What is the INTERNET

Cyberspace: termed by William Gibson in his fantasy novel Neuromancer.

Main Services on the Internet

• WWW Web Browser (e.g. Netscape): Software on your machine that works with the WWW. It organizes the WWW for you.
  • Tools transforming the binary data of the net into pictures, text, movies, and sound.
  • You can run these browsers if you are a peer of a network.
• E-mail
• Newsgroups text oriented

Why is it so big?

1. It works with global standards. One of the most important standards is the idea of a global identification of files. This is called the Unique Resource Location (URL).

Standardized components of an URL: http://www2.tltc.ttu.edu/Schneider/

http:// , usenet://

www2 , www

tltc.ttu

edu , gov, com, recently extensions like .name were added

/schneider

/

2. Sharing idea reduces redundancy

Computers that are linked to the INTERNET not only share their resources; by design they make their own resources available.

If I want to provide the FBI statistics on my homepage, I do not have to copy all the statistics to my computer account. It is sufficient if I link these data providing its URL.

3. The Hypertext principle

Internet Browser (Netscape of MS Explorer)

(1) Drop down boxes: control of all program functions

FILE EDIT VIEW GO BOOKMARKS OPTIONS DIRECTORY

(2) Buttons to control network browsing

They are a subset of the drop down boxes

(3) Below these buttons you see the current URL location

URL Unique Resource Locator

(4) The large part is data found at this URL. Your browser reads this data of the WWW and displays it as if it were a picture. This picture is also called a page.

(5) Homepage

The first thing that you see on the WWW is a special page, your start page.

If you get lost use the button HOME with the house Icon to go back to your starting point.

(6) Hypertext organization of the pages

Sometimes you click on icons, other times on the underlined text

BACK FORWARD menu icons

GO TO OUR TEACHING HOMEPAGE

Direct access of an URL

• Get the URL from your syllabus: http://www2.tltc.ttu.edu/Schneider/
• Enter the cited html address
  • my trick: use the "Location" box
• beware: URLs can be case sensitive

How to conserve information from the WWW

• Print
• Save as file
• Send by E-mail and share

Four different ways to get WWW information into your word processor:

1. Netscape: block text

Launch your windows word processor: paste

ALT + TAB to toggle between both programs

2. NETSCAPE: click File, click Save As

3. Print a WWW page: click File, click Print

4. Send the document to yourself via E-mail or to another student with whom you collaborate: click FILE, click Mail Document

Searching Information on the Internet

1. Local search in a document "CTRL F"

2. Global Search on the Internet MENU BUTTON:

A. Hypertext

Education , Universities, American Institutions

B. Keyword

bureau of justice statistics

Back to the homepage of Dr. Andreas Schneider http://www2.tltc.ttu.edu/Schneider/

Disclaimer: The documents linked to other sources on the WWW, others than http://www2.tltc.ttu.edu/Schneider2/ and its subdirectories, do not necessarily express the views of Texas Tech University or Dr. Andreas Schneider. @Copyright 2006 Andreas Schneider