Internet and E-mail

9.1   Internet 9.1.1                      Introduction of Internet 9.1.2                      Uses of Internet: 9.1.3                      Concept of Protocols 9.1.4                      Web Browser, Web Page, Website, Web Server, URL, DNS 9.1.5                      Search Engine, Messenger Services 9.1.6                      Setting Browser Properties 9.1.7                      Setup Network Connection  9.2           E-mail 9.2.1          Concept of  E-mail 9.2.2          Uses of E-mail 9.2.3          Web Based E-mail  and POP E-mail

Introduction of Internet

Internet is a network of networks that exists in global form where sends and receives all kinds of information such as text, graphics, audio, video, animation and programs etc. Simply, internet is a collection of LAN, MAN and WAN where shares data & information and resources in global form. Internet is also called ocean of information because almost any types of information is available on it. Each internet has three components:

@  Network of Networks.

@  Network with information and resources.

@  Users on the network.

Services of Internet

@  E-mail.

@  File transferring.

@  WWW.

@  Telnet Service.

@  E-commerce.

@  Internet Relay Chat.

@  E-fax.

@  Newsgroup.

@  Video conference.

@  Internet Telephony.

Application/use of Internet

@  Used for sending and receiving e-mail.

@  Used for on-line business. E.g. E-commerce.

@  Used for downloading various software and information.

@  Used for current news and events.

@  Used for researcher to develop their research.

@  Used for entertainments.

@  Used for E-governance.

@  Used for learning purpose.

@  Used for online chat, video conference etc.

@  Used for job search

Advantages of Internet

@  Information on almost every subject imaginable. 

@  Powerful search engines.

@  Ability to do research from your home versus research libraries. 

@  Information at various levels of study. Everything from scholarly articles to ones directed at children.
5) Message boards where people can discuss ideas on any topic.

@  The internet provides the ability of emails. Free mail service to anyone in the country.

@  Platform for products like SKYPE, which allow for holding a video conference with anyone in the world who also has access.

@  Friendships and love connections have been made over the internet by people involved in love/passion over similar interests.

@  Things such as Yahoo Answers and other sites where kids can have readily available help for homework.

@  All kinds of news are available almost instantaneously.

Disadvantages of Internet

@  There is a lot of wrong information on the internet. Anyone can post anything, and much of it is garbage.

@  There are predators that hang out on the internet waiting to get unsuspecting people in dangerous situations.

@  Some people are getting addicted to the internet and thus causing problems with their interactions of friends and loved ones.

@   Pornography that can get in the hands of young children too easily.

@  Easy to waste a lot of time on the internet.

@  There are a lot of unscrupulous businesses that have sprung up on the internet to take advantage of people.

@  Hackers can create viruses that can get into your personal computer and ruin valuable data.

@  Hackers can use the internet for identity theft. 

@  Spreading viruses, malicious and various threats.

Concept of protocol

A protocol is a set of organized rules by which computers on the network communicate with each other. In other word, a protocol is a set of rules to govern the data transfer between the devices. Examples are TCP/IP, HTTP, SMTP, POP, IMPA etc. The rules are used for the following purposes. 

@  For compressing the data. 

@  For sending device to indicate that it has finished sending a message. 

@  For receiving device to indicate that it has received a message.

Some common protocols are

TCP/IP (Transmission control protocol/Internet protocol)

                TCP/IP is the native protocol of the internet that enables computers to communicate over all types of network. It controls and manages transferring of data from one computer to other on the network. It breaks down the data into packets and transferring the packets to the destination node. Therefore, they transfer data on the packet level.

HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol)

 HTTP is the internet protocol used to communicate between web clients and web servers. The web browser of a client requests a web page of a web site using HTTP to a web server and the web pages are downloaded through the browser on the client computer. Therefore, http transferring file ( text, images, videos, audios, graphics and other multimedia files) on the world wide web.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

                The file transfer protocol is used to transfer files from one computer to another. The transferring of files from client computer to remote computer or server computer is called uploading. The getting down the data or information from the server computer to client computer is called downloading.

SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)

SMTP is the e-mail protocol that manages the exchange of electronic mail between severs. SMTP transfers electronic mail one server to another server.

POP (Post Office Protocol)

A POP protocol is used to retrieve from a mail server. Most e-mail applications (sometimes called an e-mail client) use the POP protocol, although some can use the newer IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol).

There are two versions of POP. The first, called POP2, became a standard in the mid-80's and requires SMTP to send messages. The newer version, POP3, can be used with or without SMTP.

IPX/SPX (Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange)

It is the protocol that is used in Novell Netware operating system for networking purpose. It is not used for the internet.

NetBEUI (NetBIOS Extended User Interface) 

It is a network protocol used in small size local area networks (LANs). It does not need any configuration to implement and is very simple to administer.

DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) 

It is an automatic configuration protocol used on IP networks. It can automatically assigned internet addresses to computers and users.

Web browser

A web browser is a software application which enables a user to display and interact with text, images, videos, music, and other information that could be on a website.  In other word, a browser is a software program that accesses web pages and displays them on the computer screen. Browser is the short form of web browser. It is used to find, retrieve, view and send information over the internet. Examples are: Netscape navigator, internet explorer, Mozilla Firefox, safari, opera, Google chrome, Conqueror, Lynx etc.

Web page

A collection of related information like as text, image, audio, video, animation etc in a page is called web page. A web page is also known as HTML document. It can be viewed by the web browser. There are two types of web page.

§  Static web page: - A web page which contents, style, effect may not be changed when the page is loaded in browser.  The file extension of static web page is .html or .htm. There is no server side processing.

§  Dynamic web page: -A web page which contents, style, effect can be changed when the page is loaded in browser. The file extension of dynamic web page is .asp, .php, .jsp etc. There is server side processing.

Website

A collection of related web pages stored on a web server is known as web site. A website may contain information about some topics or subjects. Each web site is identified by its unique internet address or URL.

Web server

A computer on the World Wide Web that stores web sites is known as a web server.  When a client computer requests a web site through web browser, the web server searches the information within its file system and sends the requested web pages of web site to client computer and the web browser displays the formatted document on the monitor.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

URL is the addressing scheme used in the internet to locate websites on the internet. Each website site has a unique address called URL that identifies the location on the internet.

Basically, the format of URL consists of four parts: protocol, host computer, server or domain and file name.

URL: http://www.google.com

In the above figure,

§  http: is a protocol.

§  ://: is a symbol that differentiate file protocol and file server.

§  www: file server or host server.

§  Google: domain name.

§  .com: is a type of site like as .com for commercial, .edu for educational, .gov for government etc.

DNS

Domain Name System (or Service or Server) is a server software program (Internet service) that translates domain name into IP addresses. Because domain names are alphabetic, they're easier to remember. The Internet however, is really based on IP addresses. Every time you use a domain name, therefore, a DNS service must translate the name into the corresponding IP address. For example, the domain name www.example.com might translate to198.105.232.4.

Search Engine

A special web site that helps to search information on the web sites on the basis of keyword is known as search engine. Search engine generally does the following searching techniques,

§  Keyword searching

§  Concept-based searching

§  Refining the search

§  Relevancy searching

§  Meta tag based searching

The popular search engines are www.yahoo.com, www.bing.com, www.google.com, www.altavista.com, www.hotbot.com, www.lycos.com, www.infoseek.com, www.inference.com, www.ixquick.com  etc.

Messenger services

Messenger service is a network-based system notification service included in some versions of Microsoft windows. A person who delivers messages, packages, and mail to another. Messenger service is free nowadays provided by the web mail service providers like Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, Face book etc. These messengers also provide audio and video chat by using VOIP protocols. MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk etc are popular example of messenger.

E-mail (Electronic mail)

E-mail is the most popular service of internet. E-mail is a way of exchanging digital message from an originator to one or more recipients anywhere in the world through the internet.

A popular protocol for sending and receiving e-mail through SMTP as well as POP. Using e-mail program like Microsoft Outlook, Netscape Messenger or Eudra, e-mail can be sent and received. To use e-mail service of internet, each user must have a unique identification called e-mail address. The e-mail address is like below:
                         okmanjay41@gmail.com
where,
ymanjay41: is the user identification name of a mail box.
gmail: is the name of organization which provides e-mail facility.
.com: is the type of organization which hosts the mail server.

Uses of e-mail

@  Information Exchange: -it makes distributing a wide variety of information quick and simple.

@  Record keeping: -Unlike telephone and face to face conversions, email conversions provide a built-in record of what we have asked for and what information we have received.

@  Group Work: -Groups use email to send messages to one another and produce documents together.

@  Staying in touch: - By sending and receiving different message to stay near to each other.

Advantages of E-mail

@  It is instant message service.

@  It is faster and cheaper mail service.

@  It can be accessed at any time and from any place.

@  It allows us to send any form of data like text, pictures, audio or video.

@  Physical presence of recipient is not required.

@  Same e-mail can be sent to more than one person.

@  It is best to send and receive message where is problem of transportation and telephone service.

Disadvantages of E-mail

@  Minor mistake in e-mail address sends the e-mail to a wrong address.

@  An e-mail may be hacked.

@  Computer viruses can be spread through the e-mail.

@  Your mailbox may get flooded with emails after a certain time so you have to empty it from time to time.

Webmail

Software run by an ISP or online service that provides access to send, receive, and review e-mail using only your web browser. Users can simply enter the Webmail web site URL in their browser's address or location field, and use their Webmail account by typing in a username and password. Webmail provides an easy access and storage of e-mail messages for users who are not connected to the Internet from their usual location. Hotmail, Gmail, and Yahoo mail are all examples of popular web mail providers.

POP

POP is short for Post Office Protocol, a protocol used to retrieve from a mail server. Most e-mail applications (sometimes called an e-mail client) use the POP protocol, although some can use the newer IMAP(Internet Message Access Protocol).

There are two versions of POP. The first, called POP2, became a standard in the mid-80 and requires SMTP to send messages. The newer version, POP3, can be used with or without SMTP.