The INTERNET

The Internet is a network of networks connecting computers around the world. It began in 1969 as a result of the Cold War to guarantee that communications would remain intact in case of a national disaster such as a nuclear war. This was the ARPAnet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network ) first created for military and scientific personnel and consisted of 4 computers. It is hard to establish exactly how many millions of computers are connected now.

Intranets - are networks restricted to certain companies and their branches and employees- for security reasons.

Data is transmitted between computers using a standard called TCP/IP (Transmission Protocol/Internet Protocol). Protocols are rules or regulations which all computers must adhere to in order to be able to communicate.

 Originally we had only UNIX based programs such as Telnet, FTP, Archie, and Gopher to locate and download sites and files. Each had its own rules or syntax , and allowed only plain text to be transmitted.

 In 1991, the WWW (World Wide Web)(The Web) was introduced. It was originally conceived by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989 as a project while working at CERN. The Web could deliver pictures, sound, and video to a computer (client) requesting it from a server ( computer making the hypermedia documents available).

HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) is the protocol that defines how requests for information and documents are transferred between clients and servers.
HTML is a special "language" for defining and describing the structure of documents (formatting), and how they relate (link) to other documents(other text, audio, video, and graphic files).

Any Web address or URL that begins with http is a WWW site. Any URL that begins with FTP is a File transfer Protocol site, such as: The Simtel.Net Collection at http://ftp.sunet.se/simtel.net/win95/index-win95.html  FTP allows a person to transfer files between two computers, generally connected via the Internet. If your system has FTP and is connected to the Internet, you can access very large amounts of files available on a great number of computer systems. Most of these sites are now accessible through the more user friendly WWW . There are still some old gopher sites. Ex: Big Sky Lesson Plan Gopher Site at: gopher://bvsd.k12.co.us/11/Educational_Resources/Lesson_Plans/Big%20Sky/math

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator

Ex: http://www.britannica.com/education/index.html

      (hypertext)      (Web Site-------------------->) (Path or Directory) ( Document )

Connecting to the Internet requires software to connect your local computer to a host computer, and if you are remote from the host, you will also require a modem and an internet service provider(ISP). The internet provider supplies you with the software and connections for a specified number of connect hours per month. Modems should be at least 28,800 Baud. Disable call waiting by putting an * in front of the access number, otherwise your connection will be broken when a phone call comes in.

Once you are connected to a host computer, in order to access sites, you also need a program called a browser such as Netscape Communicator ( we use Ver 4.5 in this course ) or Microsoft Internet Explorer.

A Home Page is the first document located at a Web site. Ex: The ST.F.X.U. Home Page. http://www.stfx.ca/ From there we can go to sub pages. My Home Page is at http://juliet.stfx.ca/~rjmackin/welcome.html . It is customary to name all homepages welcome.html.

All Web pages have the file extension name of either html (which is allowed only in a UNIX based system) or htm ( which works in both UNIX and DOS operating systems). The html file extension signifies that the file is has been created in HyperText Markup Language. To see what HTML looks like, click on VIEW in the MENU Bar ---> Page Source. Close window to get back to this page.

Entering URLS

1) Type the whole URL into the Netsite Box to get to a web page.
2) If the beginning is www and the ending is com, just type in what's in between such as yahoo for www.yahoo.com.
3. If you want to return to sites you have been before, click on the Go in the menu bar or on a link in
Bookmarks or History (CTRL + H)
4) Use a search engine and fill in query. Then click on links brought up by search.
5) File® Open Page ® type in URL

Examples of good Web Pages to save or bookmark: (Once you have the page loaded, click on Bookmarks --> Add Bookmark)

Ed 467 Home Page http://www.stfx.ca/people/rjmackin/ed467/ed467.htm
Ron MacKinnon's http://juliet.stfx.ca/people/fac/rmackinn/rmackinnon.html#menu
http://web66.umn.edu/ Web66 site
http://www.schoolnet.ca/ Canada's Schoolnet
Canadian Government http://Canada.GC.CA/main_e.html

Error Messages : Unable to locate server may be due to:

1) Incorrect URL
2) Site is too busy
3) Site has disappeared

Printing a Web Page. First preview ® File ® Page Preview ® print only pages you need or Copy and Paste sections to Word and print from Word.

Netscape Communicator - component bar is docked on lower right hand of window and can be floated.
To switch between applications, just click on icons for Maibox, Collabra, Composer, etc. The main components are found under Communicator in menu bar.

Buttons:
Back to previous site visited,
Forward to next site, and
Stop for quitting the loading of sites.
Home is the designated startup page each time the program loads. It can be changed to your own choice: EDIT® Preferences® Navigator® type the URL of the default Home Page you want in the Location Box.
Reload should be pressed if you think the site has changed since you last visited (your cached site may not have the changes)

The status bar keeps you informed of the progress of loading the page

Moving around page: scrolling, CTRL + HOME & END, and arrows

Finding text in long document :- CTRL + F ® fill in text you are looking for

Help - F1 - Index . About tells you the Version being used.

History List can be edited and viewed sorted in various ways. It can be deleted entirely or by certain dates. You can connect directly to previously visited sites using this list.

Bookmarks - can be added all in a large list or organized into folders (better)


HTML code of the page you are viewing can be seen: VIEW ® PAGE SOURCE ( tags ( < > ) are formatting characters used to determine how text and graphics are displayed.

Status bar shows how accessing and loading the site is progressing

Cache - stores pages you visited to local computer hard drive - so that when you reload the page it comes back from the local drive rather than the remote site. Cache maintenance occurs at exiting. You can set the limits for memory and disk cache and clear cache manually by:

EDIT ® Preferences ® Advanced ® Cache ® Then set limits or clear Disk Cache and Memory Cache. If your computer becomes very slow, you may improve the speed by clearing the memory and disk cache in this window.

Saving Images from web and saving them to your local computer or as wall paper:

Rt. Click on image® Save Image As® select drive and name of file® Save. Note Netscape needs pictures as GIF or jpg file extensions.



Homework: About Homework - Readings should be done when assigned  Any work that is to be turned in either to the class listserv or hard copy must be on time. For each day late, you lose 25% of the grade. Make sure you send a copy to yourself each time in case the message is lost- in which case you can resend it thus having proof of time and date sent.
Read Chapter 4, Pp. 78-90 by next class  Begin collecting Bookmarks for your Portfolio, describing them in Bookmark Properties, and sorting them into specific subject folders. See Section 1 of your Portfolio for a detailed description of how you are to organize your bookmarks.

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  • by Ruth MacKinnon