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| Beginner's Guide to Using the Internet Toolkit > What is the Internet? |
What is the Internet?The Internet is a global computer network. It includes many smaller networks and single computers that are hooked together. It allows people to make information on their computers available to people using other computers. There is no universal standard of quality control for resources on
the Internet. It can be the Wild, Wild West of information resources.
The Internet is not a service. It is like the network of telephone lines
and switches - not it There are many types of services available on the Internet. One example is the World Wide Web (www). It was designed to make documents, images, and sounds available through easy-to-use "web sites.” It allows connections to other documents by linking to other pages. For example, if you're reading an online magazine's review of a current movie, you might notice the director's name highlighted in blue within the body of the text. That’s a hypertext link. That means the person who created this page has created a link for you. If you click on the name, you'll jump to a related story about the film's director. Hyperlinks make navigating the Web a truly interactive experience. Some of these links take you to different websites entirely. Others take you to different sections of the same website. A domain name is a way to identify and locate computers connected to the Internet. A domain name must be unique; no two organizations on the Internet can have the same domain name. "http://www.yahoo.com" is an example of a domain name. The first part of the address, "http://www", directs you to the right part of the world wide web located on a particular computer. Some internet browsers do not require you to type "http://" at all. Yahoo is the name of the organization; “.com” is the extension that is used by many large organizations. An extension of “.org” is used by nonprofit organizations. If you see “.edu,” that means it’s an educational organization. A Word of CautionAnyone can create a website. Some of the websites that you run across will vary by their content and their professionalism. It is wise to learn who or what organization created the website to determine whether you think the information you find on it is reliable. Some websites are easy to figure out. The website for the television news channel CNN is called www.cnn.com. Other websites are more difficult. Most websites have a button called About Us. On this page they explain their organization’s mission. You can also click on the Contact Us button. This should show their mailing address and phone numbers in addition to email contact. If you cannot find enough information to verify that the site is legitimate, proceed with caution. |
self
a destination, but rather a means of reaching places. | Table
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Internet? | What is
a Browser? |