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Internet Components

By Prof. Brijesh Joshi

History of the Internet

The birth of the Internet can be traced to a small government project in the United States of America way back in 1970s. It was born from the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) network called the ARPANET. The ARPANET had several small computers called Interface Message Processors (IMPs) which were connected to each other through modems and leased lines that facilitated exchange of data between different computers via packate switching. As the news spread about ARPANET, more and more computers got connected to it gradually increasing its size and laying the seed for the Internet.

How do web developers use the Internet?


e-mail: Tops the list as the most used application of the Internet Information search: Looking for prospects and "knowledge" Business: Though, the survey was conducted on web developers, I was surprised and most of the 40 participants placed "Business" in the third place

How the Internet Works


The Internet transmits data from one computer (called a host) to another If the receiving computer is on a network to which the first computer is directly connected, it can send the message directly If the receiving computer is not on a network to which the sending computer is connected, the sending computer relays the message to another computer that can forward it

Routing Messages over the Internet

How the Internet Works


Data is passed in chunks called packets Internet Protocol (IP): communications standard that enables traffic to be routed from one network to another as needed Transmission Control Protocol (TCP): widely used transport-layer protocol that is used in combination with IP by most Internet applications Uniform Resource Locator (URL): an assigned address on the Internet for each computer

How the Internet Works (cont.)

Packet switching is the idea that packets of data can be "routed from one place to another based on address information carried in the data, much like the address on a letter. Packet switching replaces the older concept of "circuit switching," in which an actual electrical circuit is established all the way from the source to the destination. Circuit switching was the idea behind traditional telephone exchanges.

The big advantage of packet switching: a physical connection can carry packets for many different purposes at the same time,depending on how heavy the traffic is. This is much more efficient than tying up a physical connection for the entire duration of a phone call.

Accessing the Internet


Connect via a LAN server Connect via Serial Line Internet Protocol (SLIP)/Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) Connect via an online service Other ways to connect

Several Ways to Access the Internet

Internet Service Providers


Internet service provider (ISP): any company that provides individuals or organizations with access to the Internet Most charge a monthly fee Many ISPs and online services offer broadband Internet access through digital subscriber lines (DSLs), cable, or satellite

Browser
A browser is an application program that provides a way to look at and interact with all the information on the World Wide Web.

Technically, a Web browser is a client program that uses HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) to make requests of Web servers throughout the Internet on behalf of the browser user. Most browsers support e-mail and the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) but a Web browser is not required for those Internet protocols and more specialized client programs are more popular.

The first Web browser, called WorldWideWeb, was created in 1990. That browser's name was changed to Nexus to avoid confusion with the developing information space known as the World Wide Web. The first Web browser with a graphical user interface was Mosaic, which appeared in 1993. Many of the user interface features in Mosaic went into Netscape Navigator. Microsoft followed with its Internet Explorer (IE).

As of September 2006, Internet Explorer is the most commonly used browser, having won the so-called browser wars between IE and Netscape. Other browsers include: Firefox, which was developed from Mozilla (the open source version of Netscape). Flock, an open source browser based on Firefox and optimized for Web 2.0 features such as blogging and social bookmarking . Safari, a browser for Apple computers (at this writing, the third most popular browser). Lynx, a text-only browser for Unix shell and VMS users. Opera, a fast and stable browser that's compatible with most relatively operating systems.

Browser Features

Address field

This area is where the URL (web page address) for the web page is displayed or entered. (A field is a text entry or display area.) In many browsers, there's a little downward facing arrow next to this field. When you click on the arrow you will see a list of recently visited websites. Clicking one of these URLs will take you to that website. You can also enter a URL into this field and then press enter or return to go to the website. In some browsers there is a "Go" button next to this field that initiates a server request after typing in a URL. By the way, you don't usually have to type in the "http://" part of the URL. Most browsers will add that information in for you when you press enter or return. When you encounter a page that has a form on it, such as an order page, this button will make filling out the form much easier. See the Autofill section in Preferences to use this feature.

Autofill Forms Button

Back Button

Use this button to go back to the previous page opened in this particular browser window. In some browsers, holding the mouse down on this button produces a menu of previous pages, that you can then choose from. In other browsers, there's a little arrow next to the Back button that produces this menu. You can easily create a shortcut to your favorite web pages by using the Bookmark (or Favorites) menu or button. This is a very important feature and it works a little differently in each browser. In Internet Explorer, use the Favorites Menu to Add to Favorites. You can then use the Organize Favorites menu item to place your bookmark in a folder or particular place in the list. In Netscape, FireFox and Safari, choose Add Bookmark from the Bookmark menu. You can then choose Show All or Manage Bookmarks to create folders and/or rearrange your bookmarks. In most browsers you can also place favorite websites to an area just above the main browser window.

Bookmarks or Favorites

Close Box

This button in the upper right corner of the window will close the browser window. If there is only one browser window open, the program will exit. One way to tell if you have more than one browser window open is to look at the button bar at the bottom of the screen. If you see more than one button with the icon of the browser you are using, you can switch between the open windows by clicking on these buttons. Another way to deal with multiple windows is to Minimize or Restore the window to its pre-maximized size. On the Macintosh, there's a similar button, but separate windows are more obvious and closing the last one does not quit the browser. (See also: Minimize or Restore and Maximize.) In Internet Explorer a button called Fonts gives you a menu to choose the size of the text displayed in the browser window. Some browsers offer two buttons, Larger and Smaller to change the size of the text.

Fonts or Larger or Smaller

Forward Button

Like the Back button, the Forward button takes you to pages that you have previously seen in a particular browser window. The Forward button is only available if you have used the Back button and want to go Forward to where you were before. In some browsers, holding the mouse down on this button produces a menu of previous pages, that you can then choose from. In other browsers, there's a little arrow next to the Forward button that produces this menu History Button

Most browsers offers a History button or menu item which allows you to look at the last several hundred web pages you've been to, and select one of them for an easy return path.

Home Button

This button takes you to the page that has been designated as your "home" page. You can select your "home page" in the browser's Preferences (or Internet Options) section.

Favorites, Links or Personal Toolbar

You can add your own buttons to this toolbar. In Explorer it is called Favorites or Links Toolbar and in Netscape it is called the Personal Toolbar. These toolbars can be hidden or shown by using the View menu. In Windows you can use this button to make the browser's window enlarge to full screen. When the window is already maximized this button is replaced by the Restore button. (See also: Minimize or Restore and CloseBox.) In Windows the Menubar is a part of each browser window. Choices include File, Edit, View, History, Favorites or Bookmarks and Help. On the Macintosh, these Menus are always at the top of the screen. In Windows you can use this button to make the browser's window disappear from the screen. You can restore the window by clicking its button on the bottom of the screen. (See also: Maximize or Restore and CloseBox.)

Maximize Button

Menubar

Minimize Button

Print Button

You can print any web page by clicking this button. If you suspect the contents of a browser's window may have changed since the last time you viewed it, you should click the Reload or Refresh button to update the page. If the browser's window is maximized you can use this button to restore the size of the window so that it no longer fills the entire screen. This is very useful if you want to see more than one window at the same time. (See also: Minimize or Maximize and CloseBox.) In some older browers there is a button to go to the page you have designated as your "search" page. You can select your "search page" in the browser's preferences section or by clicking the "Choose a Search Engine" button in the Search window. Most browsers now have a search field, at the right end of the main button bar, which you can type into to perform Internet searches.

Reload or Refresh Button

Restore Button

Search Button or Field

Security Indicators

Most browsers show a padlock icon in the lower left corner of the window to indicate a secure connection. This means that data being sent or received from that server is encrypted and would be extremely difficuly for a third party to access. If this padlock is in the locked position , you know you have a secure server connection. If the padlock is unlocked, then you do not. Another way to tell is by the URL or web site address. If the URL begins with https:// then the server connection is secure.

Status Bar

The bar along the bottom of the browser's window shows you what is being loaded into the browser window at the moment or the URL of the link your mouse is over. There is usually also a progress indicator that shows how much of a file has already been downloaded. Use this button if you want to stop loading the contents of a page. The title of the web page appears in the browser window's title. Sometimes pages don't have titles. When you bookmark a page, the window's title is used to identify the bookmark.

Stop Button

Window Title

Browsers Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (IE) by Microsoft is the most common Internet browser today. IE was introduced in 1995 and passed Netscape in popularity in 1998. Netscape Netscape was the first commercial Internet browser. It was introduced in 1994. Netscape gradually lost its popularity to Internet Explorer. Mozilla The Mozilla Project has grown from the ashes of Netscape. Browsers based on Mozilla code is the second largest browser family on the Internet today, representing about 30% of the Internet community.

Firefox Firefox is a new browser from Mozilla. It was released in 2004 and has grown to be the second most popular browser on the Internet.

Opera Opera is another Internet browser. It is known to be fast and small, standardscompliant, and available for many operating systems. Opera is the preferred browser for a number of small devices like mobile phones and hand-held computers.

What is Email - Electronic Mail


Email is shorthand term, meaning Electronic Mail. Email much the same as a letter, only that it is exchanged in a different way. Computers use the TCP/IP protocol suite to send email messages in the form of packets. The first thing you need to send and receive emails is an email address. When you create an account with a Internet Service Provider you are usually given an email address to send from and receive emails. If this isn't the case you can create an email address / account at web sites such as yahoo, hotmail and lycos.

Anatomy of an E-Mail Message

The header of an email includes the From:, To:, Cc: and Subject: fields. So you enter the name and address of the recipient in the From: field, the name and address of anyone who is being copied to in the Cc: field, and the subject of the message obviously in the Subject: field.

The part below the header of the email is called the body, and contains the message itself. Spelling the correct address is critical with an email. Like with a normal postal letter, if you get the address wrong it won't go the correct receiver. If you send an email to an address which doesnt exist the message will come back to you as a Address Unknown erro routine.

What are Email Addresses?


An email address is where electronic mail is sent from and received. An email address has a specific location on the internet which can be found by other servers and networks fairly easy. There are a few components to an email address and they are standard throughout the internet.

The first part of an email address is the username. The second part of all email addresses is the "@" symbol, commonly known as the "at" symbol. This symbol is what separates the first part of the email address called the username from the third part of the email called the hostname or domain name. The host name identifies the specific server computer. In addition to the host name, there is also a three letter suffix which identifies the organization that operates the servers. For instance .edu stands for an educational institution such as a college or university. A .com extension stands for commercial, meaning a commercial entity. A .org extension stands for organization, etc. Using the above paradigm, a standard email address will look like the following: joe@unitedstates.edu

Email Address Limitations


An email address is made up of four parts as stated above, the username, @ symbol, hosting name and three letter extension. All these parts have specific limitations as follows.

Username

Email addresses must include only ASCII characters. The length of the username must not be over 64 characters. The username is not case sensitive, but is usually written in lower case letters. The username can include all uppercase and lowercase letters. It can also include numbers from 0-9. The username portion of an email address can also use the following ASCII characters ! # $ % & ' * + - / = ? ^ _ ` { | } ~ However, these characters are usually discouraged because they are not easily identifiable or used in general communication. The period "." can be used in an email address as long as it is neither the first character nor last one

At symbol
The "at" symbol (@) is the only symbol that can be used to separate the username and the host name.

Host Name (sometimes referred to as the Domain Name)


The host name is a little more restrictive in the symbols that it can use. For instance, the host name can include all letters, numbers and only the hyphen character. Letters used in the host name or sometimes referred to as the domain name are not case sensitive.

Domain Extension

All email addresses must include the defined extension such as .com, .org, .edu, etc. Email is usually accessed from an email client that is stored on an individual computer. For instance, Microsoft makes an email client called MS Outlook. Email that is addressed and sent to you is routed and stored directly onto your computer. In order to access your email, you must go to your physical computer and pull it up on your email client program. In other words, if you wanted to check your email, you would have to go to your personal computer, open up the program for receiving and composing email such as Microsoft Outlook in order to have access.

What is Web Mail?

Web mail is one of the most useful web applications on the Internet, it allows you to access, send, receive and manage your email through a web browser. The great part of web mail is that you can access your email from almost any computer around the world, as long as it has an Internet connection and web browser.

What's the difference between web mail and email?

With regular e-mail, the message sits on a server waiting for you to open your e-mail program (Outlook, Eudora, Thunderbird). When you open the program (or use the 'check for e-mail' function, the waiting messages are downloaded to your computer. There are setups that leave messages on the server, but this is not typical. The disadvantage of downloading your e-mail is that you can no longer access the messages anywhere else (your work, friend's house....). The advantage to downloading messages is you can archive them.

Web mail offers a huge advantage. The messages are not downloaded to your computer, they are kept on a server. This allows them to be accessed from anywhere. All you need is a web browser and a connection to the net. The down side is archiving. Many web mail providers don't allow for tons of storage (Gmail changed that trend for some people - now others are following suit).

Web mail has been made popular by many technology companies including search engines and portals. Some of the more popular web mail services available are Yahoo! Mail, Google Gmail and Microsoft's Hotmail. You will be happy to know that these web mail services are usually offered for free. Usually these companies offer their web mail service for free to entice viewers to keep coming back to their site. Many individuals check their email on a daily basis, the more a viewer visits a website, and the more revenue a company can make selling advertisements.

Advantages of Web Mail


Email Stored Centrally The obvious advantage of using web mail is the ability to access your email from any location that has an Internet connection and web browser. You now don't need to be shackled up to one computer at one location to send and receive email.

Maintenance and Administration Where traditional email clients made it necessary for you the end user to maintain and administer to your own email, today, all administration and maintenance is done on the web mail services end. You don't have to worry about patches, reconfiguring software, etc.

Signing Up for Web Mail is Usually Easy and Free Most web mail services make it extremely easy to sign up for an email account and start using your email immediately. Even a novice with virtually no tech experience can start an email account and use it within minutes. The vast majority of web mail services offer their email service for free. Many of these services do offer upgrades for a small fee per month or year, but for the most part, many users are satisfied with the overall email experience and usage of free web mail products.

Create Multiple Email Addresses for Different Uses Many people have more than one email address and web mail makes it easy and free to do so. Many individuals might have an email address for their family, best friends, school, work or marketing offers that they sign up for. For instance, if you are tired of getting lots of spam or newsletters, create a separate email address that all of these emails will be sent to. While this won't completely eradicate spam, you will definitely notice a huge drop in unwanted email. It should also be noted that many web mail services include a free spam guard that not only sifts through your email for added protection but also removes viruses or alerts you when a virus may be enclosed in an email.

Large Storage Capacity Many web mail services now allow you to store over 1 gigabyte of data on their email web servers. This means that you no longer have to delete your old emails or old attachments. When web mail first came on the scene, many services sometimes offered less than 5 megabytes of storage space. Many users were unsatisfied with this amount, especially when their friends would send them files that were sometimes the entire capacity of their storage space.

Disadvantages of Web Mail


Web mail is one of the most used applications on the web and the vast majority of people that use it are more than satisfied. However, there are a few disadvantages of web mail, they include: Online Accessibility

A normal email client doesn't require the end user to stay online to read all their email, web mail does. This means that if you do not have a Internet connection, not only will you not be able to send or receive email, but you wont' have access to your saved email online. While this is not a particular concern with many people that have continual Internet access, for those people that have shoddy Internet connections or live in areas of the world where Internet accessibility is not as stable, this can be an enormous problem.

Disadvantages of Web Mail


Advertisements For many people that use web mail services, the trade off of a free, easy to use service is usually the fact that they are bombarded by advertisements. For some people, too many advertisements can be distracting, especially when advertisements are inserted in actual emails. While this might not be that important when emailing close friends or family members, this might be deemed inappropriate or unprofessional if using a web based email service with lots of advertisements when conducting business.

Disadvantages of Web Mail


Security and Spam Issues Many security experts have stated that depending on the web mail service used, you might be opening up yourself to security and spam abuses. Since web mail is on a central server, a hacker can break in and search thousands or even millions of emails. Since you don't store this email, you can't control the security of it. Another fact is that services such as Google Gmail make it known that they search through your email to help their service target advertising. Spam issues are another concern. Many times large web mail services are the target of spam. While many of these web mail services have added enhanced spam guards, you might experience a higher spam rate than with traditional email.

What is Email Spoofing?

Email spoofing is the practice of changing your name in email so that it looks like the email came from somewhere or someone else. Spoofing is generally used by spammers as a first defense against people finding out who they are. It's also used by general malcontents to practice mischievous and malicious behavior. Spoofing can be a legitimate and helpful tool for someone with more than one email account. I spoof regularly from my ISP-provided email.

For instance, you have an account, yourname@isp.net, but you want all replies to go to yourname@purplemonkeys.com. You can spoof yourself so that all the mail sent from the isp.net account looks like it came from your purplemonkeys.com account. If anyone replies to your email, the reply would be sent to yourname@purplemonkeys.com. This is also helpful if you temporarily use a Web-based email account but want the replies to go to your regular email address.

Remember that spoofing anyone but yourself is absolutely and undeniably illegal. You should not ever spoof anyone else, not even in fun. To change your email identity, go into the mail preferences of your email client, or Web-based email host. Look for fields about identity. They will normally default to your email address and your name. You can change them to whatever you want.

What is email marketing?

Email marketing is, as the name suggests, the use of email in marketing communications.

What sort of email?

In its broadest sense, the term covers every email you ever send to a customer, potential customer or public venue. In general, though, it's used to refer to: Sending direct promotional emails to try and acquire new customers or persuade existing customers to buy again Sending emails designed to encourage customer loyalty and enhance the customer relationship Placing your marketing messages or advertisements in emails sent by other people

You can think of these three main forms of email marketing as the electronic equivalent of: Direct mail Sending people a print newsletter Placing advertisements in subscription magazines and newspapers

Why is email marketing so popular?


Email marketing is so popular because: sending email is much cheaper than most other forms of communication email lets you deliver your message to the people (unlike a website, where the people have to come to your message) email marketing has proven very successful for those who do it right

1. Direct email

Direct email involves sending a promotional message in the form of an email. It might be an announcement of a special offer, for example. Just as you might have a list of customer or prospect postal addresses to send your promotions too, so you can collect a list of customer or prospect email addresses. You can also rent lists of email addresses from service companies. They'll let you send your message to their own address lists. These services can usually let you target your message according to, for example, the interests or geographical location of the owners of the email address.

2. Retention email
Instead of promotional email designed only to encourage the recipient to take action (buy something, sign-up for something, etc.), you might send out retention emails. These usually take the form of regular emails known as newsletters. A newsletter may carry promotional messages or advertisements, but will aim at developing a long-term impact on the readers. It should provide the readers with value, which means more than just sales messages. It should contain information which informs, entertains or otherwise benefits the readers.

3. Advertising in other people's emails

Instead of producing your own newsletter, you can find newsletters published by others and pay them to put your advertisement in the emails they send their subscribers. Indeed, there are many email newsletters that are created for just this purpose - to sell advertising space to others.

What is spam?
The term "spam" is Internet slang (jargon) that refers to unsolicited (unwanted) commercial email (UCE) or unsolicited bulk email (UBE). Some people refer to this kind of communication as junk email to equate it with the paper junk mail that comes through the US Mail. Unsolicited email is email that you did not request; it most often contains advertisements for services or products

Foreign bank scams or advance fee fraud schemes Pyramid schemes, including multilevel marketing (MLM) Other "Get Rich Quick" or "Make Money Fast" (MMF) schemes

Quack health products and remedies


Ads for pornographic web sites

Offers of software for collecting email addresses and sending UCE

Chain mail

Chain mail is a form of junk mail. A chain mail message is generally sent to several people and includes instructions that each person should forward the letter to several others. These messages waste system resources and often grow quite large as senders append their own additions. Do not forward such messages

Search Engines
What is the main WWW800 problem? With an estimated million web pages finding the one you want is difficult!

What is a Search Engine?

A page on the web connected to a backend program Allows a user to enter words which characterise a required page Returns links to pages which match the query

A Typical Search Engine

Types of Search Engine

Automatic search engine e.g. Altavista, Lycos Classified Directory e.g. Yahoo! Meta-Search Engine e.g. Dogpile

Components of a Search Engine

Robot (or Worm or Spider)

collects pages checks for page changes constructs a sophisticated file structure to enable fast page retrieval satisfies user queries

Indexer

Searcher

Query Interface

Usually a boolean interface

(Fred and Jean) or (Bill and Sam)


"Fred Smith"

Normally allows phrase searches

Also proximity searches Not generally understood by users May have extra 'friendlier' features

Search Results

Presented as links Supposedly ordered in terms of relevancy to the query Some Search Engines score results Normally organised if groups of ten per page

Problems

Links are often out of date Usually too many links are returned Returned links are not very relevant The Engines don't know about enough pages Different engines return different results U.S. bias

Who operates Search Engines?

People who can get money from venture capitalists! Many search engines originate from U.S. universities Often paid for by advertisements Engines monitor carefully what else interests you (paid by the click)

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