So, You Want To Use The Internet, Then ?
To start with, it will be good for you to know a few of the terms which are so freely bandied around. We'll begin with the acronyms & TLA's: TLA: Three Letter Abbreviation Don't worry, you don't need to actually understand these immediately, or even memorise them ! However, if you do feel at a disadvantage for not knowing one that isn't explained later on here, then don't hesitate to ask for clarification. In the course of your wanderings (labelled 'surfing' by the mass media) there is a possibility that you shall also encounter the following abbreviations: IYSWIM: If You See What I Mean At first glance, the above might seem rather pointless & childish - however, they do actually have a historical relevance; in the early days of computer communications, data (information) transfer rates were slow, & memory & storage space were so expensive that every byte (letter) really did count, so people tended to abbreviate these often used phrases in order to conserve these precious resources. Nowadays people still use them, not only 'because we have always been here', but because it can get quite tedious typing out such frequently used phrases in full every time.
The Words People Use Contrary to the mass media portrayal, 'The Internet' isn't an actual 'thing' at all, rather it is the name given to the collective networking (connecting together) of many of the world's computers, in many of their own individual networks. So, rather than being just another network, it is actually the 'network of networks'. An analogy can be made with the phone system, or the postal system - there is the BT phone network, the Mercury phone network, all the various mobile phone networks, & also the various companies' & colleges' own internal phone networks. A phone in college connects internally to other phones in college, but it can also connect to the wider world, & to a phone on another network (such as a mobile phone). Of course, for the average user all this happens transparently, & the mechanics of what actually happens in the telephone exchange is largely irrelevant. However, a larger number of internet users are more than just end users - they help maintain the system - so it is as well to be aware of this subtle distinction. A number of the networks available are:
This is where individual communication takes place. Email addresses take the form of somebody@somewhere.something.somecountry, as an example my personal email address is simon@mahayana.demon.co.uk; often you might see the 'co.uk' bit at the end look like 'ac.uk','org','com', or 'edu' - whatever it is, the address is just like a standard postal address, where it specifies an individual at the beginning of it & shows a general area at the end, so you can tell (sometimes) what country the person is in, what kind (ie university, private etc) of account they've got, which particular ISP they use or what university they are at, & some more information either where in the university they happen to be, or something connected to the commercial provider they are using. An important thing to remember is that the case of the letters is relevant - 'SIMON@BlaH.co.uk' is completely different to 'simon@blah.co.uk'. How does one pronounce an email address ? It (contrary to the meal of it that television people make) is actually very simple - the '@' symbol is pronounced 'at', & the full stops are pronounced either as 'dot', or more usually they are just treated as commas are in normal speech; so my email address is pronounced 'Simon at mahayana, demon, co, uk' or 'Simon at mahayana dot demon dot co dot uk'. Email transmission is very fast - typically a message sent can be at its destination within seconds of it being introduced into the system, though remember that if a telephone call is involved at either end to ultimately receive or transmit the mail, than that can add some time, so don't be offended if you don't receive a reply within seconds. Likewise, remember that people aren't themselves connected to their computers 24 hours a day, & believe it or not often have other lives to lead, so even if your message reaches its intended recipient straight away, they may take a day or so finding time to reply - just like normal (so called 'snail') mail ! If you are replying to an email from somebody else, or a NetNews posting (see later), you will be given the original text in your typing window to refer to. This is for if you are holding a conversation with somebody - sometimes people can be holding many such conversations at once, so it is not reasonable to expect them to remember every single thing they have typed to everybody. Just treat your reply like a play script, inserting your comments in between those that you are replying to. Don't forget, if something quoted is not relevant to your reply, then edit it out ! Not only is it considered downright rude to quote the entire of somebody else's message when you needn't, but it also demonstrates that you don't really know what you are doing, thus laying you open to derision from other less tolerant users. The biggest mistake you can make in this regard is to quote a whole message, & at the bottom the only thing you say is 'Me Too', or 'I Agree' - this will get you dubbed an "aol'er", which is the most insulting term of abuse in the entire world. The term is actually an example of internet racism - 'aol' refers to 'America On Line', a service provider whose users were once not noted for their observance of the various protocols ('netiquette') which enable everybody to get along smoothly.
World Wide Web (WWW) You are actually using this now - it is the part of the internet where people 'look things up' - the basic information storage system, & if you believe this is a good thing, you can be proud in the knowledge that it was actually a British person based at the European Particle Physics Laboratory (CERN) in Switzerland who invented it - see, its not all Americans running the show ! It works in a similar manner to a CD Rom encyclopaedia, or to the 'help' facility in Windows, where you can type in key words on a search page, & the system will find you some documents that are stored somewhere hopefully containing the information you require. These documents are written in a format called 'hypertext' - on them you will often find words which are a different colour & underlined which are called 'links' - if you click on such a word you will be taken to a different page, which could either give you more detailed information about what you wish to know, or it could actually take you to a completely different subject entirely, depending on the context you will probably know which. Just like a paper encylopaedia, it is very easy to get sidetracked from what you originally started to look up just by accidently finding something else that looks interesting. Documents on the Web are located with addresses similar to email addresses, & are called 'URL's. The format of the address is http://something.somewhere/filename(/name/name) - the address for this document is 'http://www.demon.co.uk/net.htm'. Just like email, the case of the letters in the address is important.
UseNet / NetNews This, in my opinion, is by far the most useful, educational, & even fun part of the internet. It is where actual discussions take place in an open forum, on almost any subject such as musical composition, computer science, or meteorology, through more recreational subjects such as boating, pet keeping, or television & radio programmes such as Babylon 5, The X Files, or The Archers, along to subjects that you will probably not want your parents to know you are talking about. The discussions take place in things called 'newsgroups' - there are over 16,000 of these in existance, with more being created all the time as demand grows, & some being deleted when they fall into disuse or get renamed into a different form. To make it easier to find a group on a subject you might be interested in, the names of them are grouped into 'hierarchies' based on broad topic areas; the so called 'Big 8 / UseNet' groups, which are global in scope have the hierarchy top levels of rec, comp, news, sci, misc, soc, talk, & humanities - the 'rec' groups deal with mostly recreational subjects (such as rec.music.compose, or rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5), the 'comp' groups deal with computer subjects (such as comp.sys.lang.basic), the 'news' groups don't actually deal with news as in current affairs, but news as in NetNews - basically the technical aspect of the system (such as news.announce.net-abuse.misc). The 'sci' groups deal with scientific subjects (such as sci.meteorology), the 'misc' groups deal with subjects that at the time of naming couldn't be better fitted anywhere else (such as misc.misc !), the 'soc' groups are generally social science type groups (such as soc.culture.british), & the 'talk' groups are groups in which a fair amount of heated arguing - 'flame wars' - is likely to be going on (such as talk.politics.guns). The 'humanities' hierarchy is the youngest of the Big 8 hierarchies, & currently only contains a couple of newsgroups, but its purpose should be clear from the name ! In addition to the Big 8 groups, there are a number of other hierarchies; there is the 'alt' hierarchy ('alt' standing for alternative) where you can find all manner of discussion. Often 'alt' groups are used as testing grounds before people start off Big 8 groups, & often groups are just created there out of a sense of anarchy ! There are also a number of regionally based hierarchies - we have our own one, for example, with groups such as uk.media.tv.misc & uk.current-events.general; there are also groups where people speak exclusively French (such as fr.*) or German (de.*). If amongst the 16,000 newsgroups in existance you still can't find anywhere to talk about your own interest of aardvark breading, then you can create your own. The procedures for doing this vary, so if you feel you do need to create a group, then it is best to discuss it with me first. One thing that it is important to remember is that if ever you see the words 'RFD' or 'CFV' in a subject line in the group you are reading, then it means somebody is trying to create another group that will either affect you or the group; if you care about the group you are reading, then it is essential that you don't ignore such a discussion. Before you post to a group, you should read it for at least a week beforehand ('lurk') in order to make sure that you have got the 'feel' of the group - some newsgroups have what can only be described as an oddball sense of humour, & if you go in there contradicting it, you may be flamed quite badly. Likewise, watch out for 'trolls'; these are conversations ('threads') which people have deliberately saying something stupid, with the intention of catching out a newcomer ('newbie'). An example of a troll might be on an astronomy newsgroup where people might be talking about how much more interesting to watch exclipses of the full moon are than in other phases of it - the moon can only be eclipsed when it is full, but if you jump in & point this out, you will have been trolled ! Even old hands ('net.gods') can get caught out sometimes, so if this happens to you, it is far better to grit your teeth & accept your stupidity than it is to then launch in to a rant casting aspersions against the other newsgroup residents' parentage. Another reason for lurking for a couple of weeks is if you have joined the newsgroup because you require information of some kind - the question you are about to ask could be a Frequently Asked Question - for example, in rec.music.compose, probably the most frequently asked question is 'what kind of notation software do you recommend ?' As you will appreciate, if you are a long time reader of a newsgroup it gets incredibily irritating having to answer the same question several times a week, so what most newsgroup have is a document called a 'FAQ', which is automatically posted to the newsgroup on a regular basis, so its best to wait until this appears before asking your question, because it may well have already been answered on it. If after a time it hasn't appeared, then posting a simple question 'Can somebody email me the faq, please' should get you some joy. If you wish your posting to go to several newsgroups at once (say you have a question which would be just as pertinent on rec.music.compose as it is on rec.music.classical), then there is a special way to post to more than 1 group - this is called 'crossposting'. Ask me if you wish to do this, as it is easier for me to explain how to do it in person than on paper. Be warned - under no circumstances be tempted to post the same message seperately to newsgroups - this is called 'spam', & is considered the most serious form of 'net.abuse'.
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