INTRODUCTION TO INTERNET Temitope Aladesanmi INTRODUCTION • This module introduces students to the general concept of Internet and especially as it applies to academic life in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. • Students are introduced to basic terminologies, use and safe practice on Internet. • In the present age of information technology, use of Internet is becoming quite popular for accessing information on any topic of interest. • It also provides tremendous opportunities to students; researchers and professionals for getting information on matters related to academic and professional topics and lot more. • It is important for every student academic pursuit in OAU. OBJECTIVES • At the end of this module, you should be able to: • Understand the meaning of Internet • Be acquainted with various services available on the Internet • Use those services especially as it relates to work environment • Conduct search using Search Engine • Be able to send and receive e-mail • Download files in various format What is Internet? • The Internet or simply the Net is a worldwide network of computer networks. It is an interconnection of large and small networks around the globe. • In brief, Internet is: • Networks connected to Networks • Computer connected to Computer • Organisation connected to Organisation • People connected to People BRIEF HISTORY • 1960 -- (Advanced Research Projects Agency network), designed to withstand partial outages such as a bomb attack. • 1980 -- desktop computer workstations became increasingly popular • 1986 -- the National Science Foundation (NSF) established five super computing centers creating the NSFnet backbone BRIEF HISTORY (CONT’D) • 1991 --The National Research and Education Network (NREN) was founded and the World Wide Web was released. • 1993/1994 –Interests in the use of the World Wide Web exploded after the release of the Mosaic and Netscape browsers. • 1995 --the U.S. federal government relinquished its management role in the Internet and NSFnet reverted back to being a research network. SERVICES AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET SERVICES AVAILABLE ON THE INTERNET • FTP • USENET Newsgroup • Gopher • Email • SNSs • Telnet INTERNET TODAY • Banking • Education • E-commerce • Entertainment • Information • Online-Repository THE WORLD WIDE WEB (WWW) • The World Wide Web, Web for short, was invented in 1991 by Tim Berners-Lee. The Web is a distributed information system. It is a collection of websites on all computers in the world. The websites themselves are made up of related hyperlinked files called webpages. The www has become the most used tool of the Internet. THE WORLD WIDE WEB (CONT’D) • What makes the Web so powerful is that the websites can contain so many things: • Text • Pictures • Movies and animation • Moving graphics • Sound files and real-time sound • Database and catalogs • Programs that run directly on your computer • Opportunities to send information to the owner of the Web site. WEB BROWSER • A web page is a document on the World Wide Web. A web browser is a computer program use to access or view webpages. Few popular browsers are: • Netscape • Internet Explorer • Safari • Mozilla Firefox • Opera, Opera Mini • Google Chrome WEB BROWSER STARTING A WEB BROWSER • You launch (open) your browser (it could be Microsoft Internet Explorer or Crazy browser or Netscape Navigator or Mozilla Firefox) when you want to access the Internet. • On the address bar of the browser window, you type the url (universal resource locate) which is just the address of the site you want to visit. The address is just a name identifier of the site you are visiting, analogous to the way our residence are identified via house addresses. • You instruct the browser to fetch the requested webpage/website or a file on the site by issuing go (or enter command). • There is a series of interaction between the web browser also known as the client) and the PC which physically hosts the site technically refered to as the web server. Web server in the sense that it serves webpage(s) when request is made by the web client or browser. • Both the request and the answer transverse arrays of network and communication devices before the webpage is finally served if it is available or return an error if the page can not be found. DOMAIN AND DOMAIN NAME • A domain is your identity online. A domain name is the address of your web site on the Internet. • There are two parts to a domain – the domain name itself, and the TLD (top level domain) extension, like .edu, .com, .net or .org. TLDs are broadly grouped into 2 groups namely: • Generic TLD (gTLD) and • Country TLD (ccTLD). DOMAIN AND DOMAIN NAME GETTING INTERNET CONNECTION ON YOUR COMPUTER • Any terminal to activate internet services on it requires an internet connection from a Internet Service Provider • In Nigeria, the commonest options are: • Dial-Up • ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) • Leased Line Connection (Direct Internet Access) • DSL (Digital Subscriber Line or Dedicated Service Line) • Fibre Optics Cable • VSAT • Wireless Access • Mobile Telephone Providers GETTING INTERNET CONNECTION ON YOUR COMPUTER • VSAT SEARCH ENGINE • . A search engine is a program designed to help find information stored on a computer system such as the World Wide Web, or a personal computer. • Some of the important search engines are: • Google (http://www.google.com ) • Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com) • MSN Search (http://search.msn.com) • Ask Jeeves (http://www.askjeeves.com) • AltaVista (http://www.altavista.com) SEARCHING WITH GOOGLE • Launch your browser • Type www.google.com on the address browser • Hit Enter on your Keyboard or Click on Go button on your browser • In the space, type a keyword or keywords. Keywords are descriptive words relating to your search. • Scan through the pages and check for web pages with relevant requests or search. • To make search faster, search operators can also be used but it is beyond the scope of this training. EXERCISE • Search for information about weather for your town • Search for your popular home video actor/actress E-MAIL (ELECTRONIC MAIL) • E-Mail or Electronic Mail is a paperless method of sending messages, letters, video and graphics from one person to another or many people at the same time via Internet. • A few among them are: Yahoo Mail (http://www.mail.yahoo.com), Hotmail (http:// www.hotmail.com) , Gmail (http://www.gmail.com) , Rediffmail (http://www.rediffmail.com). Organisations can also run their own mail services e.g. mail.oauife.edu.ng Components of an E-Mail Address • Internet e-mail addresses typically have two main parts: [email protected]. The first part is the User ID (chams) that refers to the recipient’s mailbox. Then there is an ‘at’ sign (@). Next comes the host name (domain), also called the domain name. • The end of the domain name consists of a dot (“.”) followed by three or more letters (such as .com and .gov) that indicate the top-level domain (TLD). This part of the domain name indicates the type of organization or the country where the host server is located. How to send, read and reply to E- Mails • Type in the web address of your mail provider e.g. www.gmail.com - then login by using your user ID and password that you have created. • After Successful Login; Click on Compose button, it follows the screen: E-mail messages are similar to letters, with two main parts: The header contains the name and address of the recipient, the address of anyone who is being sent a copy (cc) and the subject of the message. • In header section: Type the e-mail address of the recipient in the “To:” field. For more than one person, e-mail id should be separated by commas. At least one e-mail ID is a must. • In the “Cc:” field, enter the email address of those to whom you would like to send a “carbon copy” of your message. All recipients of the message will be able to see that the person you designated as a “Cc:” has received a copy of the message. How to send, read and reply to E- Mails (CONT’D) • In the “Bcc:” field, enter the e-mail address of those to whom you would like to send a “blind carbon copy” of your message. This is nearly identical to the “Cc:” feature, except that “Bcc:” recipients are invisible to the “To:” and “Cc:” recipients of the message as well as to each other. • Type subject of your message in the “Subject:” field. • Use the large text box to enter the contents of your message. • Click on Attach files to attaching file(s) and Insert Photos to attach Photos if required. • Click on send button to send the message. Reading, Replying/ Forwarding a message • Click on Check Mail or Inbox to Read/Reply a message. • Click on the subject of the message to read. • One can Reply/ Forward the message by clicking appropriate button. EXERCISE 2 • Open a free gmail account from www.gmail.com (See manual guide to be distributed in Class) • Send a mail to a colleague and confirm receipt INSTANT MESSAGING • Instant messaging (IM) is growing in popularity as the Internet becomes more widely used in a social context. • Popular IM applications include MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and AOL Messenger. In addition to these dedicated applications a number of Web-based services also provide instant messaging facilities within the Web site, such as YahooGroups. The JISCMail list management service also provides a Web-based instant messaging facility. INSTANT MESSAGING BENEFITS OF INSTANT MESSAGING • Instant Messaging software can provide several benefits: • • The immediacy provided by instant communications • • Avoiding swamping list members with unnecessary messages • • Value-added features, such as sharing desktop applications, use of Web cams, etc. • Instant messaging fans appreciate the immediacy of communications it provides, which can be particularly valuable when working on small-scale concrete tasks.