Basically, the Internet has three sections: e-mail, the Usenet, the WWW=World Wide Web. A limited Internet account will at least provide e-mail, a facility for sending messages and files to anyone who has an e-mail account at telephone speed and at the cost of a local phone call. Usenet is the name for all newsgroups, groups of people with a common special interest, who exchange information with each other. These groups may be public or they may be restricted to their members who need a password for access. Any Internet software includes a newsreader that lets one select and access newsgroups. The World Wide Web is a vast collection of files (or "pages") which may be images, sound, text or they may contain a group of links which in turn link to other files. Generally, one needs a good search engine to find the information one is looking for. See Searching and Search help.
Whenever one calls a link, i.e., moves the mouse cursor to the link and clicks, a copy of a file is transmitted to one's computer's memory where the data are made visible by a browser. There are simple text-based browsers such as Lynx which is used on the Alpha and on the Vax. Lynx does not show colors or graphics but it is fast. There are also graphic browsers which let you "see" formatted text, colors, images, sound--such as Netscape Navigator, Microsoft Explorer, Mosaic. On each browser, the same file looks different. But with the help of the browser, one can see the file. One can also print it or download it for storage on one's own computer.
As more and more people all over the world go online, using the Internet takes more and more determination. You may need to try several times to get a connection and you may find that browsing the WWW or downloading a file takes more and more patience. Pick odd hours to connect, for both ends of your call; in other words, to connect to a server in Europe find a time outside of both your local and European business hours. To speed up transfer, turn off the graphics, link to text-only pages.
In our labs and at any computer on campus, you need your bookmark file on a floppy disk. Get a starter copy from your instructor. When you start your session on the Web, put your diskette in the drive, open Netscape Communicator, click on Bookmarks, click on Edit bookmarks, on File, on Open, select your file on your diskette. Minimize the windows.
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Hoffmann, Feb. 1999