Pat Coleman, Stephen L. Nelson - Effective Executive's Guide To The Internet - The Seven Core Skills Required To Turn The Internet Into A Business Power Tool-Redmond Technology Press (2001)

Effective
Executive’s
GUIDE to
The Seven Core Skills Required to Turn the Internet
into a Business Power Tool
the
internet
Electronic Edition
Effective
Executive’s
GUIDE to
The Seven Core Skills Required to Turn the Internet
into a Business Power Tool
the
internet
Electronic Edition
Pat Coleman
Stephen L. Nelson
Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet:
The Seven Core Skills Required to Turn the Internet into a Business Power Tool
Copyright © 2000 Pat Coleman and Stephen L. Nelson

Electronic Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any method or any means without the
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Contents at a Glance
Introduction xvii
Skill 1 Understand the Environment 1
Skill 2 Make Internet Connections 17
Skill 3 Browse the Web

Web 53
Skill 4 Communicate with Electronic Mail 91
Skill 5 Use Search Services 133
Skill 6 Understand Other Internet Services 177
Skill 7 Publish on the Web

Web 201
Glossary 237
Index 251
v
Contents
Introduction xvii
What This Book Assumes About You ......................................... xvii
How This Book Is Organized .................................................... xviii
Skill 1: Understand the Environment ................................... xviii
Skill 2: Make Internet Connections...................................... xviii
Skill 3: Browse the Web ........................................................ xviii
Skill 4: Communicate with Electronic Mail ......................... xviii
Skill 5: Use Search Services .................................................... xix
Skill 6: Understand Other Internet Services ........................... xix
Skill 7: Publish on the Web .................................................... xix
Conventions Used In This Book ................................................... xx

What Is the Internet? ...................................................................... 2
How the Internet Works ................................................................. 2
Client/Server Architecture ........................................................ 3
Internet Protocols ...................................................................... 3
How Information Travels Over the Internet ............................. 4
Who Manages the Internet? ...................................................... 5
vii
How the Internet Came to Be ......................................................... 6
What Can a Business User Do on the Internet?.............................. 7
What You Need to Connect to the Internet .................................... 9
Types of Internet Connections ................................................ 10
Getting an Account with an ISP ............................................. 10
Security and Privacy on the Internet ............................................. 11
Three Sites for Business Newcomers to the Internet ..................... 12
Summary ....................................................................................... 15

Connecting with a Modem ........................................................... 18
Understanding How a Modem Works .................................... 18
Installing a Modem ................................................................. 18
Configuring a Modem ............................................................. 20
Setting Up Dialing Rules ........................................................ 22
Setting Up Your Internet Connection ..................................... 24
Connecting with a Cable Modem ................................................. 26
Understanding How a Cable Modem Works .......................... 26
Getting Connected .................................................................. 27
Connecting with DSL ................................................................... 28
Understanding How DSL Works ............................................ 28
Connecting with ISDN ................................................................. 30
Understanding How ISDN Works .......................................... 30
How Fast Is Fast Enough? ............................................................ 32
viii Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

Sharing an Internet Connection .................................................... 32
Setting Up the Internet Sharing Computer............................. 33
Setting Up Clients ................................................................... 39
Sharing a High-Speed Connection ......................................... 44
Connecting to a Corporate Network ............................................. 45
Using a Phone Line ................................................................. 45
Setting Up a Calling Card ....................................................... 48
Using a VPN Tunnel ............................................................... 49
Summary ....................................................................................... 51
Skill 3 Browse the Web

Web 53
Understanding How a Web Browser Works .................................. 54
Getting Started .............................................................................. 55
A Word About URLs .............................................................. 56
Understanding the Internet Explorer Window........................ 57
Navigating the Web ....................................................................... 58
Using the Address Bar ............................................................. 58
Following and Adding Links ................................................... 59
Working with Your Favorites ......................................................... 60
Keeping Track of Favorite Sites ............................................... 60
Managing the Favorites List .................................................... 62
Backtracking to a Site .............................................................. 62
Sending Pages and Links ......................................................... 64
Listening to a Webcast .................................................................. 64
Saving and Printing ....................................................................... 66
Contents ix
Searching on the Internet .............................................................. 69
Doing a Simple Search ............................................................ 70
Broadening a Search ................................................................ 72
Understanding Cookies and Temporary Internet Files .................. 74
Customizing Internet Explorer...................................................... 77
Personalizing General Settings ................................................ 77
Establishing Security Levels for Zones.................................... 80
Establishing Other Security Settings....................................... 83
Modifying or Creating an Internet or Network Connection .... 87
Specifying Programs to Use for Internet Services .................... 88
Specifying Advanced Options ................................................. 89
Summary ....................................................................................... 89

Understanding How E-Mail Works .............................................. 92
Understanding the Outlook Express Window .............................. 93
Reading and Processing Messages ................................................. 95
Saving Messages ...................................................................... 96
Printing Messages .................................................................... 98
Marking Messages ................................................................... 98
Replying to Messages .............................................................. 99
Forwarding Messages .............................................................. 99
Deleting Messages ................................................................. 100
Creating and Sending Messages .................................................. 101
Using HTML ........................................................................ 102
Using Stationery .................................................................... 103
Sending Files with Messages ....................................................... 104
x Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition
Creating a Signature .................................................................... 106
Filtering Messages ....................................................................... 107
Using Identities ........................................................................... 110
Working with Newsgroups .......................................................... 112
Setting Up a Newsgroup Account ......................................... 113
Connecting to Newsgroups ................................................... 113
Finding a Topic of Interest .................................................... 114
Posting to a Newsgroup ......................................................... 114
Using Address Book .................................................................... 114
Adding Information for an Individual ................................... 115
Setting Up a Distribution List ............................................... 116
Locating People ..................................................................... 118
Printing Your Address Book .................................................. 118
Creating and Printing a Map ................................................. 119
Customizing Outlook Express..................................................... 120
Specifying General Options .................................................. 120
Specifying What Happens When You Read Messages
or News .................................................................................. 121
Handling Return Receipts ..................................................... 122
Managing How Messages Are Sent ...................................... 123
Changing Fonts, Specifying Stationery, and Using Business
Cards ..................................................................................... 124
Checking Spelling ................................................................. 126
Enhancing Security ............................................................... 127
Configuring Your Internet Connection ................................. 128
Cleaning the Outlook Express House ................................... 129
Managing Your Electronic Office ................................................ 130
Summary ..................................................................................... 132
Contents xi
Understanding How Search Services Work ................................. 134
Understanding Portals and Metasearch Software ........................ 136
Searching with Keywords ............................................................ 137
Searching for a Phrase ........................................................... 139
Searching for All the Words .................................................. 139
Using the NOT Operator ............................................................ 140
Using Wildcards .................................................................... 140
Important Search Services for Business Users ............................. 140
AltaVista ................................................................................ 141
Ask Jeeves .............................................................................. 143
Dogpile .................................................................................. 145
Go .......................................................................................... 147
Google ................................................................................... 148
Go2Net.................................................................................. 150
HotBot .................................................................................. 151
LookSmart ............................................................................ 153
Lycos ...................................................................................... 154
Northern Light ...................................................................... 156
Snap ....................................................................................... 157
Yahoo! .................................................................................... 158
Choosing a Search Service ..................................................... 160
Introducing Copernic 2000: Metasearch Software ...................... 162
Downloading and Installing Copernic 2000 .......................... 162
Using Copernic 2000 ............................................................. 168
Gathering Business Information ................................................. 171
Summary ..................................................................................... 175
xii Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

Using FTP to Access Files .......................................................... 178
Using Telnet ................................................................................ 179
Using Your Computer as a Fax Machine ..................................... 180
Receiving a Fax ...................................................................... 182
Using Your Computer as a Telephone ......................................... 183
Making a Voice Call .............................................................. 183
Receiving Calls ...................................................................... 184
Using an Internet Directory .................................................. 184
Making a Video Call ............................................................. 185
Using HyperTerminal .................................................................. 186
Establishing a HyperTerminal Connection ........................... 186
Transferring Files with HyperTerminal ................................. 188
Conferencing with NetMeeting .................................................. 189
Placing a Call ......................................................................... 191
Chatting on the Screen .......................................................... 191
Using the Other NetMeeting Applications ........................... 192
Using Mailing Lists ..................................................................... 193
How Mailing Lists Work ...................................................... 194
Subscribing and Unsubscribing ............................................. 195
Finding Business Mailing Lists ............................................. 196
Starting Your Own Mailing List ................................................. 200
Using Chat Rooms ...................................................................... 200
Summary ..................................................................................... 200
Contents xiii
Skill 7 Publish on the Web
Web 201
Step 1: Learning How Web Pages Work ..................................... 202
Introducing HTML Code ..................................................... 202
New Web Page Technologies ................................................. 205
Step 2: Developing a Web Strategy ............................................. 206
Why Does It Make Sense to Have a Web Site? .................... 206
What Makes for Good Web Content? .................................. 208
How Should a Web Site Be Developed? ............................... 209
Step 3: Setting Up Your Domain and Server ............................... 210
Picking a Domain Name ....................................................... 210
Choosing a Web Hosting Service .......................................... 212
Where to Find a Web Hosting Company ............................. 214
Signing Up for Service ................................................................ 216
Step 4: Collecting and Creating Digital Content ........................ 216
Collecting Existing Digital Content ...................................... 216
Creating New Digital Content .............................................. 217
Creating New Documents ..................................................... 218
Step 5: Creating Your Web Pages ................................................ 219
Starting with a Wizard .......................................................... 219
Importing Text ....................................................................... 220
Entering and Formatting Text ............................................... 221
Creating Hyperlinks .............................................................. 221
Inserting Images .................................................................... 222
xiv Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

Step 6: Testing Your Web Site ..................................................... 223
Verifying Hyperlinks ............................................................. 223
Testing Your Site in Different Browsers ................................ 223
Usability Testing .................................................................... 225
Step 7: Publishing Your Web Site ................................................ 226
Step 8: Publicizing Your Web Site ............................................... 227
Submitting Your Site to Search Engines and Directories ...... 228
Online Advertising ................................................................ 231
Using Newsgroups to Gain Exposure .................................... 233
Creating a Mailing List ......................................................... 234
Offline Publicizing ................................................................ 235
Summary ..................................................................................... 235
Glossary 237
Index 251
Contents xv
INTRODUCTION
T he Effective Executive’s series is a line of books written specifically for the

business professional. The purpose is to provide you with the information you
need to use your computer effectively to get your job done. Unless you are an infor-
mation technology specialist, your job is not to know everything about your computer.
Your job is to manage the sales representatives, plan a marketing campaign, design new
products for your industry, manage the assets of your corporation, consult with
clients, and so on. The computer is a tool for helping you to do any of this more effi-
ciently and faster and serves as a communications medium within and outside your
organization.
Therefore, the books in the Effective Executive’s series are short (or nonexistent) on
theory and quick and to the point in terms of the topic. They focus on the precise steps
or skills you need to use in your office, whether it’s at a large corporation, a business
you run from home, or somewhere in between.
The purpose of this book, then, is to help you acquire the skills you need to get started,
use, and continue to learn about the Internet so that it enhances your ability to do
your job.
What This Book Assumes About You

You
First, this book assumes that you are not new to computers or new to the Windows
world. It assumes that you know how to use a mouse and keyboard and that you know
how to find and use windows and dialog boxes. It further assumes that you are an
intelligent, capable business user who wants to get the most out of the Internet while
maintaining a busy schedule, achieving professional goals, and having a life.
xvii
How This Book Is Organized
Given these assumptions, this book walks you through the steps to acquire seven prac-
tical skills.
Skill 1: Understand the Environment

In this skill, we give you an overview of the Internet: what it is, how it works, and how
it came to be. We give you some ideas about how you can use the Internet in your work
and describe how you connect to the Internet. In addition, we dip into an issue that
is of great concern today: privacy and security on the Internet. Then, just to get you
started, we point you to some sites that are must-sees for business newcomers to the
Internet.
Skill 2: Make Internet Connections

In this skill, we aren’t focusing on how to meet somebody in a chat room, but on the
various technologies that you can use to connect your computer or network to the
Internet. As the Internet has grown and as we have come to rely on it increasingly to
do our jobs, connection speed has become a primary focus. We discuss what has come
to be called a “slow” connection, the analog modem, though it is by far the most com-
mon in home offices and small businesses. And then we look at the high-speed choices:
ISDN, DSL, and cable modem. We also discuss sharing an Internet connection and
connecting to a corporate network when you’re on the road.
Skill 3: Browse the Web

Web
This skill focuses on Microsoft Internet Explorer, the Web browser that is included
with all the latest versions of Microsoft Windows. We explain how a Web browser
works and how you can use it to navigate the Web, how to keep track of your favor-
ites sites, how to send Web pages and hyperlinks via e-mail, and how to save and print
files that you find on the Web. In addition, we show you how to search with Internet
Explorer and how to customize Internet Explorer so that it is maximized for your
personal use.
Skill 4: Communicate with Electronic Mail

Although the Web may be the most talked-about Internet service, electronic mail is
the most popular. In this skill, we describe how to use Microsoft Outlook Express, the
mail and news reader that is included with the latest versions of Windows. We also
xviii Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

discuss how e-mail works—what happens from the time you compose a message until
your recipient hears the “You Have Mail” sound alert. At the end of this skill, you’ll
find a list of tips that you can use to better manage your electronic office.
Skill 5: Use Search Services

The number of pages on the Web is variously estimated in the billions and even in the
trillions. Consequently, experts suggest that no search service can keep up with even
a major portion of what’s available on the Internet. That said, you are not without some
excellent tools to help you find what you need for business purposes on the Internet.
In this skill, we describe various search services, show you how they work, and give
you the steps to use them. A special topic at the end of this skill gives you some ways
to get started gathering business information.
Skill 6: Understand Other Internet Services

Although the Web and e-mail may be the two Internet services you use the most often,
you can benefit from knowing about the other Internet services that are available and
how to use them. In this skill, we look at FTP, Telnet, and using your computer as a
fax machine and as a telephone. We also discuss connecting to a remote compmuter
as a terminal, and we show you how to use Microsoft NetMeeting, a conferencing
application. Last, this skill describes mailing lists—what they are, how to subscribe
to business mailing lists, and how to create one.
Skill 7: Publish on the Web

Web
If you are new to the Internet, you may not think that the time will ever come when
you’d want to create and publish a Web page. Don’t skip this skill—experts agree that
every business needs a presence on the Internet. In this skill, you learn how Web pages
work, how to develop a Web strategy, how to set up your domain and your server, how
to collect and create digital content, and how to create your Web page. In addition,
we give you the steps for testing your Web site, publishing it, and publicizing it.
NOTE In addition to the seven skills, or chapters, described in the preceding para-
graphs, Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet also includes a glossary of
Internet terms.
Introduction xix
Conventions Used In This Book
In this book, the illustrations and the steps for processes assume the use of Windows
2000 Professional, the most recent release in the Windows family of operating sys-
tems. If you have an earlier version of Windows, the steps and what you see on the
screen will be similar, but not identical. When you have a question, check out
Windows Help.
To identify screen elements, the first letter of each word in the description is capital-
ized. This convention may look a bit strange at first, but it makes it easier to under-
stand some instruction such as “click the Print Table Of Links check box.”
You’ll also find Notes, Tips, and Warnings, which point out tidbits of useful informa-
tion. Pay attention to Warnings; they help you avoid potential problems.
xx Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

Skill 1
UNDERSTAND THE ENVIRONMENT

UNDERSTAND
Featuring:
• What Is the Internet?
• How the Internet Works
• How the Internet Came to Be
• What Can a Business User Do on the Internet?
• What You Need to Connect to the Internet
• Security and Privacy on the Internet
• Three Sites for Business Newcomers to the Internet
Y ou probably don’t need a pile of statistics to tell you about the importance of the
Internet as a cultural and technological phenomenon. But you might be surprised
to know that of those online users who are 18 years and older in the United States,
business users outnumber home users. According to eMarketer, a leading provider of
Internet statistics, the breakdown is 55 percent business users and 45 percent home
users.
1
In a report released in mid-2000 by Arthur Andersen, 50 percent of small and mid-
sized businesses (SMBs) pointed to the Internet as the most favored growth strategy
for the next 12 months. Here is some other information contained in that report (Sur-
vey of Small and Mid-Sized Businesses):
• Approximately 88 percent of SMBs now have computers.
• About 39 percent are networked.
• Some 53 percent have a Web page.
• Some 85 percent report that they use the Internet.
It’s clear that the effective executive needs to be up-to-speed as far as the Internet is
concerned, and that’s probably one of the reasons you’re reading this book. This first
skill gives you some background information and an overview of how the Internet
works and how you can make it work for you.
TIP If you’re interested in finding more information about how businesses are us-
ing and profiting from the Internet, go to http://www.emarketer.com.
What Is the Internet?

The short answer is that the Internet is a worldwide network of networks, which raises
the question, what is a network? By definition, a network is a group of computers and
peripheral devices (such as printers, modems, and so on) that are connected in some
way so that their users can share files and other resources. A network can be as simple
as two computers in a small office and is known as a local area network (LAN). A more
complex LAN can connect many computers via a communications cable.
Yet a still more complex kind of network is a wide area network (WAN). A WAN is
any network that crosses metropolitan, regional, or national boundaries and usually
connects LANs. You could say that the Internet is the largest WAN on the planet. The
Internet is actually a specific type of WAN—a collection of interconnected networks,
which is technically an internetwork. Internet, then, is short for the term internetwork.
How the Internet Works

Works
When you send or receive information over the Internet, the process can seem almost
instantaneous—under ideal conditions. But the way that information travels over the
Internet is fairly complex. We’ll look at the parts and pieces that make it happen a bit
2 Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

later in this section, but first we need to look at two underlying mechanisms that are
responsible for the existence of the Internet: client/server architecture and the Trans-
mission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) family of protocols.
Client/Server Architecture
Some people say that the real secret to the Internet is an arrangement based on pro-
grams called clients and servers. Simply put, a server is a program that provides a
service, and a client is a program that requests a service. A server program resides on
a computer that is also called a server because it stores the information that the client
requests.
For example, you have an e-mail program on your computer; it is a client. When you
use this client program to send a message over the Internet, it contacts an e-mail server
program on another computer, which could be in the same office building or on the
other side of the world. That mail server program ensures that your message is deliv-
ered to the address you specified.
Client programs reside on your computer, but server programs reside on remote com-
puters. Remote doesn’t mean on a desert island, but just some place outside your of-
fice or home. The client could care less about where the server is.
Now all these client and server programs on the Internet are not all running on the
same kinds of computers or on the same operating system. You can access the Internet
with a Macintosh computer, with a terminal attached to a mainframe, from a com-
puter that is running the Unix or Linux operating system, from a computer that is
running any of several versions of Microsoft Windows, and so on. And the server
program you access could also be running on any of a number of different configura-
tions. What makes this possible is that all these computers and programs abide by the
same set of communications rules, known as protocols. In particular, the Internet uses
the TCP/IP family of protocols.
Internet Protocols
When information goes out over the Internet, it is sent in chunks called packets. The
Internet Protocol moves these packets from one place to another, and the Transmis-
sion Control Protocol manages the flow of packets and ensures that the information
arrives intact and without errors. Thus, TCP/IP is the mechanism that keeps the
Internet running.

Table 1-1 lists and explains some of the other important Internet protocols, some of
which will be discussed in “Skill 6: Understand Other Internet Services.”
PROTOCOL WHAT IT DOES

WHAT
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Copies files between computers.
Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) Manages communications between a
Web browser and a Web server.
Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP) Defines how users can retrieve and search
through incoming e-mail messages.
Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) Searches a directory of e-mail addresses.
Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) Distributes newsgroup messages, such
as from Usenet.
Post Office Protocol (POP) Retrieves messages from an e-mail server.
Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) Connects a computer to the Internet.
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) Sends messages from one e-mail server
to another.
Telnet Allows you to log on to a remote com-
puter as a terminal.
Table 1-1 Some important Internet protocols.
NOTE An intranet is a network that is internal to a corporation or organization and

uses Internet technology, including the client/server architecture and TCP/IP.
How Information Travels Over the Internet

Travels
After information is broken into packets and begins its journey from one computer
to another over the Internet, it can travel through many computers, networks, and
hardware devices. Here are some of the most important hardware devices:
• Hubs, which link groups of computers into a LAN and allow them to communicate.
• Bridges, which link LANs.
• Gateways, which are similar to bridges but also translate information from one kind
of network to a different kind of network.

• Repeaters, which amplify the information at various intervals so that the signal
doesn’t weaken. Repeaters are important when information has to travel long distances.
• Routers, which ensure that packets always arrive at the destination for which they
are intended. Routers also monitor the traffic on the Internet and, when necessary,
send packets to a router that is closer to the ultimate destination.
• Backbones, which manage most of the traffic on the Internet. A backbone can
connect several locations, and other, smaller networks can be connected to a back-
bone. Most backbones are very high speed and can transmit enormous quantities
of data, currently as much as 155 megabits per second.
Who Manages the Internet?

No one. No one runs the Internet, and no one owns the Internet, and yet it seems to
work just fine. Of course, the Internet is composed of many smaller networks, and many
of these networks are managed by corporations, governments, and all sorts of other
organizations, but no one entity or person is in charge of the Internet.
In the early days of the Internet (and we’ll look at that next), anarchy reigned, and to
some extent it still does, despite numerous attempts by governments to pass legisla-
tion that would tax the Internet, prohibit certain kinds of activity over the Internet,
monitor or track e-mail, and so on. This sort of regulation is, of course, anathema to
the pioneers of the Internet and to most technology professionals. In a later section
in this skill, we’ll look at Internet privacy and security issues, and, in that context, it’s
important to remember that no one organization, government, or person controls the
Internet.
The Internet is directed by a group of volunteers called the Internet Society (ISOC),
which promotes cooperation and coordination for the Internet, Internet applications,
and Internet technologies. The ISOC includes representatives of many governments
and major computer companies. In addition, the ISOC coordinates the activities of
the Internet Architecture Board (IAB), which works out issues of standards, network
resources, and so on; the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), which handles day-
to-day issues of Internet operation; the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA),
which is a clearinghouse for Internet addresses, protocol variables, and domain names;
and the Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), which creates long- and short-term
research groups that concentrate on protocols, architecture, and technology issues. For
information about the Internet Society, go to http://www.isoc.org.

How the Internet Came to Be
Harley Hahn, a recognized Internet expert, recently said something to the effect that
the Internet is relatively new, but that it’s going to be around for the rest of our lives
and long after we are gone. We agree with most of that statement, but the Internet is
not exactly “new.” It evolved through a series of developments in the academic, gov-
ernmental, and information technology communities, and it’s instructive to take a look
at some of these developments:
• In 1969, ARPAnet, an experimental four-computer network, was established by the
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense
as a backup communication system in case of a nuclear attack and so that scientists
could communicate.
• By 1971, the date that is usually marked as the official beginning of the Internet,
ARPAnet comprised almost two dozen sites, including MIT and Harvard. By 1974,
ARPAnet comprised 62 sites, and by 1981, more than 200 sites.
• During the 1980s, more and more computers using different operating systems were
connected. This was made possible by the standardization of TCP/IP, which in 1983
became the official transport mechanism for all connections to ARPAnet.
• In 1983, the military portion of ARPAnet was moved onto the MILnet, and
ARPAnet was officially disbanded in 1990.
• In the late 1980s, the National Science Foundation’s NSFnet began its own net-
work. It was, however, primarily the domain of techies, computer-science gradu-
ates, and university professors because commercial traffic was banned. In 1991, the
ban was lifted, making way for the age of electronic commerce.
• In 1992, the World Wide Web system and software were released, and in late 1993,
NCSA (the National Center for Supercomputing Applications) released versions
of Mosaic (the first graphical Web browser) for Microsoft Windows, for Unix sys-
tems running the X Window System, and for the Apple Macintosh. Traffic on the
Internet grew at a rate of 341,634 percent a year.
• In 1994, Netscape Communications Corp. was formed and released the Netscape
Navigator browser.
• In 1995, NSFnet reverted to its existence as a research project, and the Internet was
left in commercial hands. Microsoft released Internet Explorer, a Web browser that
competed head-to-head with Netscape Navigator.

• In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed the Telecommunications Act partly in an attempt
to regulate the Internet. In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that this act was
unconstitutional.
• In 1998, the U.S. Justice Department and attorneys general from several states filed
suit against Microsoft, claiming that the inclusion of Internet Explorer in Windows
98 violated antitrust guidelines. At the time of this writing, the case is pending before
the U.S. Supreme Court.
• In 2000, it is estimated that more than 200 million people worldwide are using the
Internet and that by 2005 that number will increase to 1 billion.
What Can a Business User Do on the Internet?

If you work in a corporation, the short answer is that you can do anything that isn’t
prohibited by the policies or technological controls in place in your organization. That
answer begs the question, though, and what you really want to know are what kinds
of resources are available on the Internet that can help you be more productive, more
efficient, and more informed in your area of the business world. You’ll find lots of
suggestions throughout this book, and here is a brief list to get you started:
• Send and receive e-mail.
• Share files, programs, and other digital resources.
• Plan a trip and purchase airline tickets.
• Find out what restaurants in a new city would be appropriate for entertaining clients.
• Make hotel reservations.
• Rent a car.
• Print a map and driving instructions.
• Get investment information and buy and sell securities.
• Look for a new job.
• Find prospective employees.
• Research the competition.
• Do your banking.
• Subscribe to professional journals and other publications.
• Take classes.
• Download and print tax forms.

• Buy office equipment and supplies.
• Acquire software.
• Publicize and promote your business organization.
• Chat with an expert in your field.
• Do market research.
• File your business taxes.
• And so on, and on, and on…
You can take care of almost any business need you can think of by using the Internet,
and often doing so can save you hours of time and a lot of hassle. Here’s a really simple
example. Recently, one of the employees in our office was sporting a leg cast as a re-
sult of a skiing accident and needed a temporary handicapped parking permit. He
found out that the process started with a trip to the motor vehicles department to pick
up the form, a step which in itself involved taking off from work, getting to the de-
partment, and then standing in one of those ubiquitous endless lines. Instead, he lo-
cated the form on the Internet in less than five minutes. Unfortunately, he couldn’t
complete the process online, but he saved himself a lot of time and discomfort, and
the day will come when we will be able to do such things all from our computers.
TIP Make a habit of checking the Internet first when you face a similar situation.
Table 1-2 lists some great Internet sites for business users.
SITE URL DESCRIPTION

Commerce Business Daily http://cbdnet.gpo.gov/ The electronic version of the print
newspaper that tells you what you
need to know to do business with
the U.S. government.
Dun & Bradstreet http://www.dnb.com A fee-based source for financial
and credit data on publicly traded
and privately held companies
worldwide.
Hoover’s Online http://www.hoovers.com A fee-based searchable online di-
rectory of profiles for more than
12,000 public and private compa-
nies worldwide.

Internal Revenue Service http://www.irs.gov Gives you access to everything the
IRS has to offer, including
downloadable forms, filing sched-
ules, rules and regulations, and so on.
Statistical Resources http://www.lib.umich.edu/ Statistics on everything from agri-
on the Web libhome/Documents.center/ culture and banking to the weather,
stats.html compiled from sources all over the
world.
The Wall Street Journal http://interactive.wsj.com/ A subscription-only version of the
home.html print edition.
The World Factbook http://www.odci.gov/cia/ A publication of the U.S. Central
publications/factbook/ Intelligence Agency that includes
index.html information on every country in
the world. (This was one of the
first reference books ever made
available on the Internet.)
Table 1-2 Some great Internet sites for business users.
What You Need to Connect to the Internet

You
If you work on a corporate LAN, you most likely don’t need anything special to con-
nect to the Internet because your computer system is set up with a communications
channel, and your company has contracted with an Internet service provider (ISP). If,
however, you have a home office or your own small business, you need some kind of
device that lets you communicate with the Internet, and you need an account with an
ISP.
Many corporations access the Internet through a connection called a T-1. A T-1 is a
long-distance circuit that moves data at incredibly fast speeds and is very expensive.
Unless money is no object, you’ll need to find some other means to connect your home
or small office to the Internet.
NOTE In “Skill 2: Make Internet Connections,” we’ll look at how you configure your
computer to use the communication device you select. Here, we simply want
to give you an overview of the possible choices.

Types of Internet Connections
Probably the most typical communications device in use today is the telephone mo-
dem, and any computer you’ve bought within the last few years or purchase today is
equipped with one, and it is usually the fastest modem available. That said, you’ll never
connect at the modem’s maximum speed because a modem uses your phone line, and
the electrical noise on a phone line can decrease the modem’s speed by 30 percent or
more. Although today’s modems are fast when compared with those available even five
years ago, they are still the slowest type of Internet connection. Because a modem uses
a regular, analog phone line, it is referred to as a dial-up connection.
A step up from a modem in terms of speed is an Integrated Services Digital Network
(ISDN) line. This type of connection is also provided by the phone company, but it
uses all digital technology, which means that it is not subject to electrical interference
and, thus, is much faster than a modem. Some ISDN lines can be used for both voice
and Internet connections at the same time.
The next faster connection to the Internet is a digital subscriber line (DSL). DSL also
uses the phone line and can support simultaneous voice and Internet connections. A
DSL connection is always on; that is, unlike using your modem, you don’t have to
connect to DSL after you power up your computer. DSL is a permanent connection,
and to use it, you need DSL service from your phone company, an account with an
ISP who offers DSL, and a DSL modem. Using a DSL connection can be a cost-
effective choice, especially if you’ve previously needed two phone lines.
Another popular way to connect to the Internet these days is via cable modem. Cable
connections are provided by the same companies that provide cable TV, and some of
these companies also serve as ISPs. Cable modems are fast, and your cable company
furnishes everything you need to get set up, which usually means a cable modem and
an Ethernet adapter, if your computer doesn’t have an Ethernet port. The downside
to cable modems is that you must share the bandwidth with everyone in your neigh-
borhood who has one. As usage increases, connection speed decreases, which is not
true of ISDN or DSL.
Getting an Account with an ISP

Before you start looking for an ISP, you want to have made the choice about which
kind of Internet connection you will use. If you decide on cable modem, for example,
you won’t need to find an ISP, because the cable company will probably be your ISP.
And if you decide on DSL, you’ll need to find an ISP that offers that kind of account.

If you want to use a dial-up connection, you can choose from any number of ISPs,
including those that are in your local area or region or those that are national.
When you buy a new computer, you’ll often see an icon on the desktop that gives you
easy access to an 800 number for various ISPs. You can then sign up online. In addi-
tion, as you will see in the next skill, the Internet Connection Wizard can help you
find an ISP. Both methods are quick and easy, but may not be the best solution for your
particular situation. Often the best way to start is to ask people in your area which ISP
they use and if they are happy with the service. You can also check your local news-
papers or phone books.
Basically, when you contact an ISP, you want to know how much a service costs and
exactly what you’re getting for your money. These days, most ISPs offer unlimited access
to e-mail and the Web for one set fee. If you travel and take your laptop on the road,
be sure to find out whether the ISP has a local access or toll-free number that you can
dial to check your e-mail.
Security and Privacy on the Internet

A lot has been and is being written and discussed about security and privacy on the
Internet. And all sorts of proposals are being suggested, including government inter-
vention and technological solutions. Most businesses give a great deal of thought to
protecting their data and the security of their transactions—on- and offline.
When you’re using the Internet—sending and receiving e-mail or searching the Web—
you need to remember that your activities really aren’t private. If an e-mail message
that Bill Gates sent to members of the Microsoft inner sanctum can end up as evi-
dence in court, the messages that you send and receive could conceivably end up al-
most anywhere. Here are some additional points to consider when you’re browsing the
Internet or sending and receiving e-mail:
• Some employers use special software programs to track every single keystroke you
make at your computer. These programs can read the e-mail messages you send and
receive, record all the sites you visit on the Internet, detect if you install a software
program that isn’t sanctioned by the organization, and so on. And, as a result, people
lose their jobs if they are in violation of company policy regarding these matters.
Sometimes employees don’t even know their computer activities are being moni-
tored until they are ushered out the door. Your best defense is to inform yourself
about these policies and the way they are enforced and then abide by the rules, al-
though some employees are challenging such tactics in the court system.

• Browsing the Internet leaves an electronic trail in your Temporary Internet Files
folder, in your History list, and sometimes in network logs on server computers. In
“Skill 3: Browse the Web,” we’ll look at this in more detail, but be aware that Web
sites can store information about you and leave information on your computer
without your knowledge or permission.
• The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has reportedly installed an e-mail moni-
toring device named Carnivore at some (many?) ISPs located in the United States.
The Carnivore hardware and software apparently reads e-mail header information
(this includes the names of the people sending and receiving the message) and then
records messages to or from the person under surveillance.
Three Sites for Business Newcomers to the

Internet
Earlier in this skill, we listed some Web sites that every business user of the Internet
should know about. If you are a new business user of the Internet, we think that three
sites, in particular, should be your first ports of call: Amazon.com, the Dell Computer
site, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) site. Each of these sites is an example of
using the Internet to its best advantage and gives you an excellent idea of what is
available on the Internet for the business user.
Amazon.com was one of the first and perhaps the most successful, if not the most
profitable, business to exist entirely on the Internet. Initially, the mission of
Amazon.com was to sell books, at a discount, over the Internet, and it billed itself as
the world’s largest bookstore, even though it had virtually no inventory. Today
Amazon.com sells everything from books to software to garden tools, claims to have
“earth’s biggest selection” of products, and still has virtually no inventory. Amazon
doesn’t order products until after it sells them. Figure 1-1 shows the Amazon.com
Welcome page, which you can access by entering http://www.amazon.com in the
Address bar of your Web browser.

Figure 1-1 The Amazon.com Welcome page.
Dell Computer Corporation was founded in 1984 on the concept of selling personal
computer systems directly to customers. Today, about half of Dell’s sales are transacted
over the Internet, 40 percent of Dell’s technical support activities occur online, and
about 70 percent of Dell’s order-status transactions occur online. Dell sells computer
systems to large corporations, government agencies, educational institutions, medium
and small businesses, and home computer users. You’ll find the Dell home page at http:/
/www.dell.com, and after you place an order with Dell you can track it online, all the
way from the order processing stage, through the building and testing stage, to the final
shipping stage at the Support.Dell.Com page, which is shown in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2 Tracking an order at Support.Dell.Com.
You may be aware that each year more and more U.S. citizens are filing their taxes
online, but you may not know that the IRS Web site is filled with information and
forms for businesses that you can access online and/or download. Whether you need
Schedule C, Profit or Loss from Business, or Schedule D, Capital Gains and Losses,
or the dates by which you must pay estimated taxes, you’ll find it at http://www.irs.gov.
Figure 1-3 shows the IRS E-File for Business page; all businesses can pay electroni-
cally through the Electronic Federal Tax Payment System (EFTPS).

Figure 1-3 The IRS E-File for Business page.
Summary
The purpose of this skill was to introduce you to the Internet and give you an over-
view of how it works and how you can use it to enhance your business efforts. We also
looked at how the Internet has evolved over the last few decades, what you as a busi-
ness user can do on the Internet, what you need to connect to the Internet, and at some
issues concerning privacy and security. Last, we described three sites that are excel-
lent jumping-off places for business users new to the Internet.

Skill 2
MAKE INTERNET CONNECTIONS
Featuring:
• Connecting with a Modem
• Connecting with a Cable Modem
• Connecting with DSL
• Connecting with ISDN
• Sharing an Internet Connection
• Connecting to a Corporate Network
I f you work in a typical corporate network environment, connecting to the Internet

is probably as simple as opening your Web browser or your e-mail program. But
connecting to the Internet from your home office or on the road is more involved and
requires more effort. In “Skill 1: Understand the Environment,” we looked at the major
types of Internet connections. In this skill, we’ll get into the details of setting up each
of these types as well as how to share an Internet connection and how to connect to
your corporate network when you’re on the road.
NOTE This skill uses Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional to outline connection steps
and uses illustrations from Windows 2000 Professional. If you’re connecting to
the Internet using a different operating system, the steps and what you see on
the screen will be similar but not identical.
17
Connecting with a Modem
A modem is the most common device in use for connecting to the Internet, but as we
pointed out in “Skill 1: Understand the Environment,” it is also the slowest.
Understanding How a Modem Works

Works
A modem is a device that lets a computer transfer information over a telephone line.
A computer is a digital device, and a telephone line is an analog device; therefore, a
mechanism is needed that can convert digital signals to analog signals and vice versa,
and that’s what a modem does. A modem is connected to a computer on one end and
plugs into a phone jack on the other end; a modem can be external, that is, on the
outside of the computer, or internal, on the inside of the computer.
Modem speed is measured in kilobits per second, which is abbreviated Kbps, but people
commonly refer to this speed in “bauds” and speak of modem speed as “baud rate.”
Modems can typically transfer information over a standard telephone line at a rate of
up to 56Kbps, but as we mentioned in “Skill 1: Understand the Environment,” this is
a theoretical maximum because of electrical noise on the phone line. Another speed
limitation concerns whether you are downloading information (for example, receiv-
ing e-mail or accessing a Web page) or uploading information (for example, sending
e-mail or posting a Web page to a Web server). Downloading information is faster than
uploading because the change from digital (your computer) to analog (your phone line)
causes problems that restrict the modem’s speed.
Installing a Modem
If you are using a Plug and Play operating system, such as Windows 98 or Windows
2000 Professional, the operating system recognizes your modem (if it is Plug and Play,
and most of today’s modems are) and installs it when you install the operating
system. It also installs the modem if you later upgrade or change modems. At times,
however, you may want to install your modem manually. For example, if your modem
isn’t working properly, one common troubleshooting approach is to remove it and then
reinstall it. Or if Windows doesn’t recognize your modem and, thus, doesn’t have
the proper device driver to install, you’ll have to install the driver and the modem
manually.

To install a modem, follow these steps:
TIP Before you install an external modem, be sure that it is turned on and that it’s
connected to both the telephone line and your computer.
1. Open Control Panel.

Click the Start button, click Settings, and then click Control Panel.
2. Open the Phone And Modem Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 2-1.
Click the Phone And Modem Options icon.
Figure 2-1 The Phone And Modem Options dialog box.
3. Start the Add/Remove Hardware Wizard.

Click the Modems tab, and then click Add.
4. Follow the onscreen instructions.
Click Next, and the wizard will start to test your modem. When the tests are com-
plete, the wizard displays the final screen, which is shown in Figure 2-2. Click
Finish.

Figure 2-2 The wizard has finished installing the modem.
If the wizard can’t identify your modem, you’ll be asked to choose its make and model
from a list. If the list doesn’t contain the make or model of your modem, look in the
manual that came with your modem to see whether an equivalent type is listed. If you
don’t find an equivalent type, you can do one of the following:
• Check the disk that was provided with your modem. If it contains a driver, click
the Have Disk button to open the Install From Disk dialog box, and install the
driver.
• Select one of the standard modem types in the Models list.
• Contact the manufacturer of your modem to see whether it has an updated driver.
Configuring a Modem
When you install a modem or when it’s installed automatically, all your communica-
tions programs, such as Microsoft Outlook Express, Fax, HyperTerminal, and so on,
use the settings that were configured during installation. These settings include the
port on which the modem was installed, the speaker volume of the modem, maximum
port speed, and dial control. Normally, you don’t want to change any of these settings.
To take a look at them, click the Modems tab in the Phone And Modem Options
dialog box, right-click your modem, and choose Properties from the shortcut menu
to open the Properties dialog box. Figure 2-3 shows the Properties dialog box for a
modem on a computer in our office.

Figure 2-3 The Properties dialog box for a modem.
Internal modems are usually installed on COM port 3 or 4. External modems are
normally installed on COM port 2. If you are an advanced user and really know what
you are doing, you can change the port setting using the options on the Advanced tab.
When you connect using your modem, you’ll hear the modem dialing out—unless the
volume of the speaker inside your modem is set too low. To increase or decrease the
volume, move the slider bar.
When your modem connects with the modem at your Internet service provider (ISP),
it tries to connect at the maximum speed. In general, set the maximum port speed at
three or four times the rated modem speed to take advantage of the modem’s built-in
data compression.
Clear the Wait For Dial Tone Before Dialing check box if you need to manually dial
your modem connection or if your modem doesn’t recognize the dial tone used by your
current location.
You can use the options on the Diagnostics tab to troubleshoot communications
issues.

Setting Up Dialing Rules
Later in this skill, we’ll look at how to connect from a remote location, and in that
situation you may want to change the dialing rules. But you may also need to change
the dialing rules when, for example, the phone company in your area switches to a 10-
digit dialing system or if you move your home or office to a different location.
To create a new location or to edit a location, follow these steps:
1. Open the Phone And Modem Options dialog box.
Click the Start button, click Settings, click Control Panel, and then click Phone And
Modem Options.
2. Add a new location or edit an existing location.
Click New to open the New Location dialog box, or click Edit to open the Edit
location dialog box. The options are identical in both dialog boxes. Figure 2-4 shows
the New Location dialog box.
Figure 2-4 The New Location dialog box.
3. Identify the location.

In the Location Name box, enter a name for the location. In the Country/Region
box, specify the appropriate country, which determines the correct country code.
In the Area Code box, enter the area code from which you will be dialing.

4. Specify the dialing rules.
If you need to dial a number to reach an outside line (such as 9), enter that num-
ber in the first text box. If you need to dial a number to access long distance ser-
vice, enter that number in the second text box. To disable call waiting, select that
check box and enter the correct numeric code. You’ll find it in the local phone di-
rectory. Specify tone or pulse dialing, and then click Apply.
If you’re in an area that uses 10-digit dialing for local calls and want to outsmart the
system, you’ll need to separate long distance from local calling. You do this by creat-
ing a new area code rule. Click the Area Code Rules tab in the New Location (or Edit
Location) dialog box, and follow these steps:
1. Open the New Area Code Rule dialog box, which is shown in Figure 2-5.
Click the New button.
Figure 2-5 The New Area Code Rule dialog box.
2. Specify the dialing rules.

In the Area Code box, enter the area code you will be calling. In the Prefixes sec-
tion, specify what to do about prefixes. In the Rules section, specify whether to use
the country code (1, which is for the United States, is the default) and whether to
include the area code when dialing any prefix in the list. Click OK.

Setting Up Your Internet Connection
Your
Before you can set up your connection to the Internet, you need an account with an
ISP, as we mentioned in “Skill 1: Understand the Environment.” To set up your ac-
count, you will need the following information from your ISP:
• User name and password
• The phone number to dial in to your ISP
• The name of your incoming mail server
• The name of your outgoing mail server
If you haven’t yet set up a connection, you’ll have a Connect To The Internet icon on
your desktop, and you can simply click the icon to start the Internet Connection
Wizard. If you’ve already set up a connection, you can start the Internet Connection
Wizard in the following ways:
• Click the Start button, click Programs, click Accessories, click Communications,
and then click Internet Connection Wizard.
• Click the Start button, click Settings, click Control Panel, and then click Internet
Options to open the Internet Properties dialog box. Click the Connections tab, and
then click the Setup button.
• In Microsoft Internet Explorer, click the Tools menu, click Internet Options to open
the Internet Options dialog box, click the Connections tab, and then click the Setup
button.
Regardless of which method you use, you’ll see the Welcome screen, as shown in
Figure 2-6.

Figure 2-6 The Internet Connection Wizard.
To create a new dial-up connection, obtain an account and then follow these steps:
1. Specify the type of account you want to create.
In the Welcome screen, select I Want To Set Up My Internet Connection Manu-
ally, Or I Want To Connect Through A Local Area Network (LAN), and click Next.
2. Specify the type of connection.
In the Setting Up Your Internet Connection screen, click the I Connect Through
A Phone Line And A Modem option, and then click Next.
3. Provide information about your Internet account.
Enter the phone number that you use to connect to your ISP, click Next, enter the
user name and password provided by your ISP, click Next, enter an identifying name
for your connection, and click Next.
4. Set up an e-mail account.
Follow the onscreen instructions.
5. Complete the wizard.
When you have provided all your e-mail account information, click Finish, and then
click Close to close the wizard and connect to the Internet.

Connecting with a Cable Modem
Most people who use the Internet outside a corporate environment probably start out
using a modem. If you spend a lot of time accessing the Web or if you send and re-
ceive lots of files, as we do, you soon become dissatisfied with the speed of your con-
nection and start looking for alternatives. One alternative that may be available to you
is a cable modem, which uses the same wiring that brings cable TV into your home
or office.
Today more than 100 million homes are wired for cable TV, so if your cable provider
also provides cable modem service, it might make sense to upgrade your connection.
We say might because there’s a catch. Downloading over a cable modem can be 30 to
50 times faster than downloading over a 56Kbps modem, but uploading is virtually
the same whether you’re using a modem or a cable modem. What this means in prac-
tical terms is that if you’re primarily interested in accessing Web resources, cable modem
is going to bring them to your screen much, much faster than a modem. On the other
hand, you may not see much improvement when you’re transferring files. In the plus
column, however, cable modem is usually much more affordable than other high-speed
options.
NOTE Not all cable companies provide Internet access, although many are in the pro-
cess of adding this service. If you haven’t seen a flyer advertising cable modem
service in the envelope with your monthly cable bill, you can, of course, sim-
ply call the cable company and ask.
Understanding How a Cable Modem Works

Works
Once you’re connected via a cable modem (and we’ll look at getting connected next),
data between your computer and the Internet travels along the following path:
• The coaxial cable that comes into your home or office from a pole is divided into
two connections by a splitter. One connection goes to your TV, and the other goes
to your cable modem, a little box that is about 10 inches by 2 inches by 7 inches
and is external to your computer.
• The cable modem connects to the network card inside your computer. Data trav-
eling to your computer from the Internet goes through the coaxial cable, through
your cable modem, and into your computer. Data traveling from your computer to
the Internet follow this path in reverse.

• Once data is inside the coaxial cable, the next stop is a node, which is also the next
spot on the route for cable television signals. Each cable company generally divides
its region into nodes, or neighborhoods, of about 50 to 500 subscribers. All 500
subscribers share one node, which can become a bottleneck if all access the Internet
at the same time.
• From the node, data passes through high-speed fiber-optic lines to a head-end cable
facility, which handles the nodes for some four to ten regions.
• The head end accesses the Internet by means of high-speed links, and the head end
also has high-speed Internet servers for mail, newsgroups, the Web, and so on. Thus,
as we mentioned in “Skill 1: Understand the Environment,” your cable company
usually becomes your ISP as well as your connection to the Internet.
NOTE A cable modem isn’t a modem in the true sense of the word. A modem con-
verts digital signals to analog signals and vice versa. A so-called cable modem
transmits and receives all data as digital signals.
Getting Connected
The most difficult part of getting connected via cable modem may be getting your cable
company to actually come to your home or place of business in a timely fashion. That
said, once a technician arrives on the premises, he or she will fiddle with the main cable
a bit, attach the splitter, and then run the cable to the cable modem.
If your computer already has a network card, the technician will attach the cable modem
to the network card with another cable. If your computer doesn’t have a network card,
the cable company will probably provide one and configure it—perhaps for an addi-
tional fee.
The technician should then configure your network settings, and he or she may in-
stall some authentication software on your computer. And that’s it. You can now do a
couple of things—you can log on to the Internet, or you can call your telephone com-
pany and cancel the second line you’ve been using for Internet access, if you had one.

WARNING Cable modem is “always on.” You don’t need to dial up and connect as
you do with an analog modem. Consequently, your computer system is vulner-
able to the possibility of unauthorized access. Be sure that you require pass-
words to any shared resources, and install firewall software. You can check with
your cable service provider for firewall software, or you can get firewall soft-
ware from companies such as Sybergen Networks (http://www.sygate.com) or
Signal 9 Solutions (http://www.signal9.com) for less than $30.00.
Connecting with DSL

Another popular high-speed option is a digital subscriber line (DSL) modem. DSL
comes in two basic flavors—asymmetric and symmetric. DSL service providers often
refer to asymmetric DSL as “home” DSL and refer to symmetric DSL as “business”
DSL. Here’s why. With asymmetric DSL, download speeds are much faster than
upload speeds, which means that you can access a Web page at much higher speeds
than you can transmit a document over e-mail. Service providers seem to have col-
lectively decided that home users access Web resources much more often than they
transfer files, and so they deem asymmetric DSL the most appropriate for home use.
Asymmetric DSL is also usually a good deal cheaper than symmetric DSL.
With symmetric DSL, upload and download speeds are the same, and the more you
are willing to pay, the faster the speed. For example, at our ISP, asymmetric DSL is
available for about $60 a month; symmetric DSL is available at speeds ranging from
144Kbps to 1100Kbps and at prices ranging from about $140 a month to $300 a
month. The speed available to your home or office depends on location, as you will
see shortly.
Understanding How DSL Works

Works
DSL uses your existing telephone lines, but transmits data at higher frequencies than
those used to transmit voice. Therefore, you can use your fax machine, your telephone,
or even a modem at the same time that you are accessing the Internet with your
computer.

The DSL modem attached to your computer must be the same as the DSL modem
at the telephone company office, and the telephone company office (also called a central
office) must be within a certain distance of your home or office. The exact distance
depends on the type of DSL and the speed. For example, the DSL service provider
we consulted informed us that the maximum distance in our case is 18,000 feet.
Unfortunately, the distance from our office to the telephone company office is 18,500
feet, so we’re out of luck for the time being.
A DSL modem is external to the computer and looks similar to a cable modem, only
it really isn’t a modem in the true sense of the word. A modem converts digital sig-
nals to analog signals and vice versa. A so-called DSL modem transmits and receives
all data as digital signals.
Getting Connected
The process of getting connected with DSL is very similar to the process for getting
connected with cable modem. Once a technician arrives on the premises, he or she will
fiddle with the phone lines a bit and then connect the phone line to the DSL modem.
If your computer already has a network card, the technician will attach the DSL modem
to the network card with another cable. If your computer doesn’t have a network card,
the technician will probably provide one and configure it—perhaps for an additional
fee.
The technician should then configure your network settings, and he or she may in-
stall some authentication software on your computer. And that’s it. You can now do a
couple of things—you can log on to the Internet, or you can call your telephone com-
pany and cancel the second line you’ve been using for Internet access, if you had one.
WARNING DSL modem is “always on.” You don’t need to dial up and connect as you
do with an analog modem. Consequently, your computer system is vulnerable
to the possibility of unauthorized access. Be sure that you require passwords
to any shared resources, and install firewall software. You can check with your
DSL service provider for firewall software, or you can get firewall software from
companies such as Sybergen Networks (http://www.sygate.com) or Signal 9
Solutions (http://www.signal9.com) for less than $30.00.

Connecting with ISDN
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is not a new technology, but it has be-
come a popular way to connect to the Internet for several reasons. For starters, it was
one of the first alternatives to the analog modem. It continues to be popular because
it is more universally available than other high-speed connections, though it tends to
be more expensive.
Understanding How ISDN Works

Works
ISDN uses existing telephone wires and requires an ISDN modem. As is the case with
a DSL modem, an ISDN modem isn’t really a modem. Although it looks like one, it
is actually an adapter that lets you send and receive digital signals over ISDN phone
lines. For ISDN to work, the telephone company must have digital-switching
equipment.
The most common kind of ISDN access is called Basic Rate Interface (BRI). The
ISDN modem sends a digital signal over the telephone wire, which is divided into three
channels. A channel is not a wire but a way in which data travels. Two channels transmit
data, and the third channel sends routing information. Using ISDN, you can access
the Internet while talking on the phone over the same connection; thus, you can dis-
connect the second phone line you might have been using for Internet access.
Getting Connected
After you contract with your phone company for ISDN service, you need to install your
ISDN modem. The process is exactly the same as installing an analog modem, and if
the ISDN modem is Plug and Play (and it certainly should be), Windows will recog-
nize it and install the necessary driver.
To configure an ISDN modem, follow these steps:
1. Open the Network And Dial-Up Connections folder, as shown in Figure 2-7.
Click the Start button, click Settings, and then click Network And Dial-Up
Connections.

Figure 2-7 The Network And Dial-Up Connections folder.
2. Open the Properties dialog box for your ISDN connection.

Right-click the dial-up connection that uses ISDN, and choose Properties from the
shortcut menu.
3. Open the ISDN Configure dialog box.
Click the General tab, select the ISDN device, and then click Configure.
NOTE Depending on the type of ISDN modem that you have, clicking the Configure
button may open the Modem Configurations dialog box.
4. Select a line type.

In the Line Type area, select the type of line you will be using. If you want to ne-
gotiate for a line type, click the Negotiate Line Type check box. Click OK.

How Fast Is Fast Enough?
If all these high-speed options leave you wondering which is best for you, which
is fastest, and so on, here are some points to consider:
• The fastest analog modem transmits data at 56Kbps. The fastest DSL access
is 2Mbps. Cable modem access ranges from 2Mbps to 10Mbps, and ISDN
access maximum access speed is 128Kbps.
• With cable modem, DSL modem, and ISDN, you don’t need a second phone
line.
• With cable modem, you don’t need a separate ISP.
• ISDN is usually more expensive than the other high-speed options. Some pro-
viders even charge by the minute, but if you want something faster than an
analog modem and neither DSL nor cable modem are available in your area,
ISDN may be your only choice.
• Cable modem speed can be impeded if all the subscribers in your so-called
neighborhood are simultaneously accessing the Internet.
• In some situations, you can start with a lower speed DSL modem and upgrade
to a higher speed.
• Cable modem and DSL modem are always on. You need to question your ser-
vice provider about any security risks this poses.
Sharing an Internet Connection

If you have more than one computer in your office, it makes sense to network them,
and once you have them networked you can share files, the printer, applications, and
so on. You can also share an Internet connection. In the first part of this section, we’ll
look at how to share an analog modem or an ISDN modem. In the latter part, we’ll
look at how to share a DSL modem or a cable modem.
A cautionary word before we begin: Setting up connection sharing is not for the faint
of heart. It’s not terribly difficult if you follow the steps exactly, but it will take a while.
If you have an analog or an ISDN modem that you want to share, following the steps
we provide here is the only way to go about it. If you have a DSL modem or a cable
modem, there is a much simpler solution, and we’ll describe that in the last part of this
section.

Setting Up the Internet Sharing Computer
Each of the computers with which you want to share an Internet connection must have
a network card, and they do if they are on your network. You connect one of the com-
puters on the network to the Internet, using one of the solutions described earlier in
this skill, and then you enable Internet Sharing on that computer.
In Windows 2000 Professional, log on as an administrator, and then follow these steps
to sharing an analog modem or an ISDN modem connection:
1. Open the Network And Dial-Up Connections folder.
Connections.
2. Open the Properties dialog box for the connection you want to share.
Right-click the connection, and choose Properties from the shortcut menu.
Figure 2-8 shows the Properties dialog box for one of our dial-up connections.
Figure 2-8 The Properties dialog box for a dial-up connection.
3. Enable Internet Connection Sharing.

Click the Sharing tab, which is shown in Figure 2-9, and then click the Enable
Internet Connection Sharing For This Connection check box. Be sure that the
Enable On-Demand Dialing check box is selected.

Figure 2-9 The Sharing tab in the Properties dialog box for a dial-up connection.
4. Verify that only TCP/IP is enabled.

Click the Networking tab, and you will see the message shown in Figure 2-10. Click
Yes. Then on the Networking tab, verify that only Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is
selected, as shown in Figure 2-11.
Figure 2-10 A warning about your computer’s IP address.

Figure 2-11 The Networking tab in the Properties dialog box for a dial-up connection.
Now, you have to specify which applications you want to share. This gets a bit tricky,
but as far as Internet Connection Sharing is concerned an “application” is one of the
TCP/IP family of protocols that we mentioned in “Skill 1: Understand the Environ-
ment.” To share your Internet applications such as Internet Explorer and Outlook
Express, you enter a friendly name for the application and its sending and receiving
port numbers. A port is simply a number that identifies a connection point for a pro-
tocol, and standard port numbers are assigned to all Internet (TCP/IP) protocols.
To share Internet Explorer and Outlook Express, follow these steps:
1. Open the Internet Connection Sharing Settings dialog box, as shown in
Figure 2-12.
In the Properties dialog box for your Internet connection, click the Sharing tab, and
then click the Settings button. In Figure 2-12, you can see that we’ve already set
up Internet Explorer.

Figure 2-12 The Internet Connection Sharing Settings dialog box.
2. Open the Internet Connection Sharing Application dialog box, as shown in

Figure 2-13.
If necessary, click the Applications tab, and then click Add.
Figure 2-13 The Internet Connection Sharing Application dialog box.
3. Enter a friendly name for your application, and enter its sending and receiving port
numbers.

In the Name Of Application box, enter Internet Explorer. In the Remote Server Port
Number box, enter 80, be sure that the TCP option button is selected, and in the
Incoming Response Ports section, enter 1024-65535 in the TCP box. Click OK.
4. Enter the information for your e-mail protocols.
Click Add again to open the Internet Connection Sharing Application dialog box.
When you send e-mail, you use Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP), and when
you receive e-mail, you use Post Office Protocol (POP3). In the Name Of Appli-
cation box, enter SMTP (or any other name that you choose). In the Remote Server
Port Number box, enter 25, and in the TCP box, enter 1024-65535. Click OK,
and then repeat the process for POP3. Enter 110 in the Remote Server Port Number
box, and enter 1024-65535 in the TCP box. Click OK. Click OK again in the
Internet Connection Sharing Settings dialog box, and then click OK once more
in the Properties dialog box for your Internet connection.
Now you need to enable automatic remote connection. Follow these steps:
2. Open the Computer Management window, as shown in Figure 2-14.
Click Administrative Tools to open the Administrative Tools folder, and then click
Computer Management.
Figure 2-14 The Computer Management window.

3. Open the Remote Access Auto Connection Manager Properties dialog box, as
shown in Figure 2-15.
In the Tree pane, expand Services And Applications, select Services, and in the right
pane, scroll down to Remote Access Auto Connection Manager. Right-click it, and
choose Start from the shortcut menu. Right-click Remote Access Auto Connec-
tion Manager again, and choose Properties from the shortcut menu.
Figure 2-15 The Remote Access Auto Connection Manager Properties dialog box.
4. Change the startup type to Automatic.

In the Startup Type drop-down list, select Automatic, and then click OK. Close the
Computer Management window, and then close Administrative Tools.
In a later skill, we’ll look at some other Internet services that you might want to share
over an Internet connection. Table 2-1 lists some of the most important services, their
protocols, and the sending port number. Each of these protocols uses 1024-65535 as
the TCP incoming response port, and all use TCP rather than UDP.

SER VICE NUMBER
SERVICE PROTOCOL REMOTE SER VER POR
SERVER PORTT
File Transfer Protocol FTP 21
Telnet Telnet 23
Gopher Gopher 70
Network News Transfer Protocol NNTP 119
Table 2-1 Other important Internet services you might want to share.
Now you’re ready to configure the other computers on the network to use your Internet
connection.
Setting Up Clients
You must configure each of the other computers on your network one at a time. First,
you need to verify that the computer is configured to obtain an IP address automati-
cally. An IP address is a unique number that identifies a computer on your network,
for example, 206.135.150.39.
If the computer is running Windows 98, follow these steps:
2. Open the Network dialog box, which is shown in Figure 2-16.
In Control Panel, click Network.

Figure 2-16 The Network dialog box.
3. Open the Properties dialog box for your network card.

Click the Configuration tab if necessary, select TCP/IP Adapter from the list, and
click the Properties button. Figure 2-17 shows the Properties dialog box for our
adapter.
Figure 2-17 The Properties dialog box for a TCP/IP adapter.

4. Verify that this computer is obtaining an IP address automatically.
If necessary, click the IP Address tab, and be sure that the Obtain An IP Address
Automatically option is selected. Click OK, and then click OK again in the
Network dialog box.
If the computer is running Windows 2000 Professional, follow these steps to ensure
that the computer is obtaining an IP address automatically:
Connections.
2. Open the Properties dialog box for your local area connection.
Right-click Local Area Connection, and choose Properties from the shortcut menu.
Figure 2-18 shows the Properties dialog box for our local area connection.
Figure 2-18 The Properties dialog box for our local area connection.
3. Open the Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Properties dialog box, as shown in

Figure 2-19.
Select Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), and click Properties. Be sure that the Obtain
An IP Address Automatically option is selected, and then click OK. Click OK again
to close the Local Area Connection Properties dialog box.

Figure 2-19 The Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) Properties dialog box.
Only one last task remains, and that is to configure the Internet options. If the com-
puter does not already have an established Internet connection, follow these steps (the
steps are the same for both Windows 2000 Professional and Windows 98):
1. Start the Internet Connection Wizard.
Click the Internet Connection icon on your desktop, or click the Start button, click
Programs, click Accessories, click Communications, and then click Internet Con-
nection Wizard.
2. Specify that you want to connect to the Internet through your local area network.
Click the I Want To Set Up My Internet Connection Manually, Or I Want To
Connect Through A Local Area Network (LAN) option, and then click Next. In
the Setting Up Your Internet Connection screen, click the I Connect Through A
Local Area Network (LAN) option, and then click Next.
3. Configure the local area network.
Clear the Automatic Discovery Of Proxy Server [Recommended] check box, and
click Next.

4. Set up an e-mail account.
If you want to set up an e-mail account, click Yes, and follow the onscreen instruc-
tions. If you don’t want to set up an e-mail account, click No, click Next, and then
click Finish.
If you have already established an Internet connection, follow these steps:
1. Open Internet Explorer.
Click its icon on the taskbar.
2. Open the Internet Options dialog box.
Click the Tools menu, and then click Internet Options.
3. Configure your LAN connection.
Click the Connections tab, as shown in Figure 2-20, and then click the Never Dial
A Connection option.
Figure 2-20 The Connections tab in the Internet Options dialog box.
4. Open the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings dialog box, as shown in Figure 2-21.
Click the LAN Settings button.

Figure 2-21 The Local Area Network (LAN) Settings dialog box.
5. Configure the LAN settings.

Clear all check boxes in the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings dialog box, and
click OK. Click OK again in the Internet Options dialog box.
And that is finally it. Test your connection. Open Internet Explorer, and see whether
you can open a Web page. If your computers are in close proximity, you should hear
the modem on your connection sharing computer swing into action.
Sharing a High-Speed Connection

If you’re using a DSL modem, sharing that Internet connection is a walk in the park
compared with enabling Internet Connection Sharing. All you have to do is plug your
DSL modem into your network hub. All the computers that are plugged into that hub
have immediate access to the Internet. Couldn’t be easier, although you should prob-
ably check with your ISP to be sure this is not a violation of your subscription contract.
If you’re using cable modem, you may also be able to use a hub. Check with your cable
provider, or ask the technician who comes out to set up the cable modem.
If, for whatever reason, you can’t use your network hub, you will need two network cards
in your connection sharing computer—one to connect to your high-speed connection,
and a second to connect to your local area network. Installing and configuring these
adapters can become complicated, and so if you find yourself needing this kind of
service, it may well be time to call in a professional.

Connecting to a Corporate Network
When you connect to a local area network (LAN) at your place of business, you are
probably connecting to a client/server network. If you are running Windows 2000
Professional on your desktop, you could be connecting to Windows 2000 Server or
Windows NT 4 Server. When your computer starts, you’ll see a message that network
communications are being established. You can then log on to the system as we de-
scribed in “Skill 1: Understand the Environment.”
But you can also log on to that LAN from your home network or while you’re on the
road, and you can do so in the following ways:
• Over a phone line
• Using ISDN
• Through a VPN tunnel
Connecting in this way is called remote access.
NOTE Remote doesn’t mean from some place far from civilization; it just means away
from the office LAN.
Using a Phone Line

Perhaps the most common way to access a remote network is by modem. To do this
most successfully, you’ll first want to make sure that your modem and the modem at
the office are compatible. Of course, you also need permission to establish this con-
nection. For security reasons, some corporations don’t allow remote access to the sys-
tem, but as more and more people telecommute, this is becoming less common.
To set up a dial-up connection, obtain the phone number you need to dial in to and
then follow these steps:
1. Open the Network And Dial-Up Connections folder, as shown in Figure 2-22.
Connections.

Figure 2-22 The Network And Dial-Up Connections folder.
2. Start the Network Connection Wizard, as shown in Figure 2-23.

Click the Make New Connection icon.
Figure 2-23 The Network Connection Wizard.

3. Select a network connection type.
Click Next, click the Dial-Up To Private Network option, and then click Next.
4. Tell your modem which phone number to dial.
In the Phone Number To Dial screen, as shown in Figure 2-24, enter a phone
number. If you want your computer to decide how to dial in from various locations,
click the Use Dialing Rules check box. Click Next.
Figure 2-24 Entering a phone number.
5. Specify who can use this connection.

In the Connection Availability screen, click For All Users or Only For Myself. Click
Next.
6. Name the connection.
Enter a name for this connection, which will appear in the Network And Dial-Up
Connections folder, and then click Finish.
If you want to connect immediately, enter your user name and password and click Dial
in the Connect dialog box that now appears. If you want to connect later, click Can-
cel. To connect at any time, click the icon for this connection in the Network And Dial-
Up Connections folder.
To delete a connection, select its icon and press the Delete key.

Setting Up a Calling Card
A calling card is a handy device when you’re traveling, especially if you will be billing
expenses back to your employer. If you are using a calling card that is in common use,
follow these steps to set it up:
1. Open the Phone And Modem Options dialog box.
In Control Panel (click the Start button, click Settings, and then click Control
Panel), click Phone And Modem Options.
2. Choose a location.
In the Dialing Rules tab, select a location, and then click New to open the New
Location dialog box.
3. Specify the card type.
Click the Calling Card tab, which is shown in Figure 2-25, and select the card from
the Card Types list.
Figure 2-25 The Calling Card tab in the New Location dialog box.
4. Enter the information about your card.

Enter your account number, and then enter your PIN number. Access numbers are
entered automatically when you select the card type. Click OK.
If your card is not listed in the Card Types list, follow these steps:

1. Open the New Calling Card dialog box, which is shown in Figure 2-26.
On the Calling Card tab, click New.
Figure 2-26 The New Calling Card dialog box.
2. Enter information about the card.

In the Calling Card Name box, enter a name for the card, and then enter the ac-
count number and your PIN number.
3. Enter the steps you must follow to make a call.
Click the Long Distance tab, and then in the Calling Card Dialing Steps box, enter
the numbers in the exact order that you must enter them to make a call. For example,
click the Access Number button, and enter the access number, click the PIN but-
ton, and enter the PIN number, and so on. To change the order of a step, click the
Move Up or Move Down button. Click OK.
To use your calling card to make international or local calls, click the corresponding
tab and follow step 3 above.
Using a VPN Tunnel

Tunnel
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network, and it is a tunnel through the Internet that
connects your computer to your corporate network. You can dial up almost any ISP
and set up a VPN session. Data that is transmitted via the VPN tunnel is encrypted,
so it is secure.

To set up a VPN connection, you will need the host name or IP address of your cor-
porate network, which you can obtain from your system administrator if you don’t know
it. Follow these steps to set up the connection:
Connections.
2. Start the Network Connection Wizard.
Click the Make New Connection icon.
3. Select a network connection type.
Click Next, and in the Network Connection Type screen, click the Connect To A
Private Network Through The Internet option. Click Next.
4. Specify whether to automatically dial your ISP.
In the Public Network screen, which is shown in Figure 2-27, click the Automati-
cally Dial This Initial Connection option if you want to establish a connection to
your ISP first before connecting to your corporate network. Otherwise, click Do
Not Dial The Initial Connection. Click Next.
Figure 2-27 Specifying the destination address.

5. Specify the destination address.
In the Host Name Or IP Address box, enter the host name or address you obtained
from your system administrator. A host name is something like stephenlnelson.com,
and an IP (Internet Protocol) address is a string of numbers, such as 123.45.6.78.
Click Next.
6. Specify who can use this connection.
In the Connection Availability screen, click For All Users or Only For Myself, and
then click Next.
7. Name the connection.
Enter a name for this connection, which will appear in the Network And Dial-Up
Connections folder, and then click Finish.
If you want to connect immediately, click Yes in the Initial Connection dialog box that
now appears. If you want to connect later, click No. To connect at any time, click the
icon for this connection in the Network And Dial-Up Connections folder.
To delete a connection, select its icon and press the Delete key.
You can copy the connections you made for modem, ISDN, or VPN by right-click-
ing the connection and choosing Create Copy from the shortcut menu. You can then
right-click the copy, and choose Properties from the shortcut menu to modify the
connection for a particular situation.
Summary
With the information in this skill, you should be equipped to make an effective deci-
sion about which kind of Internet connection will work best for you. You also have at
your fingertips the steps you need to take to set up that connection. We’ve looked at
analog and ISDN modems, at DSL connections, and at cable modems. In addition,
we’ve looked in detail at how to set up Internet Connection Sharing, both for analog
and ISDN modems, and for high-speed connections.

Skill 3
BROWSE THE WEB
Featuring:
• Understanding How a Web Browser Works
• Getting Started
• Navigating the Web
• Working with Your Favorites
• Listening to a Webcast
• Saving and Printing
• Searching on the Internet
• Understanding Cookies and Temporary Internet Files
• Customizing Internet Explorer
A s you learned in “Skill 1: Understand the Environment,” to access information

on the World Wide Web, you need an application called a Web browser. To-
day, the two most popular Web browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer and Netscape
Navigator, although Internet Explorer is used by the lion’s share of those browsing the
Web.
Neither of these browsers sprang full-blown under their own steam onto the scene.
Both are based on Mosaic, the first commercially available graphical Web browser,
which was released in 1993 for Microsoft Windows, for Unix systems running the X
Window System, and for the Apple Macintosh. And Mosaic was preceded by line-
mode browsers (which could access only text, not graphics) Viola, Midas, and www.
53
This skill will focus on Internet Explorer. Currently, Internet Explorer ships with all
versions of Windows and, Microsoft’s antitrust trial notwithstanding, is considered
part of the Windows operating system.
NOTE As of this writing, Internet Explorer exists in several versions, including versions
for Windows 2000, Windows 95/98/ME, early versions of Windows, for Unix,
and for the Macintosh. To some extent, they all work in much the same way.
The steps and the illustrations in this skill will use version 5.00.2920.0000, the
version of Internet Explorer that is included with Windows 2000 Professional.
Understanding How a Web Browser W

Web orks
Works
Before getting into Internet Explorer specifics, I want to explain how a Web browser
works. You don’t need this information to use a Web browser, of course, but knowing
the process will help you understand why access is sometimes slow, give you a clue as
to the meaning of some of the cryptic messages you sometimes see on your screen, and,
in general, help you to become a more informed business user of the Internet.
When you enter a Web address in the Web browser application on your computer, here
is a general overview of what happens:
• The browser software on your computer sends the address to your Internet service
provider (ISP).
• Your ISP then sends the address to its domain name server (DNS). The DNS is a
set of databases, distributed among servers, that stores the numeric addresses of Web
sites. (A later section in this skill explains URLs and numeric addresses.)
• The DNS returns the site’s numeric address to your Web browser.
• Your Web browser sends the numeric address to a router, which checks the traffic
on the Internet and finds a path that is the least busy to the server that contains the
resource you are requesting.
• The server receives the address, acknowledges this receipt, and places the request
in a queue to wait until the server fulfills earlier requests. When the server acknowl-
edges the receipt, you’ll see a message in the browser’s status line that tells you the
connection is successful.
• The server then sends the resource back over the Internet to your ISP, which then
sends it to your computer.

This process may sound time-consuming, but even with a slow Internet connection
it can take only seconds, and with a fast Internet connection it can happen almost
instantaneously, whether the resource is stored on a server halfway around the world
or on a server in the next building in your office complex.
Getting Started
You can open Internet Explorer in the following ways:
• Click the Launch Internet Explorer Browser button on the Quick Launch toolbar.
• Double-click the Internet Explorer shortcut on the desktop.
• Click the Start button, click Programs, and then click Internet Explorer.
The first time you open Internet Explorer, you’ll see something similar to Figure
3-1, which shows the MSN page. You can retain this start page or select any other.
You’ll find the steps later in this skill.
Figure 3-1 The default start page.
Skill 3 Browse the Web 55

You can also open Internet Explorer from any document that includes a hyperlink. For
example, if you receive an e-mail message that contains a URL in the body, simply click
the URL to open that page in Internet Explorer. In addition, in Windows Explorer,
clicking a filename that ends in .htm or .html opens that file in Internet Explorer.
NOTE HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the programming language that is used
to create Web pages. To take a look at the underlying HTML for a Web page,
open the page in Internet Explorer, click the View menu, and then click Source.
AWord About URLs

Word
URL stands for uniform resource locator and is an address for a resource on the
Internet. It actually represents a string of numbers called an Internet Protocol (IP)
address, for example, 169.254.69.104. Since it’s much easier for people to remember
names instead of numbers, we typically use URLs.
A URL is composed of a protocol, the name of the server on which the resource re-
sides, and, optionally, the path to the resource and its filename. For example, in the
URL http://www.redtechpress.com, http is the protocol (in this case, Hypertext Trans-
fer Protocol), www indicates that the resource is on the World Wide Web, redtechpress
is the server, and .com is the domain name. Such a URL might also include the path,
such as /catalog, and the name of a document, such as /index.html. You frequently see
URLs in various media as simply www.redtechpress.com. Internet Explorer and other
Web browsers assume the http protocol unless you specify otherwise. Another less
frequently seen protocol is FTP (File Transfer Protocol); an FTP server contains
programs and files that users can download.
The final part of the server name, in our example, .com, refers to the domain type. At
present seven domain types are recognized:
• .com is a commercial organization.
• .edu is an educational institution, for example, a university.
• .gov is an entity that is part of the U.S. government.
• .int is an international organization, such as the United Nations.
• .mil is a branch of the U.S. military.
• .net is a network organization.
• .org is a nonprofit organization.

You pronounce the domain part of a URL as dot com, dot edu, dot gov, and so on. You
have, no doubt, though seen references to dot-coms, which are businesses that in re-
cent years have sprung up on the Internet. These are not simply businesses that have
a Web site, but businesses that exist entirely on the Internet. One of the first and
perhaps the most successful, if not the most profitable, was Amazon.com. Initially, the
mission of Amazon.com was to sell books, at a discount, over the Internet, and it billed
itself as the world’s largest bookstore. Now Amazon sells everything from books and
CDs to kitchen gadgets and hardware.
Mid-2000 found many dot-coms in trouble, and Forrester Research, a leader in com-
piling Internet and business statistics, predicted that by 2001 most dot-coms would
go out of business. The reason, according to some dot-com CEOs, is that the focus
was on acquiring an audience at all costs—regardless of the costs.
The Internet is a seductive medium, but it’s probably safe to assume that there’s no
substitute for a well-designed and carefully thought-out business plan.
Understanding the Internet Explorer Window

The components of the Internet Explorer window are much like those in other Win-
dows applications. You’ll see vertical and horizontal scroll bars as necessary, you can
size portions of the window by clicking and dragging, and you can display a ScreenTip
by pointing to a Standard toolbar button. Here is a list of some other components:
• The Title bar is at the top of the window, and it displays the name of the current
Web page or other file that is open.
• The Menu bar is just beneath the Title bar, and it contains a set of menus, many
of which appear in other Windows applications.
• The Standard toolbar is just beneath the Menu bar, and it contains several buttons
that correspond to items on the Menu bar, as well as the Back, Forward, and Home
navigation buttons.
• The Address bar is beneath the Standard toolbar, and you use it to enter a URL or
filename. You can also click the drop-down arrow to select a URL.
• The Links bar is a drop-down list on the far right of the Address bar, and it con-
tains a short list of preselected hyperlinks. You can add to this list.
• The Activity Indicator is at the far right of the Menu bar and is animated when
Internet Explorer is sending or receiving data.
• The Main window displays the resource you most recently accessed.

• The Status bar is at the bottom of the screen. When you choose a menu command,
the Status bar displays a description of what it does. When you point to a link, the
Status bar displays its URL. When you click a link, the Status bar displays a series
of messages related to the progress of finding and opening that resource.
• The Security zone is at the far right of the Status bar and displays the currently active
Security zone. We’ll discuss Security zones in detail later in this skill.
Navigating the Web

Web
Once you open Internet Explorer, you can start exploring the Web immediately. All
you have to do is click a link or enter a URL you’ve gleaned from TV or someone’s
business card in the Address bar. You can, however, use several techniques to make the
time spent connected to the Internet more efficient.
Using the Address Bar

You’ll notice that sometimes when you start to enter a URL, it sort of completes it-
self for you. This is the AutoComplete feature at work. If AutoComplete enters the
URL you want, simply press the Enter key to go to that resource. If not, continue
typing.
AutoComplete also works in other fields you fill in on a Web page, such as search
queries, a list of stock quotes, information you supply when you purchase items over
the Internet, and so on. This feature can be handy, and you need not worry about
security when you use AutoComplete. The information you originally enter is en-
crypted (encoded) and stored on your computer. It is not accessible to Web sites.
(Sometimes you’ll even see the encryption displayed on your screen before the infor-
mation is sent out.)
If you’ve entered a URL (perhaps a lengthy one) and then want to use only part of it
to try to access a resource, place the cursor in the Address bar, hold down the Ctrl key,
and press the right or left arrow key to jump forward or backward to the next separa-
tor character (the slashes, the dots, and so on).

You can use the Address bar to do more than find a resource on the Internet. You can
also run a program from the Address bar (for example, type C:\Program
Files\NetMeeting\conf ), and you can find a file. For example, if you enter a drive let-
ter and press the Enter key, you’ll see something similar to Figure 3-2. You can click
a folder to open subfolders and files.
Figure 3-2 Looking for a file from the Address bar.
Following and Adding Links

A link can be a word, a phrase, an image, or a symbol that forms a connection with a
resource that can be located on your local computer, your local network, or the Internet.
In Internet Explorer, textual links are usually underlined and in a different color from
normal text. You know something is a link if the pointer becomes a hand with a point-
ing finger when you place the mouse cursor over it.

To follow a link, of course, you simply click it. If you find something you know you’ll
want to revisit, you can place a link to it on the Links bar, or you can add it to your
Favorites list, which we’ll discuss next. To add a link to the Links bar, simply drag it
there. To remove a link from the Links bar, right-click it and choose Delete from the
shortcut menu. To rearrange items on the Links bar, drag an item to a new location.
By default, the Links bar contains the following links:
• Customize Links, which opens a page on the Microsoft Web site that contains
information about how to add, remove, and rearrange items on the Links bar.
• Free Hotmail, which opens a Web page where you can sign up for an e-mail
account.
• Windows, which takes you to the Windows site.
TIP If you ever lose track of where you are when following links, you can click Home
to return to your start page, click Back to return to the page you last visited,
or click Forward to return to the page you visited before you clicked the Back
button.
Working with Your Favorites

Your
As previously mentioned, you can also keep track of sites you want to revisit by adding
them to your Favorites list. (In some other browsers, favorites are called bookmarks.)
Keeping Track of Favorite Sites

Track
You can add sites to your Favorites list in two ways: you can use the Favorites menu,
or you can click the Favorites button on the toolbar.
To use the Favorites menu, follow these steps:
1. Open the Add Favorite dialog box, as shown in Figure 3-3.
Click the Favorites menu, and then click Add To Favorites.
Figure 3-3 The Add Favorite dialog box.

2. Add the site to the list.
In the Name box, accept the suggested name, or type another name, and then click OK.
To store a favorite site in a particular folder, click Create In to open the Create In list
and select a folder. To create a new folder, click New Folder to open the Create New
Folder dialog box, type a name for the folder, and click OK.
If you know that the contents of a site will not change, you can click the Make Avail-
able Offline check box. In this way, you can access the site when you aren’t connected
to the Internet. For example, suppose you find a lengthy report that contains facts and
figures you want to be able to access easily and quickly, and you know that the report
is published as of a certain date and will not change. Make it available offline.
You can also add a favorite site by clicking the Favorites toolbar button to open the
Favorites bar, as shown in Figure 3-4. Click Add to open the Add Favorite dialog box,
and then follow step 2 above.
Figure 3-4 Using the Favorites bar.

Here are some other ways you can add sites to your Favorites list:
• Right-click a link, and choose Add To Favorites from the shortcut menu.
• Right-click the current page outside a link, and choose Add To Favorites from the
shortcut menu.
• Drag and drop a link on a Web page to the Favorites button.
Managing the Favorites List

If you just keep adding sites to the Favorites list without any sense of organization,
you’ll soon find that you have links to a lot of sites but that you can’t put your mouse
pointer on one quickly. Here are some tips for managing the Favorites list:
• Create folders for collections of similar sites or for sites that you want to access for
a particular project.
• Weed out sites that you no longer need to access. Right-click the item, and choose
Delete from the shortcut menu.
• To move an item to another place in the list or to another folder, click it and then
drag it to its new location.
• To create a new folder from the Favorites list, click Organize to open the Organize
Favorites dialog box and then click Create Folder.
• To rename a favorite, right-click it, choose Rename from the shortcut menu, type
the new name, and press the Enter key.
Backtracking to a Site
Another way to find out where you’ve been and return there is to use the History list.
Follow these steps:
1. Open the History list, which is shown in Figure 3-5.
Click the History button on the toolbar.

Figure 3-5 Using the History list.
2. Select a view.
Click the View menu, and then choose By Date, By Site, By Most Visited, or By
Order Most Visited Today. You can also open a list of sites that you visited yester-
day, last week, two weeks ago, and three weeks ago.
3. Search for a site.
Click the Search button to open the Search For box, enter a term or a phrase, and
click Search Now.

TIP For really quick access to a site, place a shortcut to it on the desktop. With the
page open in Internet Explorer, right-click an empty area, and choose Create
Shortcut from the shortcut menu.
Sending Pages and Links

When you run across a page you want to share with a colleague, you can send the page
or a link to it. Simply click the Mail button on the toolbar, and click Send A Link or
Send Page. The New Message window will open with the link or the page inserted
in the body of the message. (The next skill discusses sending messages in Outlook
Express.)
Listening to a Webcast
Webcast
One component of the Internet Explorer window that wasn’t mentioned earlier is the
Radio bar. It is not displayed by default, but you can display it and then use it to di-
rectly access radio stations throughout the United States and around the world.
TIP The quality of your listening experience will depend on your speakers, your
system, and the speed at which you access the Internet. A speed of at least
56Kbps is recommended.
To listen to a Webcast, follow these steps:

1. Display the Radio toolbar, which is shown in Figure 3-6.
Click the View menu, click Toolbars, and then click Radio.

Figure 3-6 Using the Radio toolbar.
2. Locate a station.
Click the Radio Stations toolbar button, and then click Radio Station Guide to open
the WindowsMedia.com site. Click a button to select a station.
The station’s home page loads while the station is being found. To adjust the volume,
move the slider on the Volume Control. To turn the radio off, click the Stop button
on the Radio toolbar.

Saving and Printing
You can save a Web page as a file on your local drive or on your network. To save a
Web page that is open in Internet Explorer, follow these steps:
1. Open the Save Web Page dialog box, which is shown in Figure 3-7.
Click the File menu, and then click Save As.
Figure 3-7 Saving a Web page.
2. Select a folder, a filename, and a type.

In the Save In box, select a folder in which to save the page. In the File Name box,
accept the name that’s suggested or enter another name. In the Save As Type box,
select a file type. If you want to save a file with a character set other than Western
European, click the drop-down Encoding list, and select a character set.
3. Save the file.
Click Save.
To save a Web page without opening it, right-click its link and choose Save Target
As to download the file and open the Save As dialog box. Follow steps 2 and 3 above.
To save a portion of a page and place it in another document, follow these steps:
1. Make your selection, and copy it.
Select what you want, and press Ctrl+C.

2. Insert your selection in another document.
Open the other document, place the insertion point where you want the text, and
press Ctrl+V.
To save an image from a Web page, follow these steps:
1. Select the image.
Right-click the image, and choose Save Picture As to open the Save Picture dia-
log box, which is shown in Figure 3-8.
Figure 3-8 Saving an image.
2. Save the file.

Select a folder, a filename, and a type, and then click Save.
To print a Web page you have open in Internet Explorer, simply click the Print but-
ton. By default, background colors and background images are not displayed, which
saves printing time, spooling time, and cartridge ink. If you want to print background
images and colors, follow these steps:
Click the Tools menu, click Internet Options, and then click the Advanced tab,
which is shown in Figure 3-9.

Figure 3-9 The Advanced tab of the Internet Options dialog box.
2. Enable background printing.

Scroll down the Settings list, and click the Print Background Colors And Images
check box. Click OK.
To print a Web page but to exercise finer control over what’s printed, follow these steps:
1. Open the Print dialog box.
Click the File menu, and then click Print. For the most part, you use this dialog
box just as you would any Print dialog box in Windows.
2. Specify your options.
Click the Options tab, which is shown in Figure 3-10. If you want to print all the
pages that are linked to the current page, click the Print All Linked Documents
check box. (Be sure you really want to do this—you might need a lot of paper.) If
you want to print a table that lists the links for this page, click the Print Table Of
Links check box.

Figure 3-10 The Options tab in the Print dialog box.
3. Print the document.

Click Print.
To print the target of any link, right-click the link and choose Print Target from the
shortcut menu to open the Print dialog box.
Searching on the Internet

If you’ve spent any time at all searching the Internet, you probably know about search
services such as AltaVista, Excite, Infoseek, Lycos, and Yahoo!. You know that you can
go to those sites and enter a search term or phrase to locate documents and other
resources that contain references to your search item. With Internet Explorer, how-
ever, it’s possible to search all those services at the same time plus a few more. You can
also specify whether you want to find a Web page, a person’s address, a business, a map,
a picture, and so on.
NOTE In this section, we’ll look briefly at the essential search services provided by
Internet Explorer. “Skill 5: Use Search Services” discusses what every business
user should know to turn the Internet and the Web into a powerful research
and intelligence-gathering tool.

Doing a Simple Search
Before we get into all the options you can apply to a search, let’s do a simple search
for something that all business professionals want to know from time to time, salary
comparisons. Follow these steps:
1. Open the Search bar, which is shown in Figure 3-11.
Click the Search button.
Figure 3-11 Opening the Search bar.

2. Enter a search phrase.
In the Find A Web Page Containing box, type “salary comparisons.” (Type the quo-
tation marks but not the period. Using quotation marks like this says to find re-
sources that contain both words, not just one or the other.) Click Search. Figure
3-12 shows the results of the search.
Figure 3-12 The results of a search.
To open a document, simply click it. To begin a new search, click New.

Broadening a Search
If you want to broaden a search once you’ve seen the results of your first search, click
the Use Advanced Search button. As Figure 3-13 shows, you’ll see more options that
you can use to be more specific about your search.
Figure 3-13 Specifying more search options.
For even additional options, click the More Options link at the bottom of the Search
bar to open MSN Search, as shown in Figure 3-14.

Figure 3-14 Opening MSN Search.
To further refine a search, click the Customize button to open the Customize Search
Settings dialog box, which is shown in Figure 3-15. You use this dialog box to specify
the search services you use to find individual items. For example, you can choose to
use InfoSpace, Bigfoot, and WorldPages to find a person’s mailing address, or you could
specify to use only one of the three. Scroll down this dialog box to see your other
options. Notice that at the bottom of the dialog box you can click the Previous Searches
check box to tell Internet Explorer to store the results of the last 10 searches.

Figure 3-15 The Customize Search Settings dialog box.
Understanding Cookies and Temporary Internet

Temporary
Files
A cookie is a file that is stored on your computer by the server of a site that you visit.
A cookie is a simple data file that identifies you to the server. When you revisit the
site, the cookie can be used to welcome you by name or to present you with a custom-
ized version of the page. A cookie cannot see what’s on your hard drive or local net-
work, nor can it send any other information back to the server or run other programs
on your computer.
A temporary Internet file is a copy of a Web page that you have visited and is stored
in the Temporary Internet Files folder on your hard drive, along with your cookies.
When you access a site that you’ve visited before, Internet Explorer first checks to see

whether the page is in your Temporary Internet Files folder. If it is, Internet Explorer
then checks to see whether the page has been updated since being stored. If the page
has not been updated, Internet Explorer opens it from your Temporary Internet Files
folder (also called the cache), which is obviously faster than loading the page from the
server.
You can check out what’s been stored in your Internet Files folder and empty it any
time you want. Follow these steps:
2. Open the Settings dialog box, as shown in Figure 3-16.
Click the General tab, and then click the Settings button.
Figure 3-16 The Settings dialog box.
3. Open the Temporary Internet Files folder, as shown in Figure 3-17.

In the Settings dialog box, click the View Files button.

Figure 3-17 The Temporary Internet Files folder.
As you can see, the Temporary Internet Files folder contains both cookies and the
URLs of Web pages stored on your computer. To empty the Temporary Internet Files
folder, click the Delete Files button in the General tab in the Internet Options dia-
log box. To increase or reduce the space for the Temporary Internet Files folder, move
the slider bar in the Settings dialog box.
To empty the Temporary Internet Files folder automatically when you close Internet
Explorer, follow these steps:
In Internet Explorer, click the Tools menu, and then click Internet Options.
2. Tell Internet Explorer to empty the folder.
Click the Advanced tab, scroll down to the Security section, and click the Empty
Temporary Files Folder When Browser Is Closed check box. Click OK.

Customizing Internet Explorer
Already in this skill, you’ve seen a few ways that you can change the default settings
for Internet Explorer. You can, however, customize Internet Explorer in many other
ways. For example, you can specify a different start page, specify particular colors for
text and background, set the security level, change your Internet connection, and so
on.
To do any of this, you open a dialog box that is called either Internet Options or
Internet Properties. In Internet Explorer, clicking the Tools menu and then clicking
Internet Options opens the Internet Options dialog box. In Control Panel, clicking
the Internet Options icon opens the Internet Properties dialog box. Both dialog boxes
contain exactly the same tabs and the same options. In this section, we’ll open the dialog
box from within Internet Explorer, so the illustrations will show the Internet Options
dialog box.
Personalizing General Settings

To change your home page, specify how to handle temporary Internet files, and to
manage your History list, click the General tab in the Internet Options dialog box,
Figure 3-18 The General tab of the Internet Options dialog box.

As you saw earlier in this skill, by default Internet Explorer opens the MSN home page
when you open Internet Explorer. To specify a different Web site as your opening page,
follow these steps:
2. Specify the current page or a blank page.
Open the Web site, open the Internet Options dialog box, and then click Use
Current, or enter a URL in the Address box. To specify a blank page, simply click
Use Blank. Click OK, or click Apply.
In the previous section, you saw how to open your Temporary Internet Files folder and
delete those files and cookies, if you want. To change the settings for this folder, click
the Settings button to open the Settings dialog box, as shown earlier in Figure 3-16.
In the top section, specify whether and when you want Internet Explorer to check the
Temporary Internet Files folder before making a trip to the server for a resource. To
change the location of your Temporary Internet Files folder, follow these steps:
1. Open the Browse For Folder dialog box, as shown in Figure 3-19.
Click the Move Folder button.
Figure 3-19 The Browse For Folder dialog box.
2. Specify a location.
Select a new folder, and click OK.

Sometimes when you open a Web page, a small program is needed to animate the page.
These programs are stored in your Downloaded Program Files folder. To view this
folder, click the View Objects button. If you want to delete one of these programs,
right-click it, and choose Delete from the shortcut menu. Remember, though, that the
page might not be fully functional without the program.
Earlier in this skill, we looked at how to use the History list to access pages you’ve
visited previously. To specify how long to keep pages in history, use the spin box in the
History section of the General tab. To empty the History list, click the Clear History
button.
Often the developer of a Web site specifies the colors and the fonts in which to dis-
play the pages or specifies that the page use Windows colors. For pages that the de-
veloper has not specified colors or fonts, you can specify what you want. To specify
colors for text, background, visited links, unvisited links, and the hover color, click the
Colors button to open the Colors dialog box, as shown in Figure 3-20.
Figure 3-20 The Colors dialog box.
To specify fonts, click the Fonts button to open the Fonts dialog box, as shown in Figure
3-21. You can view some sites in multiple languages. To specify the languages you want
to use and the order in which they should be used, click the Languages button to open
the Language Preference dialog box. Click Add to open the Add Language dialog box
to add a language to the list.

Figure 3-21 The Fonts dialog box.
If you have a vision impairment and want to specify fonts and colors that make a Web
page more accessible for you, click the Accessibility button to open the Accessibility
dialog box, which is shown in Figure 3-22. In the Formatting section of this dialog
box, you can tell Internet Explorer to ignore colors, font styles, or font sizes on speci-
fied Web pages. You can also set up a style sheet that incorporates your formatting needs
and have Internet Explorer use this style sheet.
Figure 3-22 The Accessibility dialog box.
Establishing Security Levels for Zones

Internet Explorer establishes four Security zones, and you can set the security level
you want for each zone, using the Security tab in the Internet Options dialog box,

Figure 3-23 The Security tab in the Internet Options dialog box.
Each zone pertains to specific kinds of sites:

• The Internet zone applies to all sites not specified in the other three zones. By
default, its security level is set to Medium. (We’ll explain these levels shortly.)
• The Local Intranet zone applies to sites you can access on your corporate intranet,
if you have one. By default, its security level is set to Medium-Low.
• The Trusted Sites zone applies to Web sites that you are confident will not send
you potentially damaging content. By default, its security level is set to Low.
• The Restricted Sites zone applies to sites that you visit but that you do not trust to
not send you potentially damaging content. By default, its security level is set to
High.
To add sites to all but the Internet zone, follow these steps:
1. Add a site to the Local Intranet zone.
Select the Local Intranet icon, and then click the Sites button to open the Local
Intranet dialog box, as shown in Figure 3-24. Clear or click the check boxes to
specify which sites to include. Click the Advanced button to open the Local Intranet
dialog box to add and remove sites.

Figure 3-24 The Local Intranet dialog box.
2. Add a site to the Trusted Sites zone.

Select the Trusted Sites icon, and click the Sites button to open the Trusted Sites
dialog box, as shown in Figure 3-25.
Figure 3-25 The Trusted Sites dialog box.
3. Add a site to the Restricted Sites zone.

Select the Restricted Sites icon, and click the Sites button to open the Restricted
Sites dialog box, which contains the same options as the Trusted Sites dialog box
shown in Figure 3-25.
To change the security level for a zone, select the zone and then move the slider bar.
You have the following choices:
• High is the safest setting but also the most restrictive. Less secure features are dis-
abled, including cookies, so you will not have access to all the features of a Web page.

• Medium is the next safest setting, and it allows most functionality. You are prompted
before you download content that Internet Explorer considers potentially unsafe.
• Medium-Low is basically the same as the Medium setting, but you are not prompted
before you download potentially unsafe content.
• Low is most appropriate for sites that you know you can trust. You are not prompted
when downloading most content.
To establish a custom security level, click the Custom Level button to open the Se-
curity Settings dialog box, as shown in Figure 3-26. Click an option button to disable
or enable an item or to specify that you be prompted before downloading a particular
item, and then click OK.
Figure 3-26 The Security Settings dialog box.
Establishing Other Security Settings

To specify the content that can be viewed on your computer, to manage digital cer-
tificates, and to configure AutoComplete and set up a personal profile, you use the
Content tab in the Internet Options dialog box, which is shown in Figure 3-27.

Figure 3-27 The Content tab in the Internet Options dialog box.
The Content Advisor is a feature that you can use to prevent access to certain sites
that you consider inappropriate in your environment. By default, Content Advisor is
set to the most conservative level; that is, if Content Advisor is enabled, you will be
able to access only those sites that contain content that is the least likely to be offen-
sive. To change this setting, you enable Content Advisor and then set up new view-
ing criteria. Of course, if Content Advisor is not enabled, your access is in no way
restricted. To enable the Content Advisor, follow these steps:
1. Establish a password.
Click the Enable button to open the Supervisor Password Required dialog box, as
shown in Figure 3-28. Enter a password in the Password box, and click OK. Now,
anyone who wants to change the settings you specify must enter the password.
Figure 3-28 The Supervisor Password Required dialog box.

2. Open the Content Advisor dialog box, as shown in Figure 3-29.
Click the Settings button to open the Supervisor Password Required dialog box,
enter your password, and click OK.
Figure 3-29 The Content Advisor dialog box.
The ratings system in effect in Internet Explorer is that established by Recreational

Software Advisory Council and goes by the abbreviation RSACi. It is based on the
Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS) system. If Content Advisor is enabled
and if you have set various rating levels, Internet Explorer first reads any PICS rat-
ing codes it finds in a page before opening that page. If the PICS rating exceeds the
limit you’ve established, Internet Explorer does not open the page. To set a level for
language, nudity, sex, or violence, select the category in the Ratings tab in the Con-
tent Advisor dialog box and then move the slider. You use the other three tabs in the
Content Advisor dialog box to do the following:
• Click the Approved Sites tab to specify sites that can always be viewed or that can
never be viewed, no matter how they are rated. Some businesses use this feature to
prevent employees from accessing games sites, gaming sites, and so on.
• Click the General tab to specify that users can view unrated sites, that the
supervisor can enter a password to let users view restricted content, to change
the supervisor password, and to customize the rating system.

• Click the Advanced tab to view or modify the list of organizations that provide rating
services.
A digital certificate is an electronic credential that verifies that you are who you say
you are when connected to the Internet. Digital certificates are also used to guaran-
tee the identity of a Web site or a downloaded program. You can acquire a digital
certificate from a certificate publisher. One of the most popular is VeriSign, Inc., which
you can find at http://www.verisign.com. To manage the digital certificates installed
on your system and to specify certain software publishers as trustworthy, use the Cer-
tificates section of the Content tab.
Earlier this skill mentioned the AutoComplete feature, which comes to your aid when
you enter URLs. You can also use AutoComplete to automatically enter information
you commonly enter at certain Web sites. To configure AutoComplete, click the
AutoComplete button in the Content tab to open the AutoComplete Settings dia-
log box, as shown in Figure 3-30.
Figure 3-30 The AutoComplete Settings dialog box.
If you want to streamline the process of providing personal contact information to a

Web site that requests it, you can set up a profile that will automatically be used. To
do so, click the My Profile button in the Content tab to open the Address Book –
Choose Profile dialog box. You use your Address Book to create a new entry or edit
an existing one.

Modifying or Creating an Internet or Network
Connection
You use the Connections tab, which is shown in Figure 3-31, in the Internet Options
dialog box to configure an Internet connection, dial-up settings, and local area net-
work settings. In “Skill 2: Make Internet Connections,” we looked at how to create
or modify an Internet connection using the Internet Connection Wizard. You can also
start the Internet Connection Wizard by clicking the Setup button on the Connec-
tions tab.
Figure 3-31 The Connections tab of the Internet Options dialog box.
To add, remove, or change the settings for a dial-up connection, you use the buttons
in the Dial-Up Settings section. To add a connection, click the Add button to start
the Network Connection Wizard. To remove a connection, select it and click the
Remove button. To modify the settings for a connection, select it and click the Set-
tings button to open the Settings dialog box for that connection. To modify the set-
tings for a local area network, click the LAN Settings button to open the Local Area
Network (LAN) Settings dialog box.

Specifying Programs to Use for Internet Services
E-mail, newsgroups, an Internet call, creation of a Web page, a calendar, and a con-
tact list are all examples of Internet services, and you use the Programs tab in the
Internet Options dialog box, which is shown in Figure 3-32, to associate a program
with a service. When you then want to access that service, the program you specify is
always used.
Figure 3-32 The Programs tab in the Internet Options dialog box.
To change the associated program, click the down arrow in the list box for that ser-
vice. To return to the programs that were assigned when you installed the operating
system as well as the default start page, click the Reset Web Settings button. If you
have more than one Web browser installed on your system, clear the check box at the
bottom if you want to use another program as the default browser.

Specifying Advanced Options
Earlier in this skill, we looked briefly at the Advanced tab in the Internet Options
dialog box when specifying whether Internet Explorer prints background colors and
images. You can also use the options on this tab to configure how Internet Explorer
handles accessibility, browsing, Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) settings, the Java
environment, multimedia, searching from the Address bar, and security. Simply click
a check box to enable a feature, or clear a check box to disable a feature. To return to
the default settings, click the Restore Defaults button.
Summary
Of course, the most important thing about Internet Explorer is not how it works but
how you can use it to access the resources that make you a more informed and
better-equipped businessperson. You can certainly just point and click to your heart’s
desire, but you’ll soon find yourself off track and probably wasting a good bit of time.
Using the techniques described in this skill, you can, for example, click a site from your
Favorites list to go immediately to a site whose data you need to check every day or
perhaps even more often (such as stock prices or weather conditions). You can quickly
search for and find Web sites, business names and addresses, and all sorts of other
business resources, and you can save the file, print it, and send it to a colleague or a
client. You won’t necessarily need to do all of these things every day, but you can refer
to this skill when a specific task presents itself.

Skill 4
COMMUNICATE WITH ELECTRONIC MAIL

COMMUNICATE
Featuring:
• Understanding How E-Mail Works
• Understanding the Outlook Express Window
• Reading and Processing Messages
• Creating and Sending Messages
• Sending Files with Messages
• Creating a Signature
• Filtering Messages
• Using Identities
• Working with Newsgroups
• Using Address Book
• Customizing Outlook Express
• Managing Your Electronic Office
A lthough the Web may be the most talked about Internet service, the most popular
is electronic mail. This skill focuses on Outlook Express, the e-mail program
that is included with the Microsoft Windows operating system.
91
Microsoft Outlook Express is an Internet standards e-mail reader, which means that
you can use it to send and receive e-mail if you have an Internet e-mail account. An
e-mail account is not the same thing as an account with an online information ser-
vice, such as CompuServe or America Online. An Internet e-mail account provides
services such as Point-to-Point protocol Internet access and e-mail, but it does not
provide services such as chat rooms, access to databases, conferences, and so on.
These days most Internet service providers (ISPs) provide you with an e-mail account
as well as access to the Web. Before you can use Outlook Express to send and receive
e-mail, you need to configure your e-mail account using the Internet Connection
Wizard by following the instructions in “Skill 2: Make Internet Connections.”
NOTE This skill will use the version of Outlook Express that is included with Windows
2000 Professional for illustrations and for describing the steps to accomplish
tasks. If you have Outlook Express running on an earlier version of Windows
or on some other operating system, the screens will look much the same, and
the steps will be similar, although not identical.
Understanding How E-Mail Works

Works
As “Skill 3: Browse the Web” mentioned, you don’t need to understand how a Web
browser works to use it, and you don’t need to understand how e-mail works to use
an e-mail program to send and receive messages. But if you know in general the steps
involved in getting a message from your computer to another computer on the Internet,
you’ll become a more informed business user, and you’ll have an idea of what’s going
on when you see, for example, a message that says “POP server unavailable.”
After you create an e-mail message and click the Send button, your message travels
the following route to get to its intended recipient:
• Your e-mail program, such as Outlook Express, contacts your ISP’s computer and
connects to an SMTP server program. SMTP stands for simple mail transfer pro-
tocol. The server program acknowledges that it has been contacted, and your e-mail
program tells the server that it has a message it wants to send. The server program
then says to send the message or to wait because it is busy.

• If it gets the green light, your e-mail program sends the message to the SMTP server
and asks for confirmation.
• The server confirms that it has received the message and then asks the domain name
server for the Internet address of the intended recipient.
• The domain name server replies with the address, and the SMTP server sends the
message on its way.
• When the message arrives at the recipient’s ISP, it is transferred to a Post Office
Protocol (POP) server, which holds the message until the recipient requests it.
• When your recipient logs on to the Internet, opens his or her e-mail program, and
checks for new mail, the message is downloaded to the recipient’s computer.
Although this process sounds very involved, and technically it is, it can happen very
quickly.
One exception to the process outlined above is America Online (AOL), the largest
ISP in the United States. AOL uses proprietary protocols instead of the SMTP and
POP protocols and then uses a gateway to translate the proprietary protocols into the
standard e-mail protocols so that AOL users and users of standard e-mail programs
can communicate. (A gateway is simply a software device that both transfers and
converts information that originates from systems using different communication
protocols, or rules.)
Understanding the Outlook Express Window

You can open Outlook Express in the following ways:
• Click the Launch Outlook Express button on the Quick Launch toolbar.
• Click the Start button, click Programs, and then click Outlook Express.
• In Internet Explorer, click the Mail button on the Standard toolbar, and then click
Read Mail or Read News.
Figure 4-1 shows what you’ll see when you open Outlook Express the first time.

Figure 4-1 The opening screen in Outlook Express.
This window contains the usual Windows Menu bar and toolbar. The Folders list is
a tool for organizing messages and contains the following folders by default, although,
as you will see, you can add your own folders to this list:
• The Inbox folder is the repository for newly received messages and messages that
you haven’t disposed of in some way.
• The Outbox folder contains messages that are ready to be sent.
• The Sent Items folder contains copies of messages that you have sent.
• The Deleted Items folder contains copies of messages that you have deleted. In other
words, unless you tell Outlook Express to do otherwise, messages that you delete
are not immediately removed but are placed in the Deleted Items folder.
• The Drafts folder contains messages that you are working on but that aren’t yet ready
to be sent.
The Contacts list contains the names of people in your Address Book. For informa-
tion on how to set up and use Address Book, see the section “Using Address Book,”
later in this skill.

Reading and Processing Messages
From the Outlook Express main window, you can click the Inbox link or the Read Mail
link to open your Inbox folder and read messages. Figure 4-2 shows the Inbox folder
in Preview Pane view. Message headers appear in the upper pane, and you select a
message to open it in the lower pane. To view messages in a separate window rather
than using the Preview pane, click the View menu, click Layout, and in the Layout
dialog box, clear the Show Preview Pane check box.
Figure 4-2 Reading a message in Preview Pane view.
If you are connected to the Internet, Outlook Express will automatically check the mail
server for new messages and download them to your Inbox folder when you open
Outlook Express. Thereafter, Outlook Express will check for new messages every 30
minutes as along as you are still connected to the Internet. If you want to check for
messages more often or less frequently, follow these steps:

1. Open the Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 4-3.
Click the Tools menu, and then click Options.
Figure 4-3 The General tab in the Options dialog box.
2. Change the time interval.

In the General tab, click the Check For New Message Every x Minutes spin box,
and select a new time period. Click OK.
By default, Outlook Express plays a sound when new messages arrive in your mail-
box. If you prefer silence, clear the Play Sound When New Messages Arrive check box
in the General tab of the Options dialog box.
Saving Messages
You can save messages in Windows Explorer folders or in Outlook Express folders,
and you can also save attachments to messages. We’ll look at attachments later in this
skill.
To save messages in Windows Explorer folders, open the message or select its header,
and follow these steps:

1. Open the Save Message As dialog box, as shown in Figure 4-4.
Click the File menu, and then click Save As.
Figure 4-4 The Save Message As dialog box.
2. Select a folder.
Select a folder, and then accept the filename that’s suggested, or type a new file name.
3. Select a file type.
In the Save As Type drop-down box, choose how to save the message, and then click
Save.
To save a message in an Outlook Express folder, simply drag its header to the folder.
You can also create your own folders. For example, you might want to create a folder
for a project and then place all correspondence related to that project in that folder.
Or you might want to create a folder for a person and place all messages from that
person in that folder. To create a new Outlook Express folder, follow these steps:
1. Open the Create Folder dialog box, as shown in Figure 4-5.
Click the File menu, click New, and then click Folder.

Figure 4-5 The Create Folder dialog box.
2. Name the folder.

In the Folder Name box, enter a name for the folder.
3. Select a folder in which to place the new folder.
You can place the folder as a main folder in the Local Folders list, or you can store
it in any existing folder. Click OK.
Printing Messages
If you need a paper copy of a message, you can print it in the following ways:
• Select the header of the message and click the Print button on the toolbar.
• Open the message, and then click the Print button in the Message window.
• Select the message or open the message, click the File menu, and then click Print.
Whichever method you use, you’ll open the standard Windows Print dialog box.
Marking Messages
Later in this skill, you’ll find some suggestions for managing your electronic office,
and one suggestion is that you don’t need to read and process every message as it ar-
rives in your Inbox. When you’re checking mail, you can mark messages so that when
you have time you can go back and deal with them. You can mark messages in the
following ways:

• To identify a message as important, select the message header, click the Message
menu, and click Flag Message to place a little red flag to the left of the header.
• If you’ve read a message but want to read it again later and respond, you can mark
it as unread. Select the message header, click the Edit menu, and then click Mark
As Unread. Now instead of an open envelope preceding the header, you’ll see a closed
envelope, and the header is in boldface.
Replying to Messages
To reply to a message from a single sender, you simply click the Reply button on the
toolbar. If the message was sent to multiple recipients, you can reply to them as well
as the sender by clicking the Reply All button. By default, Outlook Express places all
the names of those you reply to in your Address Book—a quick and easy way to store
e-mail addresses.
By default, Outlook Express includes the text of the original message in your reply.
Sometimes this can be helpful, and at other times it can be a real nuisance, especially
if you have to wade through several replies to get to the essence of the message. You
have a couple of alternatives if you don’t want the original message included in the reply:
• Click the Reply button, place your cursor in the body of the message, click the Edit
menu, click Select All to highlight the message, and press the Delete key.
• Click the Tools menu, click Options to open the Options dialog box, click the Send
tab, clear the Include Message In Reply check box, and click OK. Now, the mes-
sage will never automatically be included in the reply.
Forwarding Messages
Sometimes it’s very handy to forward a message, and you can include your own com-
ments in the forwarded message as well. As is the case with passing along anything
that was created by somebody else, be sure that forwarding a message will not infringe
on the original sender. Of course, some people maintain that you should never put
anything in an e-mail message that you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the
newspaper—but that’s probably a topic for discussion at happy hour.
To forward a message, open it, click the Forward button, enter an e-mail address, add
your comments if you want, and click the Send button.

Deleting Messages
You can delete a message in the following ways:
• Select the message header, and press the Delete key.
• Open the message, and press the Delete key.
By default, deleted messages are placed in the Deleted Items folder, and they stay there
until you manually delete them. To do so, select the Deleted Items folder, click the Edit
menu, click Empty ‘Deleted’ Items Folder, and click Yes when you’re asked if you want
to delete these items.
To automatically clear the Deleted Items folder when you close Outlook Express,
follow these steps:
1. Open the Options dialog box.
Click the Tools menu, and then click Options.
2. Select the Maintenance tab, as shown in Figure 4-6.
Click the Maintenance tab, click the Empty Messages From The ‘Deleted Items’
Folder On Exit check box, and click OK.
Figure 4-6 The Maintenance tab in the Options dialog box.

Creating and Sending Messages
You can create a message in two formats: plain text and HTML. By default, Outlook
Express uses HTML. As you’ll see in the next section, not all e-mail programs can
deal with HTML messages, so you’ll want to use that with caution. To compose and
send a message in plain text, follow these steps:
1. Open the New Message window, as shown in Figure 4-7.
Click the New Mail button on the toolbar.
Figure 4-7 The New Message window.
2. Specify plain text format.

Click the Format menu, and click Plain Text.

3. Address and compose your message.
In the To line, enter an e-mail address, or click the icon to open your Address Book
and select the address. Follow the same procedure to copy someone on the message.
To send a blind carbon copy of the message, click the Cc icon to open the Select
Recipients dialog box, select a name from the list, and click the Bcc button. Enter
a subject in the Subject line, place the cursor in the message body, and type your
message.
4. Send the message.
Click the Send button.
By default, messages are sent immediately if you are connected to the Internet. If you
want to wait and send a message later, click the File menu, and click Send Later. This
places your message in the Outbox folder, and it is sent when you click the Send/Recv
button.
Using HTML
When you use HTML to create a message, you are essentially creating a Web page,
and you can include several neat effects, such as a background color or image, sound,
and so on. The drawback, as mentioned earlier, is that not all e-mail programs can deal
with these Web pages, including America Online and the freeware version of Eudora.
Before you send someone a message that includes pictures and other HTML elements,
send that person a plain text message and ask if he or she can read HTML messages.
When you open the New Message window and see the Formatting toolbar, as shown
earlier in Figure 4-7, you know you’re set up to compose a message in HTML. The
Formatting toolbar contains many of the tools you see and use in your word proces-
sor. You can use it to do the following, among other things, in your message:
• Insert a bulleted list.
• Add effects such as boldface, italics, underline, and font color.
• Insert a numbered list.
• Format paragraphs as flush left, flush right, or centered.
• Insert a horizontal line.
• Insert a picture.
• Specify a font and font size.

Figure 4-8 shows an e-mail message that contains HTML elements.
Figure 4-8 An e-mail message composed in HTML.
Using Stationery
You can also liven up your messages using stationery, or you can create your own sta-
tionery. Figure 4-9 shows a message that uses the Formal Announcement stationery
that’s included with Outlook Express.

Figure 4-9 A message that uses stationery.
To use stationery, click the Message menu, click New Using, and then select a statio-
nery design from the list, or click Select Stationery to open the Select Stationery dialog
box. You’ll find several more designs listed in this dialog box. To create your own sta-
tionery, click the Create New button to start the Stationery Setup Wizard.
Sending Files with Messages

Earlier in this skill, we mentioned that you can save files that are attached to messages.
Obviously, you can also attach files to messages. Before getting into the details, though,
we need to remind you that some serious computer viruses make the rounds via at-
tachments to e-mail. Many businesses would cease to function these days if they
couldn’t e-mail files to colleagues and clients, so abandoning the use of file attachments
is not an option. To be on the safe side, we recommend not opening an attachment if
you don’t know the source; just select the message header, and press the Delete key.
And be particularly wary of an attachment that appears to have been forwarded, and
forwarded, and forwarded.

When you receive a message that has a file attached to it, you’ll see a paper-clip icon
preceding the header. When you open the message, you’ll see the filename of the at-
tachment in the Attach line. If the file is in a format that a program on your computer
can read, simply double-click the filename of the attachment to open it. To save the
attachment, follow these steps:
1. Open the Save Attachments dialog box.
Click the File menu, and click Save Attachments.
2. Save the file.
In the Save To box, specify a folder into which to save the file, and click Save.
To attach a file to a message you are composing, follow these steps:
1. Open the Insert Attachment dialog box, as shown in Figure 4-10.
Click the Insert menu, and click File Attachment.
Figure 4-10 The Insert Attachment dialog box.
2. Attach the file.

Enter the filename in the File Name box or browse to find it, and then click
Attach.
Your message now contains the name of the file in the Attach line.

Creating a Signature
Many people never bother to sign their e-mail messages. After all, their name appears
in the From line. Others create elaborate signatures that are automatically appended
to all messages. Your business or organization may, in fact, have guidelines about what
you should include in a signature. It’s common to include your name, title, the name
of your organization, perhaps its physical address, and your phone number.
To create a signature that is automatically appended to all your messages, follow these
steps:
1. Open the Options dialog box at the Signatures tab, which is shown in Figure 4-11.
Click the Tools menu, click Options, and then click the Signatures tab.
Figure 4-11 Creating a signature.

2. Create a signature.
Click New, and then in the Text box, enter your contact information. If you have a
file that contains the information you want in your signature, click the File option
button, and then click Browse to locate the file.
3. Specify the e-mail accounts for which you’ll use this signature.
Click the Advanced button to open the Advanced Signature Settings dialog box.
If you have a home e-mail account and a business e-mail account, for example, you
might want to specify a different signature for each. Select the account, and click
OK.

4. Specify which messages will use the signature.
If you want the signature attached to all outgoing messages, click the correspond-
ing check box. If you don’t want the signature automatically added to all messages,
leave this check box cleared. To add the signature to selected messages, in the New
Message window, click the Insert menu, and then click Signature. When you have
made your selections, click OK.
Filtering Messages
You are not at the mercy of your Inbox. You can choose to block mail from certain
senders, and you can route mail from other senders directly to a folder. To do any of
this, you use the Message Rules dialog box. Using the options in this dialog box, you
can get very detailed about how you filter messages. We’ll take a look at the steps for
blocking messages entirely from certain senders and for routing messages from a par-
ticular person to a folder, but you can apply these steps to establish many other mes-
sage rules.
To block messages from a particular sender, follow these steps:
1. Open the Message Rules dialog box at the Blocked Senders tab, which is shown
in Figure 4-12.
Click the Tools menu, click Message Rules, and then click Blocked Senders List.
Figure 4-12 Blocking messages.

2. Open the Add Sender dialog box, which is shown in Figure 4-13.
Click the Add button in the Message Rules dialog box.
Figure 4-13 The Add Sender dialog box.
3. Specify who and what you want to block.

In the Address box, enter the e-mail address of the sender you want to block, and
then select whether you want to block mail messages, news messages, or both. Click
OK, and then click OK again back in the Message Rules dialog box.
Now all messages from that e-mail address will go immediately to your Deleted Items
folder when they are downloaded to your system.
NOTE In addition to being an e-mail reader, Outlook Express is also a newsreader.

Newsgroups are discussed in a later section of this skill.
To establish a rule that sends all mail from a specific person to that person’s Outlook
Express folder, follow these steps:
1. Open the New Mail Rule dialog box, which is shown in Figure 4-14.
Click the Tools menu, click Message Rules, and then click Mail.

Figure 4-14 The New Mail Rule dialog box.
2. Specify the conditions and actions for your new rule.

In the Select The Conditions For Your Rule section, click the Where The From
Line Contains People check box, and in the Select The Actions For Your Rule
section, click the Move It To The Specified Folder check box. You’ll now see links
in the Rule Description section that you can click to specify the person and the
folder.
3. Specify the person.
Click the Contains People link to open the Select People dialog box, as shown in
Figure 4-15. Enter the e-mail address of the person, or select it from your Address
Book, and click Add.
Figure 4-15 The Select People dialog box.

4. Specify the folder.
Click the Specified link to open the Move dialog box, as shown in Figure 4-16.
Create a new folder, or select an existing folder, and click OK.
Figure 4-16 The Move dialog box.
5. Name your new rule.

Back in the New Mail Rule dialog box, enter a name in the Name Of The Rule box,
and click OK.
Now all the mail from the person you specified will go immediately to that person’s
folder when it’s downloaded to your system.
Using Identities
An identity in Outlook Express is sort of an e-mail user profile. You’ll want to use
identities if more than one person uses your computer and thus also uses Outlook
Express. When you set up identities, each person sees only his or her e-mail messages
and has his or her own contacts in Address Book.
When you install Outlook Express, you are set up as the main identity. To set up other
identities, follow these steps:

1. Open the New Identity dialog box, which is shown in Figure 4-17.
In the main Outlook Express window, click the File menu, click Identities, and then
click Add New Identity.
Figure 4-17 The New Identity dialog box.
2. Specify a name and, optionally, a password for this identity.

In the Type Your Name box, enter a name for the new identity. If you want pass-
word protection enabled, click the Require A Password check box, which opens the
Enter Password dialog box. Type the password twice—once in the New Password
box and again in the Confirm New Password box—and then click OK.
The name of the new identity will appear in the Identities list in the Manage Identi-
ties dialog box, and you’ll be asked whether you want to switch to the new identity
now. If not, click No, and then click Close in the Manage Identities dialog box. The
first time you log on as the new identity, you’ll be asked for some information about
your Internet connection.
To switch from one identity to another, follow these steps:
1. Open the Switch Identities dialog box, as shown in Figure 4-18.
Click the File menu, and then click Switch Identity.

Figure 4-18 The Switch Identities dialog box.
2. Select the identity.

Select an identity from the list, enter a password if required, and click OK.
Once you set up more than one identity, you’ll be asked to select an identity when you
open Outlook Express.
Working with Newsgroups

A newsgroup is not an electronic gathering of people who meet to discuss current
events, but a collection of articles about a specific topic. The primary, but not only,
source of newsgroups is Usenet, a worldwide distributed discussion system consist-
ing of newsgroups with names that are classified hierarchically by topic. For example,
alt.business.accounting is, theoretically, a newsgroup that discusses accounting sub-
jects and practices. The first part of the name represents the largest hierarchical cat-
egory, and the name gets more specific from left to right.
In the previous paragraph, note the use of the word theoretically. In the early days of
the Internet, newsgroups and Usenet were widely supported by educators, academi-
cians, computer scientists, and other similar professionals. These days newsgroups seem
to have degenerated into venues for get-rich-quick schemes and for discussion of topics
that most of us in the business world would consider unseemly, whether at home or
at work.
Thus, a caveat is in order. Some newsgroups are moderated, but most are not, and you
can find anything about anything in even the most unlikely of places. The value of

newsgroups to the business user is dubious, but this skill includes a brief discussion
because of their historical importance to the development of the Internet and because
Outlook Express, in addition to being an e-mail reader, is also a newsreader.
Setting Up a Newsgroup Account

Before you can access and read newsgroups, you need to set up a news account with
your ISP. You access newsgroups by accessing the server on which they are stored. Get
the name of your ISP’s news server, and then follow these steps to set up an account:
1. Start the Internet Connection Wizard.
In the main Outlook Express window, select the Outlook Express folder, and in the
pane on the right, click Set Up A Newsgroups Account.
2. Supply the information the wizard requests.
When prompted, enter the name of your ISP’s newsgroup server and any other
information, and click Finish when you are done.
Connecting to Newsgroups
Your first task is to download the list of newsgroups from your ISP’s server. This could
take a while depending on the speed of your Internet connection—newsgroups number
in the tens of thousands. But only the names are downloaded; the contents remain on
the news server until you specifically access a newsgroup. When the list has down-
loaded, you’ll see the Newsgroup Subscriptions dialog box, as shown in Figure 4-19.
Figure 4-19 The Newsgroup Subscriptions dialog box.

Finding a Topic of Interest
Topic
You can select a newsgroup to read by scrolling this list (a time-consuming task) or
by searching on a term. With the earlier caveat in mind, enter a search term in the
Display Newsgroups Which Contain field, and then simply wait. Soon you’ll see a list
of newsgroups whose names contain the search term.
To read a newsgroup, select it, and then click Go To. If you find a group that seems
to have value for your business or profession, you can subscribe to it. Subscribing simply
means creating a subfolder for a particular newsgroup in your news folder.
Posting to a Newsgroup
Replying to a newsgroup article or sending a message to a newsgroup is known as
posting. To send an original message to a newsgroup, open the newsgroup and then
click the New Post button. The New Message window will open with the group’s name
in the To line. To reply to an individual article, click the Reply button, and to reply to
the entire newsgroup, click the Reply Group button.
Using Address Book

Earlier in this skill, you learned that an easy way to enter an e-mail address in Out-
look Express is to add it from your Address Book. This section gives you an overview
of Address Book and shows you how to set it up to quickly locate contact informa-
tion and to set up group, or distribution, lists.
You can open Address Book in a couple of ways:
• From the desktop, click the Start button, click Programs, click Accessories, and then
click Address Book.
• In Outlook Express, click the Addresses button on the toolbar in the main window,
or in the New Message window, click the To button (which opens the Select Re-
cipients dialog box in Address Book).

Figure 4-20 shows an empty Address Book window, ready for you to add contact
information. Notice that this Address Book is for the main identity.
Figure 4-20 An empty Address Book window.
Adding Information for an Individual

To add contact information for an individual, open Address Book and follow these
steps:
1. Open the Properties dialog box, as shown in Figure 4-21.
Click the New button on the toolbar, and then click New Contact.

Figure 4-21 The Properties dialog box for a new contact.
2. Add information for this person.

Use the Name, Home, Business, Personal, Other, NetMeeting, Digital IDs, and
Online tabs to add as much or as little information as you want. Press the Tab key
to move from one field to another in a tab.
NOTE You’ll have the Online tab only if you’ve installed Instant Messaging, a feature
you can use with Microsoft NetMeeting, which is discussed in “Skill 6: Under-
stand Other Internet Services.”
3. Close the Properties dialog box.

Click the Close button. You’ll see the new contact listed in the Address Book win-
dow. To send mail to this new contact, click the To button in the New Message
window, double-click the name, and click OK.
Setting Up a Distribution List

In Address Book, a distribution list is called a group. To set up a group, follow these
steps:

1. Open the Properties dialog box for the new group, which is shown in Figure 4-22.
In Address Book, click the New button on the toolbar, and then click New Group.
Figure 4-22 The Properties dialog box for a new group.
2. Name the group.

In the Group Name box, type a name for the group. This is the name that will appear
in the list in the main Address Book window.
3. Add members to the group.
You can add members in the following ways:
• Click the Select Members button to open the Select Group Members dialog box,
select a name from the list, and click OK.
• Click New Contact to open the Properties dialog box for a new contact, enter
contact information, and click OK to add a member to the group and to your
Address Book.
• In the Name and E-Mail boxes at the bottom of the window, enter information
to add someone to the group but not to your Address Book.
When you’re finished, click OK.
The group name now appears in boldface in the main Address Book window.

Locating People
Using Address Book, you can find contact information for people using directory
services such as Bigfoot Internet Directory Service, WhoWhere Internet Directory
Service, Yahoo! People Search, and so on, if you are connected to the Internet. Fol-
low these steps:
1. Open the Find People dialog box, as shown in Figure 4-23.
In Address Book, click the Find People button on the toolbar.
Figure 4-23 The Find People dialog box.
2. Select a directory service.

Click the Look In drop-down list box.
3. Enter some information.
In the People tab, fill in the information you know about this person, and then click
Find Now.
Printing Your Address Book

Your
You can print the contents of your Address Book in three formats:
• Memo, which prints all the information you have stored.
• Business Card, which prints the information you’d typically find on a business card.
• Phone List, which prints only the phone numbers.
To print in one of these formats, click the Print button to open the Print dialog box,
select a print style (Memo, Business Card, or Phone List), and click Print.

Creating and Printing a Map
If your organization is having an off-site retreat, if you’re inviting your employees for
dinner at your new house, or if you just need directions to a business meeting, you can
use Address Book to create and print a map to the location. Follow these steps:
1. Open the Properties dialog box.
In the Address Book window, right-click an entry in your Address Book, and choose
Properties from the shortcut menu.
2. Enter an address.
Click either the Home or the Business tab. You can use the address that’s stored
for the person’s name you clicked, or you can simply enter other address informa-
tion for the map you want to produce. When you’re done, click View Map. You’ll
see something similar to Figure 4-24.
Figure 4-24 Creating a map with Address Book.
Now you can print this map, which opens in Internet Explorer, save it, or e-mail it to
someone.

Customizing Outlook Express
Unless you’ve turned off Windows sounds, you’ll hear a sound when a new message
arrives in your Inbox, and Outlook Express will check for new messages every 30
minutes. You can disable this sound if you want, you can specify that Outlook Express
check for new messages more frequently or less often, and you can personalize a number
of other features that concern e-mail and news, using the Options dialog box. To open
the Options dialog box, click the Tools menu and then click Options.
NOTE This section discusses the features in the Options dialog box that weren’t dis-
cussed earlier in this skill.
Specifying General Options

The Options dialog box has either 9 or 10 tabs. (The Spelling tab is available only if
you have installed a Microsoft Office program that includes the spell-checking fea-
ture, for example, Word, Excel, or PowerPoint.) By default, the Options dialog box
opens at the General tab, which is shown in Figure 4-25.
Figure 4-25 The General tab of the Options dialog box.
To enable an option, click its check box; to disable an option, clear its check box. Use
the options on the General tab to enable or disable the following features:

• Open Outlook Express at your Inbox.
• Let you know if there are new newsgroups.
• Display all folders that contain unread messages.
• Log on to the MSN Messenger Service when you open Outlook Express.
• Play a sound when you have new mail.
• Automatically send and receive messages when you open Outlook Express.
• Specify how often to check for new messages.
• Specify whether Outlook Express is to be used when you access mail or news fea-
tures in your Web browser.
Specifying What Happens When You Read Messages

You
or News
Click the Read tab in the Options dialog box, which is shown in Figure 4-26, to specify
options that pertain to reading messages and newsgroups. Most of these options are
self-explanatory; if you need more information, click the question mark button, and
then click the option.
Figure 4-26 The Read tab in the Options dialog box.

Handling Return Receipts
If you want to know when a recipient has received and read a message, click the Tools
menu in the New Message window and then click Request Read Receipt. If you want
to know when all the messages you send have been received and read, you use the
options on the Receipts tab in the Options dialog box, which is shown in Figure 4-27.
Figure 4-27 The Receipts tab in the Options dialog box.
If you want to control how Outlook Express responds to requests for read receipts that
you receive, use the options in the Returning Read Receipts section:
• Click Never Send A Read Receipt if you don’t want a read receipt sent even though
it was requested by the sender of a message.
• Click Notify Me For Each Read Receipt Request if you want to know that a read
receipt has been requested for a message. You can then decide whether to let the
sender know that you have received the message.
• By default, the Always Send A Read Receipt option is checked. The options in the
Returning Read Receipts section are mutually exclusive. You must select one of the
three options.

If you or the sender has a secure digital signature, you can specify that the signature
be verified by clicking the Secure Receipt button and configuring the options in the
Secure Receipt Options dialog box.
Managing How Messages Are Sent

Earlier in this skill, we looked at the differences between using plain text and HTML
formats for messages and how to specify one or the other in the New Message win-
dow. You can also specify the format using the Send tab in the Options dialog box,
Figure 4-28 The Send tab in the Options dialog box.
In addition, you can use the options in the Send tab to enable or disable the follow-
ing features:
• Save a copy of every message you send in the Sent Items folder. This option is se-
lected by default, and we suggest that you leave it that way. Having a record of what
you said when and to whom is always a good idea in any business situation.

• Bypass the Outbox folder and send messages immediately. Composing messages
offline and storing them in the Outbox folder was handy when we paid dearly for
online time by the minute. In these days of always-on connections and low-cost
unlimited connection time, it’s probably simpler and easier to just compose the
message and send it at once—unless you think you might want to edit it again before
you send it. In that case, you can store it in the Drafts folder.
• Always put the names of senders that you reply to in your Address Book. Again,
this option is enabled by default, and we suggest that you leave it that way. It’s much
easier to weed out your Address Book than it is to search for an e-mail address.
• Use AutoComplete for e-mail addresses. This is a handy feature, but even quicker
is selecting the address from your Address Book.
• Include the original message when you reply to a message. This option is enabled
by default, and if you ever want to do this, leave it enabled. Otherwise, you can’t
include the message in your reply. If you don’t want to include the message, it’s easy
to delete it from your reply. Simply place your cursor in the body of the message,
click the Edit menu, click Select All, and then press the Delete key.
• If you receive messages in both plain text and HTML format, you can reply in the
format in which the messages were sent by enabling the last option in the Sending
section.
Changing Fonts, Specifying Stationery

Stationery,, and Using
Business Cards
To change the font in which you compose messages, to specify stationery that will be
used when you compose a message or post to a newsgroup, and to specify that your
business card is always attached to messages or posts, you use the options on the
Compose tab in the Options dialog box, which is shown in Figure 4-29.

Figure 4-29 The Compose tab in the Options dialog box.
A business card that you create in Outlook Express is actually a vCard, an electronic
personal information card that you can exchange via e-mail or teleconferencing. A
vCard can contain any or all of the following:
• Your name, address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address
• Photographs
• Company logos
• Sound clips
To create a business card and attach it to all your messages, follow these steps:
1. Open Address Book.
Click Addresses in the toolbar in the Outlook Express main window.
2. Create an entry for yourself.
Click the New button, and then click New Contact to open the Properties dialog
box. Fill in as much or as little information about yourself as you want to include
on your business card, and then click OK.

3. Save your business card to a file.
In the Address Book main window, select your name from the list, click the File
menu, click Export, and then click Business Card (vCard) to open the Export
Business Card dialog box. Save it in the location that Outlook Express suggests,
or choose another location and click Save. Close Address Book.
4. Specify that your business card is to be included in all outgoing messages.
Click the Tools menu, and then click Options to open the Options dialog box. Click
the Compose tab, click the Mail and the News check boxes, and then click OK.
To attach a business card to a single message rather than all messages, leave the Mail
and News check boxes cleared, and in the New Message window, click the Insert menu,
and then click My Business Card.
Checking Spelling
Typically, e-mail messages get a bad rep in the spelling, punctuation, and grammar
department, and for good reason. One of our business contacts even sends stream-of-
consciousness messages—they are in all lowercase letters, have no punctuation, no
paragraph indications, contain a lot of abbreviations and misspelled words, and so on.
Not impressive from a business point of view, or from any point of view for that matter.
True, e-mail has developed as one of the most important communications tools ever
because it’s quick and easy, but in a business environment you want to apply the same
standards to e-mail that you apply to any other form of communication. You want to
portray a professional image, and you want your customers, colleagues, and other
contacts to trust you and your abilities.
At the very least, read through a message before you click the Send button. And if you
want to avoid embarrassing typos and misspelled words, select the option in the Spell-
ing tab of the Options dialog box to always check the spelling of a message before it
is sent. (As mentioned earlier, you won’t have the Spelling tab unless you have an Office
application installed that contains the spell-checking feature.)

Figure 4-30 shows the Spelling tab. The options are in general those found in other
applications that can check spelling, but in addition you can also check Internet ad-
dresses and the original message in a reply or a forward.
Figure 4-30 The Spelling tab in the Options dialog box.
Enhancing Security
You can use the Security tab in the Options dialog box, which is shown in Figure
4-31, to select an Internet Security zone and to acquire and configure a digital cer-
tificate, which is also known as a digital ID. (For more on Security zones, look back
at “Skill 3: Browse the Web.”) If your business involves sending and receiving e-mail
that if intercepted by the wrong people could put your business at risk, you’ll want to
look into using digital certificates. Click the Tell Me More button for a complete ex-
planation of how digital certificates work, and click the Get Digital ID button to go
to a Web page that lists authorities from which you can obtain a digital certificate.

Figure 4-31 The Security tab in the Options dialog box.
Configuring Your Internet Connection

Your
You learned in “Skill 2: Make Internet Connections” the various ways that you can
connect to the Internet, and you saw in “Skill 3: Browse the Web” how to modify your
connection using the Internet Options dialog box. Outlook Express and Internet
Explorer both use the same Internet connection settings. You can modify those set-
tings from within Outlook Express by clicking the Change button in the Connection
tab, which is shown in Figure 4-32, to open the Internet Properties dialog box.

Figure 4-32 The Connection tab in the Options dialog box.
TIP Remember, the Internet Properties dialog box and the Internet Options dialog
box both contain exactly the same options.
If you have multiple dial-up connections, click the first option in the Dial-Up section
of the Connection tab if you want to be notified before connections are switched. If
you want your modem to hang up after you send and receive mail, click the Hang Up
After Sending And Receiving check box.
Cleaning the Outlook Express House

You use the Maintenance tab in the Options dialog box, which is shown in Figure
4-33, to take care of various housekeeping chores, such as emptying the Deleted Items
folder, compacting messages to save space, and changing the location of your message
folders. To see where your message folders are stored, click the Store Folder button
to open the Store Location dialog box. If you want to keep that location, click OK. If
you want to change the location, click Change to open the Browse For Folder dialog
box.

Figure 4-33 The Maintenance tab in the Options dialog box.
If you are having trouble sending or receiving mail, click the Mail check box in the
Troubleshooting section of the Maintenance tab. All commands sent to and from your
mail server are then stored in a log file that you or a technical support person can peruse
to see where the bottleneck might be.
Managing Your Electronic Of

Your fice
Office
Do you ever wonder how you’d get by without the number of communications tools
you currently have at your disposal? Phone, voice mail, fax, e-mail, pagers, the Internet
and its vast supply of instant resources, even paper memos, reports, home-to-office
network connections—the list seems endless. Or, maybe instead you wonder how to
get your work done in the midst of all these tools.
A recent issue of Harvard Management Update, a newsletter put out by the publish-
ing arm of Harvard Business School, had some suggestions that we’ve adapted for in-
clusion here. Not every suggestion is applicable to all situations, but among them you’re
sure to find some that will help you better manage the deluge of information that faces
you in your electronic office.

• You don’t have to read e-mail the instant you hear the you-have-mail alert. Some
business professionals set aside certain times each day to check e-mail. You don’t
have to be interrupted unless you want to be. If something is really urgent, the sender
will probably find another way to get in touch with you.
• You also don’t have to answer the phone just because it rings. You can let voice mail
pick it up and then respond at certain times during the day that let you give your
full attention to the matters at hand.
• Don’t open every e-mail message. If the subject line tells you that another get-rich-
quick scheme has just landed in your mailbox, press the Delete key. Agree with your
colleagues to use the priority symbols available in Outlook Express for things that
are time-sensitive.
• If an e-mail message looks interesting but you can tell that it isn’t essential, print it
out and read it later or flag it in some way.
• Instead of using e-mail for team projects, set up an intranet (an internal Internet)
or a newsgroup to which members can post messages.
• Take care of paper filing first, and then set up an electronic filing system for e-mail.
Create folders for projects, people, and so on, and be diligent about moving mes-
sages into these folders.
• If you have tons of old messages lying around, just get rid of them. If you can’t bear
that thought, save them to a file somewhere.
• Multitask. Return phone calls while printing something, or check your paper or-
ganizer while downloading a file from the Internet.
• Don’t waste time by following links that have nothing to do with the reason you’re
searching the Internet.
• Unsubscribe to newsletters you no longer need or never read. (“Skill 6: Understand
Other Internet Services” discusses electronic newsletters and mailing lists.)
• Regularly evaluate your sources of information—journals, periodicals, reports,
memos, and so on—and discontinue all that are not essential. Be on the lookout
for new information sources that will keep you current.
• Set aside 5 to 10 minutes each day to learn something new about any of your elec-
tronic tools.

Summary
This skill has covered a multitude of topics concerning electronic mail and, in particular,
Outlook Express. Now you know how e-mail works; how to use the Outlook Express
main window; how to read, process, create, and send messages; how to attach files to
messages; and how to create a signature, filter messages, and work with newsgroups.
You also know how to set up and use your Address Book to quickly insert e-mail
addresses, and you know several ways to personalize Outlook Express so that it works
efficiently in your business setting. And you have some tips about how to manage the
slew of electronic devices that inhabit your office.

Skill 5
USE SEARCH SERVICES

SERVICES
Featuring:
• Understanding How Search Services Work
• Understanding Portals and Metasearch Software
• Searching with Keywords
• Important Search Services for Business Users
• Introducing Copernic 2000: Metasearch Software
• Gathering Business Information
I n mid-2000, Cyveillance (an Internet company in the Washington, D.C., area)

reported that there were 2.1 billion unique, publicly available pages on the Internet.
That would tend to make you think that you could find just about any information
you need or want on the Internet, which is probably true. But the proverbial needle
in the haystack pales in comparison with finding a specific bit of data located some-
where in those 2.1 billion pages.
NOTE If you’re interested in how Cyveillance arrived at this figure, go to http://

www.cyveillance.com/newsroom/pressr/00710.asp.
In “Skill 3: Browse the Web,” we looked at how to use Microsoft Internet Explorer
to search the Internet, but as we mentioned in that skill, searching the Internet suc-
cessfully, meaning you actually find exactly what you want and you can do so rather
quickly, involves much more. Searching the Internet is both a skill that you can
acquire and an art.
133
In this skill, we are going to start by giving you an overview of how searching the
Internet works, the types of search tools you can use, and the techniques involved. We’ll
then show you how to use this information to turn the Internet and especially the Web
into a powerful research and intelligence-gathering tool for business purposes—
locating businesses, getting background information on businesses, doing a competitive
analysis, scoping out the market, prospecting for sales, and so on.
Understanding How Search Services Work

Work
Search service is a relatively new term that describes a Web site from which you can
start a search of the Internet. Search services come in two basic flavors: commercial
and noncommercial. Commercial search services catalog information on the Internet
to attract visitors, and they also display advertisements. Noncommercial search ser-
vices may exist for research, educational, and academic purposes and for many other
purposes.
More specifically, there are two types of search services: search engines and directo-
ries. Search engines, also referred to as search tools, work like this:
• Programs called spiders, robots, or Web crawlers locate and collect information
about Web sites.
• A software agent then sends this information to an indexing program.
• The indexing program then puts the information into a database. Some indexing
programs index every word in each document, others index only the key 100 words
in each document. In addition, some indexing programs index the size of the docu-
ment, the number of words in the document, the title, headings, and so on.
• When you enter search criteria, the search engine looks in its database and displays
a list of Web pages that are relevant to your criteria. Some search engines list the
pages from most to least relevant, and some display the URL, the title, and the first
few words of the document.
HotBot, shown in Figure 5-1, is an example of an Internet search engine, and you will
find it at http://hotbot.lycos.com.

Figure 5-1 HotBot, an Internet search engine.
NOTE Web sites come and go, companies change their names and their URLs, con-
tent of sites changes (if the company is properly supporting its Web site)—the
Internet is a dynamic environment. Thus, it’s possible that a URL in this skill (or
elsewhere in this book for that matter) may lead to a dead end or to a replace-
ment site. It’s also possible that the content and options we describe for a site
have changed since we visited the site and wrote about it.
A directory is created by people rather than by software alone. Individuals trained in

cataloging determine how a Web site and its contents should be classified and place
Web sites in multilevel categories that you can browse. Yahoo! is an example of a di-
rectory search service. You’ll find it at http://www.yahoo.com, and we’ll look at it in detail
later in this skill.

Unfortunately, the distinction between a search engine and a directory quickly blurs.
For one thing, directories use search engines, and some search engines use directories.
Nevertheless, the distinction becomes important when you get ready to choose a search
service. If the information you’re looking for can be easily classified, you’ll find it faster
and easier using a directory. If you are searching for a very specific word or phrase, you’re
better off using a search engine, because it has indexed every word.
Understanding Portals and Metasearch

Software
We need to look at a couple more ways to search the Internet before we get into some
specific searching techniques. A portal is a large Web site that in many cases started
out as a search service and evolved into everything but the kitchen sink. Using a por-
tal, you can search the Internet, get a free e-mail account, chat online, instant mes-
sage, and get news about current events, sports, and finance, among other things.
Some of the most popular portals include the following:
• Go (http://www.go.com)
• Lycos (http://www.lycos.com)
• Yahoo! (http://www.yahoo.com)
• ZDNet (http://www.zdnet.com)
We’ll look at some of these portals as well as others later in this skill.
Metasearch software is a relatively new way to search the Internet. Unlike search ser-
vice sites, metasearch software lives on your computer, and you use it to access many
search services simultaneously and display and use the results. Metasearch software
works like this:
• Enter your search criteria in your metasearch software.
• The metasearch software sends agents to contact one or more search services and
enter your search criteria.
• The search services then report the results of their searches to the agents, which send
the results back to the metasearch software.
• The metasearch software examines the results, eliminates duplicates, and displays
the results, ranking the relevancy of each found site.
• You browse the results, as you would in any other search service.

The search mechanism in Internet Explorer, which we looked at in “Skill 3: Browse
the Web,” is itself a type of metasearch software. Later in this skill, we’ll take a look
at how to use another popular metasearch software program, Copernic.
NOTE In addition, there are metasearch engine sites, and we’ll look at how to use one
of them later in this skill.
Searching with Keywords

Long before the Internet became available to the general public, professional research-
ers were searching large electronic databases using the techniques that we can use today
to search the Internet. Professional researchers were and are extremely skilled at put-
ting their finger on just exactly the information they want and are still employed by
many organizations, especially organizations that rely on specialized information stored
in large, proprietary technical databases.
At most search service sites, you will find instructions for entering search criteria. Many
search services hide the technicalities, making it relatively easy to do a quick, simple
search. In a business, however, you will most likely want to exercise much more con-
trol so that you can quickly access specifics. You do this by using keywords.
As we mentioned earlier in this skill, some spiders and robots index every single word
in a Web page. The search engine compares your keywords with the words in its in-
dex and returns the results. Although you might fear getting no results, far more likely
is that you’ll get too many results. Use the techniques we’re about to look at here to
greatly increase the odds of finding not less than and not more than but exactly what
you want.
NOTE For purposes of example, we’ll use the AltaVista search engine at http://
www.altavista.com.
At the AltaVista home page, you enter search criteria in the Find box, and then click
Search or press the Enter key. Let’s assume we’re interested in finding out which
businesses in Houston have a Web presence. In the Find box, enter the following:
businesses on the Web in Houston

Figure 5-2 shows the results that we got. Look down in the Web Pages bar, and you’ll
see that the search engine found more than 10 million pages. In addition, if you look
at the bottom of the pages, you’ll see how many occurrences were found for each of
the words we specified. Fortunately, the search engine ignored the word articles and
prepositions or we’d have even more pages.
Figure 5-2 The results of a search for businesses on the Web in Houston.
These results are not helpful. Why did we get so many hits? Because we were in es-
sence asking the search engine to find all pages that included each word in our query.
Search engines use something called Boolean logic, which works with logical rather
than numeric relationships and employs three primary kinds of operators: AND, OR,
and NOT. Alta Vista uses the OR operator by default, regardless of whether you enter
it. Therefore, the AltaVista search engine was reading our query as follows:
businesses OR on OR the OR Web OR in OR Houston
Consequently, we ended up with millions of hits. How can we narrow the search?

Searching for a Phrase
One way is to tell the search engine to search for that particular phrase, that is, find
all the pages that include the exact words in the exact order in which we enter them.
To do this, simply enclose the phrase in quotation marks, like this:
“businesses on the Web in Houston”
When we entered this search phrase, though, AltaVista found no documents contain-
ing it. A better solution might be to search on all the words in the phrase, but not the
exact phrase.
Searching for All the Words

Words
To search on all the important words in our phrase, we set up an AND Boolean
relationship—by using plus signs (+). The plus sign tells the search engine to find all
documents that contain businesses AND Web AND Houston:
+businesses +Web +Houston
NOTE Press the spacebar after a word and before a plus sign.
Another way to find more pages on your topic is to include variations or synonyms
of a word. For example, we might search on businesses and corporations and companies,
like this:
businesses corporations companies +Web +Houston
In this case, we’d find all Web pages that contained the following:
businesses AND Web AND Houston
corporations AND Web AND Houston
companies AND Web AND Houston
TIP If you want a search to be case-sensitive, capitalize the necessary words. If you
want the search to find all instances of the word regardless of case, enter the
word or words in lowercase. In our example, we would do well to enter web
instead of Web, since it is common to find the word in all lowercase or with
an initial capital letter.

Using the NOT Operator
You don’t want to get too fancy with this, but the NOT operator can come in handy
from time to time. In our example, we want to find documents that contain informa-
tion about businesses on the Web in the city of Houston. Therefore, we might want
to eliminate pages that contain Houston as a person’s last name, such as Whitney
Houston. In this case, we could enter the following:
+businesses +web +Houston NOT “Whitney Houston”
Using Wildcards
A wildcard is not a joker, but a symbol you can use in a search string (which is another
name for your search criteria) to indicate that you want to search for any and all charac-
ters in place of the symbol. The symbol you use is the asterisk (*). For example, if you
want to search for corporate, corporation, and corporations, you could enter the following:
corporat*
The following are situations in which using the asterisk might produce better results:
• Your search word could be included only once or twice in a page. If your spelling
doesn’t exactly match the spelling in the page, the search engine won’t find it.
• The word is often spelled in more than one way, for example, disc and disk. In this
case, enter dis*.
Important Search Services for Business Users

No one search service or search engine will suffice for all your business searches. Most
people tend to have a favorite or favorites, but initially you’ll benefit from some ex-
ploring. Select a topic, enter it in several search services, and see what kinds of results
you get.
The reason that one search service doesn’t fill all or even most needs is that each search
engine uses a different scheme to retrieve results, and no one search engine covers the
entire Web. In this skill, we’ll look at how to use some of the major search services as
well as some newcomers to the field and give you some tips on how to get the most
out of each one.

NOTE At all the sites we discuss in this section, you can do much more than search,
including find a recipe for sweet potato pie, download gambling software,
register a domain name, and on and on and on. Because our focus in this skill
is searching the Internet for business purposes, we’ll stick to that. You can play
around with the myriad other features on these pages at your leisure.
AltaVista
AltaVista
We looked at AltaVista earlier in this skill when we discussed how to search with
keywords, but this venerable search service deserves a second glance. According to some
estimates, AltaVista indexes more of the Internet than any other search engine. Un-
fortunately, rather more links than you’d hope lead to dead ends. This negative may
be offset by AltaVista Discovery, a utility that you can download for free. You can use
AltaVista Discovery to search the Web, documents on your local hard drive or on your
network, or e-mail messages.
Figure 5-3 shows the AltaVista home page (http://www.altavista.com), which you can
search in 25 languages.
Figure 5-3 The AltaVista home page.

To do a simple search in AltaVista, enter your keyword or phrase in the search box,
select what you want to search (the Web, News, Discussions Groups, Products), and
the language, and then click Search. To do an advanced search, using even more tricks
with keywords, click the Advanced Search tab, and then click the Advanced Search
Cheat Sheet link. This page, shown in Figure 5-4, gives you a summary of the opera-
tors we discussed earlier in this skill as well as a number of additional ways you can
make a keyword search more specific.
Figure 5-4 The AltaVista Advanced Search Cheat Sheet.
You can click the other tabs to search for images (photos, graphics, buttons/banners)
and specify whether you want color or black and white, MP3 and audio files, and video
files.
NOTE MP3 is a highly compressed file format for storing digital audio. Both MP3 and
Napster, an application that lets you share MP3 files, were the source of recent
litigation that concerned copyright issues.

Ask Jeeves
Ask Jeeves (http://www.askjeeves.com) is the place to start if you think your search query
has likely been asked before. For example, here are some business questions that we
found at this search service site (the site also includes the answers):
• Where can I find an example of what a business plan should look like?
• How can I obtain a copyright for an idea?
• Why should I franchise my business, and what are the benefits?
• Where online can I find team-building exercises for small business teams?
• Where can I find information about starting a trade show?
• What does debt consolidation mean, and how will it affect my credit?
Figure 5-5 shows the Ask Jeeves home page.
Figure 5-5 The Ask Jeeves home page.

At the home page, you can simply type a natural language question in the blank field,
and click Ask! to pose a business query. You can also follow these steps to browse the
business questions and answers that have already been posed:
1. Select a category in which to ask or answer a question.
From the home page, click Answer Point, and then scroll down and click Money
& Business.
2. Select a subcategory.
Click a Money & Business subcategory, such as Business News, Business Resources,
Companies, Jobs & Career Information, and so on.
You can now browse all questions, all answered questions, or all unanswered questions.
To get an idea of the kind of information that is available, click All. Questions and
answers are sorted by date, with the most recent first.
Another Good Site for Existing Searches

Direct Hit (http://www.directhit.com) is another excellent site to visit if you think
your search has most likely been done before. Simply enter your search query in
the Search For field, specify whether to search Web sites, Shopping, Categories,
or Jeeves Answers, and click the circled arrow. The following illustration shows
what we found when we searched on business plan. As you can see, in addition to
a list of Web sites ranked in order of popularity, we got a great list of related searches
that we can click to go directly to a number of other sites.

Dogpile
Dogpile is a metasearch site that searches more than 20 search engines, including the
following:
• AltaVista
• AltaVista’s Usenet Search
• Deja News
• Deja News’ Old Database
• DirectHit
• Dogpile Open Directory
• Dogpile Web Catalog
• FastFTP Search
• Google
• Goto.com
• Infoseek
• Infoseek News Wires
• LookSmart
• Lycos
• RealNames
• Yahoo!
• Yahoo! News Headlines
You can even specify and save the order in which Dogpile uses these search engines.
The Dogpile home page is shown in Figure 5-6.

Figure 5-6 The Dogpile home page.
To search at Dogpile, enter a search string using any of the operators we discussed
earlier in this skill and click Fetch. By default, Dogpile does a Web metasearch, but
you can also select an option to search specific areas such as FTP sites, auctions, maps,
and so on.
To use the Dogpile Web Directory, click on links until you get to the area you’re in-
terested in.
If you’re interested in exploring other metasearch engines, check out those listed in
Table 5-1.

SITE URL
Cyber411 http://www.cyber411.com
Mamma http://www.mamma.com
Metacrawler http://www.metacrawler.com
Search.com http://www.search.com
Go Gettem http://www.gogettem.com
Table 5-1 Metasearch engine sites.
Go
The Go search service (http://www.go.com) is a reincarnation of Infoseek, and as you
can see in Figure 5-7, at its home page you can check your horoscope, look for movie
times, and do all sorts of things one might expect at a site that is now owned by the
Walt Disney Company.
Figure 5-7 The Go.com home page.

The Infoseek search service is still there, however, and we look at it in this section
because it’s been around a long time (in computer years) and it’s easy to use. You can
use the search field to look for information on the Web, for images, and for audio and
video. You can’t, though, use Boolean operators, limit a search by date, or select
languages.
The directory at Go.com includes only reviewed sites, and so using the directory may
be your best bet here. To display the directory, click the Search tab. Results are pre-
ceded by a list of categories that you can use to narrow your search, and you can sort
the results by date and hide the summaries if you want. You can also search within the
results you retrieve by selecting the Search Within Results option button.
Google
Google is a goofy name for a search service, but in our opinion what it does is not goofy.
You won’t find free e-mail, shopping, or clubs on Google because it does only one thing:
search. Google has been called the “hottest search engine on the Internet.” In mid-
2000 it claimed to have indexed more than 1 billion Web pages and claimed that an
average search took 0.04 second. The Yahoo! search service, which we’ll look at later
in this section, uses the Google search engine.
The Google search engine looks at all the Web pages that link to a Web site and then
ranks those sites first when it returns search results. The Google directory contains
more than 1.5 million URLs and is integrated with the Open Directory pages. The
Open Directory Project is a large public directory managed by Netscape and main-
tained by a group of volunteer editors from around the world. These editors select Web
pages and organize them into categories and subcategories. Google uses this hierar-
chy as the basis for its directory.
Figure 5-8 shows the Google home page (http://www.google.com). To do a basic search,
enter your keyword or phrase and press the Enter key. If you enter multiple terms,
Google automatically connects them with the AND operator.

Figure 5-8 The Google home page.
The Google home page is deceptively simple. To use the directory, click the Google
Search button and then click the Try Our Web Directory link. You’ll see something
similar to Figure 5-9.

Figure 5-9 The Google Web Directory.
When you do a basic search, the results are enhanced by information from the direc-
tory. You can click these links to access similar pages in the same category or other
related categories. You might want to go straight to the directory though in the fol-
lowing situations:
• When you aren’t sure how to narrow your search from a broad category.
• When you want to search for a topic only with a category instead of searching the
entire Internet.
• When you want to see only those sites that have been evaluated by an editor.
Go2Net
The Go2Net site (http://www.go2net.com) is important to business users for one pri-
mary reason: it gives you quick access to a directory of indispensable business direc-
tories. Thus, we aren’t going to look at the other features of this site; you can search it
much the same as many other sites. But we do want to point you to the directory links.

From the Go2Net start page, click the Search tab. In the Directory section, click the
Business Companies link, and on the next page, click the Company Directories link.
You’ll see a listing similar to that in Figure 5-10. (Go2Net uses the LookSmart search
engine.)
Figure 5-10 An extensive listing of business directories at Go2Net.
Here’s just a sample of the type of information you’ll find. Scroll down to the
CompaniesOnline link, and click it to open a Dun & Bradstreet directory to more than
900,000 public and private companies.
HotBot
CNET is a leading company whose business is to provide information and services
relating to computers and technology. It disseminates this information over its Web
site (http:///www.cnet.com) and over television and radio. Recently, CNET reported
that HotBot delivers the most accurate results of any of the top-rated search engines.
The HotBot search engine tracks which search results links a user clicks and how long
the user stays at each site. The longer a user stays, the higher the site is ranked in the
search results.

Figure 5-11 shows the HotBot home page, and as you can see, almost everything is
at your fingertips on this page. You can search by keyword, you can use the HotBot
directory, and you can restrict or expand your search using the options in the box on
the left.
Figure 5-11 The HotBot home page.
You can use the Look For drop-down list box to search on any or all keywords with
or without using the Boolean operators. You use the Date drop-down list box to search
by date, and you can search for only pages that include images, video, MP3, or
JavaScript. In addition, you can specify the number of return results and whether you
want the results to display full descriptions, brief descriptions, or only URLs.
As if all this weren’t enough, click the Advanced Search button to open the page shown
in Figure 5-12, which includes even more options. You can search specific resources
by clicking a link on the left, and you can specify a language, a filter, a domain, word
stemming, and so on using the options on the right. HotBot is an easy-to-use, pow-
erful search engine.

Figure 5-12 Advanced HotBot search options.
LookSmart
The LookSmart site (http://www.looksmart.com) is a keyword and directory search
service that claims to reach more than 50 million unique users each month. Its direc-
tory of some 1.5 million Web sites has been indexed into more than 100,000 catego-
ries by professional taxonomists and editors who update the directory every day. If
searching Web sites that have been reviewed is important to you and to the nature of
your business, LookSmart is a site to add to your Favorites list.
To search by keyword, simply enter the term or phrase and click Search. Don’t use plus
or minus signs, quotation marks, or any other symbols to restrict your search. Bool-
ean operators are not necessary in LookSmart. When the search process is complete,
you’ll see a maximum of three levels of results:
• The first level contains a maximum of five categories. Click a category to go to a
collection of reviewed sites.

• The second level contains a list of sites and the Get The Top 10 Most Visited Web
Sites For X (X equals your search query). Click the link to see a list of the most
popular Web sites for your query.
• The third level displays matches that have been found by the AltaVista search
engine, which, as you know, indexes a substantial part of the Web. This level is
particularly useful if your search returned few or no results.
To search by category rather than by keyword, simply click categories and subcategories
until you get to an area in which you want to search. Figure 5-13 shows the LookSmart
home page, on which you can begin a directory search.
Figure 5-13 The LookSmart home page.
Lycos
Lycos, Inc., was founded in 1995 and originally used a search engine and directory that
was based on intelligent spidering technology that was originally created at Carnegie
Mellon University. Today it combines a proprietary technology with other search tech-
nologies to keep track of all the visible text on every page it finds on the Internet.

To do a basic search at Lycos (http://www.lycos.com), simply enter the keyword in the
Search For box and click the Go Get It! button. Here are some tips to help you search
efficiently at this site:
• If you want to search on a phrase exactly as you enter it, enclose it in quotation marks.
• To screen out a word in a search string, precede it with a minus sign.
• If certain words must be included in the results, precede them with a plus sign.
• To search for specific types of documents and to specify a language, click the Ad-
vanced Search link on the Lycos home page.
• To search for images, movies, or sounds, click the Multimedia link on the Lycos
home page.
Figure 5-14 shows the Lycos home page.
Figure 5-14 The Lycos home page.

Northern Light
The Northern Light search service site seems to have been created with the business
user in mind. Using its Business Search feature, you can do specialized searching for
industry-focused Web pages, market research, and company reports for business
professionals.
To start a business search, go to http://www.northernlight.com and click the Business
Search link. You’ll see something similar to Figure 5-15.
Figure 5-15 Doing a specialized business search at the Northern Light site.
Using the form on this page, you can search by word or phrase, by title, by publica-
tion, by company, and by research firm. You can search specific sources and specific
industries, and you can browse all documents within a specific industry. Here are some
tips for using the Business Search feature:
• Use natural language searching, which means simply typing a question in the Search
For box.

• Use all Boolean operators and symbols in a search query if you want.
• Search results return a summary of a document. To access the entire document, you
must purchase it.
• For help on using the Business Search feature, click the Tips link next to the Search
button.
Snap
If you have a high-speed connection (ISDN, DSL, or cable modem), you might want
to check out the Snap search service (http://www.snap.com), which has a special in-
terface for high-speed access. At the Snap home page, which is shown in Figure
5-16, click the Turn On High Speed Features link at the top of the page.
Figure 5-16 The Snap home page.

Click the Search link at the bottom of the high-speed access page to open the form
shown in Figure 5-17. Using this form, you can search the Web, search for products
and software, search for a map and get driving directions, search the Yellow Pages,
search for people, and search for pictures.
Figure 5-17 The high-speed search form in Snap.
Yahoo!
Whether we’ve saved the best search service for last is a matter of opinion, but there’s
no doubt that Yahoo! is an amazing and extremely popular site. As are most of the sites
we’ve discussed in this section, Yahoo! is much more than a search service, as you can
see in its home page in Figure 5-18. Nevertheless, in this section we’ll concentrate on
the search services.

Figure 5-18 The Yahoo! home page.
Yahoo! was conceived by David Filo and Jerry Yang in 1994 while they were Ph.D.
candidates at Stanford University. Their purpose was simple: they needed a way to keep
track of their personal interests on the Internet. Rumor has it that Yahoo! stands for
“Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle,” but Filo and Yang say they selected the
name because they considered themselves yahoos.
Today, many Internet users have come to think of searching the Internet as synonymous
with going to the Yahoo site (http://www.yahoo.com). When you enter a search query,
the Yahoo! search engine doesn’t search the full text of Web sites; it searches its own
directory of the Web, which consists of Web page titles and short descriptions if they
have been provided by the designers of the page. In other words, Yahoo! doesn’t match
your keywords against all the words in the Web sites represented by the directory, but
against the words in the directory itself.
Yahoo! returns a list of matching Yahoo! categories and a list of matching Web sites.
If the search engine finds no matching categories or sites, Yahoo! uses another search
engine to do a full-document search.

To do a basic search at Yahoo!, enter your keyword or phrase and click Search. Enter
double quotation marks around a phrase if you want to search on the exact phrase. You
can also use the plus and minus signs, as we discussed earlier in this skill. Click the
category links to search the directory by hierarchical topics. For example, if you want
to search for employment laws that apply to small businesses, click the main Business
& Economy category, click Small Business Information, click Employment Law, and
then click the link to one of the Web sites that Yahoo! lists.
Choosing a Search Service

As we mentioned earlier, no single search service is going to meet all your needs when
you have a business project to research. Table 5-2 lists some directories and suggests
situations in which they are best used.
SITE URL BEST USED IF YOU’RE LOOKING FOR

123 Link http://www.123link.com Business listings.
Alexa http://www.alexa.com Search software that you can download.
GoTo.com http://www.goto.com A site that is easy to use and returns
content that has been reviewed.
LookSmart http://www.looksmart.com Content that has been reviewed by pro-
fessional editors.
Magellan http://magellan.excite.com Concepts related to keyword searches.
RealNames http://web.realnames.com Names of companies, products, and
brands.
Snap http://www.snap.com A site that is set up for high-speed
access.
Table 5-2 Specific sites for specific purposes.
If you want to search for a specific, hard-to-find topic, try one of the sites listed in
Table 5-3.

AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Searches one of the largest indexes on
the Internet.
Deja http://www.deja.com Searches Usenet newsgroup articles.
HotBot http://www.hotbot.com Easy to use and searches one of the
largest indexes on the Internet.
Lycos http://www.lycos.com Includes searchable databases.
Northern Light http://www.northernlight.com Searches one of the largest indexes on
the Internet and makes subscription
services available.
Table 5-3 Sites to search for specific, hard-to-find topics.
In our increasingly globalized economy, business users of the Internet will want to take
advantage of some international search services. Table 5-4 lists some of these search
services, all of which are available in English.
AREA SITE URL

Africa Orientation Africa http://af.orientation.com
Australia LookSmart Australia http://www.looksmart.com.au
Belgium Webbel http://www.webbel.be
Canada LookSmart Canada http://canada.looksmart.com/
Europe Yelloweb http://www.yweb.com
Europe WebTop http://www.webtop.com
Greece United Hellas http://www.united-hellas.com
Japan Gateway-Japan http://www.gateway-japan.org
Scotland Scotland.org http://www.scotland.org
South Africa SA Online http://www.southafrica.co.za
Sweden CityGuide Sweden http://www.cityguide.se
United Kingdom LookSmart UK http://www.looksmart.co.uk/
Table 5-4 International search services.

Introducing Copernic 2000: Metasearch
Software
Earlier in this skill, we described metasearch software, and in this section we’ll look
at how to download and use the Copernic metasearch software. Copernic is available
in three versions:
• Copernic 2000, which you can download for free and which lets you use 6 catego-
ries to search simultaneously some 80 information sources.
• Copernic 2000 Plus, a commercial product, which lets you access more than 600
search engines and specialized information sources grouped in 55 categories.
• Copernic 2000 Pro, also a commercial product, which also lets you access more than
600 search engines and specialized information sources grouped in 55 categories
and, in addition, lets you schedule search updates and receive e-mail alerts.
In this section, we’ll first download and install Copernic 2000, which is free, and then
we’ll look at how to use this very powerful tool to search the Internet.
Downloading and Installing Copernic 2000

You can download Copernic 2000 from the Copernic.com home page, as shown in
Figure 5-19. Go to http://www.copernic.com, click the Download Now button in the
Copernic 2000 area, and then follow these steps:

Figure 5-19 The Copernic.com home page.
1. Select a version to download.

To use Copernic 2000, you must be running Microsoft Windows 95/98, NT, or 2000
and you must be using Netscape version 3 or later or Internet Explorer version 3
or later. You can choose to download Copernic in any of six languages—English,
French, German, Italian, Portuguese, or Spanish. Click Download Now, and then
click the version you want to download.
2. Save the file to your hard drive.
In the File Download dialog box, shown in Figure 5-20, click the Save This Pro-
gram To Disk option button, and click OK.

Figure 5-20 The File Download dialog box.
3. Select a location in which to save the file.

In the Save As dialog box, click Save to save the file on your desktop, or
select another location and click Save. The file will now download. If you have a
56Kbps modem, this should take no more than 5 minutes. Of course, if you have
a high-speed connection, the download will take even less time. An animated bar
indicates the progress of the download, and you’ll also see an estimate of the time
remaining.
After the download is complete, you’ll need to install Copernic 2000. Click the
Copernic icon on your desktop to start Copernic 2000 Setup, and then follow these
steps:
1. Accept or reject the license agreement.
Click Next, and then click Yes or No on the Software License Agreement screen.
Take a look at the Readme Information screen, and click Next.
2. Select an additional language or country-based category if you want.
Click an option to choose French, German, Italian, or Spanish, or select to search
a country-specific Web, and click Next. If you don’t want to select another language
or category, leave the No Additional Category option selected, and click Next.

3. Choose a folder in which to store Copernic 2000.
Accept the default, which is to store Copernic 2000 in its own folder in the Pro-
gram Files folder, or click Browse and select another destination. When you have
selected a destination folder, click Next. In the Installation Complete dialog box,
click OK.
The first time you click the Copernic 2000 icon on your desktop, you’ll see the
Copernic Configuration dialog box, as shown in Figure 5-21.
Figure 5-21 The Copernic Configuration dialog box.
Follow these steps:

1. Select a user profile.
Click the Normal option button to use only basic features; click the Advanced option
button to use both basic and advanced features. Click Next to proceed with
configuration.
2. Enter some information about yourself.
Enter at least your e-mail address and your country of residence, and click Next.

3. Describe your Internet connection.
Specify whether you connect via a phone line and modem or through a LAN. Click
Next.
4. Specify whether you want to check for search engine updates.
Click Yes (Recommended) or click No, and then click Next. If you select Yes,
Copernic will then check for updates (if you are connected to the Internet). Click
Finish to open Copernic 2000, as shown in Figure 5-22.
Figure 5-22 The Copernic 2000 main window.
By default, Copernic 2000 adds search features to the Internet Explorer Search bar,
pop-up menu, and Address bar, as shown in Figure 5-23.

Figure 5-23 Copernic 2000 features added to Internet Explorer.
To return to the default setup, including the default Search bar, follow these steps:
1. Open the Options dialog box, which is shown in Figure 5-24.
In Copernic 2000, click the Tools menu, and then click Options.
Figure 5-24 The Options dialog box.

2. Open the Internet Explorer Settings dialog box, as shown in Figure 5-25.
Click the Browser tab, and then click Settings in the Internet Explorer section.
Figure 5-25 The Internet Explorer Settings dialog box.

3. Specify the settings you want.
Clear the Enable Internet Explorer Toolbar Extensions check box, and click OK.
Click OK again in the Options dialog box.
Using Copernic 2000

To use Copernic to do a basic search, open Copernic and follow these steps:
1. Start the Search Wizard, which is shown in Figure 5-26.
Click the New button on the toolbar, or click File and then click New. Select a
category, and click Next.
Figure 5-26 The Copernic Search Wizard.

2. Enter your search query.
In the Search Query screen, which is shown in Figure 5-27, enter a question, a
keyword, or a phrase, and then choose the appropriate option. Click Search Now.
Figure 5-27 The Search Query screen.
Figure 5-28 shows the list of 58 results we received when we searched on metasearch
software. To open one of these resources, you simply double-click it. Scroll down to
see the specific search engines that Copernic 2000 used to retrieve these results. We
have performed this exact search in several of the other search services we’ve looked
at in this skill and never retrieved such targeted, specific results. Nor has one of the
other search services returned as many hits.

Figure 5-28 Copernic 2000 returns specific, targeted results.
To use more advanced search steps, clear the Skip Advanced Search Steps check box
and click Next to open the Search Scheme screen. Here you can specify a quick, nor-
mal, detailed, or custom search, and you can specify the maximum number of results
that each search engine retrieves (the default is 10) and the number of total results (the
default is 100).
TIP You can also open the Search Query screen by clicking an item in the Catego-
ries pane.
In this section, we really have only introduced you to Copernic 2000. As you can al-
ready see, Copernic 2000 is a very powerful search tool. To find out much more about
how to use it, click Help and then click Help Topics to open Copernic Help.

Gathering Business Information
Up to this point in this skill, we’ve been talking about the tools you can use to search
the Internet for business information. Now we want to focus on how you go about
gathering some specific business information. In other words, you need to know how
to do research as well as search.
We can’t begin to imagine all the types of research that might be called for in your
business organization, but in this section we’ll look at a rather common type of busi-
ness research: gathering background information on a company.
You may want background information on a company for many reasons. Perhaps you’re
thinking about investing in the company or doing business with them. Or maybe
they’ve offered you a job, and you want to know about the company’s stability and its
potential for the future.
Typically, background information includes the following:
• Contact information about the company—its name, address, phone number, fax
number, e-mail address, URL, and so on.
• The names and titles of those in management positions.
• The company’s mission statement or a description of its products and services.
• The number of employees.
• A financial statement.
• Credit rating and history.
• News about any recent developments within the company.
So, where do you start? You could start with the obvious, the company’s Web site (if
it has one, and these days, most do). If you don’t know the URL, you could simply take
a guess, and enter the company name plus .com. You could also use Yahoo! or one of
the other search services we’ve discussed in this skill to locate it.
Once you find the company’s home page, you’re ready to start amassing basic infor-
mation. For example purposes, in this section we’ll look at Cisco Systems (http://
www.cisco.com), a company that provides hardware and software that powers the
Internet. Figure 5-29 shows the Cisco home page. To get information about this com-
pany, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click the About Cisco link. (Most
business Web sites will have a similar link, though it might be labeled Contact Us or
something similar.)

Figure 5-29 The Cisco Systems home page.
Clicking the About Cisco link takes you to a page that contains links to a wealth of
corporate news and information that you can use in your backgrounder: a company
overview, the annual report, biographies of management personnel, news of recent
company developments, and so on. Click the Contact Cisco link to get contact infor-
mation for company headquarters and for office locations and departments around the
world, including maps.
But, obviously, what you’re getting here is Cisco’s side of the story. For a quick, more
objective overview and some detailed financials, go to Yahoo!. Click the Stock Quotes
link, enter csco (the stock symbol for Cisco), and click Get Quotes. Now click the Profile
link in the More Info column. You’ll see something similar to Figure 5-30. Scroll down
this page to see all sorts of financial information as well as contact information, links
that will take you to sites for Cisco’s competitors, recent trading history, and so on.

Figure 5-30 Financial information about Cisco Systems.
And if you don’t yet have all the background information you want on a company, check
out Hoover’s Online (http://www.hoovers.com). Figure 5-31 shows the home page.
Enter the company name in the For box, and click Go or press the Enter key. The
results are returned in directory format. Click a tab to refine your search. Some infor-
mation, indicated by a gold key, is available for members only. At the time of this
writing, the membership fee was $14.95 a month.

Figure 5-31 Hoover’s Online.
NOTE Don’t forget to check some of the many online newspapers and magazines for
company information. Use one of the search services described in this skill to
locate the URL.
In addition to gathering background information on a company, business users can

also use the Internet to do market research, competitive analysis, research stocks and
investments, find case studies that illustrate various management theories, and on and
on. Table 5-5 lists some sites that will be useful in doing business research. Some of
these are fee-based, and some make certain areas available for free and charge for other
areas. Be sure to check the fine print.

SITE URL COMMENT
BigBook http://www.bigbook.com A directory of businesses within
cities and states that you select.
bizjournals.com http://www.bizjournals.com A collection of business newspapers
from cities throughout the United
States.
BusinessWire http://www.businesswire.com Distributes corporate
backgrounders and press releases.
CompaniesOnline http://www.companiesonline.com Lets you search by name or stock
symbol.
Dun & Bradstreet http://www.dnb.com A comprehensive source of company
information, including a large data-
base of business profiles and reports
for public and private enterprises.
LibrarySpot http://www.libraryspot.com Links to libraries of all sorts, refer-
ence sources such as the Library
of Congress and Encyclopaedia
Britannica, answers to frequently
asked research questions, and much
more.
Thomson http://www.tfsd.com/ The complete text of reports on
Financial companies and industries, prepared
Securities Data by analysts and market-research
firms.
Table 5-5 Other sources for business research.
Summary
Searching the Internet can seem an overwhelming task if you don’t know how to use
and find the resources we’ve discussed in this skill. Getting a handle on the various
kinds of search services and how they work is essential to becoming an effective and
efficient business researcher. In this skill, we also looked at several sites that are im-
portant to the business user of the Internet, and we gave you some tips that are sure
to get you started in the right direction when you want to gather business informa-
tion from the Internet.

Skill 6
UNDERSTAND OTHER INTERNET SER

UNDERSTAND VICES
SERVICES
Featuring:
• Using FTP to Access Files
• Using Telnet
• Using Your Computer as a Fax Machine
• Using Your Computer as a Telephone
• Using HyperTerminal
• Conferencing with NetMeeting
• Using Mailing Lists
• Using Chat Rooms
T he Web and e-mail may be the most important and useful Internet services to
business users, but every business user can benefit from understanding the other
Internet services that are available and how to use them. In this skill, we’ll start by
looking at some Internet protocols we mentioned in “Skill 1: Understand the Envi-
ronment,” and then we’ll look at how to use your computer as a fax machine and as a
telephone, how to use HyperTerminal for public access, how to conference over the
Internet, how to use mailing lists for business purposes, and briefly how to access chat
rooms.
177
Using FTP to Access Files
File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is an Internet protocol that you can use to download files
from or upload files to an FTP site. As you know, the address of a Web site starts with
the protocol http, which stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The address of an FTP
site starts with ftp.
Although you can use Internet Explorer to find and download files at an FTP site,
it is usually easier and faster to use special FTP client software. You can find such
software at many places on the Internet, including the ZDNet site located at
http://hotfiles.zdnet.com.
TIP A particularly easy-to-use FTP client is CuteFTP, which you can download from
http://www.cuteftp.com/products/cuteftp. Whenever you run across FTP infor-
mation in the form of a URL, copy it to the Windows Clipboard. CuteFTP will
then connect to the server and log you in.
Here’s how FTP works:

• Using FTP client software, you connect to an FTP server on the Internet.
• Log on to the server with a user name and a password. Some FTP sites are private,
and you will need an authorized user name and password to access these sites. Other
sites are known as anonymous FTP sites because you can log on with the user name
of “anonymous” and use your e-mail address as the password.
• Browse through the available files. When you spot a file you want to download, use
the commands in your FTP client software to do so.
NOTE For security reasons, you can normally only download files from anonymous FTP
sites; you cannot upload.
If you have large files that you need to transfer among dispersed groups at your com-
pany, you might want to consider setting up an FTP site. Transferring files with FTP
can be considerably faster than attaching them to an e-mail message. Consult your
technical professional for how to do this.
Figure 6-1 shows the contents of an FTP site at Microsoft (ftp://ftp.microsoft.com). You
won’t find any banners and glitz at an FTP site, but you will be able to quickly find
and download information that you need.

Figure 6-1 The Microsoft FTP site.
Using Telnet
Telnet
Telnet is a terminal emulation protocol that you use to log on to another computer
on the Internet. Your computer actually becomes part of that computer, which is called
the host. Depending on your level of access, you can use the host’s services, memory
capacity, disk storage, and so on. In other words, your computer emulates a terminal
attached to the host computer.
To use Telnet, you need Telnet client software installed on your computer. You can find
Telnet client software on the Internet by using one of the search services described
in “Skill 5: Use Search Services.” Telnet has long been used in educational institutions
to connect students and teachers with resources such as a library or a bulletin board
system. Today’s Telnet software is even being used on palm-size computers to con-
nect to a remote system and check e-mail, transfer files, and talk to another person.

Here’s how Telnet works:
• Using your Telnet client software, enter the Internet address of the computer you
want to contact.
• The remote computer and your computer determine which type of terminal emu-
lation will be used. The most common type is VT-100. Terminal emulation ensures
that your keyboard and monitor will function as the host computer expects.
• Text that you type on your computer accumulates in a buffer until you press the Enter
key. It is then sent to the host computer, along with the host’s Internet address and
your Internet address.
• The host computer then returns the data you requested or the results of a command
you sent.
Using Your Computer as a Fax Machine

Your
To send and receive faxes at your computer, you need a fax modem. A fax modem can
be used to connect to the Internet and to send and receive faxes. If you acquired your
computer within the last couple of years, you probably do have a fax modem. To verify
that this is the case, open the Printers folder (click the Start button, click Settings, and
then click Printers). If you see a Fax icon, your modem is a fax modem.
NOTE You cannot share a fax machine.
When you installed Microsoft Windows, the operating system detected your fax
modem, installed the fax service, and installed the associated printer. The first time
you use the fax service, though, you need to do some configuration. You can fax a
document from any Windows application that includes a Print menu. To set the fax
service for the first time, open WordPad and follow these steps:
NOTE The following steps apply to using a telephone modem and Windows 2000
Professional. If you are using another version of Windows or if you have a high-
speed connection, the steps will be similar but not identical.
1. Open a document.
Create a document or open an existing document to fax.
2. Open the Print dialog box.
Click the File menu, and then click Print.

3. Open the Fax Options tab, as shown in Figure 6-2.
Click the Fax icon, and then click the Fax Options tab.
Figure 6-2 The Fax Options tab in the Print dialog box.
4. Start the Send Fax Wizard.

Click the Print button. In the Welcome screen, click Next.
5. Enter the recipient and dialing information.
Fill in the To, Fax Number, and dialing rules information, and click Next.
6. Enter information for your cover page.
In the Adding A Cover Page screen of the wizard, specify whether you want to
include a cover page and, if so, what it should contain. Use the Cover Page Tem-
plate drop-down list box to select a type of cover page. When you’re finished, click
Next.
7. Specify when to send the fax.
Click an option button, and click Next. At the summary screen, click Finish.
You can track the progress of the fax using the Fax Monitor dialog box, which now
appears on your screen.

Receiving a Fax
To set up your fax service to receive a fax, log on as an administrator, and follow these
steps:
1. Open the Fax Service Management dialog box, as shown in Figure 6-3.
Click the Start button, click Programs, click Accessories, click Communications,
click Fax, and then click Fax Service Management.
Figure 6-3 The Fax Service Management dialog box.
2. Display the name of your fax modem.

In the Tree pane, click Devices.
3. Set up your fax modem to receive.
In the Receive column, right-click No, choose Receive from the shortcut menu to
display Yes in the Receive column, and then close the Fax Service Management
dialog box.
NOTE You can also set up fax service using the Fax applet in Control Panel. If you want
to be notified when you receive a fax, open the Fax Properties dialog box (click
the Fax icon in Control Panel), click the Status Monitor, and then click the Play
A Sound check box.

Using Your Computer as a T
Your elephone
Telephone
If you have a modem, a microphone, a sound card, and speakers, you can use the Phone
Dialer application in Windows to make a voice call, make a video call and conference
calls, and connect to an Internet directory.
Making a Voice Call

Voice
We have to admit that it seems easier to us to simply pick up the receiver and dial the
number (or press a button if you have speed dial), but you can make and receive voice
calls using your computer if you have all the equipment we just mentioned. To make
a voice call, follow these steps:
1. Open Phone Dialer, which is shown in Figure 6-4.
Click Start, click Programs, click Accessories, click Communications, and then click
Phone Dialer.
Figure 6-4 The Phone Dialer application.

2. Open the Dial dialog box, which is shown in Figure 6-5.
Click the Dial button.
Figure 6-5 The Dial dialog box.
3. Place the call.

Enter the phone number, click the Phone Call option button, and then click Place
Call. If you want to add the number to your speed-dial list, click the check box near
the bottom of the dialog box.
NOTE You can also make a call using the IP address of a computer or its Domain Name
System (DNS) name, and you can call over the Internet or over a local area
network.
Receiving Calls
To receive a phone call, Phone Dialer must be running. When a call comes in, you’ll
see a dialog box in the upper-left corner of the screen. To accept the call, click Take
Call. If you’re in the middle of something and don’t want to chat, click Reject Call.
Phone Dialer keeps a log of all incoming and outgoing calls within the last 30 days.
If you reject a call and then want to see who was calling, click the View menu, and
then click Call Log to display the log in Notepad.
Using an Internet Directory

An Internet directory is a listing of people and conferences that can receive Internet
calls. The directory may be on your local server or on the Internet. Before you can use
a directory, you need to add it to the list on your system. To add a directory and con-
nect to it, follow these steps:

1. Open the Add Directory Server dialog box, as shown in Figure 6-6.
Click the Edit menu, and then click Add Directory.
Figure 6-6 The Add Directory Server dialog box.
2. Add the name of the server.

In the Directory Name box, enter the name of the server, and then click Add. The
name is added to the Directories list on the left of the Phone Dialer window.
3. Connect to a directory.
Click the People or the Conferences folder, and select a name.
Making a Video Call

Video
If you have a camera installed on your computer, you can make a video call. If you don’t
have a camera, you can still receive video if others who do have a camera call you. Each
time you make a video call, you need to do some setup work. Follow these steps:
1. Open the Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 6-7.
Click the Edit menu, and then click Options.
Figure 6-7 The Options dialog box.

2. Configure the settings.
Click the Audio/Video tab, select the line to use (Phone Calls, Internet Calls,
Internet Conference), click the Video Playback check box (if necessary), and then
click OK.
NOTE To adjust the volume for various audio devices, click the Sound Settings but-
ton to open the Sounds And Multimedia Properties dialog box.
You can also use Phone Dialer to make conference calls, but NetMeeting is our tool
of choice for this task. We’ll look at NetMeeting later in this skill.
Using HyperTerminal
HyperTerminal
Like Telnet, HyperTerminal is terminal emulation software, but unlike Telnet,
HyperTerminal is included with Windows. You need not buy any additional software
to run HyperTerminal; you simply set up HyperTerminal and use it.
HyperTerminal is text-based and is useful for connecting to public access servers,
especially those running operating systems other than Windows, and for running text-
based applications. In university settings, students and faculty often have Windows
computers, and the main computer system runs Unix. In this case, students and fac-
ulty can use HyperTerminal to connect to the main Unix system and run Unix appli-
cations. Typically, HyperTerminal is also used to connect to a bulletin board or the
catalog at a local library.
Establishing a HyperTerminal Connection

HyperTerminal
Before you can use HyperTerminal, you need to configure a connection. Obtain the
phone number for the computer you’ll connect to, and then follow these steps to con-
figure the connection and to connect:
1. Start HyperTerminal.
Click the Start button, click Programs, click Accessories, click Communications,
and then click HyperTerminal to open the Connection Description dialog box (see
Figure 6-8) in the foreground and the HyperTerminal window in the background.

Figure 6-8 The Connection Description dialog box.
2. Choose a name and an icon for your connection.

In the Name box, enter a name, select an icon, and click OK to open the Connect
To dialog box, as shown in Figure 6-9.
Figure 6-9 The Connect To dialog box.
3. Open the Connect dialog box, which is shown in Figure 6-10.

Verify that the country, area code, and modem are correct, enter the phone num-
ber, and click OK.

Figure 6-10 The Connect dialog box.
4. Get connected.
Verify that the phone number is correct. If it is not, click the Modify button to open
the Properties dialog box for this connection, and change the phone number. To look
at or change any of the options associated with your modem setup, click the Dial-
ing Properties button to open the Phone And Modem Options dialog box. When
everything is correct, click Dial.
You’ll now be connected to the remote computer system that you dialed. What you
see next depends on the system to which you are connecting. You might be asked for
a terminal type, to enter a password, or to choose from a menu. When you complete
this HyperTerminal session, log off from the remote computer according to the in-
structions provided you by that system. When you close the HyperTerminal window,
you’ll be asked if you want to save the session. Click Yes, and the next time you want
to make that connection, you can use a submenu item for it that is added to the
HyperTerminal menu item. Clicking the menu item for your connection opens the
Connect dialog box, and you simply click Dial to connect.
TIP To save a HyperTerminal session as a text file, click the Transfer menu, and then
click Capture Text to open the Capture Text dialog box. Enter a name for the
file, and click Start.
Transferring Files with HyperTerminal

HyperTerminal
During a HyperTerminal session, you can send and receive files. To send a file, fol-
low these steps:

1. Open the Send File dialog box, which is shown in Figure 6-11.
Click the Transfer menu, and then click Send File.
Figure 6-11 The Send File dialog box.
2. Specify the filename and protocol.

In the Filename box, enter a filename or browse to locate it. In the Protocol box,
accept the protocol that HyperTerminal suggests, or choose another protocol from
the drop-down list. If you don’t know the protocol that the other computer requires,
use the protocol that HyperTerminal suggests—Zmodem—which is a generic,
commonly used protocol. Click Send to start the file transfer.
To receive a file during a HyperTerminal session, click the Transfer menu, and then
click Receive File to open the Receive File dialog box. Enter the name of the folder
into which to place the file, verify the protocol, and click Receive.
TIP You can also use HyperTerminal to troubleshoot your modem. For details, click
the Help menu, click Help Topics, and then select the HyperTerminal Overview
topic.
Conferencing with NetMeeting

NetMeeting is an application that’s included with Windows, and you can use it to do
the following if you have the proper equipment:
• Chat with someone over the Internet using the telephone or by typing on the screen
• Audioconference
• Videoconference
• Share applications
• Collaborate on documents
• Transfer files
• Draw on the whiteboard

To open NetMeeting, click the Start button, click Programs, click Accessories, click
Communications, and then click NetMeeting. Figure 6-12 shows the main
NetMeeting window. Place the mouse cursor over a button to display a ScreenTip that
describes what the button does.
Figure 6-12 The main NetMeeting window.
Before you can use NetMeeting, you need to configure it. To do so, open NetMeeting
and follow the onscreen instructions.

Placing a Call
To use NetMeeting to make a call, both the sender and the receiver need microphones,
sound cards, and speakers. To place a call, follow these steps:
1. Open the Place A Call dialog box, as shown in Figure 6-13.
In the NetMeeting main window, click the Place Call button.
Figure 6-13 The Place A Call dialog box.
2. Enter an address.
In the To box, enter a name, an e-mail address, a computer name, a computer IP
address, or a telephone number.
3. Place the call.
Click Call.
Chatting on the Screen

Once you are connected to another computer, you can also use the other NetMeeting
applications, such as Chat. Figure 6-14 shows the Chat window. To open it, click the
Chat button in the main NetMeeting window.

Figure 6-14 Using Chat in NetMeeting.
To use Chat, you need to know only the following:

• To communicate, type in the Message box, and press the Enter key.
• If a Chat session involves more than you and one other person, click the down arrow
in the Send To box to specify whether to send the message to the whole group or
only one person.
• To save the contents of a Chat session, click the File menu and then click Save As.
• To end a Chat session, click Close.
Using the Other NetMeeting Applications

For particulars on the other NetMeeting applications, look in Windows 2000 Profes-
sional Help. In general, here is what each does and any special equipment you need
to use it:

• Click the Find Someone In A Directory button to use directory servers. A direc-
tory server is maintained by an organization, and when you log on to it, you can see
the names, e-mail addresses, and so on of others who are logged on. Click a name
to communicate with that person.
• To host a meeting over NetMeeting, click the Call menu and then click Host
Meeting to open the Host A Meeting dialog box. You can start a meeting, place
outgoing calls, accept incoming calls, share a document, use the whiteboard, chat,
and transfer files.
• If you have a camera attached to your computer, you can send video, and, of course,
you can videoconference if you have a camera and sound equipment. You can, how-
ever, receive video even if you don’t have a camera. To set up a video session with
NetMeeting, click the Tools menu, click Options to open the Options dialog box,
and then click the Video tab.
• To share applications in a meeting, open the application you want to share, click
the Share Program button to open the Sharing dialog box, select the program you
want to share, and then click the Share button.
• If you are in a call or in a meeting, you can transfer files. Click the Transfer Files
button to open the File Transfer dialog box, click Add File to select a file, click the
name of the person to send the file to, and click Send All.
Using Mailing Lists

Having been around since about 1975, mailing lists predate the commercialization of
the Internet, but if our personal observation is of any value, they seem to be more
popular than ever. A mailing list is simply an e-mail discussion group. As is the case
with newsgroups, which we discussed in “Skill 4: Communicate with Electronic Mail,”
there are mailing lists that cover just about any topic you can imagine. When you join
a list (referred to as subscribing), you receive all the e-mail messages that any mem-
ber of the group sends out. If you no longer want to receive these messages, you sim-
ply drop out of the group by unsubscribing to the list.
In this section, we’ll start by giving you a bit of background information about how
mailing lists work. We’ll then look at exactly how to subscribe and unsubscribe, and
then we’ll show you how to find mailing lists that are appropriate for your business
use and tell you how you can set up your own mailing list.

How Mailing Lists Work
Work
A mailing list is controlled by a list owner, who could be the person who started the
list or someone who took over the list from a previous owner. In most cases, the job
of list owner is not time-consuming or complicated because most of the work is done
by a mailing list program. Typically, the list owner is responsible for creating a mes-
sage that is sent to all new subscribers. This message explains the rules of the group,
describes any special features, and contains instructions about how to unsubscribe.
In a few cases, the list owner moderates the list, that is, he or she reads through all the
messages and determines the appropriateness of each one before allowing it to be sent
to all members of the group. Most mailing lists are not moderated, though, so as with
Web sites, chat rooms, newsgroups, and all sorts of other Internet resources, you may
encounter material that is personally offensive. If you find yourself in this situation,
you can register your complaint with the list members (only do so once you have a feel
for the group’s culture), or you can simply unsubscribe from the list.
The real work of managing a mailing list is done by a computer program, which en-
sures that subscription and unsubscription requests are processed, distributes the
messages to all members of the list, and so on. Three mailing list programs are in
common use:
• Listserv
• Listproc
• Majordomo
Developed in 1986 for mainframe IBM computers, Listserv is the oldest of these
mailing list programs. Listserv is short for list server. Listproc was developed to be the
Unix equivalent of Listserv; Listproc is short for list processor. Majordomo was not
developed until 1992, and it also was developed for computers running the Unix op-
erating system. The term majordomo refers to the person who manages the servants
in a large household, and so the inference is that the program is managing the list
service. How you subscribe to and unsubscribe from a mailing list depends on which
program the mailing list uses.

Subscribing and Unsubscribing
Two addresses are important when you are communicating with a mailing list, and you
will find that sending information to the wrong list will make you very unpopular with
the list members. The subscription address is the address to which you send messages
about subscribing and unsubscribing. Such messages go only to the mailing list
program.
The list address is the address to which you send messages that will be distributed to
everyone on the list. Now, you can see how sending a message to the wrong address
can get you into trouble, especially if the list includes a lot of people who send a lot
of messages. None of these people want to see your subscription request, and, of course,
if your subscription request doesn’t get to the mailing list program, you won’t be able
to access the messages.
To subscribe to a mailing list that is managed by Listserv or Listproc:
• Place the subscription address in the To line of your message.
• Leave the Subject line blank, or place anything you want in it.
• In the body of your message, type subscribe, the name of the list, your first name,
and your last name.
To subscribe to a mailing list that is managed by Majordomo:
• In the body of your message, type subscribe, and then enter the name of the list.
To unsubscribe to a mailing list that is managed by Listserv, Listproc, or Majordomo:
• In the body of your message, type unsubscribe, and then enter the name of the list.

Finding Business Mailing Lists
Well, now you know how mailing lists work and how to subscribe to and unsubscribe
from them, but you have no idea if you’d want to do so. What’s available that would
be of interest to the business user?
Fortunately, you’ll find lists of mailing lists on the Web, and you can even search on
a topic to locate a mailing list that is of interest to you. Let’s look at some of these.
For starters, take a look at Liszt, The Mailing List Directory, which you’ll find at http:/
/www.liszt.com. Figure 6-15 shows the home page.
Figure 6-15 The list of mailing lists at Liszt.
You can now enter a topic to search on, or you can browse the directory. An advan-
tage to this site, other than the enormous lists of mailing lists it references, is that when
you browse the directory, you’ll find a brief description of the list and instructions for
subscribing.
TIP If a description includes the instruction to send list commands to a particular

address, that address is the subscription address.

In general, it’s considered imprudent to advertise on noncommercial mailing lists,
although you can certainly send mail to the group and find out if this would be of-
fensive to them. Liszt, however, also includes more than 600 commercial lists that you
can subscribe to or rent. For rental information, go to http://www.liszt.com/
directmail.html.
If you create your own mailing list and want to add it to the list at the Liszt site, go to
http://www.liszt.com/submit.html.
Another source of mailing lists is Tile.Net/Lists at http://www.tile.net/lists, which is
shown in Figure 6-16. Although you can search the list of lists here by topic, and you
can display lists by name, description, or domain, this site lacks the handy directory
provided at the Listz site. If you create your own mailing list and want to add it to this
list, go to http://www.tile.net/lists/about.html.
Figure 6-16 Another source of mailing lists.

To check out the list of official public Listserv mailing lists, go to the L-Soft site at
http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html. Figure 6-17 shows the home page. At this site,
you can search for a list by topic and display lists by host country and by the number
of subscribers.
Figure 6-17 The L-Soft list of official public Listserv mailing lists.

Mailing List Etiquette
First and foremost, if you subscribe to a mailing list that you read at your office,
remember that your activities can be monitored. Be sure that the list is appropri-
ate to your situation and that you use it as a professional. Here are some other
guidelines to keep in mind:
• Lurk before you post messages to the list. In this case, lurking is good manners
not bad. You need to get a sense of the group’s culture and style before you barge
in. If you find out that you don’t like the ambience, unsubscribe.
• Post only material that is related to the primary subject of the list. In most cases,
this rules out posting ads, make-money-fast schemes, sociological surveys, and
the like.
• If your e-mail program has a spelling checker, use it before you post a message.
• Don’t type in all capital letters; that is tantamount to shouting.
• Limit your use of common Internet abbreviations and smiley faces. Use only
what your readers will understand.
• If you want your signature to reflect your business association, do so, but be sure
that it’s in good taste and reasonably short. Normally, your name and e-mail ad-
dress is sufficient.
• Don’t post the same message to multiple lists. Because mailing lists are topi-
cally oriented, most messages are not necessarily appropriate for multiple au-
diences. In addition, some people subscribe to multiple mailing lists, and they
will be annoyed at seeing your message repeatedly.
• In most cases, quote the original message when you’re replying to a post. Do-
ing so gives the other list members a context for what you’re saying.
• Never forward a personal message to a mailing list unless you have the origi-
nal sender’s permission.
• Keep your sense of humor, and remember that a human being is attached to each
message that is posted.

Starting Your Own Mailing List
Your
After you peruse the lists of mailing lists and perhaps subscribe to a few that are ap-
propriate to your type of business, you may consider creating your own list. If you don’t
think you’re up to this or don’t have the time, check with your ISP. Many ISPs pro-
vide this service for free or for a fee. Or, if you work on a corporate network, your system
administrator may be able to provide this service or point you to a consultant.
If you are interested in creating the list yourself, you can find all the details about the
process at http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8d/owner/owner.html. This is a page at the
L-Soft site that provides a manual for creating a mailing list with Listserv.
After you create your list, you need to find a site that will host it. Again, check with
your system administrator or ISP.
Using Chat Rooms

To chat or not to chat, that is a question. At the office, probably not, although you will
find a number of reputable business chat rooms on the Internet. Many require that
you register, and that means, at the least, providing your real name and your e-mail
address, which you may very well not want to do—we don’t.
For a list of sites that have or link to business chat rooms on the Internet, open Copernic
(if you downloaded it as explained in “Skill 5: Use Search Services”), and search on
business chat. The Excite Education page has a list of business chat Web sites (go to
http://www.excite.com/education/reference/news_and_magazines/business/business_chat),
and you’ll also find some business chat rooms at Yahoo!. Some chat rooms are voice
enabled, though you can turn off this feature. We found it particularly annoying.
Although we have not made an exhaustive survey, we’re sorry to report that every time
we visited a so-called business chat room, we were less than pleased with the quality
of the conversation, and often the chat was interrupted by offensive personal adver-
tisements. You can, of course, judge for yourself.
Summary
Although most business users are somewhat familiar with e-mail and the Web, not
everyone is aware of the other services that you can use to become a more effective
user of the Internet. In this skill, we’ve looked at FTP, Telnet, Fax, Phone Dialer,
HyperTerminal, NetMeeting, mailing lists, and chat rooms. You may find that you
rarely use some of these services and frequently use others. In particular, we encour-
age you to check out mailing lists.

Skill 7
PUBLISH ON THE WEB
Featuring:
• Learning How Web Pages Work
• Developing a Web Strategy
• Setting Up Your Domain and Server
• Collecting and Creating Digital Content
• Creating Your Web Pages
• Testing Your Web Site
• Publishing Your Web Site
• Publicizing Your Web Site
N o business discussion of the Internet is complete without coverage of Web

publishing. Accordingly, this final skill provides a fast-paced discussion of the
eight basic steps required to Web publish successfully.
NOTE Two other books published by Redmond Technology Press describe these steps
in more detail and in the context of specific Web-authoring tools: Effective
Executive’s Guide to FrontPage Web Sites and Effective Executive’s Guide to
Dreamweaver Web Sites.
201
Step 1: Learning How Web Pages W
Web ork
Work
The first step that business users will want to take is learning how Web pages work,
that is, in terms of the actual mechanics. Understanding the basic structure of the Web
provides useful context for thinking about Web publishing.
Fortunately, the mechanics of Web publishing are surprisingly simple. A Web page,
which is what you create when you Web publish, is simply a text document with spe-
cial codes in it that tell a Web browser how to format and display the contents of the
page. In addition to the special formatting, Web pages can also contain embedded
images—which show up in the page onscreen but are stored separately on the server—
and links (hyperlinks) to other pages.
NOTE As mentioned earlier in this book, a Web site consists of a collection of Web
pages connected by hyperlinks.
Introducing HTML Code

HTML is the tool that Web developers use to create the Web pages that make up a
Web site. Although Web-authoring tools allow people to easily work without touch-
ing a line of HTML code, it helps to see how pages are actually built. Knowing a little
bit about HTML code will also help you to have a better idea about what someone
you hire to perform HTML editing and coding is actually doing.
To begin, let’s look at a simple sentence in HTML code. For example, every
programmer’s first assignment is to create code that displays the phrase “hello world,”
so let’s do that in HTML.
<html>
hello world
</html>
This is a complete Web page. It’s made up of two tags, which are the basic building
blocks of an HMTL document. The first tag, <html>, states that the document is an
HTML document and marks the beginning of the Web page. The second half of this
tag, </html>, comes at the end of the document and signifies the end of the page. The
second tag, , signifies a new paragraph. The actual paragraph in this case is sim-
ply “hello world,” and the paragraph ends with the second half of the paragraph tag,
.

TIP All HTML tags begin with a left angle bracket (<) and end with a right angle
bracket (>). They usually begin and end similarly to the <html> and tags—
the end of the tag is the same as the beginning, except for the addition of a
slash (/). For example, closes the tag, ending it.
Now let’s try to decipher something a little more complex. The next page includes an
image and a hyperlink. Figure 7-1 shows what this page looks like in a Web browser.
Here’s the code for it:
<html>
<img src=”images/un.gif ”>
hello <a href=”http://www.un.org”>world</a>
</html>
Figure 7-1 A simple Web page displayed in a Web browser.
Skill 7 Publish on the Web 203

Notice that the code includes an additional paragraph, which contains the <img> tag.
This is the inline image tag (which means it is an image displayed in a Web page instead
of an image that you can download), and it works like this. The tag starts with <img
to indicate that it’s an inline image, and then it contains one or more attributes. The
only attribute used here is the src attribute, which contains the URL (address) of the
image to be displayed. In this case, the image is the images/un.gif image. The tag ends
with a right angle bracket (>).
NOTE URL stands for uniform resource locator. Essentially, URLs identify files by name
and give their precise location.
Notice also that in the middle of the “hello world” paragraph there is now a hyperlink.
The hyperlink tag starts with <a> and ends with </a>, and in between are the attributes
of the hyperlink and the text to which the hyperlink is attached. In this case, the only
attribute is the href attribute (which is the URL of the hyperlink). You can use the href
attribute by typing href= and then entering the URL to use, enclosed in quotes. The
tag is partially closed by the right angle bracket (>) following the href attribute, but
don’t let this fool you. This is so that the text to which the hyperlink is actually attached,
world, isn’t thought of as another attribute. The hyperlink tag actually ends after this
text with the </a> tag.
NOTE There is no http://www.mycompany.com/ included in the <img> tag to iden-

tify the location of the image, but this is an important omission. Because the
URL given is missing the first part (http://www.mycompany.com/), Web browsers
assume that it should start in the same directory as the current Web page. This
is highly desirable because it allows you to move the entire Web site to a dif-
ferent location (say, from a local folder to your Internet Web site) and still have
these links work.
Most Web pages are no more complex than the example just shown in Figure 7-1. Most
Web pages, in fact, simply provide text, images, and hyperlinks. Of course, in real life,
a Web page would provide considerably more text, several graphic images, and prob-
ably numerous hyperlinks. But, boiled down to their very essence, most Web pages are
as simple as the Web page shown in Figure 7-1.

One final comment concerning HTML: If you create this same simple page using a
Web-authoring tool like, for example, Microsoft FrontPage, you will see some addi-
tional HTML codes, or tags. Frequently, a Web-authoring tool sets up a more com-
plex page, including header information that isn’t displayed (using the <head> tag) and
the title of the Web page (using the <title> tag), delineates the body of the page (us-
ing the <body> tag) and provides some additional information about the page’s con-
tents using meta tags (<meta>). Meta tags provide information to search engines and
use the <meta name=“keywords”> tag so that search engines can more easily and ac-
curately index the contents of a Web site.
New Web Page T

Web echnologies
Technologies
In addition to HTML pages, a number of new technologies have been developed for
Web pages. Even if these technologies don’t apply to your Web site initially, it’s good
to know that if you need something more sophisticated than that provided by your
Web-authoring tools, the capability exists. The following list describes relevant Web
page technologies and what they do:
• Dynamic HTML introduces movement and the ability to react to a user’s actions
to Web pages. For example, text may highlight when a user moves the mouse over
it.
• JavaScript, Java, and ActiveX are technologies that provide a way of performing
complex tasks within a Web page and can even function as full-featured programs.
These technologies are complicated—and using them is best left to a professional
Web developer.
• CGI Scripts is a technology used on some Web servers to provide server-based
features such as visitor counters and discussion groups.
• XML stands for Extended Markup Language. XML provides a way of giving de-
tailed content information about a Web page, allowing for more meaningful search-
ing and information gathering.

Step 2: Developing a Web Strategy
Web
Developing a good Web strategy essentially means thoughtfully answering three
important questions: why does it make sense to have a Web site, what makes for good
Web content, and how should a Web site be developed? Fortunately, none of these
questions needs to be particularly difficult to answer, as the paragraphs below explain.
Why Does It Make Sense to Have a Web Site?

Web
Although a great deal of exuberance surrounds the Internet and especially the Web,
it’s fairly easy to identify and describe the handful of reasons why it makes good business
sense for an organization to have a Web site: the reasons include advertising, publishing,
information collection, and transaction processing.
Advertising
The Web lets you create powerful advertisements and publicity for a very modest cost.
The quickest way to visualize this is to think of your Web site and its Web pages as
substitutes for enhanced versions of any telephone directory advertising you do now.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that anything you can do in a directory listing or ad-
vertisement, you can do better and more cheaply using a Web page. You can also change
and update your information more frequently as well.
TIP The Web really levels the playing field for small businesses and nonprofit or-
ganizations. A small business or nonprofit organization can create a Web site
as good or better in many ways than a larger company’s Web site without a
large amount of expense or time, giving it an unprecedented ability to com-
pete and communicate.
Publishing
Many organizations are de facto publishers. For example, if your firm or organization
creates and distributes brochures, newsletters, product or service literature, or similar
items, you are actually publishing. The Web provides a convenient way to complement
or even replace this paper-based publishing.
Developing material for publication on the Web doesn’t cost any more than develop-
ing equivalent material for paper publishing. But with the Web, you don’t have the costs
of printing or mailing. Furthermore, with the Web, you can more quickly update your
information.

Information Collection
In addition to the advertising and publishing advantages that the Web offers to or-
ganizations, the Web also offers the ability to collect information from the people for
whom you advertise and publish. You can put forms right on a Web page to collect
information from the visitors to your Web site. For example, you might gather names
for a mailing list, get feedback from customers, or take in sales orders.
Transaction Processing
One further advantage of the Web that is of great value is the opportunity for trans-
action processing. As an extension of the Web’s information collection ability, trans-
action processing lets you use the Web as a virtual store, salesperson, or distribution
facility.
Using the Web for transaction processing is considerably trickier than using it for
advertising or publishing. Obviously, your Web pages need to list and describe the
products you sell. But practically speaking, you need to do more than simply list prod-
ucts or services. Good Web stores have the following features:
• Information about product availability and about the lead times for ordering items
that aren’t immediately available.
• A variety of ways to track down your products and services so that they are easy to
find and buy.
• A shopping cart feature that lets customers build a list of the items they want.
• A checkout feature that lets customers easily order all the items in their shopping
cart. (It’s during this checkout process, of course, that customers provide their credit
card numbers and shipping instructions.)
• A non-Web way for resolving problems the Web store can’t handle, such as lost or
damaged goods.

NOTE Regardless of what you think about Amazon.com, you should visit their Web
site (http://www.amazon.com)—even if you compete with them (perhaps es-
pecially if you compete with them). They’ve done an impressive job of provid-
ing numerous paths to find their products and different ways to search through
their inventory. For example, they have several different bestseller lists for
Microsoft Excel books, each listing books in a different order for a different
group of Excel readers. We strongly suspect their several bestseller lists of Ex-
cel books, each really an alternative path to the same products, boost their sales
of Excel books because they make it more likely someone will find one of them.
What Makes for Good Web Content?

Web
No matter what you choose to use your Web site for—advertising, publishing, infor-
mation collection, or transaction processing—three main features differentiate effective
sites: useful content, easy navigation, and aesthetic appeal.
Useful Content
More than anything else, useful content is the single most important feature of an
effective Web site. Useful content brings visitors back repeatedly. If your Web site is
the only place, or the best place, or the first place where someone can get needed in-
formation, you are providing useful content.
Easy Navigation
Although good content is the most important feature of a good Web site, good con-
tent needs to be supported and enhanced by good site layout. Not only should visi-
tors be able to easily find what they’re looking for but the organization of Web pages
and hyperlinks should also give visitors a good idea of the site’s contents at a glance
from the home page.
Visual Appeal
Aesthetics is very important for Web sites, but it is also the part of Web site creation
that is most overemphasized by many companies. Professional artists and program-
mers are hired to create custom interfaces using trendy technologies, and altogether
too much time, money, and resources are spent making Web sites look sophisticated
instead of filling them with good content.
A flashy Web site may grab the attention of visitors, but a clean and simple site can
be just as effective (or more so), and much less expensive to create and maintain.

Complex effects and graphics can also make a site slow to download and confusing
to use. Not to mention that sophisticated Web page programming can be incompat-
ible with older browsers, along with some handheld devices and stand-alone Internet
appliances.
How Should a Web Site Be Developed?

Web
As you might imagine, more than one organization has stalled trying to decide how
to develop a Web site. For this reason, we recommend that you consider employing a
bulletin board methodology for developing your Web content. By this, we mean that
you could develop the content for your Web site in much the way that the content for
the bulletin board in your coffee room or at your local market is developed.
Following a bulletin board methodology, as you find or create some appropriate Web
content, you simply pin the content to the bulletin board—or post the content to your
Web site. When content needs to change, you update the content or replace it. If
content needs to be removed, you remove it, or unpin it, from the bulletin board.
This bulletin board methodology is somewhat opposite of the strategy taken by larger
companies, which is to treat a Web site like a software product—something that needs
extensive research, development, and testing before it can be rolled out. The advan-
tage of this large-system-development approach is that the Web site usually hits the
pavement running strong, which is important for the IPO-focused high-tech com-
panies of today’s business world that can get tens of thousands of visitors their first
day online.
However, the software product methodology doesn’t work as well for smaller businesses
and organizations because it delays and may even kill the project if the resources ex-
pended in developing the Web site so burden the project that it never gets completed.
Accordingly, we suggest that you think about a Web site as something that’s constantly
under construction, where you post content as it’s created or updated, and where you
revise as needed, thereby letting your Web site grow and become more polished natu-
rally, almost organically. Since smaller companies probably won’t be immediately gen-
erating the huge amount of traffic that larger companies can often get as soon as their
Web sites go live, they’re free to create a Web site that may initially be less-than-
perfect, and then slowly expand and refine it. In sum, we suggest that you think about
your Web site as looking more like an electronic bulletin board than a software
product.

Step 3: Setting Up Your Domain and Server
Your
Before you can begin constructing a Web site, you need to lay a foundation by acquiring
a domain name and choosing a company to host your site.
Picking a Domain Name

Picking a domain name is a small step in the creation of a company or organization’s
Web site, but in many cases your domain name is at least as important as the name of
your organization. Your domain name identifies your Web site, and by extension, your
business or organization. You actually have two choices to make in picking a domain
name: You need to pick a host name, and you need to pick a top-level domain.
Picking a Host Name

Several points should be considered when picking a domain name. First of all, you want
your domain name to be descriptive of your company or organization. Your first choice
is your business’s name, but in some instances you might choose a domain name that’s
based on your business’s purpose instead. For example, it might be much better for a
business named Vladimir Berkowitz Faucets, Inc. to select the www.greatfaucets.com
domain name instead of www.vladamirberkowitzfaucets.com.
Second, your domain name should be easy to remember and spell. While a name like
www.rhythm.com may be short and easy to remember, some people will have trouble
spelling rhythm, potentially eliminating a large number of visitors. Perhaps something
like www.beat.com would be a better choice.
Third, short domain names are far preferable to long ones, although not if the name
is difficult to remember. This is particularly important since most of the desirable short
domain names have already been taken. It may be tempting to abbreviate your domain
name to shorten it, but do this only if the abbreviation doesn’t make the name harder
to remember.
Picking a Top-Level Domain

Top-Level
Besides the domain name itself, your company or organization also needs to choose
which top-level domain to use, such as .com or .net or .org. By far the most popular
top-level domain to use is .com. Since this is the top-level domain most people will
look under first, we recommend that businesses look for a .com domain name. The .net
domain is more appropriate for ISPs, Web hosting companies, and other Internet

technologies companies. Nonprofit organizations should probably use the .org top-level
domain, although depending on the nature of the organization you might also con-
sider registering your domain name with a .com top-level domain.
Once you’ve come up with some ideas for domain names, it’s time to check for their
availability. Because a large number of domain names are registered every day, make
a list of alternative domain names in case the domain name you want is already taken.
Then either go to any registrar’s Web site (Network Solutions is the original, and most
expensive, registrar http://www.networksolutions.com) or go to http://
www.betterwhois.com and enter your domain name idea in the box provided, as shown
in Figure 7-2.
Figure 7-2 Checking out a potential domain name at the http://www.betterwhois.com Web
site.

TIP Although most companies will naturally choose a valid domain name, there are
a few restrictions to keep in mind. Domain names are case insensitive; so don’t
spend time thinking about what letters to capitalize. Also, you can use only
letters and the hyphen character; but a hyphen can’t start or finish a domain
name. Lastly, the domain name can be a maximum of 67 characters long, not
including the www. and the top-level domain (.com, .net or .org).
Choosing a Web Hosting Service

Web
Choosing a company to host your Web site can be a bewildering experience. With
thousands of Web hosting companies, each usually offering several different hosting
plans, it takes knowledge and a certain amount of patience to choose a Web hosting
company.
In general, however, you want to look at which features the company offers for its price
and the reliability and quality of the company’s service. The following list provides
summary descriptions of the features that are often available, along with information
you can use to determine which ones are relevant for your firm or organization.
• Virtual Domains/Domain Hosting. The Web hosting company you choose must
support virtual domains or domain hosting if you want to be able to use your own
domain name (which you do).
• FrontPage 2000 Server Extensions. If you plan on using FrontPage to create and
manage your Web site, then you want your Web hosting company to support
FrontPage Server Extensions. FrontPage Server Extensions allow you to easily
publish your Web site without using cumbersome tools such as FTP or the
Microsoft Web Publishing Wizard. They also provide server-based tools that can
be indispensable when creating a Web site for an organization, such as the support
for forms, discussion groups, and Web site search capability.
• Disk Space Allotment. Most companies and organizations’ Web sites are rather
small, and generally don’t have trouble fitting comfortably in the 25MB of Web
space provided by even the most barebones Web hosting plans you might look at.
If you plan on having a large number of images, audio, or video files on your Web
site, however, disk space allotment becomes an important issue. You may want to
opt for a hosting plan that offers 100MB, 200MB, or unlimited disk space.

• Database Support and Active Server Pages. If you want to use a database on your
Web site and dynamically create pages based on data from the database (this is what
Active Server Pages are), your Web hosting company needs to support both data-
bases and Active Server Pages. (Setting up a database on your Web site is a diffi-
cult task, although it is something you could hire a consultant to do, after which
your company or organization could then maintain it in-house.)
• Subdomains. Some Web hosting companies allow you to create subdomains for your
Web site, such as support.yourcompany.com or events.yourcompany.com. If your
company has separate divisions that want their own Web sites, subdomains are a
cost-effective solution, since you don’t have to pay additional registration fees for
them.
• Mailing Lists, List Servers, and Majordomo. Depending on your business or or-
ganization, you may want to start an e-mail mailing list. A number of methods exist
for creating mailing lists, but if your organization thinks this might be a desirable
capability, consider finding a Web hosting company that includes some sort of
mailing list capability at little or no extra cost.
• Data Transfer Limitations. Some Web hosting companies have a limit on how much
data can be transferred per month. Every time someone views a page on your Web
site or downloads a file, that visitor is transferring data from your Web site. Simi-
larly, when you upload new pages or files to your Web site, you’re also transferring
data. If your Web site goes above its limit (because of lots of visitors or large file
downloads), you’re charged extra.
• SSL (Security). Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) is a way of encrypting data that is trans-
ferred to and from a Web site, and it is typically used for Web stores that process
credit card transactions. As such, it is an important feature if your organization plans
to set up an online store, although you’ll probably need to hire outside help for this.
• Technical Support. All Web hosting companies provide technical support for any
problems with publishing your Web site, Web site availability, e-mail, and so forth.
However, the type, quality, and availability of this support will vary. Not all com-
panies provide toll-free technical support phone numbers; not all companies pro-
vide 24-hour, 7-day-a-week (24/7) technical support.

• Web Server Speed. The speed of a Web server is fairly difficult to ascertain from
reading promotional material on a company’s Web site. Nevertheless, to be thor-
ough, you probably want to check on several things: how much bandwidth is avail-
able, how many sites is a Web server hosting, and how fast is their server? You might
also ask for the URLs of other Web sites stored on the same server and then visit
those sites.
• Web Server Reliability. Even more important than Web server speed is the reliability
of the server. To assess Web server reliability, most people rely on the uptime per-
centage, which is something that can easily be measured. Most organizations aim
for 99.9 percent uptime (roughly 9 hours of downtime a year).
Where to Find a Web Hosting Company

Web
With the thousands of Web hosting companies that you can choose from, narrowing
your list of candidates to a reasonable number can be a time-consuming and difficult
process. Several useful resources exist, however, to point you in the right direction.
TIP Choosing a Web hosting company isn’t a permanent decision. You can easily
switch companies at almost any time (although you might choose to sign
up for a one-year contract to avoid setup fees). So don’t spend too much time
trying to find “the one.” If you later locate a better one, switch when your
contract is up.
Microsoft’
Microsoft’ss Locate A Web Presence Provider W
Web eb
Web
Site
Located at http://www.microsoftwpp.com, the Microsoft Locate A Web Presence Pro-
vider Web site shown in Figure 7-3 allows you to perform a search for a Web hosting
company that is a Microsoft registered host for FrontPage Web sites. This is probably
the best place to search for a Web hosting company if you plan on using FrontPage
2000 to build your Web site.

Figure 7-3 Microsoft’s Locate A Web Presence Provider Web site.
DN Resources
The DN Resources Web site at http://www.dnresources.com has a special Hosting sec-
tion that provides a list of Web sites that provide a list of Web hosting companies. It’s
a little confusing, since each Web site listed shows a somewhat different list of Web
hosting companies. However, it can still be a good place to come up with companies
to possibly host your site.
Local Computer Papers

If you’re looking for a local Web hosting company, check out any local computer pa-
pers or the technology section of your local paper for ads from local companies. You
can also check the Yellow Pages under Internet.

Signing Up for Service
After deciding on a domain name, locating a Web hosting company, and selecting the
appropriate hosting plan, you need to sign up for the actual service. The details of the
signup process are different for every company, so you’ll need to ask the Web hosting
company for instructions and help.
Step 4: Collecting and Creating Digital Content

Once you pick a domain name and sign up for Web hosting, you’re ready to collect
and create your digital content. In any business or organization already using computers,
this work is easier than you might suspect.
Collecting Existing Digital Content

Fortunately, most companies and organizations already have a large amount of digi-
tal content that can be used on a Web site with only a minimal amount of work. When
we say digital content, we mean any content that can be opened using a computer
application such as a word processor or an image-editing program. This includes data
on hard drives, your local network, the Internet (though be careful about copyrights),
floppy and Zip disks, CD-ROMS, and so forth.
To use existing digital content (which comes in many types), you first need to locate
it, and if necessary, convert the content to an appropriate format for later importing
into your Web-authoring tool. (This tool might be Microsoft FrontPage, for example.)
Just about any kind of digital content your business or organization has can be adapted
for use on the Web:
• Word processor documents (.doc, .txt, .wpf ) can be a big reservoir of content and
include materials such as project reports, manuals, company objectives, newsletters,
and notices to customers created with a word processing program, such as Microsoft
Word, AppleWorks, or WordPerfect.
• PowerPoint presentations (.ppt), such as presentations, lecture slides, or demos,
might be great additions to your Web site.

• Spreadsheet documents (.xls) might also be good content for your Web site, pro-
vided the data relates to the site’s purpose and target audience. This could include
financial information, analyzed data from technical companies, or statistical data
from tests.
• Digital images (.jpg, .gif, .png, .fpx) are a staple of any Web site, and any digital
images that your company has are potential content for your Web site. This includes
company logos or graphics.
• Flyers, brochures, or other computer-created content stored in some sort of com-
puter format (perhaps created using Microsoft Publisher or Adobe PageMaker) are
also excellent sources of content for a Web site.
• E-mails can often be a rich source of content, although special care needs to be taken
when using e-mail conversations on a Web site. Special messages sent out to cus-
tomers can be placed in a Web page for users who didn’t receive the e-mail, cus-
tomer questions and answers can be integrated into a Frequently Asked Questions
page, or visitor comments can be placed on a Feedback page (usually with names
removed).
• Existing Web pages might seem an obvious source, but if your business or organi-
zation already has Web pages it has created for one reason or another, you should
probably evaluate how useful they would be on your new site.
• Sound files and/or video files (.wav, .au, .mp3, .mpg, .avi, .mov) are usually very large
and should generally be avoided on Web sites, but you might find audio and/or video
files that would be perfect for your site. However, use discretion with these files be-
cause of their large size and the slow speed of most visitors’ Internet connections.
Creating New Digital Content

Not all content for your Web site is going to be available in digital format. Some of it
will exist in print form and yet more will need to be created from scratch.
In general, the new content falls into two categories: images and documents. Images
are usually created by using a digital camera, a scanner, or an art program of some sort.
Documents are generally created from scratch by using a word processor or spread-
sheet program, although you might be tempted to scan printed documents that aren’t
already available in digital format.

Digital Images
There are several ways to create new digital images for use on a Web site. Photographs
can be scanned into the computer using a scanner, imported using a PhotoCD pic-
ture disk or online image processing service, or they can be taken using a digital camera
and directly imported into the computer. Digital images can also be created in the
computer using an art program.
Documents
Documents are the other half of the new content equation, and unfortunately, not every
document that belongs on your Web site is going to already exist, or at least not in
digital form. If you can’t find a digital version of content that you want for your Web
site, retyping the document may become a necessity. However, in special circumstances
you may also be able to scan the document and use an optical character recognition
(OCR) program.
Although OCR programs have greatly improved and are now quite useful, unless you
have a long document that needs to be placed in its entirety (or almost in its entirety)
on your Web site, it’s usually faster to retype a document than it is to scan it, run it
through the OCR program, and then correct the mistakes.
TIP OCR programs are standalone programs that convert a scanned document into
text that can be used in a word processing program or Web page editor. They
can provide an easy way to digitize existing, typewritten content, but these
programs do produce errors in the scanned documents. Therefore, we recom-
mend that you carefully evaluate the amount of time involved in correcting
scanned documents before relying heavily on OCR programs.
Creating New Documents

When creating new content for use on a Web site, you can take specific steps to make
the content import into your Web-authoring tool more easily and more elegantly:
• Create any large amounts of text you want to use on your Web site using Microsoft
Word or another word processing program, and then either save the document in
appropriate format for importing into your Web-authoring tool or save it directly
as an HTML document that the Web-authoring tool can then edit. It’s much easier
and more efficient to create and edit content of any substantial length in a dedi-
cated word processor.

• Avoid using complex formatting or graphics in documents. These generally don’t
import accurately into a Web-authoring tool. An exception to this rule is when the
program used to create the content has special HTML output capabilities that
enable it to handle complex formatting or documents. However, these exported
pages may prove difficult to edit, so test out this capability before you rely on it
extensively.
• Before creating a large amount of content with a particular application, test out how
well the content can be imported by your Web-authoring tool or exported to HTML
from the application. Knowing the limitations of the process beforehand can save
a lot of time and money in the long run.
• Save new documents in a central content folder with a useful filename that allows
all the people working on the Web site to easily identify the document.
Step 5: Creating Your W

Your eb Pages
Web
The precise steps you take to create your Web pages depend on the Web creation or
Web-authoring tool that you’ve selected. In general, you use a wizard to create a set
of blank Web pages and then add the text and images that you’ve already collected.
Starting with a Wizard

Most of the popular programs (and perhaps all of them) provide wizards that step you
through the process of creating blank Web pages. FrontPage works this way, for ex-
ample. Using FrontPage’s Web wizards is an efficient way to rapidly create a Web site,
and it is especially useful for companies or organizations that don’t have a clear idea
of how their site should be structured.
When you use a FrontPage wizard, FrontPage creates many of the essential pages for
your Web, based on the information you type into the various screens. Figure 7-4 shows
the wizard dialog box that asks which pages should be created for the Web site.

Figure 7-4 Selecting pages to include in your Web.
The FrontPage wizard also provides other dialog boxes that you use to enter your
company’s name and address, telephone numbers, and e-mail addresses. Typically, a
wizard also lets you choose a design or coordinated look for your Web site.
Although these Web pages will need some modifications and you’ll still need to in-
sert your own content, they can streamline the process of creating your initial pages.
Importing Text
Text
Despite the multimedia emphasis of the Web, text is still the heart of most good Web
pages. Besides being a clear and concise means of communicating to your visitors, text
also downloads very quickly, can be indexed by search engines, and is usually easier
to create than more visual forms of content.
To insert text into your Web page, follow these general steps:
1. Position the cursor where you want to insert the text.
Invariably, your Web-authoring tool will insert the entire contents of the file you
specify at the current location of the cursor, so place the cursor somewhere suitable.

2. Choose the command to insert the file.
Different Web-authoring tools have different names for this command. In
FrontPage, you click the Insert menu and then click File.
3. Identify the file.
When prompted by the Web-authoring tool, identify the location and then the file
you want to insert.
4. Select the file you want to import, and click Open.
The Web-authoring tool should import the text into your Web page.
You can move text by dragging, or you can move text by cutting and copying. To move
text by dragging, select the text and hold down the mouse button as you drag the text
to its new location. If you want to copy the text rather than move it, simply hold down
the Ctrl key while you drag the text to its new (duplicate) location. Moving and copying
text by dragging takes some getting used to at first—especially if you are sitting in an
airplane and doing it on a laptop computer. But it is actually a pretty handy method
after you have become comfortable with it.
If you want to copy and move text with menu commands instead, you use the Edit
menu’s Cut, Copy, and Paste commands. To move text by using commands, select the
text, click the Edit menu, and then click Copy (if you want to copy the text) or Cut
(if you want to move the text). Then position the cursor at the exact location where
you want to move or copy the text, and click Paste.
Entering and Formatting Text

Text
Enter text exactly as you would in a normal word processor. Click in the location where
you want to add text, and then type your text. Many Web-authoring programs include
toolbars of clickable buttons that you can use to format your text as you enter it.
Creating Hyperlinks
To create a hyperlink, you generally first select the text or image, and click the
Hyperlink toolbar button. The Web-authoring tool will often display a dialog box like
the FrontPage Create Hyperlink dialog box, which is shown in Figure 7-5.

Figure 7-5 Creating a hyperlink.
To create the hyperlink, select the file to which you want to link or type the file’s address
in the URL text box. To make a hyperlink to an e-mail address, click the envelope icon
in the Create Hyperlink dialog box and then enter the e-mail address in the dialog
box that is displayed.
TIP Creating effective hyperlinks can be an art unto itself, but in general, all you
need to do is make the linking text short and descriptive. There is no need
to include the words click here—this instruction is implicit. For example, use
widgets instead of click here for widgets.
Inserting Images
Typically, the easiest way to insert an image into a Web page is to find the image in
the Folders list and then drag it to the desired spot in your Web page. If that tech-
nique doesn’t work, your Web-authoring tool probably also provides an Insert Picture
command you can use.

Step 6: Testing Y
Testing our W
Your eb Site
Web
Many businesses won’t need to perform the exhaustive testing that large e-commerce
sites must go through when rolling out a new site, but testing your Web site before
publishing it can result in a more effective site, as well as fewer complaints from visitors.
Testing generally looks at three areas: hyperlinks, browser compatibility, and usability.
Verifying Hyperlinks
Your Web-authoring tool may provide a command for checking external hyperlinks
for validity. FrontPage, for example, provides a Verify Hyperlinks button on its Re-
porting toolbar. Hyperlinks can also be checked simply by using them.
Testing Your Site in Dif

Your ferent Browsers
Different
The easiest way to test your Web site in several browsers is to open each Web browser
and enter the local address of your Web site in the Address or Location box, as shown
in Figures 7-6, 7-7, and 7-8. For example, if your FrontPage Web site is named
mycompany and is stored on a Web server on your local network named WKS1, you
would enter http://wks1/mycompany to open the Web site.
Figure 7-6 A Web site as it appears (properly) in Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.

Figure 7-7 The same Web site, differing slightly in Netscape Navigator 4.7.
NOTE Test your site with the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape Navi-
gator. If you have access to computers running older versions of the browsers
or a different browser, such as Opera, consider testing your site in these brows-
ers, too. Testing on Macintosh and information appliances (such as WebTV) is
usually easiest to do after your site has been published to the Internet.

Figure 7-8 The same Web site in Opera 4, appearing identical to Netscape.
After opening your Web site in a couple of browsers, spend a few minutes testing all
the links and examining each page. Is the layout consistent on all the browsers? Do
all the features work as expected? Make notes on which pages have problems, and then
go back into FrontPage and see whether you can fix them. (To change the compat-
ibility options for FrontPage, click the Tools menu, click Page Options, and then
modify any elements that don’t display properly.)
Usability Testing
Testing
In addition to testing for broken links and browser incompatibilities, you will find it
informative to perform some degree of usability testing.

Here are some recommendations for simple usability tests:
• Recruit people who aren’t involved in the Web site project to test your site. The
feedback of your customers or other people in your target audience can be invalu-
able in evaluating the effectiveness of your site. For very small organizations, even
recruiting family and friends to test your site can provide valuable feedback.
• Develop some purposeful tasks for your testers to perform, and then watch how they
accomplish them. You might use tasks such as “Find the company contact infor-
mation” or “Find the product information for product x.” If you need to interject
and help the testers, your site might need more work.
• Pay special attention to the navigational structure of your Web site. How well can
users locate information using your site?
• Test your Web site at a variety of resolutions. We recommend that you test your site
at 640x480 (a fairly low resolution) and at 1024x768 (a typical high resolution).
• If you decide to publish your site immediately, perform the testing after it is pub-
lished. A short user survey on your Web site can also be a valuable way of gather-
ing feedback on the effectiveness of your site.
NOTE If your site contains online ordering capabilities, it is very important to thoroughly
test your system no matter what the size of your company or Web site.
Step 7: Publishing Your W

Your eb Site
Web
When you’re ready to make your Web site available to the general public on the World
Wide Web, you need to publish it to the Internet. Typically, publishing your Web site
to your Web hosting company’s Web server is an easy step. All that really needs to hap-
pen is that the HTML documents and any another necessary files (such as images)
need to be copied to the Web server.
Many Web-authoring tools, including FrontPage 2000, provide built-in support for
publishing to Web servers. For example, in FrontPage, all you need to do is click the
Publish Web toolbar button and then fill out the Publish Web dialog box, as shown
in Figure 7-9.

Figure 7-9 The Publish Web dialog box.
NOTE To use the Publish Web dialog box shown in Figure 7-9, enter the location where
you want to publish your Web site (most likely your domain name,
www.mycompany.com or perhaps ftp://www.mycompany.com) in the Specify
The Location To Publish Your Web To box. Then click the Publish button. When
the Name And Password Required dialog box appears, enter the name and
password you use to administer your Web site (on your Web hosting company’s
Web server, not on your local Web server) and then click OK.
Step 8: Publicizing Your W

Your eb Site
Web
In order for your Web site to succeed, you need to publicize it. There are a number of
ways to publicize your Web site, both on and off the Internet. The online methods
include search engines, online advertising, newsgroups, and mailing lists. Offline
methods include placing links on all print material your business or organization
creates, Yellow Pages ads, and newspaper ads.

Submitting Y our Site to Search Engines and
Your
Directories
Since most people locate a Web site using a search engine or a directory, the most
important step you can take to publicize your site is to submit it to the top search
engines and directories. Although this process takes some time, it is very important.
Although you might be tempted, avoid using a search engine submission service. These
services usually offer to submit your site to hundreds of search engines for a sum of
money—sometimes with recurring fees. Since the vast majority of searches are con-
ducted on only a handful of search engines, this level of submission is superfluous. In
addition, submission firms usually don’t submit your site to directories, or if they do,
they do an inadequate job of it. Take the time to submit to search engines and direc-
tories yourself—it’s worth it.
Search engines automatically crawl (explore) the Web, examining Web sites and adding
the relevant information from each site into their search databases. Directories such
as Yahoo! take descriptions submitted by Web site authors and use human editors to
review the submissions. The editors then create a hierarchical, topic-based directory
out of the Web sites submitted that visitors can either browse by topic or perform a
search on. In addition to search engines and directories, a third type—hybrid search
engines—are usually search engines that also contain a human-created directory.
Editors create the directory by looking at the search engine’s results, the actual Web
sites, and sometimes sites that are submitted by site authors to the hybrid directory.
The type of search engine or directory determines how you’ll submit your site. Crawler-
based search engines generally request only your Web site’s URL, as shown in Figure
7-10. The search engine then automatically visits your site, determines the content of
your site, and adds it to the search engine’s database.

Figure 7-10 Submitting to a crawler-based search engine.
TIP Although search engines generally look into your Web site for what content
is contained on pages other than your home page, this isn’t always reliable, and
it’s prudent to submit your two or three most important pages separately to
each search engine. But limit yourself to two or three pages; submitting too
many pages to the same search engine can actually hurt your site.
Directories require a somewhat larger amount of effort during submission. First, visit
the directory (such as Yahoo!) and perform some searches for content similar to your
Web site. Second, take note of the kinds of sites that are returned in the search results
and the categories under which they’re listed. It’s very important with directories to
find the most specific and appropriate category for your Web site, so do some exploring.
(Your site may belong in multiple categories. If this is the case, make a note of each
one.) Third, read the directory’s Site Submission Tips or the equivalent page. This will
tell you exactly the procedure the directory wants you to follow when submitting your
Web site. Most require that you navigate to the category under which you want to list
your site, and then click the Suggest A Site link. Fourth, in the actual submission form,
as shown in Figure 7-11, submit the title of your Web site (generally your official
business or company name), your site’s URL, and a 25-word or less description of your
Web site.
Figure 7-11 Submitting to Yahoo!’s directory.
TIP Make your site description more than just a series of keywords. It should be a
succinct, well-written summary of what visitors will find on your site.
Table 7-1 lists search engines and directories that we recommend you submit your site
to, their URLs, and their type.

SEARCH EENGINE
SEARCH NGINE URL SEARCH ENGINE TYPE
AOL Search http://www.search.aol.com Hybrid using Open Directory
AltaVista http://www.altavista.com Hybrid using Open Directory and
LookSmart
Direct Hit http://www.directhit.com Crawler-based, modified by popularity
Excite http://www.excite.com Crawler-based
Go (Infoseek) http://www.go.com Hybrid
Google http://www.google.com Crawler-based, modified by popularity
HotBot http://www.hotbot.com Hybrid, with results from Direct Hit
and Open Directory
LookSmart http://www.looksmart.com Directory
Lycos http://www.lycos.com Hybrid, using Open Directory
MSN Search http://www.search.msn.com Hybrid, using LookSmart
Netscape Search http://www.search.netscape.com Hybrid, using Open Directory
Northern Light http://www.northernlight.com Crawler-based
Open Directory http://www.dmoz.org Directory
Snap http://www.snap.com Directory
WebCrawler http://www.webcrawler.com Crawler-based
Yahoo! http://www.yahoo.com Directory
Table 7-1 The major search engines and directories.
Online Advertising
In addition to submitting your Web site to search engines and directories, a number
of other methods are available for advertising on the Web. Some of these are fairly
effective in increasing the number of visitors to your Web site, and some are probably
a waste of time and money. In the following sections we offer some recommendations
on which methods to consider and which to ignore.

Purchasing Banner Ads
The most obvious method of online advertising is the banner ad. Banner ads are the
ubiquitous (and often-ignored) rectangular ad boxes that adorn most Web sites. In
general, we recommend that you avoid paying for banner ads. They require too much
time and effort to create, cost money, and are limited in their ability to draw visitors
to your Web site.
Link Exchanges
One of the best methods of advertising online is to get other Web sites to link to your
site, creating what’s known as a link exchange. This method is cost-effective (free) and
can also increase your ranking in search engines that pay attention to the number of
links to a particular Web site.
Here are three ways that you can establish links to your Web site:
• Use a Link Exchange service that allows you to exchange links with other random
Web sites.
• Join a Web ring of sites that are similar to your own
• Contact Web sites personally and inquire about exchanging links.
Using a Link Exchange service usually doesn’t work well for most companies and
organizations. This is because the Web site that ends up linking to your site usually
doesn’t have anything to do with your site’s purpose, so it is unlikely to generate visi-
tors who are interested in viewing your Web site.
Although most link exchanges are a waste of time, Web rings devoted to a topic cov-
ered by your Web site are not. The way a Web ring works is that Web sites with a
common topic contact each other, decide to set up a Web ring, and then pay to place
a banner ad for the Web ring on their home pages, as shown in Figure 8-10. This
banner ad is usually configured with automatically updated links to other sites in the
Web ring. By joining the Web ring, your site becomes accessible through these links
and is also listed in the Web ring’s directory. The site at http://www.webring.com is a
good place to look if you are interested in joining a Web ring.

Figure 7-12 A Web site with a couple of Web ring ads.
Another method of establishing links to your Web site is to manually identify Web
sites useful to your visitors with which you can exchange links. Once you’ve identi-
fied Web sites that cover similar or related topics, contact the sites’ Webmasters about
setting up a link exchange. Predictably, one way to convince a Web site to exchange
links is to place a link to their site on your Web site, send them an e-mail informing
them of this, and then suggest that they link to your site as well.
Using Newsgroups to Gain Exposure

Newsgroups in general aren’t the best place to publicize a Web site. Newsgroup par-
ticipants usually react to ads placed on newsgroups with a fair amount of hostility, and
the dynamic nature of newsgroups ensures that anything your company or organiza-
tion posts will stay on the newsgroup for only a couple of weeks before getting archived
or deleted.

Creating a Mailing List
As described in “Skill 6: Understand Other Internet Services,” mailing lists are a vol-
untary form of bulk e-mailing that allow you to easily send out mail, such as a news-
letter or an update, to a large number of people. Sending regular e-mails about your
Web site or company to visitors who have joined your mailing list is an effective way
of reminding visitors about your business and also featuring new or changed parts of
your Web site. This increases the chances that they will visit your site again.
Make sure that what you send via your mailing list is valuable content to subscribers.
Otherwise, your subscribers will delete the message or unsubscribe from your list. This
content can include tips, how-to sections, product specials, and new additions to your
Web site. Always include instructions for unsubscribing to the list with every mes-
sage you send.
TIP If you are interested in creating a mailing list yourself, you can find out about
the process at http://www.lsoft.com/manuals/1.8d/owner/owner.html. This page
at the L-Soft site provides a manual for creating a mailing list with Listserv. If
you want to add your mailing list to the Liszt site, go to http://www.liszt.com/
submit.html.
You can handle mailing lists using three different types of mailing programs: a stan-
dard mail program, a standalone bulk mail program, or a server-based mailing list
program. Refer to the suggestions found in the “Mailing List Etiquette” sidebar in
“Skill 6: Understand Other Internet Services” before you get too far along.
TIP Many companies and organizations will find that Web-based mailing list pro-
viders such as eGroups.com and Listbot (http://www.listbot.com) are a better
solution than the traditional Listserv and Majordomo programs. Additionally,
many of these Web-based list servers can be used for free, provided you don’t
mind having ads inserted in your messages.

Offline Publicizing
Offline
You can get so caught up in publicizing your Web site online that you forget about
the more traditional channels of publicity, such as company publications, phone books,
and newspaper ads, and traditional marketing methods, such as speaking engagements.
Any time that you draw attention to your business or organization, you’ll increase the
number of visitors to your Web site—provided that you make it clear to your audi-
ence how to find your Web site. Generally, you publicize your Web site in the same
way that you would publicize your business, but in addition to (or possibly instead of )
providing a phone number as a contact method, list your URL. Many people consider
the Web their preferred source of information, so any time you want to provide people
with a way of obtaining additional information about your business or organization,
list your URL.
Summary
Web publishing isn’t as complicated as you might think. In many cases, the Web simply
becomes another tool your business can use for sharing information. To make the
process as efficient and fast as possible, it helps to break down the work into the fol-
lowing discrete steps: learning how Web pages work, developing a Web strategy, set-
ting up your domain and server, collecting and creating digital content, creating your
Web pages, testing your site, publishing your site, and then publicizing your finished
Web site.

GLOSSARY
GLOSSARY
anonymous FTP site

A public access FTP site that you can log on to using anonymous as your user name
and using your e-mail address as your password.
ARPAnet
ARPAnet
An experimental four-computer network that was established in 1969 by the Advanced
Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the U.S. Department of Defense.
attachment
A file that travels along with an e-mail message.
backbone
A cable or wire that can handle large amounts of traffic on the Internet. A backbone
can connect several locations, and other networks can be connected to a backbone.
banner
A boxed ad that adorns most Web pages.
bookmark
Used as a verb, it means to add a Web site to a list in your Web browser so that you
can easily click it and open it. Used as a noun, it is a site that you’ve added to the list
in your browser. The Netscape Navigator browser uses the term bookmark. Internet
Explorer uses the term favorite for the same thing.
237
Boolean logic
A type of logic used by search engines. Boolean logic works with logical rather than
numeric relationships.
BRI
An abbreviation for Basic Rate Interface, the most common kind of ISDN access.
bridge
A device that regulates traffic inside a larger local area network.
cable modem
A high-speed connection that uses the wiring provided by your cable TV company.
Carnivore
The FBI’s controversial Internet wiretap system.
CGI script
A technology used on some Web servers to provide features such as visitor counters
and discussion groups.
chat room
An area on a Web site where you can communicate with others in real time by typ-
ing on the keyboard or, if you have the necessary equipment, speaking into a micro-
phone and listening through speakers or earphones.
client/server network
A network in which one or more computers stores resources and supplies them to the
other computers. All the other computers are connected to this central computer.
cookie
A file that is stored on your computer by the server of a site that you visit. A cookie
is a data file that identifies you to the server.
digital certificate
An electronic credential that verifies that you are who you say you are when connected
to the Internet.

directory
A feature of a search service that categorizes and catalogs Web sites and their con-
tents. A directory is created by people rather than by software.
DNS
An abbreviation for domain name server, a set of databases that are distributed among
servers and store the numeric addresses of Web sites.
domain
The description of a single computer, a department, or a complete network that is used
for administrative and naming purposes.
DSL
An abbreviation for digital subscriber line, a high-speed connection to the Internet
that uses existing telephone lines but that transmits at higher frequencies than those
used to transmit voice.
Dynamic HTML
A version of HTML that introduces movement and the ability to react to a user’s
actions on a Web page.
encryption
Encoding information so that unauthorized persons cannot access it.
favorite
A site whose URL you’ve placed in a list in Internet Explorer so that you can quickly
and easily return to it. The Netscape Navigator equivalent is bookmark.
firewall software
Special software that sits between your computer and the Internet and prevents un-
authorized access. Firewall software is important if you have a high-speed, always-on
connection to the Internet.
folder
The container for files on your system. In earlier versions of Windows and in some
other operating systems, a folder is called a directory.
Glossary 239
FTP
An abbreviation for File Transfer Protocol, which you can use to download files from
or upload files to an FTP site.
gateway
A device that links local area networks and also translates information from one kind
of network to a different kind of network.
home page
The opening page of a Web site.
HTML
An abbreviation for HyperText Markup Language, the language used to create Web
pages.
HTML tags
The basic building blocks used to create an HTML document.
HTTP
An abbreviation for Hypertext Transfer Protocol, the rules that specify how a Web
browser and a Web server communicate.
hub
The central device that connects the computers in a network.
HyperTerminal
HyperTerminal
Terminal emulation software that is included with Windows and that you can use to
connect to public access servers.
IAB
An abbreviation for the Internet Architecture Board, an organization coordinated by
the Internet Society. The IAB works out issues of standards, network resources, and
so on.
IANA
An abbreviation for the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which is a clearing-
house for Internet addresses, protocol variables, and domain names.

ICS
An abbreviation for Internet Connection Sharing, a Windows feature that allows
multiple computers to share the same modem or ISDN connection to the Internet.
identity
In Outlook Express, a type of mail user profile that you can set up if multiple people
use your computer and, thus, Outlook Express.
IETF
An abbreviation for the Internet Engineering Task Force, which handles day-to-day
issues of Internet operation.
IMAP
An abbreviation for Internet Mail Access Protocol, which defines how users can search
through and access incoming e-mail messages.
Internet
The world’s largest computer network, connecting tens of millions of users.
Internet Explorer
The Web browser that’s included with Windows 2000 Professional.
Internet service provider

Abbreviated ISP. An organization that provides dedicated or dial-up access to the
Internet.
intranet
A private corporate network that uses Internet technology.
IP address
A unique number that identifies a computer on a network or on the Internet.
IRTF
IRTF
An abbreviation for Internet Research Task Force, which creates long- and short-term
research groups that concentrate on protocols, architecture, and technology issues.
Glossary 241
ISDN
An abbreviation for Integrated Services Digital Network, a digital connection that is
available through the telephone company that can be considerably faster than a mo-
dem connection.
ISOC
An abbreviation for Internet Society, a group of member governments and compa-
nies that promote cooperation and coordination for the Internet, Internet applications,
and Internet technologies.
keyword
A word or term that you enter in a field in a search service. Multiple keywords form
a search string, a phrase that the search service compares with information it finds in
its database.
LDAP
An abbreviation for Lightweight Directory Access Protocol, which searches a direc-
tory of e-mail addresses.
link
Short for hyperlink. A word, a phrase, an image, or a symbol that forms a connection
with a resource that can be located on your local computer, your local network, or the
Internet.
list address
The address you use when posting messages to a mailing list.
Listproc
A mailing list program. Listproc is short for list processor.
Listserv
A mailing list program. Listserv is short for list service.
local area network

Abbreviated LAN. A group of connected computers and other devices, such as a
printer, that can share files, applications, and other resources.

mailing list
An e-mail discussion group.
Majordomo
A mailing list program.
message rule
A filter that you can apply to block mail from certain senders and route mail to spe-
cific folders.
metasearch engine
A search engine that searches multiple other search engines simultaneously.
metasearch software
A program that is stored on your computer and that you can use to search multiple
search services simultaneously if you are connected to the Internet.
modem
A device that lets you transmit and receive information to and from other computers
using a telephone line.
Mosaic
The first commercially available graphical Web browser. Mosaic was released in 1992.
natural language query

A plain English question.
NetMeeting
A conferencing application included with Windows that you can use to chat over the
Internet, audio conference, video conference, share applications, collaborate on docu-
ments, transfer files, and draw on the whiteboard.
Netscape Navigator
A Web browser that was first released by Netscape Communications in 1994.
Glossary 243
network
A group of computers and peripheral devices (such as printers, modems, and so on)
that are connected in some way so that their users can share files and other resources.
newsgroup
A collection of articles on specific topics that you can access from the news server of
your Internet service provider.
NIC
An abbreviation for network interface card, an adapter that plugs into a slot on the
motherboard of a computer and then is connected to the network device, such as a hub.
NNTP
An abbreviation for Network News Transfer Protocol, which distributes bulletin board
articles such as Usenet.
OCR program
An optical character recognition program that can convert a scanned document into
text that can be used in a word processing program or a Web page editor.
offline file
offline
A file that is stored on the network but that you make available to you while not con-
nected to the network.
Outlook Express
The news and mail reader that’s included with Windows 2000 Professional.
packet
A chunk of information. Information is broken into packets before it is sent out over
the Internet.
password
A combination of characters you enter during the process of logging on.
Plug and Play

A feature of Windows 2000 Professional that automatically configures a new piece of
hardware when you install it in your computer.

POP
An abbreviation for Post Office Protocol, which retrieves messages from an e-mail
server.
port
The interface through which information passes between a computer and a device, such
as a printer or a modem.
portal
A large Web site that includes a search service but also other features such as free
e-mail, online chat rooms, instant messaging, news about current events and sports,
and so on.
post
To send an e-mail message to a newsgroup or a mailing list.
PPP
An abbreviation for Point-to-Point Protocol, which connects a computer to the
Internet.
properties
Characteristics of an object or a device.
protocol
A formal specification that defines the rules whereby data is transmitted and received.
Quick Launch toolbar

The left portion of the taskbar that contains icons for launching Internet Explorer and
Outlook Express and for minimizing all open windows and displaying the desktop.
repeater
A device that regenerates the information going across a network such as the Internet
at various intervals to increase its range.
router
A device that ensures that packets always arrive at the destination network for which
they are intended.
Glossary 245
search engine
A program that indexes resources on the Internet and puts that information into a
searchable database. Search engines are also known as search tools.
search service
A program that can search a file, a database, or the Internet for keywords and retrieve
resources in which those words are found.
Security zone
An Internet Explorer setting that specifies the types of Web sites that a user of your
computer can access.
server
A network computer that provides a variety of services, such as printing, storage, and
communications.
sharing
Making a resource available to others on the network.
shortcut
An icon on the desktop that represents an application, a file, a document, a printer,
or any other object in Windows 2000 Professional.
shortcut menu
A menu of related commands that appears when you right-click an object; also some-
times referred to as a context menu or a right-click menu.
signature
In Outlook Express, a text file that you can append to the close of your e-mail mes-
sages. A typical business signature contains your name, title, the name of your orga-
nization, perhaps its physical address, and your phone number.
SMTP
An abbreviation for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, which sends messages to an
e-mail server.

SSL
An abbreviation for Secure Sockets Layer, a way of encrypting data that is transferred
to and from a Web site; typically used for credit card transactions over the Internet.
start page
The Web site you see when you first open Internet Explorer. You can choose any site
you want as your start page.
stationery
A preformatted background that you can use to compose messages in Outlook Ex-
press using HTML. You can also create your own stationery.
status area
The area at the far end of the taskbar that, by default, contains the volume icon and
the clock.
subscription address
The address you use when sending a message to subscribe to or unsubscribe from a
mailing list.
T-1
A telephone circuit that moves data at 1.5Mbps and is very expensive.
taskbar
The toolbar at the bottom of the desktop that contains icons you can use to quickly
access programs.
TCP/IP
An abbreviation for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, a set of com-
munication protocols that is best suited to large networks, including the Internet.
Telnet
A program that allows you to log on to a remote computer as if you were a terminal
attached to it.
Glossary 247
temporary Internet file
A copy of a Web page that you have visited and that is stored in the Temporary Internet
Files folder on your hard drive.
transaction processing
A system in which transactions, such as buying and selling, are executed immediately.
Transaction processing lets you use the Web as a virtual store, a salesperson, or a dis-
tribution facility.
URL
An abbreviation for uniform resource locator, an address for a resource on the Internet.
Usenet
An international, noncommercial network that distributes news articles.
user
Any person that is allowed to access a computer or a network.
user account
Identifies a user on a network or on a computer by his or her user name and password.
vCard
An electronic personal information card that you can exchange via e-mail or during
a teleconference.
VPN
An abbreviation for Virtual Private Network, a tunnel through the Internet that con-
nects your computer to your corporate network.
Web browser
A program that you can use to explore Internet resources.
Webcast
A radio broadcast that you can tune in to and listen to over the Internet.

Web site
A collection of Web pages that are connected by means of hyperlinks (also known as
links).
wide area network

Abbreviated WAN. Any network that crosses metropolitan, regional, or national
boundaries.
wizard
A Windows 2000 Professional operating system or application program component
that steps you through a process. Windows 2000 Professional includes wizards for
setting up a network connection and connecting to the Internet.
XML
An abbreviation for Extended Markup Language, which provides a way to give de-
tailed content information about a Web page, allowing for more meaningful search-
ing and information gathering.
Glossary 249
Index
10-digit phone dialing, 22, 23 as reason to have Web site, 206

123 Link, 160–61 via link exchanges, 232
Africa, 161
A Alexa, 160–61
Accessibility dialog box, 80 AltaVista
accounts, Internet, 10–11, 24, 25 keyword search example, 137–40
Active Server Pages (ASP), 213 overview, 141–42, 161
ActiveX, 205 search engine type, 231
Activity Indicator, Internet Explorer, 57 Amazon.com, 12–13, 57, 208
Add Directory Server dialog box, 185 AND operator, 138, 139
Add Language dialog box, 79 angle brackets (<>), 203, 204
Add/Remove Hardware Wizard, 19–20 anonymous FTP sites, 178
Address bar, Internet Explorer, 57, 58–59 AOL Search, 231
Address Book area codes, 22, 23
adding contact information, 115–16 ARPAnet, 6
Choose Profile dialog box, 86 Ask Jeeves, 143–45
creating and editing My Profile, 86 asterisk (*), 140
creating maps, 119 attaching
opening, 114 business cards to e-mail messages, 126
overview, 114 files to e-mail messages, 104, 105
printing contents, 118 Australia, 161
printing maps, 119 AutoComplete feature, 58, 86, 124
setting up distribution lists, 116–17
using to locate people, 118 B
addresses, IP, 41, 56 backbones, defined, 5
advertising Back button, Internet Explorer, 60
banner ads, 232 banner ads, 232
methods for publicizing Web sites, 231–33 baud rate, 18
publicizing Web sites offline, 235 Belgium, 161
Index 251
BigBook, 175 client programs, defined, 3
bizjournals.com, 175 client/server architecture, 3
blocking e-mail messages, 107–8 CNET, 151
<body> tag, 205 Colors dialog box, 79
Boolean logic, 138, 139–40 .com domain type, 56, 210–11
bridges, defined, 4 Commerce Business Daily, 8
Browse For Folder dialog box, 78 CompaniesOnline, 175
bulletin board methodology, 209 COM ports, 21
business cards. See also signatures, e-mail conference calls, 186. See also NetMeeting
attaching to e-mail messages, 126 connections, Internet
creating, 125 dial-up configuration, 24–25, 87, 128–29
overview, 124, 125 modem configuration, 20–21
saving to file, 126 remote access to corporate networks, 45–51
business users sharing, 32–44
doing research, 171–75 types of, 10, 24–32
list of uses for Internet, 7–8 via cable modem, 26–28, 44
numbers of Internet users, 1–2 via DSL, 28–29, 44
search services for, 140–61 via ISDN, 30–31
Web sites for, 8–9, 12–15 Connect To The Internet icon, 24
BusinessWire, 175 Content Advisor, 84–86
Control Panel
C Internet Options icon, 24, 77
cable modems Phone And Modem Options icon, 19
connecting to Internet via, 27–28 cookies, 74
how they work, 26–27 Copernic
vs. other high-speed options, 32 downloading, 162–64
overview, 10 installing, 164–68
security issues, 28 using, 168–70
sharing connections, 44 versions of, 162
calling cards, 48–49 copying text, 221
Canada, 161 corporate networks. See networks
Carnivore, 12 crawlers, Web, 134, 231
case sensitivity, 139, 212 Create Hyperlink dialog box, 221–22
CGI scripts, 205 Customize Search Settings dialog box, 73–74
chat rooms, 200 CuteFTP, 178
chatting in NetMeeting, 191–92 Cyber411, 147
checking spelling, 120, 126–27 Cyveillance, 133
Cisco Systems
home page, 171–72 D
researching via Yahoo!, 172–73 databases, 213
CityGuide Sweden, 161 default browser, changing, 88

Deja, 161 downloading
Deleted Items folder, Outlook Express, 94, 129 Copernic, 162–64
deleting e-mail messages, 100 and modem speed, 18
Dell Computer Web site, 13–14 Drafts folder, Outlook Express, 94
Dial dialog box, 184 DSL (digital subscriber lines)
dialing rules connecting to Internet via, 29
for 10-digit dialing, 23 how it works, 28–29
creating new location, 22–23 vs. other high-speed options, 32
editing location options, 22–23 overview, 10
setting up, 22–23 security issues, 29
dial-up Internet connections, 24–25, 45–46, 87, sharing connections, 44
128–29 Dun & Bradstreet, 8, 175
digital certificates, 86, 127 dynamic HTML, 205
digital images, 218, 222
digital subscriber lines. See DSL (digital subscriber
lines)
E
.edu domain type, 56, 210
Direct Hit, 144–45, 231 eGroups.com, 234
directories, for Internet calls, 184–85 electronic mail. See e-mail
directory search services e-mail. See also messages, e-mail; Outlook Express
defined, 135 attaching messages to business cards, 126
list of sites for specific purposes, 160 blocking messages, 107–8
LookSmart, 153–54, 160, 161, 231 checking spelling, 120, 126–27
vs. search engines, 136 creating messages, 101–2
Snap, 157–58, 160 deleting messages, 100
submitting Web sites to, 228, 229–30, 231 enhancing security, 127–28
Yahoo!, 135, 136, 158–60, 172–73, 229, 230, and file attachments, 104–5
231
filtering messages, 107–10
discussion groups, e-mail, 193–200
forwarding messages, 99
distribution lists, Address Book, 116–17
housekeeping, 129–30
DN Resources Web site, 215
how it works, 92–93
documents, as Web site content
location for message folders, 129
creating new content, 218–19
managing, 130–31
digitizing existing content, 218
marking messages, 98–99
importing text, 220–21
message receipt options, 122–23
overview, 218
printing messages, 98
Dogpile, 145–47
reading messages, 95–96, 121
domain hosting. See Web hosting services
replying to messages, 99
domain names
saving messages, 96–98
checking for availability, 211–12
sending messages, 102
choosing, 210–11
signatures for messages, 106–7
domain types, 56–57, 210–11
stationery for messages, 103–4
dot-coms, 57
using HTML in messages, 102–3, 123, 124
Downloaded Program Files folder, 79
Index 253
e-mail discussion groups. See mailing lists Google, 148–50, 231
Ethernet adapters, 10 GoTo.com, 160
Europe, 161 Greece, 161
Excite, 231 groups. See distribution lists, Address Book
F H
Favorites list <head> tag, 205
adding Web sites to, 60–62 History list, 12, 62–64, 79
managing, 62 Home button, Internet Explorer, 60
organizing, 62 Hoover’s Online, 8, 173–74
Favorites menu, 60–61 host names. See domain names; Web hosting
fax modems, 180 services
fax service HotBot, 134–35, 151–53, 161, 231
configuring, 180 HTML code
first-time use, 180–81 overview, 202–5
using to receive faxes, 182 role in Web pages, 202–5
using to send faxes, 180–81 using in e-mail messages, 102–3, 123, 124
FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation), 12 <html> tag, 202, 203
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 12 HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol), 4, 56
files. See also documents, as Web site content hubs, defined, 4
attaching to e-mail messages, 104, 105 hyperlinks
receiving attached files, 104, 105 creating, 221–22
File Transfer Protocol (FTP), 4, 56, 178–79 exchanging as form of advertising, 232
filtering e-mail messages, 107–10 sending in e-mail messages, 64
finding. See also search services testing, 223
contact information for people, 118 using to navigate Web, 59–60
mailing lists, 196–98 verifying, 223
Web hosting services, 214–15 HyperTerminal
Fonts dialog box, 79–80 configuring connection, 186–88
formatting text, 221 overview, 186
Forward button, Internet Explorer, 60 saving sessions, 188
forwarding e-mail messages, 99 using to connect to remote systems, 188
FrontPage, 205, 212, 219–20 using to transfer files, 188–89
FTP (File Transfer Protocol), 4, 56, 178–79 Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), 4, 56
G I
Gateway-Japan, 161 IAB (Internet Architecture Board), 5
gateways, defined, 4 IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority), 5
Go2Net site, 150–51 identities, Outlook Express, 110–12
Go.com, 136, 147–48, 231 IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), 5
Go Gettem, 147 images, for Web pages, 218, 222
IMAP (Internet Mail Access Protocol), 4

<img> tag, 203, 204 customizing, 77–89
importing text, 220–21 default start page, 55
Inbox folder, Outlook Express, 94 Forward button, 60
indexes. See directory search services Home button, 60
Infoseek, 147, 148, 231 opening, 55
installing Radio bar, 64–65
Copernic, 164–68 role in Internet history, 6, 7
modems, 18–20 search feature, 69–74
Instant Messaging, 116, simple searching using Search bar, 70–71
.int domain type, 56, 210 testing Web sites, 223, 224
Integrated Services Digital Network. See ISDN using to navigate Web, 58–64
(Integrated Services Digital Network) versions of, 54
Internal Revenue Service (IRS), 8, 14–15 window elements, 57–58
international search services, 161 Internet Mail Access Protocol (IMAP), 4
Internet. See also Internet services Internet Options dialog box, Internet Explorer
configuring dial-up connections, 24–25, 45–46, Advanced tab, 76, 89
87, 128–29 Connections tab, 24, 87
defined, 2 Content tab, 83–86
and dot-coms, 57 General tab, 75, 77, 78, 79–80
history of, 6–7 Programs tab, 88
how it works, 2–5 Security tab, 80–83
list of business uses, 7–8 Internet phone calls, 184–85
list of business Web sites, 8–9 Internet Properties dialog box, 77. See also Internet
management of, 5 Options dialog box, Internet Explorer
number of business users, 1–2 Internet Protocol (IP), 3, 56
security and privacy issues, 11–12 Internet protocols, 3–4. See also FTP (File Transfer
sharing connections, 32–44 Protocol)
size of, 133 Internet Research Task Force (IRTF), 5
supporting hardware, 4–5 Internet service providers (ISPs)
as type of WAN, 2 and connection set-up, 24–25
types of connections, 10, 24–32 selecting, 10–11
user statistics, 1–2, 7 Internet services. See also e-mail; newsgroups; Web
Internet accounts, 10–11, 24, 25 sites
Internet Architecture Board (IAB), 5 chat rooms, 200
Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), 5 for fax modems, 180–82
Internet call directories, 184–85 FTP (File Transfer Protocol), 4, 56, 178–79
Internet Connection Wizard, 11, 24–25, 42, 87 HyperTerminal, 186–89
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), 5 mailing lists, 193–200
Internet Explorer NetMeeting, 189–93
advanced searching using Search bar, 72–73 specifying programs to use, 88
Back button, 60 Telnet, 4, 179–80
customized searching using MSN Search, 73–74 using Phone Dialer, 183–86
Index 255
Internet Society (ISOC), 5
Internet zone, 81
M
Magellan, 160
IP addresses, 41, 56
mailing lists
IP (Internet Protocol), 3, 56
for business, 196–98
IRTF (Internet Research Task Force), 5
etiquette, 199
ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network)
finding, 196–98
connecting to Internet via, 30–31
how they work, 194
how it works, 30
overview, 193
vs. other high-speed options, 32
starting, 200, 234
overview, 10
subscribing to, 195
sharing connections, 33–39
unsubscribing from, 195
ISOC (Internet Society), 5
as way to advertise, 234
ISPs. See Internet service providers (ISPs)
and Web hosting services, 213
J Majordomo, 194
Mamma, 147
Japan, 161
maps, creating in Address Book, 119
Java, 205
marking e-mail messages, 98–99
K meetings. See NetMeeting
Menu bar, Internet Explorer, 57
Kbps, 18
Message Rules dialog box, 107–10
keywords, 137–38
messages, e-mail
L attaching business cards to, 126
attaching files to, 104, 105
Language Preference dialog box, 79
blocking, 107–8
LANs (local area networks), 2, 42, 43–44
checking spelling, 120, 126–27
LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol), 4
creating, 101–2
LibrarySpot, 175
deleting, 100
link exchanges, 232
enhancing security, 127–28
links. See hyperlinks
filtering, 107–10
Links bar, Internet Explorer, 57, 60
forwarding, 99
Listbot, 234
housekeeping, 129–30
Listproc, 194
HTML in, 102–3, 123, 124
Listserv, 194
location for folders, 129
Liszt, mailing list directory, 196–97
managing, 130–31
local area networks (LANs), 2, 42, 43–44
marking, 98–99
Local Intranet zone, 81–82
printing, 98
LookSmart, 153–54, 160, 161, 231
reading, 95–96, 121
L-Soft, 198, 234
receipt options, 122–23
Lycos, 136, 154–55, 161, 231
receiving attached files, 104, 105
replying to, 99

saving, 96–98 uses for, 189, 191–92, 193
sending, 102 using to place calls, 191
signatures for, 106–7 Netscape Navigator
stationery for, 103–4 role in Internet history, 6
Metacrawler, 147 testing Web sites, 224
metasearch engines, 145, 146–47 Netscape Search, 231
metasearch software Network And Dial-Up Connections folder, 33,
Copernic, 162–70 45–46
defined, 136 Network Connection Wizard, 46–47
how it works, 136 Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP), 4
and Internet Explorer searching, 137 networks
<meta> tag, 205 configuring clients for shared Internet
Microsoft, as FTP site, 178–79 connections, 39–44
Microsoft FrontPage, 205, 212, 219–20 defined, 2
Microsoft Locate A Web Presence Provider Web enabling Internet connection sharing, 32–39
site, 214–15 remote access to, 45–51
.mil domain type, 56, 210 Network Solutions, 211
MILnet, 6 New Identity dialog box, 111
modems. See also cable modems New Location dialog box, 22–23
configuring, 20–21 New Mail Rule dialog box, 108–9
high-speed alternatives, 10, 26–32 newsgroups, 112–14, 233
how they work, 18 NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol), 4
installing, 18–20 Northern Light, 156–57, 161, 231
overview, 10 NOT operator, 138, 140
Properties dialog box, 20–21 NSFnet, 6
Move dialog box, 110
moving text, 221 O
MP3 files, 142 123 Link, 160–61
MSN Search, 70–74, 231 online ordering, 226
My Profile feature, 86 Open Directory, 148, 231
opening
N Address Book, 114
National Center for Supercomputing Internet Explorer, 55
Applications, 6 NetMeeting, 190
National Science Foundation, 6 Outlook Express, 93
.net domain type, 56, 210–11 Opera 4 browser, 225
NetMeeting Options dialog box, Outlook Express. See also
chatting online, 191–92 Internet Options dialog box, Internet Explorer
configuring, 190 Compose tab, 124–26
opening, 190 Connection tab, 128–29
overview, 189 General tab, 96, 120–21
Maintenance tab, 129–30
Index 257
Options dialog box, Outlook Express continued using HTML in e-mail messages, 102–3, 123,
Read tab, 121 124
Receipts tab, 122–23 using identities, 110–12
Security tab, 127–28 window elements, 93–94
Send tab, 123–24
Signatures tab, 106–7 P
Spelling tab, 120, 126–27 packets, 3, 4–5
ordering, online, 226 passwords, for Content Advisor, 84
.org domain type, 56, 210–11 Phone And Modem Options dialog box
Orientation Africa, 161 and Add/Remove Hardware Wizard, 19
OR operator, 138 and dialing rules, 22
Outbox folder, Outlook Express, 94, 124 for setting up calling cards, 48–49
Outlook Express phone calls
blocking e-mail messages, 107–8 and calling cards, 48–49
creating e-mail messsages, 101–2 and dialing rules, 22–23
customizing, 120–30 Internet, 184–85
placing using NetMeeting, 191
Deleted Items folder, 94, 129
placing using Phone Dialer, 183–84
deleting e-mail messages, 100
placing via computer, 183–84, 191
Drafts folder, 94
receiving via Phone Dialer, 184
e-mail housekeeping, 129–30
and remote computer access, 45–47
enhancing security, 127–28
Phone Dialer
and file attachments, 104–5
adding servers to Directories list, 184–85
filtering e-mail messages, 107–10
using to place phone calls, 183–84
forwarding e-mail messages, 99
using to place video calls, 185–86
how e-mail works, 92–93
using to receive phone calls, 184
Inbox folder, 94
plain text e-mail messages, 102, 123, 124
location for message folders, 129
Plug and Play, 18
marking e-mail messages, 98–99 plus sign (+), 139
as newsreader, 112–14 Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP), 4
opening, 93 POP (Post Office Protocol), 4, 37
Options dialog box, 96, 106, 120–30 portals, 136
Outbox folder, 94, 124 ports, 35, 37
printing e-mail messages, 98 Post Office Protocol (POP), 4, 37
reading e-mail messages, 95–96, 121 PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol), 4
replying to e-mail messages, 99 printing
saving e-mail messages, 96, 97–98 Address Book, 118
sending e-mail messsages, 102 e-mail messages, 98
Sent Items folder, 94, 123 maps, 119
signatures for e-mail messages, 106–7 Web pages, 67–69
spell checking e-mail messages, 120, 126–27 privacy, 11–12
stationery for e-mail messages, 103–4 profiles. See identities, Outlook Express

protocols, Internet, 3–4 search services. See also directory search services;
 tag, 202, 203 metasearch software
publishing, as reason for Web site, 206 AltaVista, 137, 141–42, 161, 231
Publish Web dialog box, 226–27 Ask Jeeves, 143–45
for business users, 140–61
Q Direct Hit, 144–45
quotation marks (“), 139 directories vs. search engines, 136
Dogpile, 145–47
R Go2Net site, 150–51
Radio bar, Internet Explorer, 64–65 Go.com, 136, 147–48, 231
ratings system. See Content Advisor Google, 148–50, 231
reading e-mail messages, 95–96, 121 HotBot, 134–35, 151–53, 161
RealNames, 160 international, 161
receipts, e-mail message, 122–23 lists of sites for specific purposes, 160–61
receiving faxes, 182 LookSmart, 153–54, 160, 161, 231
Recreational Software Advisory Council, 85 Lycos, 154–55
remote access metasearch, 145, 146–47
and calling cards, 48–49 Northern Light, 156–57
defined, 45 overview, 134
enabling automatic connections, 37–38 role of keywords, 137–38
using phone lines, 45–47 submitting Web sites to, 228–31
using VPN tunnels, 49–51 types of services, 134–36
repeaters, defined, 5 Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), 213
replying to e-mail messages, 99 security
research, doing, 171–75. See also search services and “always on” Internet connections, 28, 29
Restricted Sites zone, 81 and the Internet, 11–12
robots, 134, 137 Security Settings dialog box, 83
routers, defined, 5 Security zones, Internet Explorer
changing security levels, 82–83
S and e-mail, 127–28
SA Online, 161 setting security levels, 80–82
saving Status bar display, 58
e-mail messages, 96–98 Select People dialog box, 109
Web pages, 66–67 Send Fax Wizard, 181
Scotland.org, 161 sending
Search bar, Internet Explorer, 70–71 e-mail messsages, 102
Search.com, 147 faxes, 180–81
search engines. See also search services Sent Items folder, Outlook Express, 94, 123
vs. directories, 136 servers, defined, 3
HotBot example, 134–35 Settings dialog box, 75, 78–79
how they work, 134 sharing Internet connections, 32–44
Index 259
signatures, e-mail, 106–7. See also business cards
SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol), 4, 37
U
uniform resource locators (URLs). See URLs
Snap, 157–58, 160, 231
United Hellas, 161
South Africa, 161
United Kingdom, 161
spell checking, 120, 126–27
uploading, and modem speed, 18
spiders, 134, 137
URLs
Standard toolbar, Internet Explorer, 57
entering in Internet Explorer, 58–59
stationery, for e-mail messages, 103–4
in HTML code, 204
Statistical Resources on the Web, 9
overview, 56–57
Status bar, Internet Explorer, 58
U.S. Department of Defense, 6
subdomains, 213
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), 12
Sweden, 161
U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS), 8, 14–15
Switch Identities dialog box, 111–12
usability testing, 225–26
T user profiles. See identities, Outlook Express
users. See business users
T-1 lines, 9
TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol), 3, 6, 34, 35, 40, 41–42 V
Telecommunications Act, 7 vCards. See business cards
telephone calls. See phone calls video calls, 185–86
Telnet, 4, 179–80 videoconferencing, 193
temporary Internet files, 12, 74–76 virtual domains, 212
10-digit phone dialing, 22, 23 virtual private networks, 49–51
terminal emulation. See HyperTerminal; Telnet VPN tunnels, 49–51
text
adding to Web pages, 220–21 W
copying, 221 The Wall Street Journal Web site, 9
entering, 221 Web-authoring tools, 205
formatting, 221 Webbel, 161
importing, 220–21 Web browsers. See also Internet Explorer
moving, 221 changing default browser, 88
Thomson Financial Securities Data, 175 how they work, 54–55
Tile.Net/Lists, 197 role in Internet history, 6
Title bar, Internet Explorer, 57 testing Web sites, 223–25
<title> tag, 205 Webcasts, 64–65
transferring files Web crawlers, 134, 231
using FTP, 4, 56, 178–79 Web hosting services
using HyperTerminal, 188–89 choosing, 212–14
using NetMeeting, 193 local, 215
and Web hosting services, 213 publishing of Web sites to servers, 226–27
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol signing up for service, 216
(TCP/IP), 3, 6, 34, 35, 40, 41–42 where to find, 214–15
Trusted Sites zone, 81, 82

Web pages. See also Web sites WebTop, 161
adding images, 218, 222 wide area networks (WANs), defined, 2
adding text, 220–21 wildcards, 140
copying portions of, 66–67 Windows Explorer, saving e-mail messages in
creating, 219–22 folders, 96–97
how they work, 202–5 wizards
new technologies for, 205 Add/Remove Hardware Wizard, 19–20
printing, 67–69 Internet Connection Wizard, 11, 24–25, 42, 87
role of HTML code, 202–5 Network Connection Wizard, 46–47
saving, 66–67 Send Fax Wizard, 181
sending in e-mail messages, 64 The World Factbook Web site, 9
Web rings, 232–33 World Wide Web. See also Web sites
Web sites. See also search services; Web pages navigating with Internet Explorer, 58–64
adding to Favorites list, 60–62 role in Internet history, 6
for advertising, 206 size of, 133
advertising of, 231–33
and bulletin boards, 209 X
for business users, 8–9, 12–15 XML (Extended Markup Language), 205
choosing hosting service, 212–14
collecting existing content for inclusion, 216–17 Y
creating new content, 217–18 Yahoo!, 135, 136, 158–60, 172–73, 229, 230, 231
database support, 213 Yelloweb, 161
defined, 202
developing strategies for, 206–9 Z
disk space allotment, 212 ZDNet, 136
for information collection, 207
for online ordering, 226
publicizing, 227–35
publishing, 226–27
reasons to have, 206–8
role of aesthetics, 208–9
role of content, 208
role of navigation, 208
submitting to search services, 228–31
testing browser compatibility, 223–25
testing links, 223
testing usability, 225–26
for transaction processing, 207
as type of publishing, 206
and Web server considerations, 214
what makes them good, 208–9
as works-in-progress, 209
Index 261
T he manuscript for this book was prepared and submitted to Redmond
Technology Press in electronic form. Text files were prepared using
Microsoft Word 2000. Pages were composed using PageMaker 6.5 for
Windows, with text in Frutiger and Caslon. Composed files were delivered
to the printer as electronic prepress files.
Interior Design
Stefan Knorr
Project Editor
Project
Paula Thurman
Technical Editor
Michael Jang
Indexer
Julie Kawabata

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Effective

Copyright © 2000 Pat Coleman and Stephen L. Nelson

Library of Congress Catalog Card No: applied for

Printed and bound in the United States of America.

Skill 1 Understand the Environment 1

Skill 2 Make Internet Connections 17

Skill 3 Browse the Web

Skill 4 Communicate with Electronic Mail 91

Skill 5 Use Search Services 133

Skill 6 Understand Other Internet Services 177

Skill 7 Publish on the Web

Skill 1 Understand the Environment 1

Skill 2 Make Internet Connections 17

viii Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

Skill 3 Browse the Web

Skill 4 Communicate with Electronic Mail 91

xii Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

xiv Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

T he Effective Executive’s series is a line of books written specifically for the

What This Book Assumes About You

Skill 1: Understand the Environment

Skill 2: Make Internet Connections

Skill 3: Browse the Web

Skill 4: Communicate with Electronic Mail

xviii Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

Skill 5: Use Search Services

Skill 6: Understand Other Internet Services

Skill 7: Publish on the Web

xx Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

UNDERSTAND THE ENVIRONMENT

What Is the Internet?

How the Internet Works

2 Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

Skill 1 Understand the Environment 3

PROTOCOL WHAT IT DOES

Table 1-1 Some important Internet protocols.

NOTE An intranet is a network that is internal to a corporation or organization and

How Information Travels Over the Internet

4 Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

Who Manages the Internet?

Skill 1 Understand the Environment 5

6 Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

What Can a Business User Do on the Internet?

Skill 1 Understand the Environment 7

SITE URL DESCRIPTION

8 Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

Table 1-2 Some great Internet sites for business users.

What You Need to Connect to the Internet

Skill 1 Understand the Environment 9

Getting an Account with an ISP

10 Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

Security and Privacy on the Internet

Skill 1 Understand the Environment 11

Three Sites for Business Newcomers to the

12 Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

Skill 1 Understand the Environment 13

14 Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

Skill 1 Understand the Environment 15

MAKE INTERNET CONNECTIONS

I f you work in a typical corporate network environment, connecting to the Internet

Understanding How a Modem Works

18 Effective Executive’s Guide to the Internet - Electronic Edition

1. Open Control Panel.