JafSoft's Introduction to the Internet

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Table of Contents

  1 Introduction

  1.1 Other guides
  2 The Internet
  2.1 Some history
  2.2 How it works, and why it sometimes doesn't
  2.3 Domain names
  2.3.1 What's in a domain name?
  2.3.2 How domain names are allocated
  2.3.3 Understanding domain names
  2.3.4 More information
  2.4 Software and services currently supported by the Internet
  2.4.1 Email
  2.4.2 File Transfer Protocol (FTP)
  2.4.3 Telnet
  2.4.4 News, or UseNet
  2.4.5 Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
  2.4.6 The http protocol (the Web!)
  2.4.7 Other services
  2.5 Software and services "coming soon" to the Internet
  2.5.1 Smart agents
  2.5.2 "Search" technologies
  2.5.3 "push" technologies
  2.5.4 Internet Telephones
  2.6 Security and privacy
  2.7 Getting access to the Internet
  2.8 Response times/loading
  2.9 Commerce on the Net
  2.10 Intranet
  3 Net Culture
  3.1 Jargon
  3.1.1 Computer Jargon
  3.1.2 Internet slang
  3.2 Netiquette
  3.2.1 What to do
  3.2.2 What not to do
  3.2.3 What to beware of
  3.3 Expressing yourself in text
  3.3.1 Emphasis
  3.3.1.1 Adding emphasis to words
  3.3.1.2 Smiling, grinning, frowning
  3.3.1.3 SHOUTING
  3.3.2 Quoting
  3.4 Demographics and language
  4 Email
  4.1 Email addresses
  4.1.1 What does my email address mean?
  4.1.2 How do I find people's email addresses?
  4.2 How to use email
  4.2.1 Composing email
  4.2.2 Getting your mail
  4.2.3 Reading your mail
  4.2.4 Replying to your mail
  4.2.5 Forwarding your mail
  4.2.6 Organising your email
  4.2.6.1 Mail Folders
  4.2.6.2 Address books
  4.2.6.3 Deleting old mails
  4.2.6.4 Compressing your mail files
  4.3 Email services
  4.3.1 mailing lists
  4.3.2 Netmind
  4.3.3 FTP
  4.4 Subject lines
  4.5 How to deal with spam and junk mail
  5 Browsers
  5.1 Overview
  5.2 What all browsers do
  5.3 What all browsers don't do
  5.4 Understanding Web addresses
  5.5 Using web browsers
  5.5.1 surfing
  5.5.2 Search engines
  5.5.3 Sending email
  5.5.4 Downloading files
  5.5.5 Bookmarking popular sites
  5.5.6 Taking a local copy
  5.5.7 Viewing HTML source
  5.5.8 Tricks for using browsers
  5.6 Extending your browser's capabilities
  5.6.1 Change browser or get a newer version
  5.6.2 Install some Plug-ins
  5.6.3 Enable active content
  5.6.3.1 Animated .GIFs
  5.6.3.2 Java and ActiveX
  5.6.3.3 Javascript and other scripting languages
  5.7 Common Errors
  5.7.1 The dreaded 404
  5.7.2 DNS lookup error
  5.7.3 Access denied
  5.7.4 URL case sensitivity
  5.8 Cookies
  6 USENET and Newsgroups
  6.1 What they are
  6.2 How they are organised
  6.2.1 Newsgroup hierarchies
  6.2.2 NEWS distribution
  6.2.3 .Answers groups
  6.2.4 Moderated newsgroups
  6.2.5 Binary groups
  6.3 How to use newsgroups
  6.3.1 Using a newsreader
  6.3.2 In a browser
  6.3.3 Using DejaNews
  6.4 Usenet Conventions
  6.4.1 Subject lines
  6.4.2 Signatures
  6.5 Usenet related sites
  6.5.1 Locating useful resources by newsgroup
  6.5.2 Getting statistics on Usenet group usage
  6.5.3 DejaNews
  6.6 Other on-line news sources
  6.6.1 Service provider forums
  6.6.2 More conventional NEWS sites
  7 Sites you should know about
  7.1 Altavista
  7.1.1 Using Altavista
  7.1.2 Special searches
  7.1.3 Translating web pages
  7.2 Dejanews
  7.2.1 Finding postings
  7.2.2 Finding newsgroups
  7.2.3 Getting author profiles
  7.3 RTFM
  7.3.1 Reading the FAQ's
  7.3.2 Finding people's email addresses.
  7.4 Other search engines
  7.4.1 Yahoo
  7.4.2 Infoseek
  7.4.3 Excite
  7.4.4 WebCrawler
  7.4.5 HotBot
  7.4.6 MetaCrawler
  7.5 The Internet movie database
  7.6 Other sites
  8 Creating your own web pages
  8.1 What exactly is HTML?
  8.1.1 The overall structure of an HTML page
  8.1.2 The HTML standard
  8.1.3 Some common and useful tags
  8.1.3.1 <TITLE> ... </TITLE> tags
  8.1.3.2 Bold, Italics and underline tags
  8.1.3.3 Strong and emphasis tags
  8.1.3.4 <BR> line break tags
  8.1.3.5 <P> ... </P> Paragraph markers
  8.1.3.6 <HR> Horizontal rule tags
  8.1.3.7 Anchor (hyperlink) tags
  8.1.3.8 <IMG> image tags
  8.1.4 HTML extensions
  8.1.5 Adding hyperlinks to web pages
  8.1.6 Adding colour to web pages
  8.2 Composing web pages
  8.2.1 HTML editors
  8.2.2 Testing your pages
  8.3 How to teach yourself HTML
  8.3.1 Find an HTML reference site
  8.3.2 Buy an HTML book
  8.3.3 Learn to view local files
  8.3.4 Learn to write "correct" HTML
  8.3.5 Learn from bad examples
  8.4 Learning more advanced HTML
  8.4.1 Tables
  8.4.2 Forms
  8.4.3 Frames
  8.4.4 CGI scripts
  8.5 Things to bear in mind
  8.5.1 Different browsers
  8.5.2 Different screen sizes
  8.5.3 Links links links
  8.5.4 Graphics switched off
  8.5.5 Tables/frames/java
  8.5.6 Don't keep multiple copies
  8.5.7 Keep it fresh
  8.5.8 Don't over emphasize "under construction"
  8.6 Publishing web pages
  8.7 Getting people to view your page
  8.7.1 Link to it
  8.7.2 Tell your friends
  8.7.3 Announce it
  8.7.4 Index it
  8.7.4.1 How to submit your URL
  8.7.4.2 Submitting URL's to lots of search engines
  8.7.4.3 How your URL is Indexed
  8.7.4.4 How to get a better rating in the index
  8.8 Monitoring visits to your web page
  8.8.1 Invite feedback
  8.8.2 Add a counter
  8.8.3 Checking the server log
  8.8.4 Use a monitoring service
  9 The Internet's future
  10 Glossary
  ActiveX
  AFAIK
  Altavista
  AOLer
  ATM
  Bandwidth
  BBS or bulletin boards
  Bookmarks or hot lists
  BTW
  CFV
  CGI Scripts
  CSS
  De-lurking
  Digests
  Domain name
  Emoticon
  FAQS
  Firewall
  Flames
  Followups
  Freeware
  FTP
  FWIW
  Ctrl-H (^H)
  Headers
  Helper applications and plug-ins
  HTH
  HTML
  Hyperlinks
  IRC
  IIRC
  IP or Internet Protocol
  IMHO, IMO
  Information Super Highway
  InfoBahn
  Intranet
  ISP
  ISTR
  Java
  JavaScript
  Junk mail
  LOL
  Lurking
  Mailing lists
  META tags
  Me too
  Mirror site
  Moderation
  Nerd
  Netiquette
  Newsgroups
  Newbie
  On-line and off-line
  Postcardware
  Posting
  Postmaster or webmaster
  Portals
  Quoting
  Robot
  ROFL
  RFC
  RTFM
  RTFFAQ
  Shareware
  Signal to Noise ratio
  Signatures
  Smiley
  Snail mail
  Spam
  Surfing
  Thread
  Trolling
  Uploads and downloads
  URL
  Usenet
  Web
  Webmaster
  WYSIWYG
  Yahoo
  YMMV
  Zip files


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© 1997-99 John A Fotheringham and JafSoft Limited
Last Minor Update : 4 December '98