This category will teach you about Internet Connections, Internet Explorer, Links, Dis/Connecting to/from The Internet and
Using The Internet in general.
So what is The Internet anyway?....
The Internet is a series (Network) of computers connected together from all over the world, via telephone cables, with each computer
storing thousands of Information Pages on them. Each information page is known as a Webpage and each group of webpages
residing on the same computer is known as a Website. To distinguish each computer each computer is given its own unique
address known as its IP Address (i.e 85.92.68.178). And to distinguish each website each website is given its own unique
Website Address (i.e www.yoingco.com). The same applies to each webpage. To distinguish each webpage each webpage is
given its own unique Webpage Address (i.e www.yoingco.com/the_internet_vista.htm).
In order to view a webpage your computer needs to be connected to the computer with the webpage on it. This means your
computer needs a Telephone Connection, a Modem and a Web Browser (such as Internet Explorer) - The modem uses the telephone
connection to connect your computer to your ISP's computer (see below). Your ISP's computer then connects to the computer
storing your wanted webpage, who's webpage address you have typed into your web browser. A webpage can contain other things
besides Informaton, such as Music and Video for example. And it is not just a web browser that can use your ISP's computer
to make connections to other computers. Security software can use your ISP's computer to connect to its security computer
for example. Windows Live Messenger (a Chit-Chat program) can use your ISP's computer to connect to its Chit-Chat computer.
And so on.
| INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS |
Before you can connect to a webpage, communicate to your friends with a messenger program, download music from a website and
so on you must first have membership with an Internet Service Provider (ISP). An ISP is a company (such as AOL, BT, NTL,
Orange and so on) that connects your computer to one or more Internet (Worldwide) Computers using your telephone line, your
modem, their computer and Extended Internet Connections - Extended Internet Connections are explained later.
ISP's usually offer 3 kinds of Internet Connection. Dial-Up, Anytime and Broadband.
Dial-Up
A Dial-Up connection uses an Internal 56K Modem, which can be a computer PCI Card or a laptop PCMCIA Card. It is the modem's
job to send your data (i.e an Email) through your telephone line to your ISP's computer. Your ISP's computer then sends your
email to the recipient's ISP's computer. If the recipent wants to read the email they first have to connect to their ISP's
computer. A 56K Modem should send data down the telephone line at a speed of 56Kb per second (57344 characters per second),
but in reality the speed is between 33Kb and 46Kb these days. Dial-Up, as the name suggests, means you have to dial up
(telephone) your ISP's computer first before it can connect your computer to an Internet Computer.
Dial-Up comes in two flavours. Pay-As-You-Go and Anytime. P-A-Y-G means you can dial up your ISP's computer at any time,
but you will be charged by the second or minute. Dial-Up is good if you only need access to the internet for searching
information, doing homework, using email and downloading/uploading small files. Otherwise it is not worth using.
Anytime
An Anytime connection is a Dial-Up connection, but instead of being charged by the second or minute you are charged by the month. For example. Your ISP may give you a daily allowance of up to 6 hours, which can be split throughout the day, in which to use the internet. All for a standard monthly fee of £15.99. And because of the price you could chit-chat to your friends for longer, download more music and so on - P.A.Y.G normally has a cut-off time after 2 Hours. You can re-connect 5 minutes after the two hours, but it means big files might not have enough time to download in the first two hours. Hence, Anytime is better.
Broadband
A Broadband connection uses an External Broadband Modem that connects to your computer with either a USB Cable or an Ethernet
cable. If the modem has a router in the same box (Modem/Router) it is the job of the router to route (redirect/split) your
connection to other computers in your premises. A router is normally used in a Network enviroment though, such as in an
Internet Cafe.
Broadband differs from Dial-Up in three ways. Firstly, it uses 2 telephone lines for its fast main internet connection.
Secondly, it uses a third telephone line that allows you to use the telephone whilst connected to the internet. Dial-Up
only uses 1 telephone line, so you cannot use the telephone whilst connected to the internet. And thirdly, the broadband
connection might be Always On....standby, when the computer is switched on.
Broadband is like a Television that is on Standby. Until you press a button on the remote control the television is
technically switched off. Once a button is pressed the television comes on and shows a channel. And with broadband it is
the same. When you first switch on the computer, unless you have an Always On connection, broadband will always be on
standby - Meaning. You will need to enter a User Name and Password before you can connect to the internet.
Broadband currently has 2 main speeds - 2 Megabytes (2MB) and 8 Megabytes (8MB). Both of which are a lot faster than Dial-Up.
For example. If it takes a dial-up connection 15 minutes to download a 1MB file, it can take a broadband connection 15 seconds
or less to download the same file.
| INTERNET CONNECTIONS |
Once you have setup your internet account with your ISP they will provide you with internet connection settings and/or
software that allows you to connect to the internet via their computer. The connection between your computer and your ISP's
computer is called the Main Internet Connection. Without it no other connections can exist.
If you are signed up for Broadband Always On you do not need to make the Main Internet Connection as it is automatically
made for you when the computer is switched on. Otherwise you will have to make the Main Internet Connection manually, by
dialing up your ISP's computer. This is done by double clicking on the Dial-Up desktop icon, which launches (opens/executes)
the broadband connection software (for Broadband users) or the P.A.Y.G connection software (for P.A.Y.G or Anytime users).
The connection software and Dial-Up desktop icon are normally created for you automatically by your ISP's Set-Up CD, but
you can manually create them using a web browser such as Internet Explorer. In this example I am using a Dial-Up desktop
icon (Fig 1.0) I manually created after manually creating my P.A.Y.G connection software using Internet Explorer.
The connection software has two main jobs. To pass information to the Modem and to monitor the Main Internet Connection once it has been set-up. Its first job though is to ask you for your User Name and Password (Fig 1.1) - The ones you registered when applying for an internet account. The user name and password are used later to verify that you are the legal owner of the internet account.
With the User Name and Password entered click on the DIAL button (Fig 1.1 above). The connection software will then perform some checks on your computer (Does the modem exist? Is it working? Are your internet settings okay and so on) before passing the modem the telephone number of your ISP's computer (i.e 1470 0845 7560000). If all goes well the modem dials your ISP's computer. As this is going on you will see a series of connection Message Requesters, giving you the option to Cancel everything, as well as informing you of what is happening. However. If something goes wrong between you double clicking on the Dial-Up desktop icon and the modem trying to make a connection to your ISP's computer you will see one or more error messages appearing. Here is a series of successful message requesters.
A port is basically a telephone link that the modem sets up between your computer and the ISP's computer, so that Data can be passed (sent and/or received) between them. The port (telephone link) is essentially your main internet connection. When you disconnect from the main internet connection (hang-up the telephone) you are closing the port (closing/breaking the telephone link). In Fig 1.2 above the modem has opened a port ready for data to pass through it, but before any data can pass through it the connection to your ISP's computer needs to be made so that your ISP's computer knows which port the modem has opened for use. Therefore the port is private at this stage (no data can pass through it yet).
In Fig 1.3 above, as your ISP's computer is being dialled the modem is passing it your internet account UserName and Password
as well information about the opened port. Once the UserName and Password have been verified (Fig 1.4) the port is then
registered with your ISP's computer to make it publically available (Fig 1.5). This means any software you use that needs
an internet connection (i.e Internet Explorer, Anti-Virus software and so on) will now be able to ask your ISP's computer
to connect them to any internet computer in the world. Their requests go through the port as data and are received at the
other end by your ISP's computer, which then translate those requests of data as "Go to that website", "Download that music
file" and so on. When your ISP's computer carrys out a request it creates an Extended Internet Connection for that request.
It never uses the main internet connection directly. The main internet connection is only used for requests between your
computer's software and your ISP's computer - The actions/commands of a request, such as "Download that music file", are
done on a newly created Extended Internet Connection. For example. If you want to visit www.yoingco.com the request might
be "Go to www.yoingco.com" and an Extended Internet Connection will be created/used to connect to www.yoingco.com. If you
then wanted to download a video file from the BBC website the request might be "Get music file from BBC", but this time a
second Extended Internet Connection would be created/used to connect to the BBC website. And so on. If you disconnect the
main internet connection (Hang up the telephone) all extended internet connections are disconnected as well. The connected
message in Fig 1.6 above is just to notify you that all was well with the above connection (main internet connection) set-up
and that you are now able to view webpages, download music and so on (using Extended Internet Connections).
Another thing to watch for when making the main internet connection is the Notification (clock) Area. It shows the three
stages of connection.
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The main internet connection only needs to be set-up once (unless you disconnect it). It is the modem that does all the work though - The modem is constantly sending and retrieving data between your ISP's computer and your computer. Data such as Internal Status Reports, Webpages, Email, Music or whatever data is needed to make your internet requests happen.
| EXTENDED INTERNET CONNECTIONS |
Now you have a Main Internet Connection, going between your computer and your ISP's computer, it is time to make an Extended
Internet Connection. An extended internet connection is a connection that can communicate with an Internet Computer anywhere
in the world. The main internet connection is purely between your computer and your ISP's computer.
Software that can make an extended internet connection include Anti-Virus software, Web Browsers (such as Internet Explorer,
Firefox, Opera and so on), Email Clients and so on. For example. With only the main internet connection you are not connected
to the Internet - Technically you are in Standby mode or Internet Ready mode (but still being charged by your ISP). However,
as soon as you launch Internet Explorer and/or an Anti-Virus program for example you will be connected to the internet
(connected to a worldwide internet computer). This is because both programs when first launched try to connect to an
Internet Computer. Internet Explorer asks your ISP's computer to make an extended internet connection to the Internet
Computer containing its Home Page (Its first website/webpage to display), whereas the Anti-Virus program might ask your
ISP's computer to make an extended internet connection to its company's file-update Internet Computer.
Fig 2.0 shows how extended internet connections work along side the main internet connection. The main internet connection
has been set-up, which means internet explorer can now communicate with the modem as well in order to send/recieve requests
to/from your ISP's computer. In this example internet explorer is requesting to be connected to the yoingco website,
so that it can download and then display the yoingco webpages. As this is going on another, seperate, extended internet
connection has been made for AVG so that it can download and then install its updated Virus Defintion files.
When you launch internet explorer the first thing it does is check to see if there is a main internet connection. If there
isn't one you will be prompted for your internet account User Name and Password in order to make one, as described in
Internet Connections. If there is already a main internet connection
internet explorer then asks your ISP's computer to make an extended internet connection to the Internet Computer containing
its Home Page (Its first website/webpage to display). So if Internet Explorer's home page is set to www.yoingco.com Internet
Explorer asks your ISP's computer to make an extended internet connection to the Internet Computer that contains the yoingco
website on it. From there, the yoingco Index.htm webpage is downloaded onto your computer and its contents (words and pictures)
are then displayed inside Internet Explorer's display area (window).
The same applies to an Anti-Virus program. When you or it checks for updates it asks your ISP's computer to make an extended
internet connection to its company's anti-virus website, in order to download updated Virus Definition files for example. In
most cases an anti-virus program will use its own window to display what is happening with the update process rather than
display the process in an Internet Explorer window. This does not mean you are not connected to the internet though - you
are. Remember. As long as an extended internet connection exists you are connected to the internet.
As you can see by the diagram in Fig 2.0, you can have plenty of extended internet connections running at the same time.
Basically, every internet explorer you open will have its own extended internet connection. As will every Anti-Virus program
and every Email program you use. Other programs as well.
So to summarize. Your main internet connection is the telephone link between your computer and your ISP's computer, which is
made with the help of a Modem. The main internet connection needs to be made publicly available for your use, which is done
by you entering the correct internet account User Name and Password into your ISP's connection software (or your manually
created Dial-Up connection software). Once the main internet connection has been set-up and is publicly available to you,
you can then use a web browser (such as Internet Explorer) to make an extended internet connection to a (Worldwide) Internet
Computer - to a website in other words.
Throughout this category you will learn more about the Internet in general, so do not worry if you did not understand
everything fully here.
Microsoft product screen shot(s) reprinted with permission from Microsoft Corporation. As stated here by the Microsoft Corporation.
All HTM files in the yoingco.com folder and its sub-folders are (c) John White, August 3rd 2005 - 2008. All Rights Reserved. FREE Vista Helpline: Contact John