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Author: Scott_Burkett, Contributing Editor
| Folks, I get a *LOT* of emails every day. Almost 400 of them now, if you can believe that! One of the more common subjects that people write to me about involve basic questions about the Internet, and how it works. While there are many WC! members who are pretty comfortable with the technical aspect of the Internet, the vast majority are at the early stages of the learning curve. So, I decided to put together this article, in hopes of helping to bring you up to speed on some of the basics.
Special care has been taken to assume no prior Internet experience on the behalf of the viewer. However, should you run into trouble, or have questions, don't hesitate to post in our computers/technology forum for artists! |
| The Internet: An Introduction
Some folks think the Internet is some big ol' fancy computer sitting in some warehouse in Texas. Well, good theory, but not quite the reality. The first thing we need to do is figure out some of this darn lingo! The "Internet" is a catch-all word used to describe the massive world-wide network of computers. The word "internet" literally means "network of networks". In itself, the Internet is comprised of thousands of smaller regional networks scattered throughout the globe. Wanna know how big this thing is? Well, to be quite honest with you, it's pretty tough to measure something this size. As of July, 2002, there were over 27 million registered domains! Experts estimate that as of March, 2002, there were over 760 million Internet users worldwide. They also say that Internet "traffic", or activity, doubles every 6-12 months. Doubles! Nobody "owns" the Internet - although there are companies that help manage different parts of the networks that tie everything together, there is no single governing body that controls what happens on the Internet. The networks within different countries are funded and managed locally according to local policies. The Internet: A Brief History In 1973, the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiated a research program to investigate techniques and technologies for connecting its computer networks together. The objective was to develop communication protocols (think of a protocol as a "language") which would allow networked computers to communicate transparently to one another. This was called the Internetting Project and the system of networks which emerged from the research was known as the "Internet." This may be a bit over your head at this point, but on a related note, the system of protocols (languages) which was developed over the course of this research effort became known as the TCP/IP Protocol Suite, after the two initial protocols developed: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol (IP). If you've heard this term used before, you now know the origin! At any rate, the whole "Internet" thing was pretty much restricted to the military (and some universities) until the 1980s. In 1986, the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) initiated the development of the NSFNET which, today, provides a major "backbone" (main thoroughfare for Internet data) communication service for the "Internet". The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the U.S. Department of Energy contributed additional backbone facilities. Toward the late 1980s, commercial carriers, such as MCI got on board, and we were off to the races! Today, the Internet spans all 7 continents, and reaches all modernized countries. It now contains exponentially more electronic information than stored in print form in all the libraries in the world - combined! |
| Major Components of the Internet
Having access to the Internet usually means that one has access to a number of basic services: electronic mail, interactive conferences, access to information resources, network news, the ability to transfer files, and of course, access to the World Wide Web (WWW). There are several dozen actual services available, but let's break down the most important ones (we'll try to cover the more advanced ones in a later lesson): Electronic Mail (e-mail) Just like regular postal mail, 'cept it is in electronic form. When you want to see if you have new postal mail, what do you do? You open your mailbox, right? Same thing applies in cyberspace. To check your mail, you "open" your virtual mailbox. The same thing holds true for delivering e-mail. To deliver a regular piece of mail, you put it in your mailbox, and raise that little red flag thingy. That little flag signals to the mailman, and lets him know that you have outgoing mail to be picked up. With electronic mail, each message is sent to your outbox and a virtual "flag" is raised, telling your computer to send out that mail! World Wide Web (WWW) The World Wide Web (WWW) is a collection of computers on the Internet that offer information accessible via a web "browser". What the heck is a browser? Your browser is the tool that you are using to view this page of information! The most popular browsers are Microsoft's Internet Explorer (installed for you on most new computers), and Netscape's Navigator/Communicator package, which is available for free on their web site. Most modern browsers allow you to access a number of services, such as FTP servers (see below). FTP (File Transfer Protocol) Sometimes, folks will make special files available for you. For example, a software company might make a new recipe program available to you via its "servers". A server is just a machine that "serves" information to other machines. When you want to obtain files from other machines, your computer uses the "ftp" protocol, or the File Transfer Protocol to "talk" to the server that owns the file. Most home computers have an ftp "client" installed on them. A client is just a fancy name for a program that makes requests on your behalf. For example, you tell your FTP program (client) to make a request to download the new recipe program your Aunt told you about. Your client program sends a message out to the remote "server" that owns the file you want. The server works together with the client, and through an electronic communication, your request is satisfied, and you have your new recipe program! From time to time, we will ask you to download files from our FTP servers. Don't worry, we'll give you directions along the way... :-) |
 | Tip: What do you think of when you imagine a "server" in a restaurant? A restaurant server is responsible for managing all of the traffic in their respective area of the restaurant. They are also responsible for serving you food. Think of a computer "server" in the same way. Computer servers are not only responsible for serving you information, but also managing all the incoming requests! |
| How the Internet is Laid Out
There are entire books on this subject, although most of them go into more technical detail than is really necessary for most folks. Consider this diagram: |
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