Internet Computer Course & How to Articles

The Internet can really be classed as a big, "well huge" network, it's principles are pretty much the same as the network you connect to at work, only thousands or millions of times bigger.

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There are really only two kinds of computers connected to it. The first is basically the work stations, the chances are your probably working on one of these at the moment, a work station is basically a PC or computer that's used by a single user.



The other type of PC is called a server, it's still a computer, but servers are more geared towards serving, hence the name, when your on the internet or your companies network, whenever you save, copy or download files to/from the Network, the chances are your really copying them from a server.

Like I said earlier, Servers are really just pc's but they usually have a couple of differences, normally they have far greater storage capacity or hard disk space, due to the amount of data they have to store,

they might also have more than one processor, (you can read more about processors in one of our other articles), if they actually perform more than just file serving such as Terminal services, this is where the user of a Workstation uses the processing power of the server to perform tasks, so that her workstation does not get tied up.
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History of the Internet
The internet has actually been around far longer then most people realize, it first started over 40 years ago.
It was originally created by the US Defense Department, who created a group called ARPA ( Advanced Research Project Agency ) back in 1957. From here the first network was actually put into operation in 1969,

it had just 4 nodes connected to it ( a node refers to a piece of hardware connected to a network, this can be a computer, or a networked Printer), various elements were implemented after this,

for instance the first email program was introduced in 1972 by Ray Tomlinson.
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Internet Technology
It was not until 1973 that the biggest changed was made,

development began on a Network Protocol (or protocols as it's actually made up from two) called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet protocol).

This was a huge thing, the same TCP/IP protocol is still being used today, and yes your pc is using it right now.

In fact every pc on the internet is using an IP address; it's pretty much the back bone of the whole internet. " internet computer course "

In networking terms a protocol allows two computers to communicate over long distances,

all major operating systems have TCP/IP built into them, regardless of whether you are using a Windows, Unix or Macintosh Os systems.

The actual IP address that is referred to above looks something like 192.168.2.1 , it's 4 sets of digits separated by periods, each of the sets of digits could be anything from 1 to 255 so this gives quite a range of variables available,
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which is just as well as no two computers on the whole internet can have the same IP address, if they did then the one online first would get priority, the other pc would not have access to the Internet.

I'm sure some of you will have come across a similar problem at work, when two people will have been given the same IP address.

In theory though this should never happen on DHCP networks ( these are networks that allocate IP addresses automatically, DHCP= Dynamic Host Control Protocol, the internet is one of these networks), some companies though do not use DHCP,

they use static IP addressing, ( this means the IP address has to be added to your pc manually, this is when conflicting IP addresses can occur) ISP's and Connections
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ISP's Internet Service Providers
If you ever hear anyone referring to their ISP, they are talking about their Internet Service Provider.
An ISP is a company that gives you access to the internet (usually for a fee of course), there are literally thousands of ISP's around the globe, offering all different kinds of packages.
The oldest kind of connection available today is the dial up connection, you get an ISP CD from pc world or the like, install the software and your off and running (well more like walking), Dial up connections require you to have a modem in your pc, this will enable your pc to connect to the internet.
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The major downside to Dial-up internet though is
1. The time it takes to connect, it may take between about 30 seconds to a minute,
2. If you're online a lot, unless you have a special package that gives you a free phone number you'll be charged for every minute,
3. Unless you have two phone lines in your house, once your online you can't make or receive voice calls,
4.and finally , the fastest you'll be able to connect is 56k, sound fast ?, sorry but it's not, if you try to download files or use online banking, the whole thing will crawl along.

These days though most dial-up connections are only used by Notebooks, this is by people who need to access their email when there is no other Internet connection available.

Internet Connection Types
Over the last few years there has been a new kind of connection on the market, the ADSL or Broadband connection.
Generally the connection speed is about 10 times fast than a fast dial-up connection, but they can be faster, most of the connections now are about 512mbps,

but if you need a faster connection, most ISP's can go up to around 3000mbps, but of course the fast the connection the more it costs.

Broadband or ADSL lines, apart from being much fast than dial-up also connect very quickly, you pay a monthly price for the connection and that's it, you can be online 24/7 is you wish, you can also use the phone while browsing.
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Lets go Surfing

Once you've got your super fast internet connection you'll probably use Microsoft's Internet Explorer as your Browser,
Internet Explorer has been around for a number of years now, there have been numerous versions over the years, but the latest version 7 is a very good browser, it's quick and easy to use and it has a lot of functions.

Book marks or Internet favourites are used to remember a web page or site that you would like to return to,

to add a favourite just browse to the page you would like Internet Explorer to remember and then click the favourites menu and then select "add to favourites" your page is now remembered.

If you have a lot of pages that you want to remember then its worth organizing them, to do this just go back to the Favourites menu and click organize favourites, from here you can create folders and keep all of your favourites nicely indexed.

It's always a good idea to keep your browser in tip top condition, every time you venture out onto the Internet it's very easy to pickup all kinds of junk that really can slow down your pc, or worse which I'll cover on another page.
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To give Internet explorer a quick spring clean go to the Tools menu and select internet options, click the general tab if it's not already high lighted,

then select Delete files ( this will be under the section labelled Temporary internet files), this will remove any temporary internet files stored on your pc, most of the time these files will only clutter up your pc, so it's good to have a clear out once a week or so.

Next is the cookies, basically cookies are small files which are placed on your pc whenever you visit a web site.

If you return to the website, the cookie will be recognized if the people running the website so wish, they can see that you are a returning visitor.

Content Advisor - " Child locks ", protecting your child from the Internet
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Due to the very nature of the internet, it obviously has it's good and bad points,

the good points being you can pretty much find anything,
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the bad points being the same you can find anything, but that also means so can your children.

One of the great features of Internet Explorer is its content advisor; it's really easy to use and means you don't have to worry that you children will stumble across any illicit material when browsing the web.

To use the Content advisor, once again go to the Tools menu, select Internet Options, select the content tab, under content advisor click Enable

then under the ratings tab choose, the ratings level for each of the subjects Language, nudity, Sex, Violence, then click ok, it will then ask you for a password, after this is done, you'll need to enter the password to make any changes,

( one little piece of advice, the Language filter is very good, but it will even block virtually everything if it's set too low, so you might want to have a play to see exactly what is being blocked, otherwise you might find yourself having to change it every few minutes, when you little darlings cannot get onto there favourite games or football site )

More on Internet Browsers
Internet explorer is not the only Internet Browser on the scene at the moment, it is the biggest,
but there is also Netscape and Mozilla Firefox, both are very fine browsers and are equal to Internet Explorer is most ways,

although Firefox has an extra facility called tabbed browsing which means you don't have lots of Browser windows open at the same time.



The Search Engines
When you want to find something you'll probably use one of the search engines available such as
yahoo.com or google.com, search engines make it very simple to find whatever your looking for just try to be as specific as possible. 

this saves time, this way you should find what you looking for much faster.
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As you search if you have more than one word try adding speech marks to the beginning and end, for example

This will search for sites containing only the exact string of letters in that format, searching by just typing internet computer course will deliver results with all three of the words, but they could be anywhere in a sentence.

Google and yahoo now have local country search engines which is a good thing, you can now search only for US or English pages, the locations for these engines are google.com, google.com.br, yahoo.com, yahoo.co.uk .

If your even wondering about the end character of websites such as google.com or yahoo.co.uk, a .com address usually means the site is US, if it has a .co.uk extension it's probably UK or a .com.br it means it Brazilian,
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There are a great amount of countries that now have there own suffix, and with you new found browsing skills,

I'm sure you can find a site to tell you where they all are.

Just kidding.

We hope you've got something from this document, We originally wrote it to help, people become more familiar with the Internet, it is a huge subject and we've really just scratched the surface,

if your ready why not check out one of our other pages, a good place to go to from here would be our internet computer training , this covers a general overview of the Windows XP operating system along with how to guides.

Learn how to customize your computer, including quick launch bar, how to make a internet home page of your favorites quickly and simply, plus much more

Want to learn about Windows keyboard commands ? , there easy to learn and will save you time..

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What is an Intranet ?
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Safe internet browsing tips
Is it possible to make a computer 100% safe when browsing, probably not, but by applying a little time, effort and smart browsing techniques we can come very close ..

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When it comes to choosing an internet access provider there are so many ISP’s ( internet service provider ) offering the greatest deal, but how great are they really ??

Using internet television
Internet TV is great for movie lovers, sports fans, and more, as today Internet Television offers just about every subject. This is why Internet Television is one of the hottest web products around. More people are turning to Internet to watch their favorite programs. That sounds great eh?

Setting up a website Unix or Windows, you'll be surprised
If your setting up a website, think Windows is the way? think again or at least until you've checked out our guides
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USB DSL internet
The USB DSL router is relatively new addition to the networking market, it was only a matter of time before we saw the introduction of a USB Modem / Router though as USB connects to pretty much every conceivable piece of computer hardware today.

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