|
The minimal level connection, available to any dial-up user to any computer with an Internet link, is sending and receiving e-mail. The mechanics of this differs dependent on the host system, the software you are using on your own computer, and the type of communications connection. But the principle is the same, and has many parallels to post office operations. You send a message (with your return address and the address of the recipient), and it is passed from one computer system to another until it arrives at its destination (or returns saying address unknown). The message goes most quickly along the Internet backbone of high-speed communication lines, and slows down or waits when it is dependent on intermittent phone lines or on the recipient dialing in to check for mail.
Remember: To send and receive e-mail, you need an e-mail address. The standard format is: anyname@anycomputer.locationofcomputer.typeofserviceprovider.country
Mailing lists, or electronic distribution lists, are just like subscriber or membership lists kept for sending mail through the post office: lists of addresses all of which get the same messages. There are different automatic methods for maintaining such lists, known generically as listservs, from the name of the earliest software to do this. Other popular software packages which do the same thing include listproc and majordomo. The right to post to a list can be limited to a list-owner, opened up to anyone who wants to send a message to the list, or restricted to messages approved by a moderator.
Bulletin boards or conferences may be available on the system one is signed up with, or, in some cases, reachable through the Internet for public free access. Electronic conferences are collections of messages left for anyone with access to read. They may deal with any subject and, like mailing lists, have more or less restrictive limitations on who can read or write messages. The terminology varies from system to system: forums on CompuServe, conferences on Peacenet, meetings on Ecunet, news groups on Usenet, and so on.
The most popular and rapidly growing Internet tool is the World Wide Web. If you have an interactive connection and a Web browser (such as Netscape Navigator), and know the location of a document on the Internet, you can go to that document, read it and/or copy it to your own computer. The document is on a computer on the "core" Internet, in a section of the computer that the owner has decided to make open to the visiting public. The ease of going from one file on one computer to another file on another computer around the world has led to the term surfing used for following such leads as one wishes--similar to browsing at a newsstand, in a bookstore or in the stacks of a library (but more quickly). The Web can also be used to access a gopher, which gives access to files by choosing from consecutive menus. The address of a gopher file begins with "gopher://" instead of "http://".
Remember: To locate a file on the Internet, you need its URL (uniform resource locator or universal resource locator). The standard format is: http://anycomputer.locationofcomputer.typeofserviceprovider.country/directory /filename
|
