a term used for when you put a file from your computer to a remote computer. This is known in the FTP language as a PUT command

URL (Uniform Resource Locator) - This is a global term for a "place" or a "file" you can visit on the internet. This can be a web site, a location of a file, or just about any path to locate a service on the internet. When someone says they are going to give you a URL (pronounced "erl" in some cases), they mean a location on the internet to see or retrieve something

Protocols This is a fancy word for the method computers use to communicate with each other. In computers, there are several different methods that are used to communicate from one computer to another based on what you're trying to do. When computer programmers refer to the various methods a computer uses to communicate, they call them Protocols. Got it? Good.

Here is your first list of Protocols

TCP - (Transmission Control Protocol) - This is the method that computers use to communicate over a network. You don't need to understand how it works. Just know that it is the fastest growing method to communicate and you might hear the term used from time to time. Depending on your computer, the TCP software you're using will probably go through some updates, which will require that you install new versions. Don't be too concerned about how it works. Just lie back and let the 21st Century dazzle you.

IP - (Internet Protocol) - This is used in conjunction with the TCP protocol to form a method of communicate over a network and then over the internet. Remember, TCP is a method for computers to communicate over the network. IP is the method for computers to identify each other over the internet. The two together is often referred to as TCP/IP (pronounced as one set of letters TCPIP, don't say slash).

IP Address - (Internet Protocol Address) - This is your personal address on the internet. No one else on the internet should have your same IP address. An IP address looks something like, 147.14.87.23. This collection of numbers is not random, but tells the world what kind of company you're connecting from (size of company that is) and what your personal address is. Like everything else, you really don't need to understand how the number is created, just make sure you know what yours is. If you are calling into an internet provider, you are assigned a "dynamic" IP address that is different each time you call in (but don't worry about it).

SMTP - (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) - This is the method that computers use to send mail to each other. Kinda simple huh? You do not need to know how this works exactly. Just know that when someone refers to this term, they are talking about sending mail.

POP,POP2,POP3- (Post Office Protocol) - This is the method that computers use to get mail from other computers. Remember, it's not used for sending mail, only retrieving it from mail servers. The various versions of POP are merely a result of updates to the POP technology. Don't be too surprised to see POP4 to POP10 in years to come.

FTP - (File Transfer Protocol) - This is the method that computers use to send files to one another. Again, you don't need to know how it works exactly, just know that when people refer to FTP sites, they are referring to sites that contain (most likely) several files that you can download and even possible upload to.

HTTP - (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) - This is the method that your web browser uses to transfer webpages like this one. It is essentially a method of formatting text so that the browser knows which part is for the browser, and which part is for your viewing.

Other Services

E-MAIL - (Electronic Mail) - If you are reading this webpage I assume you already know what e-mail is. If not, here it is in a nut shell. Electronic mail is an electronic means of sending a message from one computer to another in an organized fashion. Sending e-mail uses the SMTP protocol that we talked about earlier. There are many places to get e-mail service from. We recommend that you use a local internet provider. They usually have better service to the internet and are considerably cheaper than commercial services such as CompuServe, AOL, Prodigy and other services of this nature. The smaller the company, the better the price, and the more they try to keep your business by working hard for you (trust us, we're no internet providers).

IRC - (Internet Relay Chat) - This is a new technology that allows you to communicate with other people on the internet instantly, without waiting for e-mails or newsgroup postings to receive a response. IRC's let you dial into "Channels" (which are sometimes called rooms) and join conversations. America On-Line has a similar service they call rooms. internet IRC's are better because they have more Channels (or rooms if you like) and the service is comparably free.

USENET - (Internet Newsgroups) - This is a more complex service that the internet provides. However, you will have to get service from your internet provider before you will be able to access a Newsgroup. A Newsgroup is a collection of locations where people post messages for everyone in the world to read. If someone is interested in responding to your message or posting, they have the option to e-mail you directly with their response, or post a reply for everyone to read. The most valuable feature of this service is for finding answers to questions. You simply pick the newsgroup that best deals with your question, and go there to post it. After a couple a days, you will most likely have several responses

COOKIES- If you've had any conversations with people about the internet you might have heard someone talk about cookies. These are small text files that are written to your hard drive from web sites that want to store information about you. There are a lot of myths about cookies, and unfounded fears that should be dismissed. One, cookies shouldn't contain any sensitive information that would cause you harm if someone read the file. Two, cookies have restrictions in that ONLY the web site that wrote the file can read it back. Each cookie file is stored based on the domain name (say borders.com) that created it. If Amazon.com stored a cookie on your computer, Borders.com cannot read that file. A web site only gets the file that THEY created. If you've never heard of cookies before, don't worry about them. They greatly enhance your experience on the internet, and reduce your need to constantly tell a web site what it is you're looking for. Disabling cookies will prevent you from visiting some sites all together, so it is recommended you leave them turned on.

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