t@J Indira Gandhi National Ope.

University
School of Computer and Information Sciences
CIT-003
WEB BASED TECHNOLOGIES
AND MULTIMEDIA APPLICATIONS

Internet Concepts 1
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"Education is a liberating force, and in our

age it is also a democratising force, cutting
across the barriers of caste and class,
smoothing out inequalities imposed by birth
andothercircumstances. "

- Indira Gandhi
 ~ Indira Gandhi
National Open University
CIT-003
~ School of Computer and Web Based Teehnologies
Information Sciences
and Multimedia Applications

Block

1
.INTERNET CONCEPTS
UNITl
Internet: An Overview 5
UNIT 2
Concepts of Web Browser 32
UNIT 3
Internet Search '64

UNIT 4
. What we can do using Internet? 89
 Programme Expert Committee
Prof. S.l. Ahson, Facu Ity of School of Corn puter and
JMl, Delhi. Information Sciences

Shri Milind Mahajani, Prof. Manohar Lal, Director

IT Consultant, Delhi.
Shri Shashi Bhushan
Prof. T. Rarnesh,
NIT, \\ arangal. Shn Akshay Kumar

Prof. Raghvandra Rao, Shri P. Venkata Suresh

NlE Mysore.
Shri V.V. Subrahmanyarn
Prof Parvin Sinclair,
IGNOU. New Delhi. , Shn M.P. Mishra

Dr. Navcen Kumar

Block Preparation Team

Prof. M. N. Doja (Content Editor) Dr. Parmod Kumar (Language Editor)
Jarnia Milia Islamia, New Delhi School of Humanities, IGNOU

Or. R. Khandwal Mr. Hemant Rana

Mahan Institute of Technologies, Consultant
Delhi SOCIS, IGNOU

Dr. Naveen Kumar Shri Akshay Kumar

SOeIS, IGNOU seers, IGNOU

Block Coordinator: Shri Akshay Kumar

Block Production Team

Shri Tilak Raj, Section Officer (Publication), SOCIS, IGNOU
Camera-ready copy prepared by Shri Sandeep Maini

June, 2009
Indira Gandhi National Open University, 20()9

ISBN - 978-81-266-3979-3

All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form, by mimeograph or any other
means, without permission in writing from the lndira Gandhi National Open University.

Further information on the Indira Gandhi National Open University courses may be obtained from the
University's office at Ma-dan Garhi, New Delhi-I 10068 or the official website ofIGNOU at
www.ignou.ac.in.

Printed and published on behaif of the Indira Gandhi National Open University, New Delhi by the
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Cover Design: Kingcraft, 1333/412, Durga Chambers, DB Gupta Road, KarolBagh,

Delhi-l 10005.
 i-,

COURSE INTRODUCTION

In the previous courses you have been introduced to the world of computers. .
However, one of the major uses of computer is in facilitating communication of
secure information over the network of networks called the Internet. One of the major
developments in this respect is the World Wide Web (WWW) - also called simply the
Web. The WWW have made major inroads in development of web based
, communities, collaboration, services and applications such as social networking sites,
video sharing sites, wikis, blogs etc. Today many technologies and services are
available through the Internet. Internet has caused permeation of information at grass
root level. This course discusses about various technologies that are the basis of
Internet on which the WWW and other services like e-mail, messenger etc have been
developed. One of the key issues discussed in this course include how to develop a
simple web page and website. With the enhancement of communication bandwidth
better applications involving multimedia has been developed. Therefore, this course
also discusses about the multimedia applications. This course consists of three blocks:

Block 1 explains the Internet Concepts in details. It discusses about evolution and
working of Internet, Internet addresses and their resolution, how to connect to internet
from your home computer. This Block also provides details on the facilities available
in a web browser and different kinds of services offered on the Internet. Some.of the
services discussed include e-mail, messenger, chat, news groups etc. The block
introduces the concept of client-server computing which is the key concept in
providing internet based services. In addition, this block also introduces you to the
process of efficient searching through the Internet and World Wide Web.

Block 2 focuses on the basic languages and tools used in web page design. This Block
covers details on Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) including the basic tags, text
formatting, using images, creating simple animations etc. For the creation of web
pages, there are many tools available. This Block discusses one such tool- Microsoft
Expression. Please note that this tool has been selected just as an example, you may
use any related tool for the development of the website. This block also provides some
basic information on a simple graphics tool. Finally, the block discusses about the
development of a simple personal website. You are expected to develop simple web
pages after going through this block.

Block 3 provides an introduction to mUltimedia~echnologies. It explains the basic

concepts and components of multimedia. This block provides information on various
software tools that are used for multimedia. Multimedia is widely used today in
entertainment, education, office, web etc. This Block discusses about the applications
of multimedia in details. Finally, the Block describes the newer technologies like
virtual reality. In addition, it also describes a multimedia application with the help of
an example.
BLOCK INTRODUCTION

Internet has become one of the major successes as a global data communication
technology. It all started by USA's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and
grew exponentially. At present Internet has more than 2 billion users' world wide.
This Block is an attempt to provide you with some ofthe concepts relating to Internet
and its applications. In order to know Internet, you need to knowits structure,
protocols, addressing mechanisms, applications and services offered by it. Today
Internet has become so gigantic that it is very difficult to find appropriate information
on it. This block tries to expose you to some of the major concepts related to the
Internet. It consists of four Units.

Unit 1 traces tlrt: evolution ofInternet and how it works. It provides information about
the domain names on the Internet and informs you about the technical aspects of
Internet including its protocols. This unit also provides detail on the process of
connecting to Internet. Thus, this unit provides an overview of internet technology and
its most popular service - the World Wide Web (WWW).

Unit 2 provides details on the concepts of web browser. A web browser is special
software required for accessing information available on WWW.This unit provides
details of web addresses, structure of Internet. It also details out popular web browser
facilities and common errors encounter while working with a Browser.

Unit 3 provides important information about the searching for information on the
WWW. It defines the concepts relating to search and search engines. It also provides
information about how you can search for specific information with the help of
examples. This unit stresses the need of efficient searching through the web.

Unit 4 details some ofthe popular services of the Internet. E-mail is one of the most
popular services on the net. This unit ptovides details on how can you use this facility
as a web service. In addition, the unit also discusses about the other important services
like; messenger, chat, news groups, downloading etc. .

Internet is always evolving; therefore, you are advised to keep in touch with some of
the latest developments in this area. One way of doing is to explore regularly through
some of further readings given in the units. You may also subscribe to some of Indian
IT magazines to keep pace with the latest development.
UNIT 1 INTERNET: AN OVERVIEW

Structure Page Nos.

1.0 Introduction 5
1.1 Objectives 6
1.2 Evolution of Internet 6
1.2.1 Brief History 6
1.2.2 Growth 6
1.3 Advantages of Internet 7
1.3.1 Information Sharing 7
1.3.2 Internet Tools and Services 9
1.4 Internet Components 14
1.4.1 Software Components , 14
1.4.2 Hardware Components 15
1.4.3 Internet Authorities 16
1.4.4 Internet Service Provider 16
1.5 Internet Addresses 18
1.5.1 Web Address 18
1.5.2 JP Address 19
1.5.3 E-Mail Address 19
1.6 Lets Connect to Internet 20
1.6.1 Direct Connection 20
1.6.2 Dial-up Connection 20
1.6.3 Set-up Internet Connection 21
1.7 Summary 29
1.8 Solutions/Answers 29
1.9 Further Readings 31

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The earliest computers were machines built to make repetitive numerical calculations
that had previously been done by hand. While computers continued to improve, they
were used primarily for mathematical and scientific calculations, and for encoding and
decoding messages. Computer technology was finally applied to printed
communication in the 1970s when the first word processor was created. At the same
time, computers were becoming faster, more powerful and smaller, and computer-
networks were developed for interconnecting computers. In the year 1960 the
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARP A) of the U.S. Department of Defence,
along with researchers working on military projects at research centres and
The Internet
universities across the country, developed a network called the ARPANET, for
sharing data and processing time of uniform computer connection over specially
equipped telephone lines and satellite links. Today, the Internet is the widely known
computer network. It uses interconnection of computer systems by both wired and
wireless. Internet can carry any digital signals, including video images, sounds,
graphics, animations and text. Therefore, it has become very popular communication
tool. Now, Internet is a worldwide network of computer networks which connects Remember in computer
schools, universities / institutions, hospitals, research institutes, government, science platform means
commercial, and other computers. There are thousands of networks and millions of computer hardware
users on the Internet, with the numbers expanding daily. Using the Internet, you can and/or operating system.
send electronic mail (E-mail), chat with colleagues around the world, obtain
information on a wide variety of subjects and lots more. The networks or computers
operating in different platform are connected to Internet by a common protocol known
as Transmission Control ProtocollInternet Protocol (TCPIIP).

5
Internet Concepts

1.1 OBJECTIVES

After studying this unit, you should be able to:

• identify how the Internet came into existence;

• explain different advantages and tools available through Internet;
• recognise different software and hardware components used to access Internet;
• elucidate the purpose of protocols used in Internet;
• recognize different type of addresses used in Internet;
• find different methods that can be used to connect with Internet; and
• set up the dialup connection for connecting to Internet.

1.2 EVOLUTION OF INTERNET

Internet is made up of thousand and thousands of interconnected networks. Although

it has become extremely popular in the last decade, it came into being only in 1967.
Internet has a very interesting history. The following section traces the evolution of
Internet.

1.2.1 Brief History

The history of Internet is from the era of cold war. The launch of Sputnik (the first
satellite) by USSR (Russia) incited the USA to form the Advanced Research Projects
Use Internet and Agency, known as ARP A in the US Department of Defence (000), in 1958 to recoup
try to find out how a technical lead. In the mid 1960s, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA)
theARPANET wanted to fmd a way to connect computers so that their funded researchers could
used to work? share their findings. In 1967, ARPA proposed its idea for ARPANET, a network for
rl connecting computers. Soon, scientists using the ARPANET realised that they could
'--C..6 send and receive messages as well as data and files over the network. The ARP A NET
became the first major electronic-mail network; soon thousands of researchers all over
the world used it. Later on, the National Science Foundation (NSF) of USA helped
Packet is a data in connect more universities and non-military research sites to the ARPANET, and
network in a particular renamed it to Internet, because it was a network of networks among many different
format. organisations.
In 1972, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn, who were part of core ARPANET group, started
Internetting Project with the aim to connect different networks together. Diverse
UNiX is an operating interfaces, different packet sizes, diverse transmission rates presented many
system, which first difficulties. Kahn Cerf proposed the idea of gateway as an intermediate hardware to
included the network transfer data from one network to another. In 1973, they presented the outlines and
capabilities. model of TCPIIP. At this time, responsibility of ARPANET was handed to Defence
Communication Agency (DCA). In 1978, noticing the popularity of BSD (Berkley
Software Distribution) UNIX, which included network capabilities, ARPA signed a
contract with Berkley under which TCP/lP software was incorporated in the operating
system itself. In 1983, original ARPANET protocols were aholished and TCPIIP was
made de facto standard for Internet. The first TCPIIP network was made operational
Internet has many by January 1,1983 when all hosts on the ARPANET were switched over from the
synonyms like WWW, older ARPANET protocols to TCPIIP.
Web, Net, and Cyber.
Do you know some 1.2.2 Growth
more?
Internet and WWW (World Wide Web) are often used as synonyms of each other,
which is technically wrong. The Internet is a collection of interconnected computer
networks, in contrast, the Web is a collection of interconnected documents and other

,
 Internet:
An Overview
resources. The World Wide Web is one of the services accessible via the Internet,
along with various others including e-mail, file sharing, etc. The World Wide Web is
an Internet-based distributed system of information sources and information Hypertext creates a
subscribers. The World Wide Web is often abbreviated as the Web or WWW. The creative linkage of
Web provides a point-and-click interface to text, images, sound and movies that has objects across the
proven to be powerfully intuitive and easy-to-use. After the invention of WWW in network or Internet.
1989 by Tim Berners-Lee at Physics Laboratory (CERN), the Internet scenario has Does help files use
changes drastically. In 1991, CERN publicized the World Wide Web project. Key of hypertext?
WWW was the use of hypertext, of a document that when selected, take the user to a
connected document. The initial purpose of the Web was to use networked hypertext
to facilitate communication among its members, who were located in several
countries. It was soon spread beyond CERN, and a rapid growth in the number of both
developers and users ensued. In addition to hypertext, the Web began to incorporate
graphics, video, and sound. An early popular web browser was Viola WWW. It was
eventually replaced in popularity by the Mosaid web browser. Mosaic was a great
innovation for the Web, came in 1992 which displayed not only the text of a Web
page, but embedded graphic elements as well.

The nature of the Internet changed suddenly in 1992, when the U.S. government
began pulling out of network management, and commercial entities offered Internet
access to the public for the first time. This change in focus marked the beginning of
the Internet's amazing expansion. By late 1994, there was growing pnhlic interest in
the previously academic, technical Internet. By 1996 usage of the word Internet had
become common plaee, and consequently, so had its misuse as a reference to the
World Wide Web. Meanwhile, over the course of the decade, the Internet successfully
accommodated the majority of previously existing public computer networks. During
the i990s, it was estimated that the Internet grew by 100% per year. The use of the
Web has reached global proportions and has become a defining aspect of human
culture in an amazingly short period.

1.3 ADVANTAGES OF INTERNET

Before 1995, the term Internet was anonymous to most of the people in India.
However, today Internet has become the powerful tool for people. The Internet is a How Internet is
collection of various facilities, tools, applications and resources. Although, many useful for
people think e-mail, chatting and Web surfing as the main elements of Internet but Teachers and
there are lots more. Today, Internet has brought the world on your desktop. Right Students? Find
from news across the world, wealth of knowledge to shopping, purchasing the rail, Out.
movie or air tickets everything is at your mouse click. It also became the most
excellent business tool of modem scenario. Several activities can be performed if you
have access to the Internet; like you can use it for learning or teaching, you can use it
for publicity and advertisement, you can refer Internet for career or job consultation,
etc. Let us discuss about some of the facilities, tools, applications and resources
available on the Internet.

1.3.1 Information Sharing

Information sharing undoubtedly is the biggest advantage that Internet is offering. On

Internet, you can communicate with a person sitting in the other part of the world in a
fraction of second and in a more cost effective way. Today for better communication,
you can avail the facilities of e-mail; you can chat for hours with others. There are a
number of messenger services in offering. With the help of such services, it has
become very easy to establish a kind of global friendship where you can share your
thoughts, explore other cultures and ethnicity. People can post and publish their ideas,
thoughts, feeling, advertisement, knowledge, etc. on Internet through Websites, Blogs,

,
Internet Concepts
Discussion forums, Groups. You can almost find any type of data on almost any kind
of subject that you are looking for. There is a huge amount of information available on
the Internet for just about every subject known to human, ranging from government
law and services, trade fairs and conferences, market information, new ideas and
HTML is the basic technical support, the list is endless. We have used number of terms like discussion
Forums, Blogs, Chatting etc. in the above text, may be some of you are not familiar of
language for writing web
these, lets discuss them in more detail:
pages. However, now
many languages and
tools are available to
World Wide Web (WWW)
design web pages. Can
you find them? The World Wide Web (WWW or The Web) is the best Internet information sharing
system, with fresh resources being added daily. The Web browsers like Internet
Explorer, Mozilla or Netscape are used to access webpages. A Webpage can contain
text, graphics, audio and video added by authorised people which are generally
written in special language called as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). These
browsers can display information however because of the very large number of
WebPages on Internet people want a tool, which can find the relevant WebPages. By
Can you create your just giving the simple requirements in simple language, hence the Search engines
own email account? (e.g., Google, Yahoo and Ask) were created to fulfill this need by indexing words on
You may create your web pages and storing the information in a search able database.
email account for free
with a popular email E-mail
service provider. Try
creating one.
Electronic mail is one of the most popular tools made available through the Internet
for Information sharing. It is an efficient and effective means of network
communication. You can call it as an electronic postal system. One of the most
valuable features of communicating via e-mail is that it is asynchronous, meaning the
recipient need not be at a computer to receive the message you send. The message will
be stored and available to be read when the recipient is ready to read it. In order to
send and receive e-mail, you must have access to an E-mail account. You may have
your email account with your institution or with the popular E-mail vendors like;
Hotrnail, Yahoo, MSN, Google (G-mail) or Rediffmail. However, an E-mail system
can do more than just sending messages back and forth. Applications that may be
built 011 the e-mail infrastructure include multimedia mail, database access, document
sharing, fax routing, scheduling etc.

Online-Chatting

Online chat can refer to any kind of communication over Internet, but is primarily
meant to refer to direct one-on-one chat or text-based group chat (formally also known
as synchronous conferencing), using tools such as instant messaging applications-
like; rediff, yahoo, and MSN chat applications. Presently most of the online chat and
messaging services are free on Internet; however, some service providers are having
paid services also. There are many Internet users replacing traditional conversation
with on line chat. Online chat is steadily replacing telephony as the means of office
and home communication. Nowadays, mobilelhandheld devices are also providing
the technology for online voicel video chat.

Electronic Discussion Groups

Are you member
of any discussion There are a variety of electronic discussion groups on the Internet like; yahoo, google
group? It's very and MSN groups. These groups are generally used to share information, communicate
helpful. ideas, ask questions and solve problems on specific topics. Messages are
Cb communicated by the email address and through the group home page. Some groups
are moderated and a human monitors the messages that are added to the list and
distributed to the group. Some groups are unmoderated and every message submitted
is included.

8
 Internet:
An Overview
Newsgroups

In Internet, there exists another way to meet people and share information; one such
way is through USENET news groups. These are special groups set up by people who
want to share common interests ranging from current topics to cultural heritages.
There are currently thousands of USENET news groups. Newsgroups provide a free
exchange of ideas, opinions and comments usually confined to a specific interest.
Newsgroups are an invaluable source of information. You visit a newsgroup, read
messages which provoke a response, post new messages when you want to propose a
topic, and revisit when you want to see who responded. Unlike e-mail, there is no mail
involved with news groups. Most of the activity occurs while you are online, including
reading and responding to messages. For this reason, most people find that
news groups are more interactive and conversational than e-rnail. The USENET can be
considered as another network of computers and people, which are interwined with
the Internet. However, USENET does not operate interactively like the Internet,
instead USENET Machines store the messages sent by users. Unlike mail from
mailing lists, the news articles do not automatically fill your electronic mailbox. For
accessing the information on USENET, one needs a special type of program called a
newsreader. This program help in retrieving only the news you want from USENET
storage site and display it on your terminal. USENET is like a living thing: New
news groups gets added, the groups which have too much traffic get broken up into
smaller specialised groups, the groups even can dissolve themselves. However, all of
this occurs based on some commonly accepted rules and by voting. For USENET,
there is no enforcement body; it entirely depends on the cooperation of its computers'
owners and users.

Blogging
Blogging is emerging as
wonderful way to share
Blog is a website where entries are written as commentary or news on a particular
and publish your views.
subject such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online
diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and Most famous person
these days have their
other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an
own Blog.
interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily
textual, although some focus on art, photographs, videos and music and are part of a
wider network of social media.

Blogging is gaining popularity, as it removes the technical barriers of writing and

publishing online, which encourages students to keep a record of their ideas and
thinking over time. Blogging also facilitates readers to give critical feedback on any
topic, readers can add comments, where readers can be teachers, other students or
wider viewers. Teachers should investigate the potential of blogs, media-sharing
services and other social software, which can be used create new learning
opportunities. Students can also use the blogs as blog can provide a personal space
online, to ask questions, comment on other questions, publish work, and link to other
web sources. However, a blog need not be restricted to a single author, it can merge
different kinds of ideas, including fellow students, teachers, and subject specialists.
An example: http://edu.blogs.com/

1.3.2 Internet Tools and Services

To work with Internet and to utilise some of the points mentioned about you need to
use certain tools. For example, Telnet is a tool, which is utilised for logging on a
remote computer. This section briefly discusses about some of the important tools and
services.

9
Internet Concepts
File Transfer

Files and data are scattered all over the Internet in large and small archives. Some of
these may contain text, pictures, graphics or sounds. If you want to get some file
available on any other computer on Internet, you have number of ways like; file can
be e-mailed to you by someone from that side as an attachment or file can be uploaded
File Transfer Protocol to a web site or FTP server for easy download by others. The File Transfer Protocol
(FTP) was originally developed to allow Internet users to share files across the
Internet. If you want to copy the file from FTP server, there is a standard tool on.
Internet called FTP (File Transfer Protocol). However, for such transfer you need an
account name on a host and the password. The FTP program will make a connection
with the remote host, which will help you to browse its directories and mark files for
transfer. However, you cannot look at the contents of a file, while you are connected
via FTP. You have to transfer the copy and then look at it once it is on your own
account. "What will happen if you do not have an account on a remote Internet host?
For such cases FTP recognises a special account name called anonymous. Thus by
using anonymous FTP you can access a public archive on the Internet and copy a file
from there.

Remote Access
You Know TELNET is
The Internet allows computer users to connect to other computers and information
derived from TErminal
stores easily, wherever they may be across the world. This is encouraging way of
NETwork. working from home, along with collaboration and information sharing. Imagine you
are sitting at home and working on the lab computer of study centre. TELNET was
developed for terminals to access hosts across the Internet. Telnet is a program that
allows an Internet host computer to become a terminal of another host on the Internet.
FTP opens a connection solely for transfer of files, however, Telnet allows you to
become a user on a remote machine. You can run the Internet computer programs
available on that machine. This tool is specially useful for accessing public services
such as library card catalogues, the kind of databases available on the machine etc.
You can also log into any catalogue service of a library and use it. Remote Access was
possible before the widespread use of the Internet with Telnet, but the cost and
reliability made many of them unpopular in practice. Nowadays one popular
alternative for remote access is VPN (Virtual Private Network) through which an
office worker away from his desk, perhaps on the other side of the world on a business
trip or a holiday, can open a remote desktop session into his normal office PC using a
secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection via the Internet. This gives the
worker complete access to all of his or her normal files and data, including e-mail and
other applications, while away from the office.

Online Services

Many services are now provided on the Internet such as online banking, career
consultation, job seeking, online trading, purchasing tickets on Indian Railways or for
your favourite movie, guidance services on every aspect of life, and hotel reservations.
Often these services are available off-line and may cost you more. Broadly, the
concept used for any type of commercial maneuvering, or a business deal that
involves the transfer of information across the globe via Internet is called E-
commerce. It has become a phenomenon associated with any kind of shopping, almost
anything. Many online stores and sites can be used to look for products as well as buy
them using credit card. You do not need to leave your house and can do all your
shopping from the convenience of your home.

10
 Internet:
An Overview

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Figure 2: A snapshot of the job site
request you to fmd
Online Resources them and list on
your notebook.
Internet has become a treasure of Information, where many on line resources are freely
available. There are some websites those are providing a facility of online dictionaries
(Dictionary.com, Webster, oxford etc), which release us from carrying the bulky
dictionaries. These online dictionaries are not only providing the meaning of words,

11

M
 Internet:
An Overview
VoIP

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a technology that lets you to make voice calls
using an Internet. One advantage of VoIP is that the calls over the Internet do not gain
a surcharge beyond what you are paying for Internet access, in the same way as we do
not pay for sending individual e-mails over the Internet. Merging voice and data
networks opens up a world of opportunities for better interaction between teachers and
students. VoIP promotes online classes as it offers improved bandwidth utilisation.
Voice chat and video-conferencing are now viable and cost-effective option for
discussions between dispersed students and teachers.
An ipod is device
Podcasting capable of storing
and playing media
Podcasting is the latest in Internet technology. The term podcasting was inspired by files.
Apple's iPod but any software and hardware application onto which you can download
audio files will also work in the similar way. Podcasting is similar to a radio broadcast
but the files are available for downloading from a website. Podcasting has become a
popular technology in education because it provides a way of delivering educational
content to learners.

c:;? Check Your Progress 1

1) What are the different ways of sharing information through Internet?

2) Explain the advantages of Blogging .

....................................................................................................

3) How is File transfer handled by FTP?

4) How VPN is better than 'relnet explain?

13
Internet Concepts

1.4 INTERNET COMPONENTS

Remember your
computer must have an The Internet is a global collection of people computers, which are linked together by
operating system cables and telephone lines making communication possible among them in a common
preferably the latest one. language. For connecting to the Internet, you need to have certain equipments. In
brief, you must have a computer a modem and access to a telephone line or a local
area network (LAN) that is in turn connected to the Internet; and connection software
that will allow you to establish an account with a service provider and access the
Internet in case of dial up connection. A different device may be needed when
accessing the Internet through a direct line. These components of Internet are broadly
divided into two categories - software and hardware components.

1.4.1 Software Components

•
It is important for you to know about the basic software components involved in
accessing Internet facility. Obviously, it goes without saying that the first software for
internet access is the Operating system. An operating system must be installed
properly on your system (so that it can handle the driver requirements of the hardware
components). Further, Internet browsers, firewall, TCPIIP are the basic components
used during Internet access. Let us discuss briefly about them:

Internet Browser

Browser is software that allows the user to access and read information on the World
Wide Web. Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape are the best-known browsers.
SpaceTime 3D is new three-dimensional browser. Only browser is sufficient for
working with the Internet viz., the browser software that should be loaded on all the
clients. In fact, the browser is one of the very intelligent software that contributed to
the growth of World Wide Web. A browser converts the standard Hyper Text Markup
Language (HTML) web pages to a very sophisticated display with colours and
Netscape Navigator pictures.

Firewall

As you have studied in CIT -01 course material, Internet has many security problems
like hacking, Trojan Horse, Virus, etc. There are various tools to provide protection
against unwanted access of your computer by anyone else, but the most popular
among all security measures is the firewall. Firewall is a software that works on some
set of rules and instructions given by you. A firewall belps to keep your computer
more secure. It restricts information that comes to your computer from other
computers, giving you more control over the data on your computer and providing a
line of defence against people or programs (including viruses and worms) that try to
connect to your computer without invitation.
Firewall

TCPIIP Stack

TCPIIP Stands for Transmission Control ProtocollInternet Protocol. This is the group
of protocols that define the Internet and communication method used by it. Originally
designed for the UNIX operating system, TCPIIP software is now available for every
major operating system. In order to be compatible to the Internet, the computer must
have TCPIIP compatible software. As stated earlier, the major advantage of Internet is
information sharing. Since in computers, bits and bytes are basic building blocks of
information. Thus, one of the key aspects in network of many computers is to move

14
 Internet:
An Overview
bits between two specific computers. For such a communication, we require the
address of the destination and a safe mean of moving data in the form of electronic
signals. As far as safe movement of data is concerned, there exists a set of rules,
which governs the sending, and receiving of data on the Internet. A stack of protocols
called TCPIIP (Transmission Control Protocol/lnternet Protocol) implements these
rules. Its name reflects names of only two protocols called TCP and IP. For sending
large block of text/data to another machine, TCP divides the data into little data
packets. It also adds special information e.g., the packet position, error correction code
etc. to make sure that packets at the destination can be reassembled correctly and
without any damage to data. The role of IP here is to put destination-addressing
information on such packets. On Internet, it is not necessary that all the packets will
follow the same path from source to destination. A special device called router tries to
load balance various paths that exist on networks. Other special devices called
gateways allows different electronic networks to talk to Internet that uses TCPIIP .
•

1.4.2 Hardware Components

Hardware components are used to connect with Internet. These components may vary
in case of standalone computer getting connected with internet, or a small network
getting connected with Internet. However, here we have discussed common hardware
devices used in both the cases, some of these topics we have already discussed ill
course crr -01, and hence here we are just defining them in context to Internet.

Network Interface Card

This card connects your computer to a network. The unique number is identified by
this card in a network. This device is sometimes also called as network adapter card.
Any computer connected to the network has a Network Interface Card (NIC), which
has the address (network id-host id), hard coded into it. We have two types of
network interface cards external and internal. External network adapters do not
require opening up your computer or installing special network cables in your home.
You can plug an external network adapter into a USB port on your computer. External
Network Interface Card
network adapters are the fastest and easiest way to set up your home network. Internal
network adapters are installed in an expansion slot inside your computer. Most
computers come with internal network interface card.

Modem

Modem is a device that lets computer information to be transmitted and received on a

telephone line. The sender modem translates digital computer data into analog signals
that can be carried over a telephone line. The receiver modem translates the analog
signals back to digital form (MOdulation and DEModulation). Modems are of two
types: Internal and External. Internal modems are PCI cards and External modems, are
kept outside of your computer, connected either by a USB or Serial Port. Internal
modems are good for general usage, as they take up less desk space, and do not Internal modem
require a power supply, and for most purposes, internal modems work fine. External
modems tend to be slightly more expensive than internal modems. Many experts
consider them superior because they contain lights which indicate how the modem is
functioning. In addition, they can easily be moved from one computer to another.
However, they do use up one COM port.

External modem

15
Internet Concepts
Communication Link

We have different type of communication links available to connect with Internet

some of these you have already discussed in the eIT-Ol. Mainly the twisted pair,
coaxial cable, optical fiber and wireless links used to be connected with Internet.

Router

To handle and route the data to the destination an important networking device is used
called as router. Routers are essential for computers on different physical networks to
communicate with each other. Routers maintain a map of the physical networks on a
Router Internet (network) and forward data received from one physical network to other
physical networks. However, you need not to worry about this device, as it is
maintained by Internet providers.
I

Hub

You may need to install and con figure this device, if you are making a small network
either at home or at the office. Hub is a common connection point for devices in a
network. Typically used to connect segments of a local area network (LAN), a hub
contains multiple ports. When data arrives at one port, it is copied to the other ports so
Hub that all segments of the LAN can see the data.

1.4.3 Internet Authorities

The Internet is a cooperative endeavour much like the worldwide telephone network.
No single organization is responsible for all aspects of the Internet. In addition,
Internet has no president or chief operating officer and is governed by a number of
authorities. The ultimate authority of Internet rests with Internet Society (ISOC) a
voluntary membership organisation. The purpose of this organisation is to promote
global interchange of information. To uniquely identify any Internet device, a unique
number is assigned, to ensure this, a central authority issues the IP address (It is a
32-bit address used to identify an electronic device like computer on Internet. IP
address is made up of the network ID+unique host ID). An organisation or individual
wanting to connect to the Internet needs to contact local ISP (Internet Service
Provider- for details see below) for obtaining a unique IP address at the global level,
Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA) allocates a Network-ID (Network ID is
a number used for generating a range of IP addresses) to the ISP. Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF) discusses the technical and operational problems on Internet.
Internet Service Providers cooperate with each other, the NSF and ARP A and
equipment vendors to provide ubiquitous connectivity. The sum of these cooperative
efforts is the worldwide Internet, which appears to each user as a seamless universal
access network to global Internet resources.

1.4.4 Internet Service Provider

Whether you are part of a LAN or you are trying to connect to the Internet as a single
user, you will likely gain access to the Internet via an Internet Service Provider (ISP).
ISPs are companies which allow you to connect to their computers, which in turn are
connected to the Internet. ISPs are usually local companies that provide individuals
and small companies with all the requirements to allow user to connect to the Internet.
This may include software, domain names, user names and connectivity. Internet is
organised to form a hierarchy. At the top, there is a very high-speed backbone and at

16
 Internet:
An Overview
the other end, there are users. There are Network Access Providers (NAP) and Internet
Service Providers (ISP) at the intermediate level as shown in the Figure 5.

End User End U er End U er End scr End User

Figure 5: Architecture of Internet

A home user dials into the ISP (for example: BSNL, MTNL, Airtel and Reliance
(wireless ISP using Netconnect device), may be using a twisted pair telephone
connection using a modem. The ISP connects to one of the Network Access Providers,
which in turn, connects to the high-speed backbone at a Network Access Point.
Network Access Point serves the purpose of connecting backbone networks to provide
connectivity between end users.

r::;r Check Your Progress 2

1) Explain how firewall prevents a computer from different security problems.

2) How data communication is handled by TCPIIP?

3) What is the purpose of MODEM?

17
Internet Concepts
4) Explain how Hubs are used for making a small network.

1.5 INTERNET ADDRESSES

We can classify the computers connected with Internet in two categories, servers and
clients. A server is a computer with the capacity to provide connectivity and sharing to
multiple personal computers or clients (any computing device you use to access the
Internet), which is specifically set up to serve its files to client computers. The files
that a server makes available to your computer can be web pages, videos, sounds,
images, etc. For your home computer tobe able to receive files or any data from a
server, your computer must request this information. This happens when you enter an
URL in your browser or when you receive e-mail. When we work on Internet we
come across different types of addresses used for different purposes, like; web
address, IP address, email address. Each one has a special syntax, and meaning. It is
important for you to know about these addresses, before you start working on Internet.

= Reply
01001 1010001001001 IO<H 1001

11001 1010001001001100) 1001

•~ . Request

Client
Server
Figure 6: Client Server Model

1.5.1 Web Address

An Internet or Web address (sometimes called a URL, or Uniform Resource Locator)

typically is composed of four parts as shown in Table 1:

• A protocol name (a protocol is a set of rules and standards that enable computers
to exchange information)
• The location of the site
• The name of the organization that maintains the site
• A suffix that identifies the kind of organization it is (such as .com for a
commercial organization)

For example, the address http://www.ignou.ac.in describes the following information:.

Table 1: Components of an Internet Address

http: Web server uses Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

www site is on the World Wide Web.
ignou Web server is at IGNOU.
ac Web site belongs to an academic institution.
in It belongs to India

18
 Internet:
An Overview
When you are viewing a Web page, the page's address appears in the Address bar in
Internet Explorer. Hosts (user) and local networks are grouped together into domains,
which are grouped into one or more larger domains. For an analogy, a host computer
is considered as an apartment building in a housing complex and your account is just
an apartment in it. Domain may be an apartment complex, a town, or even a country.
Sub-domains may correspond to organizations such as NASA or CompuServe.
Domains are classified as non-geographic and geographic lists various common
domain names (Table 2). The domain names in India come under a larger domain
".in".
Table 2: Some Non-Geographic and Geographic Domains

Non-Geographic Domains Geographic Domains

Country Domain
Code Applicable for
6 Name
.com commercial organisations
.au
.net network organisations
.cn
.zov parts of governments
.de
.ac organisations of higher education .in .
.mil non-classified military networks
.org organisations that do not fit the
.uk
commercial or educational
.us
designations

1.5.2 IP Address ""

The Internet layer is an important layer in the protocol suite. At this layer, TCP/IP
supports Internet Protocol (IP). This layer is responsible for the format of datagrams
as defined by IP and routing and forwarding a datagram or packet to the next hop (you
know hop is a term that can be used to represent any computing device on Internet
like; router, gateway, computer etc). The primary goal of the Internet is to provide an
abstract view of the complexities involved in it. Internet must appear as single
network of computers. At the same time network administrators or users must be free
to choose hardware or various internetworking technologies like Ethernet, Token ring
etc. Different networking technologies have different physical addressing
mechanisms. Therefore, identifying a computer on Internet is a challenge. To have
uniform addressing for computers over the Internet, IP defines an IP address, which is
a logical address. IP address is a 32 bits number, can be represented in decimal e.g.,
192.168.32.10. Now, when a computer wants to communicate to another computer on
the Internet, it can use logical address and is not bothered with the physical address of
the destination and hence the format and size of data packet. IP address is a basic
address used by the lower architecture of Internet. It is important for you to know that,
any address you type as web address or email address actually gets converted into the
equivalent IP address of a machine or computer where the server or resource is
available. Web address or email addresses are used for easiness of human beings
otherwise; it is just a burden for network.

1.5.3 E-mail Address

As you have studied earlier that e-mail is one of the popular services used by people
in their daily life. The following can be a typical email address format on Internet for
any e-mail service provider like, Gmail, Rediff, Yahoo, MSN, or any network
(domain) name etc. .
[email protected]~I

19
Internet Concepts
The username in general is the name assigned or chosen during creation of an email
account. Sub-domain are domain we have already discussed in above section, in case
of private service provider it is generally its own name like [email protected],
[email protected], [email protected], etc. In domain names, it is essential to have non-
Geographic domain name, however, sometime you can see both kind of domains non-
Geographic and geographic domains. Lets take an example to better understand an
e-mail address: In an e-mail address ••[email protected] •••naveen indicates the
username, the sub-domain named IGNOU (Indira Gandhi National Open University)
which is an academic organisation (.ac) and is situated in country India (.in).

1.6 LETS CONNECT TO INTERNET

You need access to the Internet. Tliis may either be from a dial-up, direct-line (over
coaxial cable, fiber optic or copper wires), Wi-Fi, satellite and cell phones. Until
recently, the two primary methods of accessing the Internet were through a direct
connection, allowing users of local area networks (LANs) to go online through their
school or workplace systems, and dial-up connections through a modem and phone
line. Let's discuss these methods in detail:

1.6.1 Direct Connection

This is a permanent connection, which can be set up over a high-speed

communication link. This is normally used in organisations and corporate, using cable
modem (used for cable Internet) and DSL connect to the Internet. This kind of
connection is established between your LAN server and the Internet host/server. You
may request for a connection as and when desired from your LAN server. It may have
a direct line or may dial the number of the Internet server to establish a link. In
current years, high-speed connections have gained in popularity. These include cable,
Digital Subscriber Lines, usually know as DSL, and Integrated Services Digital
Network (ISDN). This dedicated high-speed connection is best suited for larger
organisations, which have to serve many internal and external customers. This kind of
link allows you to become information provider round the clock. This connection
allows full connectivity to Internet, however, because of organisations own security,
privacy or policy reasons you may choose not to use all the connectivity features.

1.6.2 Dial-up Connection

Dial-up connection is the most common form of connectivity because all they require
is that the users have a phone line which almost everyone does. However, because
they rely on phone lines which have limited transmission capacity, dial-up modems
are very slow. In addition, for dial up connection to the Internet, you need to have a
computer account on an ISP. For using the account, you must provide the host
machine with the username and password. Recently some broadband services are
started by BSNL and MTNL in India. The broadband connection offers more exciting
multi-media applications through Internet, such as audio, video, dynamic animation,
etc. The difference between these high-speed connections and dial-up modems does
not lie only in the amount of information that is transportable via the connection but
unlike dial-up connections, these methods of connectivity do not tie up phone lines, or
other vital services. As a result, users are able to keep them connected at all times,
without tying up their phone.

20
 Internet:
An Overview

1.6.3 Set-up Internet Connection

This section will show you how to set up your computer so that you can connect to
Internet using dial up Internet connection. We are using Windows XP for explaining
you about the Internet connection; however, other Windows operating systems are
having similar Internet Connection Wizard. We are assuming an example of home
user who wishes to use a dial up connection through telephone line. You can follow
the given steps if you want to connect to Internet with us.

Step 1: Open your "Start menu" and select "Control Panel".

Step 2: When Control Panel window is opened, choose the "Network and Internet
Connection" icon.

21
Internet Concepts

Step 3: Now open "Network Connection".

Step 4: Click on a link "Create a New Connection", which is shown in the boundary
in the given figure.

Starch :- .
Network ConnectIOn. Go
. .

"~twork J a~ks ~ .
Loe. Atu ConnectIOn
l
1-._ '

Se •• Also

22
 Internet:
An Overview
Step 5: You will see the New Connection Wizard, after click on "Create a New
Connection". To continue, click the next button.

Welcome to the New Connection

Wizard
rlit wizard heIpayou
• Connect to the Intemet
• Connect to a private network. such • ycu wakplace
netwak.
• Set I.4l a home 01 SIIl!II o/Iice network.

I 0 CCII'Qu, cick Nel4.

Step 6: Connection wizard will ask you the Network connection Types which you
want to choose. As we are assuming an example of home user who wishes to
use a dial up connection through telephone line, we will choose "Connect to
the Internet" Option.

c-.ct to the InIemet

Connect to lhe Immet tO)IOU can bIoWIe the Web and read emel
o c-.ct to the '*-It at ., ~
Connect to. bumeta I'III¥IOIk (umg cieI-up 01 VPN) tO)IOU can WOIk from home.
a fieldcftice. 01 anoIhef location.
Set up • '- CII •••• oIfice Mlwark
Connect to en tIiIti1g home 01 .nail aIfice nItwOIk 01 NI up • ,.. one.
o Set up •• advanced _1eCtiDn
Connect chcIIy to III1DINf ~ wing YCU aerial parallll 01 inII.1d port. 01
aet up !hit ~ to thaI aIhIt ~. can CCIr"IrIed to l

23

r.
Internet Concepts Step 7: We assume that we know the ISP provider and we do not have any CD for
installing automatically. Hence, we select "Set up my connection manually"
option.

New Connection Wizard . .. . ."....

Gelling Ready
The wizard is pleparing to set up }'OU! Internet comection.

How do you wan! to connect to the Internet?

o Choose IrOIll a fist 01 Internet service ptOVidelS (IS Pe]

o Set up my connection manually

For a dialw connectioo. you willneed }'OU! accO\rl name. password and a
phone runber fOl}'OU! ISP. FOIa blOadband accO\rl. you won' need a phone
, number

o Use the CO I got Irom an ISP

< Back Ii Next> I[ Cancel

Step 8: We are using a dial up modem hence we win select the first option as given
below in the Figure.

(. Connect using a dial-up modem

This type of connection uses a modem and a regUar 01 ISDN phone ine
Connect using a broadband connection that lequires a user nallle and
panwold
This is a high-speed connectron usonge~her a DSL 01 cable modem. YOlIISP may
refer to this type of connectron as PPPoE.
Connect using a broadband connection that is always on
This is a high·speed connectron usrng erther a cable modem, DSL OIlAN
connection It rs always acnve. and doesn' reqlire you to $91 in.

< Back ]I Next > ~ I Cancel

24
 Internet:
Step 9: Enter "BSNL (Bharat Sanchal Nigam Limited)" into the Internet Service An Overview
Provider (ISP) box then click the "Next" button to continue.

Connection "_
What is the name 01 the SeMce that prOYidMyour Internet connection?

Type the name 01 your ISP in the folowing box.

ISPN_

BSNU
The name you type hete wit be the name 01 the connection you ale CI~

< Back It Ne.I > II Ca-oce!

Step 10: Enter the telephone number with STD code given by ISP for dial up
connection to Internet in the text box "Phone Number". For example, we
have typed a phone number 01202445218.

You rhght need to irdJde e '1" 01 the alee code. 01 boIhlf you arenol s•.•e
you need the elCIrerunbers. IiaI the phone runber on your telephone Ifyou
~ a modem &lUId. the runber ciaIed 1$ 1XlIIect.

< Back 11 Ne.I > I [ Ci!lI'lCeI

25 '
Internet Concepts
Step 11: Enter your usemame and password into the provided boxes and then click
the "Next" button to continue. You must confirm your password in the
Confirm password box .

•••••••• Aa:aunll ••••••••

You'" need an aa:<JIri name and pacswon:Ilo •••• n1o)lOlMInternet acco.ri.

Twe an ISP aa:<JIri name and passwonl ~ WIte do¥In \tli$ irioonaIion lII'ldstore ~ n a
_ J8:e PI you have fOlgDllen an eoisIng aa:<JIri name OfpIIS$WOIdc:ontacl)lOlM ISP.)

User name:

••••••••••
CooIim piISSWOfd ;;;;;;;'; •• -1 -----;.
--l

El Use !ha acc:oori name and pacswon:I when."...,.,ne connect. to the Internet "om
\tli$~
El Make !ha the deld Internet connection

< Back 11 Neo<t> I I Cancel

Step 12: Click the checkbox to "Add.a shortcut to this connection to the desktop".
Click the Finish button.

Completing the New.Connection

Wizard
You have wccessfUIy completed the step$ needed to
aeate the 'oIowi1g comecIion:

BSNL
• Make this the del •••.•connection
• Share wtil allJSeIS cllha compute!
• Use the same tJSef name & pa$SWOfd'or evet}'OIle

o Add a shortcU: to this connection to ~ desktop

To aeate the connection and close this wizard click Finish.

< Back 11 Frish I I Cancel

26
 Internet:
An Overview
Step 13: After completing the New Connection Wizard you can check the dial up
connection icon has appeared in Network Connection Window.

Fddecs .::.

(relJ(ea
connecttOn
~ set up • home or small
offoce netwod
CMn\le w.-.bw<
"" ••••• sel:tnQs
Local Area ComectiOn
Dis 'c<j
Pe pT., If> f'

Step 14: To open the properties of dialup connection that you named BSNL, Right
Click the icon of BSNL.

Fdders .' •

.., Go

Cr~d:"'a new
.omection
set \JP • home Of ~..,..
IifftCe".tWOf
CN<1Qe wrodows
F•••••• ~
PeMfrte this COC"'II"'Ie(tJQO

Step 15: You can check and make the setting of this dial up connection according to
your need, like you can adjust security parameters according to your needs.
In addition, there are some networking and advance option available which
you can try.

27
Internet Concepts

General Options Sect.rity Networkilg Advanced

Olaing opOOO$
o Display prC9lm whie comecting
o Plompt name and pamyOfd, ceftificate, etc.
10/

o IncWe W'ndows Iogon domai1

o Prompt phone runber
10/

RedaIr.gopt
RedaI a«~s: 3
Time between redal att~: 1 rTlirUe

lde time betO/e hanging up: 20 minutes

I

X25

OK U Cancel I

G"" Check Your Progress 3

1) Explain different components of a web address .

...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................

2) Explain differences between direct and dialup connection of Internet.

...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
3) Which authority is used for assigning IP address?
...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
4) What is VoIP? Explain its advantages .

...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................

28
 Internet:
An Overview

1.7 SUMMARY

This unit is an effort towards answering some of the fundamental queries about an
Internet, a network of networks where lot of Information exists and is meant to be
utilised by you. We have tried to give an overview of how to connect to Internet and
what you can do on Internet. With number of advantages of Internet, it has some
disadvantages and problems. As, if you use the Internet, your personal details like
name, address, phone number, etc. can be accessed by other people. If you use a credit
on Internet, then your credit card details can also be stolen which could be similar to
giving someone a blank cheque. Further, spamming is emerging as severe trouble,
which refers to sending unsolicited emails in bulk, which serves no purpose and
needlessly block up the complete system. In addition, pornography is a serious matter
concerning the Internet, particularly when it comes to immature children. It is
expected that the brief overview of the Internet )Vhich this unit has attempted to
provide will introduce Internet without a lot of technical background. The next unit of
this block will help you to understand the web browser in detail because ultimately
browser is the only aperture through which you can see the Internet.

1.8 SOLUTIONS/ANSWERS

Check Your Progress 1

1) Today you can avail the facilities of e-mail; messenger services, Chatting etc., to
share your ideas, knowledge, and feeling. You can join different groups,
discussion forums or create your own blogs. You can use web sites to broadcast
huge amount of information on Internet.

2) Blog is a website where entries are written as commentary or news on a particular

subject such as food, politics, or local news. Blogging is gaining popularity, as it
removes the technical barriers of writing and publishing online, which encourages
students to keep a record of their ideas and thinking over time. Blogging also
facilitate readers to give critical feedback on any topic, readers can add comments,
where readers can be teachers, other students or wider viewers.

3) If you want to copy a file from FTP (File Transfer Protocol) server, there is a
standard tool on Internet called FTP (for client machine). However, for such
transfer you need an account name on a host and the password. The FTP program
will make a connection with the remote host, which will help you to browse its
directories and mark files for transfer. However, you cannot look at the contents
of a file, while you are connected via FTP. You have to transfer the copy of the
file on your own account to see its contents. If you do not have an account on a
remote Internet host, FTP recognises a special account name called anonymous.
Thus, by using anonymous ftp you can access a public archive on the Internet and
copy a file from there.

4) One popular alternative for remote access is VPN (Virtual Private Network)
through which an office worker works away from his desk, perhaps on the other
side of the world on a business trip or a holiday, can open a remote desktop
session into his normal office PC using a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN)
connection via the Internet. This gives the worker complete access to all of his or
her normal files and data, including e-mail and other applications, while away
from the office. Virtual private networks (VPNs) allows you to access your

29
Internet Concepts
corporate LAN using devices like mobile phones for a fraction of the cost of
traditional remote access solutions. Virtual private network provides enhanced
security for remote users and also an JP address security.

Check Your Progress 2

I) FirewaIl is software that works on some set of rules and instructions given by you.
A firewaIl helps to keep your computer more secure and protect from many
security problems like; hacking, Trojan Horse, Virus, etc. It restricts information
that comes to your computer from other computers, giving you more control over
the data on your computer and providing a line of defense against people or
programs (including viruses and worms) that try to connect to your computer
without invitation.

2) A stack of protocols called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet

Protocol) implements different rules to handle the data communication from
source machine to destination machine. For sending a message from source
machine to destination machine, TCP divides the message data into little data
packets. It also adds special information e.g., the packet position, error correction
code etc., to make sure that packets at the destination can be reassembled
correctly and without any damage to data. The role of IP here is to put destination-
addressing information on such packets. On Internet it is not necessary that all the
packets will follow the same path from source to destination A special machine
called routers tries to, load balance various paths that exist on networks. Other
special machine called gateways allows different electronic networks to talk to
Internet that uses TCP/IP.

3) Modem (MOdulation and DEModulation) is a device that lets computer

information to be transmitted and received on a telephone line. The sender modem
translates digital computer data into analog signals that can be carried over a
telephone line. The receiver modem translates the analog signals back to digital
form.

4) To make a small network, hub is a common connection point for devices in a

network. Typically used to connect segments of a local area network (LAN), a
hub contains multiple ports. When data arrives at one port, it is copied to the other
ports so that all segments of the LAN can see the data.

Check Your Progress 3

I) Web address typically is composed of four parts:

I. A protocol name (a protocol is a set of rules and standards that enable

computers to exchange information)
2. The location of the site
3. The name of the organization that maintains the site
4. A suffix that identifies the kind of organization it is (such as .com for a
commercial organization)

2) Direct connection is a permanent connection, which can be set up over a high-

speed communication link. This is normally used in organisations and corporate,
using cable modem and DSL. This kind of connection is established between your
LAN server and the Internet host/server. You may request for a connection as and
when desired from your LAN server. It may have a direct line or may dial the
number of the Internet server to establish a link. However, Dial-up connection is
the most common form of connectivity because all they require is that the user

30
 Internet:
An Overview
have a phone line. Because they rely on phone lines, which have limited
transmission capacity, dial-up modems are very slow. For using the dial up
account, you must provide the host machine with the username and password.

3) Internet Assigned Number Authority (IANA)

4) Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a technology that lets you to make voice
calls using an Internet. One advantage of VoIP is that the calls over the Internet do
not gain a surcharge beyond what you are paying for Internet access. Merging
voice and data networks opens up a world of opportunities for better interaction
between teachers and students.

1.9 FURTHER READINGS

»

• Alexis Leon and Mathews Leon (1999); Fundamentals of Information

Technology, Leon TechWorld publication.
• Dr. Larry Leng (2004), Computer Fundamental, Wiley Dreamtech Publication.
• Suresh.K.Basandra (2003), Computer Today, Galgotia publication.
• http://www .eiu.edu
• http://www.neiu.edu
• http://public.pacbell.netlfaq/general_faq.htrnl

31
 UNIT 2 CONCEPTS OF WEB BROWSERS

Structure Page Nos.

2.0 Introduction 32
2.1 Objectives 32
2.2 Concept of Client/Server Computing and Web Servers 33
2.3 Structure of Internet 36
2.4 Structure of Web Address 39
2.5 What is Web Browser? 41
2.6 Microsoft Internet Explorer 44
2.6.1 How to Open an Internet Explorer Browser 45
2.6.2 Row do I Start Browsing? 46
2.6.3 The Main Explorer Toolbar 46
2.6.4 Additional Features of Internet Explorer 47
2.7 Mozilla Firefox 50
2.7.1 Features of Mozilla Firefox 51
2.7.2 Additional Features of Mozilla Firefox 52
2.8 Common Error Messages from a Browser 57
2.9 Summary 59
2.10 Solutions/Answers 60
2.11 Further Readings 62.

2.0 INTRODUCTION

In the previous unit, you have learnt the concepts of Internet including the basic
services which are available on the Internet. This unit provides you details about Web
browser, servers and their structure. The basis of the Internet as introduced in Unit 1 is
the client server computing. This unit explains the concept of Client/Server
computing. It also defmes the clients and servers on the Client/Server Computing
system. In addition, unit explains various issues relating to the structure of Internet
and the Web address which were introduced earlier. This unit also explains the
concept of IP address and subnet mask. As you know, one of the major services on the
Internet is the World Wide Web. The web has become so popular that there are many
browsers available to choose from. This unit will explain you about only two web
browsers and their structure. However, this unit will help you to work with any other
browser available as the basic functionality of most of these browsers is the same.
Finally, the unit lists some of the common errors generated by a browser and some
common ways to deal with these problems.

2.1 OBJECTIVES

After going through this unit, you should be able to:

• explain the meaning of web server;
• defme the concept of web addresses;
• identify the structure of the internet; .
• define the browser and its features;
• use the browser for Internet surfing; and
• identify common errors encountered while browsing and resolve them.
32
 Concepts of Web
Browsers
2.2 CONCEPT OF CLIENT/SERVER COMPUTING
AND WEB SERVERS

As we discussed in the previous unit, the World Wide Web is one of the most popular
services of Internet. In the past, a computer was used as a standalone device that was
specifically used for certain purposes, however, the Internet technologies have
changed it all. But, how did it all happened? Well, you have been exposed to this in
the previous unit. In this section, you focus on one of the basic concept that actually
The largest and most
lead to the development of such a technology. This concept is the concept of client well-known example of a
and server. As the name suggest Client/Server computing splits any application WAN is the Internet.
including an Internet based application into tasks that are performed using three
separate components:

• The client computer - also called the front-end

• The server computer - also called the back-end. It has to be a powerful computer.
• The network that connects the two -such as a Local Area Network (LAN) or
WANs are collection
Wide Area Network (WAN) that connects the client to the server.
of LANs and other
types of networks
The Figure 1 represents a client server computing platform. o together.

o
o
Compare LAN and
----~--~--~----~~------···LAN WAN in terms of
Clients area covered,
bandwidth and
communication
Shared Printer channels used.
Network Devices

Backup Devices Server

Mobile Device'

Figure 1: A typical client server computing architecture

But why would you like to separate the server from a client and depend on the
network to get the services of an application?

33
Internet
Concepts The main reason is that by doing so you are able to create an intelligent system of
information, processing resources, services, applications etc. It can also reduce load
on the processing power requirements of a client machine. On the whole, the client
server computing technology empowers the users having finite processing power to
access information and applications that may require substantial resources.

In general, client server architecture opens up issues like; scalability, reliability,

security etc. A client server system is expected to be more reliable and secure not
because threats have reduced, but because such jobs can be specifically performed on
server resources in a much more efficient way. However, remember a single insecure
client may compromise the security of an application. Client server systems by very
nature are scalable. What does that mean? Assume that you are required to set up a
client server application that allows the students of a college to access information
about them. Assume that the college has just started its operations so have hardly 1000
students, thus, you require just one server to serve about 100 simultaneous clients.
Assume tlrat after about 5 years the college had 50000 students an overall increase of
50 times. Obviously, the number of clients will increase about 50 times so as to the
number of servers and processing power of the server, yet your application if
developed properly, will scale up to the new environment.

Types of clients are On the whole a client server computing system is very adaptable to the organizational
web browsers, email changes such as enterprises break into smaller independent business units or
clients, and online chat enterprises growing in size.
clients.
How does the client server share responsibilities? The following example, tries to
explain it in a very simple way. .

Client: A client initiates a request.

Types of servers are
web servers, ftp For example, you may initiate a request to access your result from a
servers, application University Result application (you may assume that this system is available
servers, database through a LAN). In fact, for initiating such a request you may need to pass
through an authentication process such as entering your user ID and
servers, mail servers,
file servers, print password. Please also note that, for a well developed system you might have a
servers, and terminal Graphical User Interface (GUI) based interface, where you just need to click a
button such as "Show Result".
servers.

Server: Processes the request made by the client and returns the result. Some common
server software includes: UNIX, LINUX, and Windows 2007 server etc.
Obviously, this result will be in a format such that communication process is
very fast.

For example, on receiving the "Show Result" request from your terminal,
server will process this request and generate resultant data - "Result data of
only your user ID" and send it in a predefined format to your client.

Client: The returned results are in some predefined format. The client can apply some
application logic on the result. In addition, client also includes a presentation
component which is responsible for producing the interface for you. The
presentation component may cause the result to appear on the client's screen,
normally in a Graphical User Interface (GUI) which provides a graphic-
oriented front end to applications.

For example, the student result that will be obtained by the client from the
server may contain subject wise marks of the student. The application logic
can convert these marks to equivalent grades and presentation component
formats these marks in tables containing course name, marks and grades.
34

,
 Concepts of Web
Thus, in a sense client/server computing creates a network of processing steps that are Browsers
distributed across the client and server. The client server computing also allows
distributing processing functions across interconnected application processors.

Web Servers

As discussed in this section a server processes the request made by clients. Now, you
extend the client server domain on the Internet application - WWW. What you can
clearly identify that you can make a request for a web page from the server. This
Find the latest
implies that you are a web client and the server from which you make a request is a
version of
Web Server. As a web client you just need to run an application program called a
server
browser (You will go though the concepts of browser later in the Unit), whereas the
software
web server is software that fulfils the request of web clients.

A web server normally has: I 0

o
o
• A high end computer with web server software. The three most popular web
server software are:

o Apache HTTP Server, available in public domain

o Microsoft Internet Information Services (nS)
o Sun Java System Web Server

•. A very good Internet connection speed, so that it can support multiple

simultaneous users.

• Its own domain name and IP address.

But how does this information exchange between the web client and web server is
achieved? This whole communication is managed by a protocol called the Hyper Text
Transfer Protocol (HTTP). However, the only protocol that works on Internet as told
to you in the previous unit was TCPIIP. So what is this HTTP? Please note HTTP can URL - Uniform
work only over a connection that is managed by TCP. Thus, it is a higher level Resource Locator -
protocol that uses the services of TCP. identifies the
GLOBAL address of a
HTTP specifies the list of actions that lead to transfer of a requested information document or resource
exchange between a web client and web server. Whenever you wish to visit a web on theWWW
page on the internet, you request that page from a web server. When you type a URL
into your browser (for example, u http://www.abc.com/ ••). your web browser requests
the page (or file) named index.html from the web server and the web server sends the
page back to the web browser:

Web Server

Web Browser Web Server

requests the serves the
web page web page

Web Browser

Figure 2: Interaction of Web Server and Web Browser

35
Internet
Concepts The Figure 2 identifies how web browser and web server interacts with each other. Let
us identify these steps in more details:

The DNS was invented 1) As a first step you may put a URL like http://www.abc.comJindex.htrnl or
by Paul Mockapetris in equivalent Domain name www.abc.com as the address of the website that you
1983. want to access through your web browser.
2) The Web bfowser tries to resolve the JP address of the website www.abc.com by
the information available in its own cache memory. If web server does not have
the information about JP address stored in its cache, it requests the JP address
from Domain Name System (DNS) servers. The DNS server tells the browser
about the JP address of the website.
3) Once the web browser knows the JP address of the web site, it then requests the
web page (index.htrnl page which is the home page in the present example) from
the web server.
4) The web server responds by sending back the requested web page. If the requested
page does not exist then it will send back the appropriate error message.
5) Your web browser receives the page from the web server and displays it as per the
display requirements of the web page.

2.3- STRUCTURE OF INTERNET

As discussed in the previous Unit, Internet is a global connection of networks. But,

how are these computer connected? The Internet is basically built up of multiple
smaller networks called the subnets. Each computer systems on a subnet must have
unique JP addresses. All these subnets are connected together with network devices
called routers, and each sub net may also contain its own subnets.

Client on a LAN

Router

Internet

R uter

Search Engine IGNOU Web Server

Figure 3: Structure of Internet

36
 Concepts of Web
Browsers
Figure 3 is a top level view of the structure of the Internet as a cloud of many routers
that are connected to each other. You may be able to connect to any of the search
engines or any of the web servers like IGNOU web server through many alternative The Internet Protocol
routes, You may relate this diagram with the Figure 1 that shows a client server Suite developed by
system. As you see in Figure 1, you as a client may be a part of LAN , WAN or Defense Advanced
wireless network, it does not matter. But in Figure 3 everything is almostin the Research Projects
Internet cloud -why? Because all these networks use one common protocol for reliable Agency (DARPA) in
data transfer, so they speak common language and communicate irrespective of the early 1970s.
physical differences. This basic communication protocol on Internet is the
Transmission Control Protocoll Internet Protocol (TCPIIP). This protocol ensures
reliable delivery of information from one source identified by a unique IP address to a
destination also identified by a unique IP address. Please note that the source and A Network Interface
destination computer may either be local or remote computer, depending on the Card is an interface
destination location. But what are these IP addresses? We will answer this question a card used in many
little bit later. LANs. Each of these
cards may have a
To connect to a physical network all devices irrespective of wired or wireless uses an unique address.
interface card. An interface card may have its own unique physical address. However,
you can not locate a device just by its unique physical address, as these addresses do
not provide any indication about the location of the device. Thus, you require a
protocol that uniquely identifies a device on the Internet.

TCP and IP (TCPIIP) are the two core protocols of the Internet Protocol suite. The
TCP primarily provides the reliable delivery of stream of bytes from a computer or a
program to another computer or a program. It breaks the data stream into packets at
the source and makes sure that all the packets are assembled orderly at the destination.
The IP protocol on the other hand identifies the location of source and the destination.
Any computer on Internet is identified by its unique IP address. Currently two
standard versions of IP are available viz. Internet Protocol Version 4 (IPv4) which is
currently being used on most of the Internet. An IPv4 address is a 32 bit address.
Figure 4 shows an IPv4 address:

IP address: 192.168.1.97 in various forms:

Decimal 192 168 1 97

Hexadecimal C 10 A I 8 0 I 1 6 I 1
Binary 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1

Figure 4: IP Address

IPv4 address is a series of four numbers separated by dots (.). The four numbers
ranges between 0 and 255. So IPv4 address takes only 4-bytes (or 32-bits) of Every time when a
computer memory. Not all the IPv4 addresses may be used to identify a computer. computer is connected
Some addresses of IPv4 are not used at all due to certain restrictions. In addition, to a Network it may
some addresses are reserved, for example; the IP address 255.255.255.255 is used for acquire a unique
broadcasts. dynamic IP address or
a Static IP address.
Every device, computer, printer or peripheral connected to a TCPIIP network must Find more about it
have its own IP address. Each 32 bit IP address consists of two components: from the further
readings
• Network Identifier (Net ID) - which identifies one of the Networks that is a part
of Internet.
• Device Identifier (Device ID) - which identifies a specific device within the
identified Net-ID.

37
Internet
Concepts A Net ID may be of 8 to 24 bits long. By using a subnet mask in combination with
their own JP address, you can determine the destination address of the devices is
remote or local. For example, consider the JP address 192.168.1.35, having 24 bits Net
ID. The remaining 8 bits of this address specifies the device ID. The sub net mask for
this network should be 255.255.255.0. This subnet mask is used to identify the IP
address of the network.

The sub net mask is similar to an IP address - it is also a 4-byte (or 32-bits) field and
can be represented using dot notation. In binary, it always consist a series of ones,
followed by sequence of zeros. The total number of bits is 32, but the number of ones
and zeros determines the nature of the mask. By comparing any IP address with a
given mask, you can split addresses into two parts, a network ID and a device ID.
Figure 5 explains this concept in more details.

Suppose yo~r computer has an IP address of 192.168.1.35 and you want to access a
location 192.168.1.56, as your subnet mask is 255.255.255.0, it will give you
following answers:

Host (you): 192.168.l.35

Subnet Mask 255.255.255.0

Result: 192.168.1.0
...
Accessed Location 192.168.1.56

SubnetMask 255.255.255.0

Result: 192.168.1.0

Since, the Result of both the operation points to same Net ID, therefore, you can
conclude that the referred destination IP address is local.

Now, suppose your computer has an JP address of 191.168.1.35 and your NetID is 16
bit long. Suppose you want 0 access a location 190.168.1.35. Since, you have 16 bit
NetID, therefore, your network subnet mask will be 255.255.0.0, it will give you
following answers:

Host (you): 191.168.1.35

Sub-netting is based SubnetMask 255.255.0.0

on CIDR (Classless
Inter-Domain Routing) Result: 191.168.0.0
concept. It is used in
routing between Accessed Location 190.168.1.35
networks both locally
and globally. Subnet Mask 255.255.0.0

Result: 190.168.0.0

Since, the Result of both the operation points to different Net ID, therefore, you can
conclude that the referred destination IP address is remote.

Figure 5: Use of Sub net Mask

By comparing the source network ID with the IP address of the source and the
38 network ID of the destination IP address, you can easily determine if the destination is

,
 Concepts of Web
within the same subnet. A web page request, thus, can beidentified as local page or a Browsers
page from remote server. But, how do you find the location of the remote server? The
answer to this question is beyond the scope of this unit. However, you should know
that routers may be responsible in finding the final path to the remote server.

As the numbers of users are increasing, the IPv4 addresses will run short. Therefore, a
64 bit Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) was designed which is at present actively
being deployed on the Internet. For more details on IPv6, please refer to Further
Readings.

2.4 STRUCTURE OF A WEB ADDRESS

Now, you know about the IP addresses. What do you think about the IP address? Are
not they very cumbersome to remember? For example, to visit IGNOU web site the
address www.ignou.ac.in is far simpler than that of an IP address like 190.10.10.247.
Obviously, what we want to use are simpler textual domain addresses instead of
complex IP addresses. However, to enable the use of simple textual address, you will
require a service that will map these text based names to respective IP addresses
automatically. Such a service was designed in 1983 by the University of Wisconsin
with the name Domain Name System (DNS).
I

In the present day Internet, Domain Name System (DNS) should keep track of address
of each computer or any other internet device and email addresses. The DNS
translates the web address or email address to respective IP address. For example, the
DNS translates address like www.igTIou.ac.in into a computer understandable IP
address. It sounds simple, but remembers on Internet you are dealing with million of
addresses and every day this list is increasing. All these computers have to have a
unique address. Therefore, DNS follows a hierarchical naming scheme that is
supported by distributed database system to ensure no duplicate names are issued at
all. Figure 6 shows the hierarchical structure of domains names. For example,
traversing the hierarchy from the top you can track down ignou.ac.in as:

First YOl1 can find the in (India) in the top level country domains. Within this domain
find the ac (Academic) sub domain. Please note most of the Indian Universities will
be in this sub-domain. Finally, in the ac you can find the entry for ignou. This entry
should point to the IP address for the ignou.ac. in for the WWW as well as for the mail
server. This is how the DNS finds the addresses, thus, is a very efficient system.

1---- Generic --------------i

Root
r- countries--1

------I I~ ,------] 'Iop Level

com edu org net gOY J us Domains

/ \ Sub
i~~ W3 ac eo Domains

\
ignou yahoo
I
Figure: 6: A sample portion of domain names on Internet

39
Internet
Concepts Thus, using the DNS you wUIbe able to relate a given textual address to IP address.
For converting domain name into IP address, it first accept request from programs and
other servers. After accepting the request, the DNS server can do the following:

• If it knows the IP address of requested domain, it will answer the request with an
IP address of the requested domain.
• If it does not know the requested domain name, it will contact another DNS server
and try to find the IP address.
• If the requested domain name is invalid or domain does not exist, it will return an
error message.

But how can you name a web page on the Internet? To answer this question you may
first identify that a web page actually is part of a website that may reside on a web
server having a unique IP address. Thus, to identify a web page you need to identify -

• The protocol used to access that page.

• The server on which the web site is located.
• The mime of the page within that web site. Please note that simple web pages are
stored as files.

Please note all pages are stored as files.

Thus, to identify a web page you will have an address like:

http://www.ignou.ac.inlstudents/result.html

• the address as above recognises the protocol http (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol)
to access the page,
• the www.ignou.ac.in identifies the DNS name of IGNOUs WWW server, and
• the name of the page accessed by you is result.html which resides in the students
folder within the website.

This address is called the URL. URL stands for Uniform Resource Locater.
The range of Well
Known Ports is in You can now clearly see that a URL consists of three parts - the first part is used to
between 0-1023. tell the browser what kind of server it will connect to. In the example above, the
browser will connect to a web server using Hypertext transfer Protocol (HTTP). Other
protocols that we can use in this field of an URL are FTP, gopher, smtp etc. the
protocol is always followed by ":If'.

The range of The second part of an URL is a fully Qualified Domain Name (www.ignou.ac.in). In
Registered Ports is an URL, the fully qualified domain name identifies the site running the server. Web
in between 1024- servers use port 80 by default, but some servers has been set up to use other ports. For
49151. this, a URL can contain a port number following the domain name and separated from
it by a colon (www.ignou.ac.in:80).itis optional to write a port number with domain
name. If the URL contains no port number, the default port is used.

The first two parts of an URL are used to identify the web server of the web site. Each
The range of
web server has a home page and a directory to store the entire document related to the
Dynamic and/or
web page like images, audio, video files.
Private Ports is in
between 49152-
The third component of URL is an optional pathname for a particular document itself.
65535.
For example, the address http://www.ignou.ac.in/students/result.htrnl specifies the file
result.html i.e., in the directory students (lstudents/result.html) in the specified web
site.

40
 Concepts of Web
Browsers
r:::;=' Check Your Progress 1

1) Write the elements and their roles in the Client/Server computing.

2) Explain the procedure of sharing of data between Web Server and Web Clients?

................................................... " .
3) What is DNS? How is it used?

4) What are the components of an IP address? What is sub-netting?

................. \ .

2.5 WHAT IS WEB BROWSER?

In the previous section, you have gone through the details about the web addresses.
By now you also know about the Internet and WWW. However, how do you see the
content of a web page that is available at a web address? To visit a website that is
identified by a web address, you need to use a software application. This software
application allows formatted display of information of the desired web page as well as
possible interaction with the website. This software is called the Web Browser. The The first Web browser
information on a web page may be textual, images, audio, video, interactive game etc. on the World Wide
In addition, a web page may contain links called Hyperlinks to other web pages on the Web was created by
same or different website. Web browser displays these hyperlinks. On clicking these Tim Berners-Lee in
hyperlinks you will get the display of web page / text / table /picture to which the link 1991
is referencing in the web browser.

Thus, a Web browser is a software application that provides functionality to a client to

display and interact with text, images, and other information located on a Web Server
on the World Wide Web. Following are some of the information about the browser -

• NCSA Mosaic, the first web graphical browser was developed at the National World first very
Center for Supercomputing Applications in the 1993. It was an easy to use popular web browser,
browser. It supported point and click interface which helped to popularize the Netscape Navigator
Web Browser. was developed in
• Although all web browsers display the contents and format as per the standard 1994.
versions of Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), however, the appearance of a
Web page may differ between browsers.
• Some of the Web browsers available for personal computers are Internet Explorer,
Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera, and Netscape.

41
Internet
Concepts Figure 7 shows the Home page of the IGNOU's web site in the Browser window.

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Fi2UN 7: A Web Browser

Browsers basically provide the following facilities which help users and save their
time, when they are jumping from one website to another that is doing intern et
surfmg:
• Browsers do not require you to "log on" to a server computer (called web server)
and later to "log out" when you have finished accessing information stored on the
web server.
• Browsers allow you to directly visit a web site stored on a web server computer,
however, to do so you must type the URL address of the web site you want to
access. Alternatively, you can also click on the hyperlink that refers to that web
site.
• Browsers allow you to create and maintain a personal list of favourite URL
addresses that you are likely to frequently visit in future. Your list is stored on
your own computer from which you are accessing theWWW.
• Most of the browsers store your surfmg information called history. Browsers
maintain a history of the websites visited in a session. These save all the URL
Web browsers are addresses visited during session in the computer through which you are accessing
the most-commonly- theWWW.
used type of HTTP • Browsers allow you to down load information in various formats. The downloaded
user agent. information can be saved for later use.

Browsers come in various forms and capabilities. The currently available browsers
can be classified into the following three types:
• Line Browsers
• Graphical Browsers
• Java-enabled Browsers

Line Browsers
• It is a text-based browser.
• It provide command-line interface to its user.
• Line browsers are used to display only plain text. It cannot display images, audio
and video etc.
42
 Concepts of Web
• They display a hypertext link either by using numbers in brackets [1], or by using Browsers
boldface type.
• One of the most common line browser used these days is Lynx. It uses boldface
type to denote a hypertext link.
• These browsers provide a very fast access to web sites as they display only the
text part.

W3':;

.....•..,,,,.._ •..

Figure 8: A Line Browser

Graphical Browsers

A graphical browser is designed to overcome the problem faced in the line browsers
specially relating to non-availability of images, audio, video etc. in the text browsers.
• Graphical browsers are designed to take total advantage of the World Wide Web.
• It has the ability to handle all kinds of digital media such as image, video, audio
etc.
• You need to use a mouse for navigation and for selecting information on a
graphical browser.
• These require the web client computer to have graphics capabilities of handling
and displaying multimedia data.
• There are many graphical browsers available today like Mosaic, NetScape,
Internet explorer, etc.

Java-enabled Browsers

Java-enabled web browsers are also known as second generation browsers. These
were designed to overcome the limitation of the graphical browsers. It should be noted
that the graphical browsers now have extensive features.

• Java enabled browsers are based on the java programming language.

• The browser also has the ability to dynamically down load java applets from web
server computers to web client computers and execute these applets on the client
computers.
• The example of java enabled web browser is "lobo". It is an open source web
browser, written completely in java.
• Java browser has advantages like portability, extensibility and security.

43
Internet
Concepts
2.6 MICROSOFT INTERNET EXPLORER

Windows Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer) abbreviated as

MSlE, commonly abbreviated to lE, is a graphical web browsers developed by
Microsoft. The Internet Explorer project was started in the summer of 1994 by
Thomas Reardon and after that Benjamin Slivka worked on that project. It included lE
as part of the Microsoft Windows operating systems starting in 1995. It has been one
of the most widely used web browsers.

The versions of lE which are still being used are Internet Explorer 6 and Internet
Explorer 7. Microsoft has already introduced their latest version of Internet Explorer
i.e., Internet Explorer 8.

Internet Explorer 6.0: It was released on August 27,2001, a few months before
Windows XP. This version included Dynamic Hyper Text Markup Language
(DHTML) (DHTML allows display of dynamic web pages. DHTML will be defmed
in Block 2 in more details) and partial support of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS),
Document Object Model (DaM). Some of these concepts will be discussed in
Block 2.

Internet Explorer 7: It was released on October 18,2006. It includes tabbed

browsing, a multiple-engine search box, and anti-phishing filer. Please note that
phishing is a fraudulent process of acquiring your critical information like username
and password, credit card details etc., using fake web sites or e-mail or messengers
etc. 1E7 is included with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, and is available
for Windows XP Service Pack 2 and later and Windows Server 2003.

Internet Explorer 8: It is the latest version of Internet Explorer and has been in
development since, August 2007. On March 5, 2008, the first public beta (Beta 1) was
released to the general public. On August 27,2008, the second public beta (Beta 2)
was released. It supports·Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista and
Windows Server 2008 on both 32-bit as well as 64-bit architectures.

S•• rch icrosoft.com f re

MIcrosoft At Home
Technology
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Explorer
Downlo ••ds
Support
Community
Worldwide Sites
w_~
Internet
Explorer 7
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I http://www.rruaosoft.com/ Internet +,100% •

Figure 9: Microsoft Internet Explorer

44

K
 Concepts of Web
There are a number of other popular browsers that are available free of cost on the Browsers
Internet. Some of these browsers are:

• Mozilla Firefox
• Opera
• Netscape Navigator
• Safari

These browsers support multiple numbers of operating system and very easy to use
web browsers. Figure 10 shows the start window of Mozila's Firefox web browser.

file Edit !iiew Hi,-tory aookmarks Iools l:jelp

~ • http://en.us,www,mozma,comten.uS/firefox/2.0Jfi]' ~ &:;I. :aPt~~in ubun~0 • J

.Gettlng Started ~Latest BBCHeadlines

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exp.,rlence.

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ak th Web a better paLe 1_ everyon

Leam more about Firefox features

Go 10 my home page

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Figure 10: Mozilla Firefox Web Browser

Mozilla Firefox: Mozilla introduced Firefox as a free and open-source web browser
for Windows, Linux and Mac OS. It is fast, small and easy to use web browser. It
provides many features such as tabbed windows, quick links, security and the ability
to block ads. We will discuss Mozilla Firefox in detail later on this unit.

Opera: Opera is a full-featured internet web browser. Opera is a secure, small, and
powerful web browser. The installation of Opera web browser is fast and easy. It does
not interfere with other programs on your computer, including other browsers. Opera
is famous for its speed in rendering of WebPages, and customizable user interface.

2.6.1 How to Open an Internet Explorer Browser

To browse the internet you first open an Internet browser. To do this, you follow the
steps given below:

• Click the Start button.

• Go to Programs Menu and, highlight and click Internet Explorer.
• Alternatively click the Internet Explorer icon on the Desktop or on the Taskbar.

As soon as you start a browser, the browser window opens and displays a page. This
page is called "the Home" page of your browser. You can change the home page of a
browser to any site of your choice.

45
Internet
Concepts
2.6.2 How do I Start Browsing?

The first thing to remember when you begin browsing the web is the web address of
the site that you want to visit. Go to the "Address Bar" near the top of the page, and
click on it. Now, type address in the Address bar, and then press enter. Internet
Explorer will go to this site directly from your current web page. You can click on any
link on the page to get the associated webpage displayed in your browser window. Try
browsing yourself.

2.6.3 The Main Explorer Toolbar

Once you are in the browser, you can see the Toolbar. Figure 11 shows the toolbar of
Internet Explorer.
,

FOrard
Rjf'reSh

• S-dt

I
Home
Back
Stop Editor

Figure 11: Explorer Toolbar

The main toolbar is composed of different buttons, each having different function and
purpose. The following paragraphs explain some of these buttons in details.

The Back Button: Assume that you are Browsing a series of web pages and suddenly
realize that you need to see the previous web page that you have visited. What do you
do? Just press the Back button. Press it again and you will be seeing previous to
previous page. You can press this button again and again till you reach a point from
where you started browsing during that session. At this point of time, this Button will
gray out indicting you can not go back any further.

The Forward Button: The forward button helps you when you want to move forward
to the next page. Whenever you click on that button it will forward you one page at a
time. When the forward button grayed out, that means there are no more pages
available to move forward.

The Stop Button: The stop button is used when the web pages take too much time to
show the content properly, just hit the stop button to stop current operation. The stop
button stops the current operation by Internet Explorer. It will stop any type of me or
document from loading.

The Refresh Button: The refresh button is used to reload the current web pages for
displaying the updates quickly.

The Home Button: This button takes you to the default web page set by you.
Whenever you press this button it will take you back at start up (home) page.

The Search Button: The search button is used when you want to search out
something from the internet. This button takes you to the default web search page.

The Favorites Button: The Favorites button is used to make a list of your mostly
visited website. Assume you visit www.ignou.ac.in web site regularly. Then you must
add this web site on your favorite list by clicking this button.
46
 Concepts of Web
History Button: The history button is used to keep track on all the visited URL of Browsers
web pages you visited before. When you click on history button, it will open a menu
in which all the URLs visited by you are stored.

The Print Button: The print button is used for printing the contents of web pages.
Assume that you want to take a print of a web page then you have to click on this
button. This button will bring up a Print Dialog box.

The Font Button: The font button is used to resize the contents of the web pages.

The Mail Button: Assume that you get a mail while you surf around the web, then
you just click on this button to read your mail. This button takes you to the inbox of
your mailbox. However, this feature requires proper configuration.

The Research Button: The research button is used to search out the research articles,
blogs, books etc over the internet. After clicking this button a menu will display on
left side of window, then put your research article name in "Search for" and select a
reference book from "All Reference Books".

2.6.4 Additional Features of Internet Explorer

Microsoft incorporated some other features on Internet Explorer to give better
browsing with ease. These features are not directly affects browsing but it will make
browsing a little bit easy and fast. These features are:
• Favorites
• Pop-Up Blockers
• History
• Home Page
• Temporary Internet Files Maintain list of
Favorites: The Favorite is used for making the list or storing the most visited URL. your favorite
The Favorites list contains only those URL whom you want to add on this list. It is items in Internet
very useful when you do not need to remember it, just go to the Favorites list and Explorer.
click on it. You can store any URL or web page in that list. For doing this, you have to
follow these steps:

• Open Internet Explorer Browser.

o
• Browse the web pages or enter an URL. o
• If you want to store this URL in Favorites list, then click on the Favorites option 0
from Menu bar.
• Click on Add to Favorites. An Add Favorite dialog box gets invoked as shown in
the Figure 12.
• If you want to change their default name then type a name that you want to give
this URL.
• Select a position where you want to store it. If you want to store it on default
position then click on OK button.
• If you want to store it in a folder, then first create a folder by clicking on New
Folder button. A Create New Folder dialogue box gets invoked. Type a name for a
new folder and then click on OK button. Finally just select folder (for example we
created a new folder named harry) where you want to store this URL as shown in
Figure 12.
• Finally Click on OK button.

47
Internet
Concepts

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• Web Soarch r • Get lEe nowl »

-
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favorte,

links

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Fil!ure 12: Add Favorite dialoa box

After storing the URL, it will show under the Favorites menu. If you store it in folder
then it will show you under that particular folder.

Pop-up Blockers: You can say Pop-up ads or pop-ups both are the same. It is
basically a form of advertising on the Internet. It is used to attract web traffic or
capture email addresses. It usually works when you browse web sites and
automatically a new window gets invoked to display advertisement. Pop-ups may
disturb you. .

o These pop-ups get invoked at particular interval. If you want to restrict pop-us, follow
these steps:
o • Go to the Tools in Menu bar. Select Pop-up Blocker.
o • Select Turn On Pop-up Blocker. It will block all the unwanted ads or Pop-ups.

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48
Figure 13: Pop-up blockers setting
 Concepts of Web
You can also turn off the pop-up blocker any time, by following the same procedure. Browsers
You can also set some properties for pop-ups. For doing this, follow these steps:

• Go to the Tools in Menu bar. Select Pop-up Blocker.

• Select Pop-up Blocker Settings. A Pop-up Blocker Settings dialogue box gets
invoked as shown in the Figure 13.
• You can add web sites on which you want to accept pop-ups. Just write the URL
in "Address of Web site to allow" field and click on Add button.
• All the allowed sites are shown in Allowed sites area. You can also remove it by
clicking on Remove or Remove All button.

History: It is used to keep track of all the visited URL or web pages you visited
before. It stores all the web pages or URL in a folder. It is not useful to store web
pages. For deleting all the history content, follow these simple steps:

• Go to Tools option from Menu bar and select Internet Options.

• Internet Options dialogue box gets invoked as shown in Figure 14.
• Under History option, click on "Clear History" button.
• Click on Apply button and then click on OK button.

Fovortes

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Figure 14: Internet Option Dialog box for Home page, Temporary Internet files and history items

Home Page: Whenever a web browser starts or when the home button is pressed from
browser, it automatically loads a local file or an URL. You can specify a URL for the
page you want to be loaded whenever you start browser, as well as you can turn this
feature off and on. For doing this, you have to follow these steps:

• Go to Tools option from Menu bar and select Internet Options.

• Internet Options dialogue box gets invoked as shown in Figure 14.
• Under Home page, you can specify any address in "Address" field. Click on
Apply button and then click on OK button.
• If you want to use your default URL, then click "Use Default" button. Otherwise
set it blank by clicking on "Use Blank" button.

49

c
Internet
Concepts
Temporary Internet Files are stored in directory on computer systems. This
directory is used by Internet Explorer to cache pages and multimedia content, such as
video and audio files. This is very useful when you visit the website again, as the site
The content is stored will get loaded faster. These files are stored in hard disk, so anyone can access these
or indexed in a files. For privacy reason, you have to delete these files regularly. The cache can be
database file, known as cleared by using Internet Options dialog box. You can delete these files by following
Index.dat these steps:

• Go to Tools option from Menu bar and select Internet Options.

• Internet Options dialogue box gets invoked as shown in Figure 14.
• Under Temporary Internet files, click on "Delete Cookies" and "Delete Files" as
you do not need these files.
• Click on Apply button and then click on OK button.

c:::;:r Check Your Progress 2

1. What is a Web Browser? List some current Web Browsers.

2. List the main facilities provided by a browser.

3. What is Graphical Web browser? How it is different from the other browsers?

4. List all the buttons that are present in main Explorer Toolbar.

2.7 MOZILLA FlREFOX

Mozilla Firefox is a web browser managed by Mozilla Corporation. Mozilla Firefox

was developed by Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross as an experimental branch of the
Mozilla Firefox is
Mozilla. After development of Firefox, Mozilla released several versions of Firefox.
available in 62
Firefox 1.0 was released on November 9, 2004, Firefox 1.5 was released on
langua~es.
November 29, 2005and Firefox 2.0 was released on October 24, 2006. The most
recent version Firefox 3.0 was released on June 17,2008. Figure 15 shows the startup
screen of Mozilla Firefox.

50
 Concepts of Web
Browsers

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Web lmiW MiIIi ~ QdIlI1 lll2m.

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•
Expenence the Web the way you want It. out add-ens wizard WlU cystomize FirefQx
to your axact interests

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Figure 15: MoziUa Firefox Start up page

Firefox includes tabbed browsing, a spell checker, incremental fmd, live

bookmarking, a download manager, and an integrated search system.

You can add Functions add-ons created by third-party developers in the browser.
Some of the popular Add-ons are:
• NoScript disables lavaScript,
• FoxyTunes is a media player control toolbar,
• Adblock Plus is a ad blocking utility,
• Stumble Upon is a web site discovery tool,
• Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer synchronizes the bookmarks,
• WOT: Web of Trust is a security site advisor,
• DownThemAll! enhances the download, and
• Web Developer toolbar helps the developers.

Mozilla Firefox runs on various versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux
operating systems. Mozilla currently release Firefox 3.0.8 version on March 27, 2009.
Firefsx is freeware software which means that you can use its source code freely.

Firefox provides built-in tools for the web developers to design and develop the web
sites. It creates an environment for web developers. The common tools for web
developers are Brror Console or the DOM Inspector that help developers to create
object model of the web pages.

2.7.1 Features of Mozilla Firefox

-' ..•.
Mozilla is a very useful browser. Some of the main features of this browser are:
• Web technologies support
• Cross-platform support
• Security
• Tabbed browsing
• Pop-up blocking
• Download manager
• Live Bookmarks

51
Internet
Concepts Web technologies support: Firefox supports basic Web standards including HTML,
XML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, DOM, and XSLT.

By default, Firefox does not support ActiveX controls. That means it can miss some
features in web pages designed using such controls. There are some methods in
Firefox like third party piugins to show ActiveX controls properly in a web page. But
this method does not work in all versions of Firefox or on all platforms.

Cross-platform support: Mozilla Firefox runs on different platforms. Firefox is open

source. It can be compiled and run on a multiple architectures and operating systems.
Thus, Firefox runs on many other systems such as Windows, Mac, Linux, OS/2, AlX,
and FreeBSD.

Security: Firefox introduced many features for improving security. It has several
security features like Phishing detector, Option to clear all private data, like browser
history and cookies. It also support strong security model.

Firefox is an open source software, so anyone can view their source code and review
the code for security vulnerabilities.

Tabbed browsing: in tabbed browsing you can open multiple pages in the same
window under different tabs. Firefox 2 supports tabbed browsing with "session store"
and "undo close tab" feature.

Pop-up blocking: In Mozilla Firefox later edition, an integrated customizable pop-up

blocking has been included. By default, firefox blocks all pop-ups from all web sites.
But it can be configured to allow some specific sites to show pop-ups. When a pop-up
is blocked, a dialog box appears on the screen and it is possible to view the pop-ups
URL by clicking that dialog box. This will help you to decide if the pop-up should be
displayed or not.
/
I

Download manager: In Mozilla Firefox later edition, have an integrated

customizable download manager. Download manager allows, downloads to start/open
automatically or save the contents directly to disk. In Windows or Mac, Firefox
downloads all files in the user's desktop by default. But in Linux downloads are stored
in the user's home directory. You can also configure the download manager such that
all download files are downloaded at a specific location. Through download manager,
a user can view the URL of the source from where a download originated as well as
the location to which a file was downloaded.

Live Bookmarks: Mozilla Firefox introduced a live bookmark that is powered by

RSS or Atom feeds, called "Live Bookmarks". Using live bookmarks, users can
dynamically monitor to their favorite news changes. You can refer to further readings
to know more about RSS feeds.

2.7.2 Additional Features of Mozilla Firefox

Microsoft incorporated some other features on Internet Explorer to give better

browsing with ease. These features do not directly affect browsing but it will make
browsing a little bit easy and fast. These features are:
• Bookmarks
• Pop-Up Blockers
• History
• Home Page
• Private Data

52
 Concepts of Web
Bookmarks: The Bookmarks are used for making the list or storing the most visited Browsers
URL. The Bookmarks contains only those URLs that you want to add on this list. You
can store any URL or web page as Bookmarks. For doing this, you have to follow
these steps: Bookmarked your
most visited web
• To store URL in Bookmarks, click on the Bookmarks option from Menu bar. pagesorURL
using Firefox.
• Click on "Bookmark This Page". A "Page Bookmarked" dialog box gets invoked
as shown in the Figure 16.
• If you want to change their display name then type a name that you want to give
to this URL in "Name" field.

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Figure 16: Bookmarked web page

• Select a position where you want to store it. If you want to store it on default
position then click on OK button.
• If you want to store it in a folder, then first create a folder by clicking on Folder
drop down menu. Select "Choose" then click on New Folder. It will create a
folder. Name that folder and select this folder (for example "harry" folder shown
in Figure) where you want to store this URL as shown in Figure 17.
• Finally Click on Done button.
11

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Figure 17: Page bookmarked dialog box

53
Internet
Coocepts After storing the URL, it will show under the Bookmarks menu. If you store it
in folder then it will show you under that particular folder.

Pop-up Blockers: Pop-ups have been explained to you in the section 2.6.3. If
you want to restrict pop-us in Mozilla, follow these steps:

• Go to the Tools in Menu bar. Select Options. An Options dialog box gets
invoked as shown in Figure 18.
• SeleCt Content tabs and select Block pop-up windows. It will block all the
unwanted ads or Pop-ups.
• Finally click on OK button.

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Figure 18: Options dialog box to block pop-ups.

You can also turn off the pop-up blocker any time, by unchecked the field "Block
pop-up window" • You can also set some exceptions for pop-ups window. For doing
this, follow these steps:

• Go to the Tools in Menu bar. Select Options.

• Select Content tabs. Under Block pop-up windows, select Exception. An
Exception dialogue box gets invoked as shown in the Figure 19.
• You can add web sites from which you want to accept pop-ups. Just write the
URL in "Address of Web site" field and click on "Allow" button.
• All the allowed sites are shown in "Site" area. You can also remove them by
clicking on "Remove Site" or "Remove All Sites" button.
• Finally click on OK button.

54
 Concepts of Web
Browsers

You can specfy_websitesllt._to~ __ . Type

the exact -. of the sle VDUwant to _ and then dkk_.
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Figure 19: To set Exception for Pop-ups with the help of Allowed sites dialog box

History: It is used to keep track on all the visited URL or web pages you visited
before. It stores all the web pages or URL in a folder. It is not useful to store web
pages.

For deleting the history content, follow these simple steps:

• Go to History option from Menu bar and click on "Show all History" option.
• History "Library" dialogue box gets invoked as shown in Figure 20.
• Under History option, select a link or multiple links and right click on it and click
on delete option.

-
Qpen AI in Tabs http://_.go<JOJIe.co.in/search750 .
http://_.mI<udde.orolabo<tdde .

11871items

5eIect "" item to 'Iiew and edt Its lJfopetties

o

Figure 20: Deleting URL from Library

55

c
Internet
Concepts You can also open a web page from the Library under History option. As history
option maintain all the web pages that you have been already visited in past. If you
want to open it again then you can open it from this Library.

Home Page: Whenever a web browser starts or when the home button is pressed from
browser, it automatically loads a home page. You can specify the URL for the page
that you want to be loaded whenever you start browser. You can turn this feature off
and on. For doing this, you have to follow these steps:

• Go to Tools option from Menu bar and select "Options". Options dialogue box
gets invoked as shown in Figure 23.
• Under "Main" tab, you can specify any address in "Home Page" field. Click on
OK button.
• If you want to use your default URL, then click "Restore to Default" button.
Otherwise set it blank by selecting from "When Firefox starts" drop-down list
option "show a blank page".
• You can set a current web page as a Home page by clicking "Use Current Page"
button.

Private Data: The private data includes history, cookies and some other data. We
have already discussed about the history feature in this section. Cookies are small
pieces of data sent by server to the client. Cookies are used for authentication, session
tracking, and maintaining user's information. For privacy reason, you have to delete
cookies regularly.

ttitory,

RI Keepmybistoryfor""ieast 90. days

RI Remember """'" I enter in [Ofms and the se",ch bar

RI Remember ""''''' I've ~

Th,

RI A>ceptcool<Jesfrom si•• [ ~ceptions,

RI AcceQttlwd-patty cool<ies
Keep.....u: they expire

Pr;"ate Data
Mop' Infer
o~ clear my pnvote dot. when I dose "efox

RI ask me belor. ciearinv pr""", dot.

Done

Figure 21: Options Dialog box for setting of Cookies, History

You can delete or set their properties by following these steps:

• Go to Tools option from Menu bar and select "Options".
• Options dialogue box gets invoked as shown in Figure 21.
• Select "Privacy" tab, under "Cookies" checked or unchecked the options "Accept
cookies from sites" also you can set exception for web sites by clicking Exception
button.
56
 Concepts of Web
• Under "Private Data" mark check or unchecked the fields. By clicking "Clear Browsers
Now" button, you can delete all private data from the disk.
• Click on OK button.

2.8 COMMON ERROR MESSAGES FROM A

BROWSER
When browsing the Internet, it is very common to face some sort of error messages
displayed in the browser. The 20 most 'common Internet Explorer Error messages are:

• 52 Runtime Error
• 400 Bad File Request Try out to
• 401 Unauthorized ' resolve these
• 403 Forbidden! Access Denied errors, when
it occurred
• 404 File Not Found
• 408 Request Timeout
•
•
500 Internal Error
50 INot Implemented o
•
•
502 Service Temporarily Overloaded
503 Service Unavailable
o
• Bad File Request
o
• Unable to Locate Host
• Host Unavailable
• Connection Refused by Host
• Errors on Page
• Script Error
• Runtime Error
• Failed DNS Lookup
• File Contains No Data
• Network Connection Refused by the Server

Here, we discussed only some important errors faced by a user while browsing the
internet.

52 Runtime Error: This is a "bad file name or number" error in JavaScript. It means
that the script cannot fmd a file or it is a connection problem.

400 Bad File Request: It means the syntax used in the URL is incorrect (e.g.
uppercase letter, wrong punctuation marks).

401 Unauthorized: This error comes when the website server is looking for some
encryption key from the client and is not getting it.

404 File Not Found: This error comes when Server cannot find the file you
requested. Refreshing the page should resolve this problem, although continued error
messages may mean the page is no longer available.

57
 Internet
Concepts

v Go

.»

OUlld

The reque:oted URL I d d dw not fo d on this s er

Apadwli.J.3 Serv r a ww.gJ.dJbagroup.ca Port 0

Figure 22: Error 404

500 Internal Error: This error comes when browser can not retrieve the HlML
document because of server-configuration problems .
.•.

i .The page ca n not: be d ispla yed

There is ~ problem with the p~ge you ~re trying to re~ch ~nd it
c~nnot be displ~yed.

Ple~se try the following:

• Open the t/cQnl'ne .Iuxuryresorts .com home p~ge, ~nd then

look for links to the information you w~nt.
• Click the ~ Refresh button, or try ~g~in I~ter.
• Click Q Search to look for inform~tion on the Internet.
• You can ~Iso see ~ lIst of rel~ted sites.

HTTP 500 - Intern~1 server error

Internet Explorer

Figure 23: Error SOO

503 Service Unavailable: This error comes when Server is busy, site may have
mo\'ed, or you lost your dial-up Internet connection.

Bad File Request: This error comes when Browser may not support the form or other
codirg, that you are trying to access.

Una lie to Locate Host: This error comes when Host server is down, incorrect URL,
or Internet connection is lost.

Host Unavailable: This error comes when Host server is down. Refresh it or go to the
site later.

58

CM
 Concepts of Web
Errors on Page: This error messages occurs when the browser has not read Browsers
information from the web page properly or some items are missing from the web page
itself. This problem normally affects the graphics on a web page.

Runtime Error: When you are trying to browse to various web sites, you may receive
an error message. Runtime error can occur when upgrade enables the script-debugging
and script-error-notification options.

File Contains No Data: Page is there but is not showing anything. Error occurs in the
document.

r::;:r Check Your Progress 3

1) List the features of Mozilla Firefox. .,

2) What is the purpose of Private Data in Firefox and how can you delete these
private data?

3) List the Add-ons available in Firefox?

4) List five common errors that you may encounter while browsing.

2.9 SUMMARY

This unit provides a detailed discussion on client-server computing. It discusses the

concept of web addresses in greater details. In addition, we discussed about web
browser and their working in detail, Browser is a software application used to display
images, text and information located at web pages. There are three types of browser
line browser, graphical browser and java-enabled browser. We also discussed the
features of browser. We also discussed about two common web browsers that are
Internet explorer and Mozilla Firefox. We discussed all type of version in short. We
also discussed Explorer toolbar and their buttons. We had a close look to how we
addressed a websites. We had a close look to most common 20 errors messages
generated by a browser.

59
Internet
Concepts
2.10 SOLUTIONS/ANSWERS

Check Your Progress 1

1) The three components of Client/Server computing are:

• Client - used for front-end processing like request initialization, formatting of
returned data.
e- Server - processes client request data.
• Communication network - that allows communication between clients and the
server.

2) The procedure can be defmed as:

1. The' client makes a request of a web page by giving its address.
2. The Web browser at client tries to resolve the IP address of the website by the
information available in its own cache memory. If not found then, it requests
the IP address from Domain Name System (DNS) servers. The DNS server
tells the browser about the IP address of the website.
3. Once the web browser knows the IP address of the website, it then requests
the web page from the web server.
4. The web server responds by sending back the requested web page. If the
requested page does not exist then it will send back the appropriate error
message.
5. Your web browser receives the page from the web server and displays it as
per the display requirements of the web page.

3) Domain Name Service (DNS) is the service used to map names (human readable)
of host computers to IP addresses and vice versa. DNS has a hierarchical structure
in which addresses are mapped starting from its top level domain.

4) An IP (IPv4) address consists of a NetID and a Device ID, together they uniquely
identify a device on the Internet subnetting is used to determine whether requested
IP address is local or remote.

Check Your Progress 2

1) A Web browser is an application software that is used to display and interacts

with text, images, and other information located on a Web Server. Some of the
web browsers available for web browsing are: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox,
Netscape Navigator, Opera and Safari.

2) The web browser provides following facilities:

o Browsing the web site without login or logout on the remote server computer.
o Maintains the history of the web sites you visited earlier.
o Makes a favorite list of the-entire URL that you would like to visit in future.

3) A graphical browser displays all kinds of digital media such as audio, video and
images.

Difference between Graphical browsers and line browsers:

e The graphical browser displays all kind of digital images, sounds, videos etc
but line browser can display only textual information.
• The interface of graphical browser is more users' friendly than that of line
browsers.
60
 Concepts of Web
4) The main toolbar is composed of different buttons. Each of these buttons has a Browsers
different function and purpose in Internet Explorer. They are:
1. Back Button
2. Forward Button
3. Stop button
4. Refresh Button
5. Home Button
6. Search Button
7. Printbutton
8. Fontbutton
9. Favorites button
10. Mail button
11. Research button

Check Your Progress 3 ,

1) Features of Mozilla Firefox are:

• Web technologies support
• Cross-platform support
• Security
• Tabbed browsing
• Pop-up blocking
• Download manager
• Live Bookmarks

2) The private data consists of history items, Cookies and other useful information.
Cookies are the collection of text send from the server. Cookies are used for
authentication, session tracking, and maintaining users information. From the
history item you can access same web page again as you have been visited in the
past.

You can delete or set their properties by following steps:

• Go to Tools option from Menu bar and select "Options".

• Options dialogue box gets invoked as shown in Figure ...
• Select "Privacy" tab, under "Cookies" checked or unchecked the options
"Accept cookies from sites" also you can set exception for web sites by
clicking Exception button.
• Under "Private Data" mark check or unchecked the fields. By clicking "Clear
Now" button, delete all private data from the disk.
• Click on OK button.

3) Firefox supports add-ons created by third-party developers. The most popular

Add-ons are:

• NoScript JavaScript disabling utility,

• Tab Mix Plus customizer,
• FoxyTunes media player control toolbar,
• Adblock Plus ad blocking utility,
• StumbleUpon website discovery,
• Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer bookmark synchronizer,
• WOT: Web of Trust security site advisor,
• DownThemAll! Download enhancer, and
• Web Developer toolbar.

61
Internet
Concepts 4) The five common errors while browsing are:

400 Bad File Request: It occurred when syntax is incorrect (e.g. uppercase letter,
wrong punctuation marks)

404 File Not Found: This error comes when Server cannot find the requested file.

Bad File Request: This error comes when Browser may not support the form or
other coding, that you are trying to access.

408 Request Timeout: This error comes when Client stopped the request before
the server fmished retrieving it.

File Contains No Data: Page is there but is not showing anything. Error occurs in
the document.

2.11 FURTHER READINGS

• For Client/Server Computing - http://en.wikipedia.orglwiki/Client-server

• For Web Browser - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web browser
• Fundamental of computing by Sinha & Sinha
.. • For Common Errors Message from Browser -
http://pcsupport.about.comlodlfindtheproblemltplbrowsererror.htm
• For Private Data - http://en.wikibooks.orglwikilUsin~FirefoxlPrivacy
• For Mozilla Firefox - http://en.wikibooks.orglwiki/ Mozilla_Firefox
• For Features of firefox -
http://en.wikipedia.orglwikilFeatures of Mozilla Firefox
• For Internet Explorer - en.wikipedia.orgiwikilInterneCExplorer

62

,
UNIT 3 INTERNET SEARCH
Structure Page Nos.

3.0 Introduction 63
3.1 Objectives 64
3.2 Search Engine 64
3.2.1 Searching the Web 64
3.2.2 How it Works 65
3.2.3 Building the Index 66
3.2.4 Building the Search 67
3.3 Search Engine Positioning 68
3.4 Searching Patterns 69
3.5 Case Study: Google Search Engine • 71
3.5.1 Working of Google Search Engine 71
3.5.2 Google Search Results 72
3.5.3 Narrowing down your search results 74
3.5.4 Google Products 77
3.5.5 The Essentials of Google Search 78
3.5.6 Category based Search 78
3.6 Other Search Engines 79
3.6.1 Yahoo Search 79
3.6.2 AltaVista 80
3.7 Search Results 81
3.7.1 Railways Reservation 82
3.7.2 Job search 82
3.8 More on Search Engines 83
3.9 Summary 85
3.10 Solutions/Answers 86
3.11 Further readings 88

3.0 INTRODUCTION

In the previous unit, you have gone through the concepts of Internet, how it works, The Internet is a
domain names, Internet addresses, technical aspects of Internet, web servers and web worldwide
browsers. As you know, the Internet is a network of hardware and software connected collection of
by telephone lines, fiber-optic cables and many other modes of communications, computer networks,
across the world and uses communication protocol for exchanging information. It is cooperating with
almost impossible to know that how large the Internet is, it is expanding at a each other to
phenomenal rate everyday, and is utilized by academics, journalists, educators, exchange data using
researchers, politicians, and people in business, students, and everyone else who has a common software
connectivity to this network via computer through an Internet Service Provider (ISP). standard. Through
Internet allows us to search anything and everything by visiting websites all over the telephone wires and
Internet. It also allows many other functions like sending of electronic mails, chatting, satellite links,
etc. Internet users can
share information in
On Internet the information is stored on hub-computers called Servers. No one has a a variety offorms.
sole control over Internet. No one owns the Internet. Internet Service Providers, acts
as intermediaries, stores information on their servers, and extend a local service to
users. Trillions of files have been developed using Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML) and placed on servers all over the world. The most important service of the
internet is World Wide Web (WWW).1t is the vast collection of documents which are
connected through hyperlinks. This collection of files is known as the World Wide
Web (WWW). A specific storage address is given to a set of files, which allows other

63
Internet
Concepts computers to trace it. This unique storage address is called Uniform Resource Locator
(URL). In this unit, we will study about some of the important characteristics of
Internet search, search engines, its working principle and different searching patterns.
Some of the most important search engines are discussed later in this unit.

3.1 OBJECTIVES
Internet search
After studying this unit, you should be able to:
engines are special
sites on the Web that
• explain what a Search Engine is, and define associated key terms;
are designed to help
• describe working of a search engine, and how to search effectively;
people find
• identify some of the important search engines and their basic features;
information stor
on other site • analyze some of the important search results; and
• appreciate the utility and importance of search engines.

3.2 SEARCH ENGINE

Internet (WWW) is the ocean of information. This is the vastest place where all the
information, knowledge and data are available on all the known topics on this
universe. Internet is also known as the "web" of information spread over almost on all
the facts (although you must verify the authenticity of information you get from the
net) known till date. So this source of information is the most widely used worldwide.
But then how to find the exact information that you are searching for from this ocean?
The Internet began To overcome this problem, there are some special information retrieval tools, on the
as ARP Anet, a web that are designed to help people find information stored on other sites. These are
U.S. Department known as Internet search engines. A search engine permits you to search for keywords
of Defence project or desired information throughout the web.
to create a
nationwide There may be differences on the principles and ways on which various search engines
computer network work, but they all essentially perform three basic tasks:
that would
continue to • Search the Internet, based on important words or select pieces of the web.
function even if a • Keep an index of "what & where" they find the words of interest.
large portion of it • Allow users to look entire web for the words or combinations of words.
were destroyed in
Search engines designed in the early days were capable of keeping an index of a few
a nuclear war or
hundred thousand pages, data and documents, and received may be one or two
natural disaster.
thousand inquiries each day. Considering the expectation from the Internet during
those days may be this much was sufficient. But with the increasing information and
also the usage of Internet, this capability of search engines was just not adequate.
Today, a top search engine will index more than hundreds of millions of pages, and
respond to more than tens of millions of queries per day. That really is a major task to
handle. How these are performed? How these search engines finds the required
information from the internet and put the pieces together?

3.2.1 Searching the Web

When you talk about internet search engines, you actually mean World Wide Web
search engines. These search engines were already in place to help people find
information on the Net before the Web became the most visible part of the Internet.
These programmes spectacularly reduced the amount of time required to find files and
documents! keeping indexes of files stored on servers connected to the Internet. By the
late1980s, getting the expected results from the Internet meant knowing that how to
use the available search engines? The popularly known search engines at that time

64

c
 Internet Search

were "gopher", "Archie" and "Veronica". Some of the modem age popular search
engines viz. Google, Yahoo, AltaVista are discussed later in the Unit.
Internet searching consists of 4 basic steps:

1) Query Formulation that includes selection and combination of various keywords.

Advance search performed by experienced· users not only include combination of
good keywords but also refined search criteria such as specifying areas to be
searched, a date range and so on.
2) Click the search button and wait for the result. This is not an interactive step but
you cannot ignore it.
3) You should review the result list to find something interesting for you. Result
depends mostly on query so vary from negative result (no match) to the huge
collection of data. Most cases will be between the two extremes.
4) Take action on the result. As an example if there is any negative result, you may
search with new query formulation or give up. When there are huge amount of
result, you may refine or redo the search or give up.

3.2.2 How it Works

The basic objective of a search engine is to tell you where exactly a file or document
is, that you are looking for. But before it does so, the same must be found from the
hundreds of millions of Web pages that exist. To do this hunt, the search engine
employs special software, called spiders. These spiders build lists of the keywords
found on Websites ...Thisprocess is called Web crawling. Web is a countless collection
of documents, files & information connected together, just like a spider-web. The
software designed for fmding out the required information on the entire web is known
as "Spider". The names and the working of Search Spider on the Web are quite
similar to the Web-spider.
When you enter the key words for search, the spiders starts its web-crawling. But how
does any spider start its travels over the Web? Generally, the starting points are the The Web
most popular pages and the lists of heavily used servers. The spider will begin with a
popular site, indexing the words on its pages and following every link found within
the site. Following this pattern, the spider quickly begins to travel the web, spreading
out across the most widely used portions. An overview of the search engine working Spider is a program that
is illustrated in Figure 1. crawls on the web to
collect and index the
pages as per the search
parameters. The pages
once visited are also
stored for reference in
quick future reference
also.

Building list where

the word was found

Building index based on Stores data for

its own logic ofprioritising Encoding to save space users to access

Figure1: Working of Search Engine

65
 Internet
Concepts

So, you can say that Internet search engine works on coordinated set of following
steps:

The process of 1) Spidering or Gathering Pages: A program called "spider" (Crawler or bot or
prioritizing the robots or gathers) goes to every representative page on the web, reads it using
web pages in the hypertext links and gathers off such pages. As the spider visits various addresses
order of their on the web, it saves the pages or portion of pages for future analysis.
preference is
called Indexing and Prioritiring: A program called "Indexer" creates a huge index
"Indexing" . (Called Catalog) from the gathered pages. The indexer looks at various
constituents of a page like its <title>, <meta> tags, comment text, link titles,
Heading and Body text. In order to conclude the meaning of the page. After that
the page is analyzed to various keywords and ranked with respect to other pages
with similar keywords and stored in databases. There are many criteria for page
ranking that we will discuss later.

3) Encoding and Storing: Finally the index data so generated is properly structured
and stored.

A program that receives the search request compares it to the entries in the index,
fetch the relevant pages and return to you. You can pick up some results from the
result pages for further exploration, may refme the search with new query formulation
or just exit.

Indexing is very
helpful, because it
gives the facility to
the user to check
the most
appropriate page
first, out of the
countless pages Searching the web and Building Index Encoding and Storing
found during the finding the requested words and Prioritise Sy tematic Data
search
Figure 2: Indexing and Encoding

3.2.3 Building the Index

Once the spider completes the search and the required information is found on the
web, the information on the search engine must be stored in such a way that makes it
useable. Actually, the search is never completed and due to the continuous changing
nature of the web structure, spiders are endlessly crawling. There are two key
components involved in making the gathered data accessible to users:
An index allows
information to be • Information stored with the data
found as quickly as • Method by which the information is indexed
possible.
As a simplest case, the search engine can simply keep on storing all the pages and
URLs wherever the word of interest was found, and then displaying all the
information to the user. But this will not be very useful to the users because the
displayed result will have no information whether the word was used in an important
or critical way on the page or it was used repeatedly or only once. In other ways, the
search engine is now building the ranking list of the sites found that lists the most
useful pages on the top of the search results.
66
 Internet Search
This ranking is required to make the searched results more useful. Search engines
keep on storing number of times the requested search term or the required words in
the stored data or in URL are found. Then the engine assigns a weight to each entry.
As the value assigned to the word increases, it comes on the top of the search results.
Different search engine may have their own logic for assigning weight to words in its
index. Due to this reason, the search results for the same word will produce different
lists on different search engines, and also with the same pages in different orders.
After the search, the information stored by a search engine will be encoded to save
space, by optimizing on font size, style, position, color, sequence, etc. Doing so, more
information can be stored in a less memory space. The information now is ready for
indexing. The only objective of indexing is that the information should be found as
quickly and comfortably as possible.
In order to build the index, a numerical value is attached to each word by a formula,
and then it is sorted to show the word with highest ranking on the top. This process is
called hashing. A hash table is build for distributing evenly the entries across number Key to get the required
of divisions. The key to a hash table's effectiveness is that the numerical distribution is results fast and accurate
different from the distribution of words across the alphabet. For example, there are is ...
some letters in English that starts many words, while others start lesser number of Design your "Query"
words. For example, you will find that in dictionary the alphabet "A" section is much carefully.
thicker than alphabet "X" section. This means that finding a word beginning with
alphabet "A" would take much longer than that for a word beginning with alphabet
"X". This difference is evened out by hashing. Thus, hashing reduces the average
time required for finding an index entry. Even when the user creates a complex
search, it helps getting the results quickly by the combination of efficient indexing and
effective storage.

3.2.4 Building the Search

You can start searching by building a query and submitting it to the search engine.
This query can be as simple as a single word or a complex query using Boolean
operators like "AND", "OR", "NOT" etc. It can also be "FOLLOWED BY",
"NEAR" etc. Another option of creating a query can be a set of words between
"Quotation marks", which is considered as a phrase, and that phrase as a whole is
searched. The following example explains the use of various terms used for building a
search. Assume that you want to search for pages containing information about
"Cumulative Learning Approach". The Table 1 lists the possible use of operators and
how it will affect your search.

Table 1: Example of Search with or without Boolean Operator

Search Type You Search For String You will get Search Results as:
Simple Search Cumulative Learning Approach Pages containing "all" or "any" of the words
Pages containing "any" of the words. Same as
OR search Cumulative OR Learning OR Approach
above in this case.
Cumulative AND Learning AND
AND search Pages containing "all" the words in any order
Approach
FOLLOWED Pages where the term "Cumulative" is
Cumulative FOLLOWED BY Learning
BY followed by the term "Learning"
Pages where the term "Cumulative" is before
NEAR Cumulative NEAR Learning
or after the term "Learning"
Quotation Where "Cumulative Learning Approach" is as
"Cumulative Learning Approach"
Marks one phrase (all words in same sequence).

67
 Internet
Concepts

Using Boolean functions

while designing a "Query"
makes your search more
specific and the user can
get directly to the desired
results very fast.

Figure 3: Logic of Boolean operations

To summarize, a typical search engine does the following activities:

• It starts the search by sending out a spider to get hold of as many files &
documents as possible. Spider may keep working in the background almost
forever.
• Another program, called an indexer, then analyzes these documents and creates
an index based on the words contained in each document.
• Each search engine uses its own algorithm in order to create its indices in such a
manner that, ideally, only meaningful results are returned for each query.

3.3 SEARCH ENGINE POSITIONING

Most search engines in general display 9-10 results per page in response to the
submission of the search term. It is not of much benefit if a link to web page is ranked
at result 585 out of the 9000654 results, the position on a web page in search results is
very important if you want to get maximum benefit out of it. The process of obtaining
high page ranking among result pages is called search engine positioning. Positioning
is only relevant for search engines with crawler technology. To achieve a high ranking
on result pages, search engine optimization is needed.
Search engine
optimization (SEO) Search Engine Optimization focuses on designing pages so as to attract 'spiders'.
is the process of There are some tips for optimizing the pages of a website.
improving the volume
and quality of traffic Content: It is most important factor for optimization. The pages you create should
to a web site from provide valuable information that references very specific terms and concepts.
search engines
Title and Meta Tags: The crawler read the TAGS to decide the keywords of your
pages so these should be intelligently designed. Meta-tags and HTML tags describe
the document they are located within.

Link Structure: One should use dynamic HTML or Flash or graphics to improve the
user experience. It is not only important to user but also search engines use links
within your website to crawl and index the pages these links points to.

Link Popularity: The number of website linked to your website is another important
factor for search engine optimization. Link popularity and gaining new links from
outside website to your website is popular concept to improve search engine rankings.

68
 Internet Searcb

G? Check Your Progress 1

1) Why do you need a Search Engine?

2) State true or false.

a) Boolean functions "AND" and "OR" can not be used together (in one search
term).
b) In Boolean logic, AND/OR can be used in small or capital letters.
c) Ranking is the.very secret part of search ~ngine operation.

3) Fill in the blanks with appropriate word or group of words.

a) The process of gathering a large number off pages of a web is called __ .
b) are HTML tags that helps describing the.documents they are
located.
c) Relationship between an on line customer and the company proving service is
called _

4) Describe the function of Indexer and its benefits.

3.4 SEARCHING' PATTERNS

Suppose you are hungry and you walk in a restaurant. The waiter comes to you to
know what you would like to have. You say that you want "food" to eat. On this
demand, s/he may bring you 100 dishes all that are available on the menu card of that
restaurant. It will not only be impossible for you to eat, rather it will be impractical to
even fmd out the dish you want to eat. So that big heap of food will be of no use to
you. You call the waiter again and order him to bring a "pizza" for you. On your new
demand, s/he may bring 50 types of pizzas for you, all with different toppings, with
different amount and flavours of cheese and with different kind of base. It is again a
problem for you to select the one you would like, and there are chances that you may
not like anyone of all that are made available. You call the waiter once again to
specify your requirement more clearly and order for a pizza with less cheese, thin
crust, with capsicum and without onion. Now, you may get only 3 different pizzas and
there are fairly good chances that you would like all and even if not, then also you will
not face any difficulty in selecting the one you like most.
Although the example given above is not realistic but it tries to explain the importance
of designing your search in such a manner that you get the best possible results in a
minimum possible time span. In order to fmd what you need from the Internet, you
need to design your search statement. The identification of the process of how to
perform searches of online information will significantly increase your chances of
finding what you want. Different search engines let you defme your search criteria in
a different way and with different facilities. Some of the simple considerations for
designing better search are explained below:

69
 Internet Search

not having the term computer in it. you may give a search like Architecture AND
NOT Computer. Please note that this search may require different format in
different search engine.

• Parentheses: The Boolean operators are powerful, but when used in combination
with parentheses, offer substantial control over the search logic of the engine.
Parentheses are used in logic similar to that in a mathematical equation, limiting
and ordering relations between variables. For example: If you want to fmd a
tutorial on cosmos, you can use the search criteria Cosmos AND (tutorial OR
lesson). The documents searched must contain both of the words Cosmos and
tutorial or Cosmos and lesson. Basically, the parentheses are used for the
distribution property same as in mathematics, to distribute the keyword Cosmos
to either of the two "OR" words inside the symbols.

Some engines offers Boolean logic with radio buttons or pull-down menu choices
such as Search results must include "All terms" (equivalent to using the operator
AND), or documents must include "Any terms" (equivalent to using OR) and so on.
Some other search engines offer the ability to limit searches by the creation dates of
the web pages. This may work out to be a powerful tool if you are regularly searching
on a specific topic. This feature can limit the results to pages created since your last
search, and is very useful when you are searching for topics on current events.
Yahoo! offer pull-down menu or radio buttons for search option. While Alta Vista and
HotBot offer the ability to specify dates or timeframes. Google, MSN, Yahoo,
Alta Vista and some mQre search engines provides the ability to restrict searches to
specific areas like books only, just the web, newsgroups, pictures, video and so on.

3.5 CASE STUDY: GOOGLE SEARCH

Launched in September 1999, Google search (www.google.com) is the most

prominent web search engines as on date. It has the database of 20+ billion pages that Google started as a
includes: research project at
Stanford University,
Web (http://www.google.com/) created by Ph.D.
Images (http://images.google.com/) candidates Larry Page
Groups (http://groups.google.com/) and Sergey Brin when
News (http://news.google.com) they were 24 years old
Books (http://books.google.com) and 23 years old
Catalog (http://catalog.google.com) and so on. respectively
(a combined 47 years
Google is one of the most used search engines in the market so it is important to list old)
your website on Google. This inclusion is free of cost however Google offers paid
services also for the promotion of sites.

3.5.1 Working of Google Search Engine

In this section, you will learn the basics of Google, the most popular search engine.
Google receives daily
The basic working of Google is based on the following three steps:
search requests from all
1) The query is sent from web server to the index servers. The information managed over the world, including
by the index servers is quite similar to the index at the back of a book. It tells that Antarctica.
which pages contains the words matching to the specific query term.
2) The query is then sent to document servers, where the stored documents are
retrieved.
3) The search results are then sent to the user.

Now let us understand see how the Google search engine looks like (Figure 4).

71
Internet
Concepts

TU

Web l.!:ni.w ~ ~ Scholar more ~

lama:llon river in brazil

-:fT-r========:v===========\--'
I Advanced Search

~ r Google Search n I'm Feeling Lucky

L.... Preferences
L'nguaqe Tools
Search Field. .
Search: @ the web 0 pages from lndia
•
Figure 4 Home Page ofwww.Google.com

A paper by Sergey Brin and Lawrence (The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hyper

textual Web Search Engine) describes how the data mining system of Google was
built. In this paper, a prototype of a large-scale search engine which makes heavy use
of the hypertext structure is presented. Google is designed to crawl and index the Web
efficiently and produce much more satisfying search results than existing systems.
The prototype with a full text and hyperlink database of at least 24 million pages is
available at http://google.stanford.edu/

The paper also gives an example of how quickly their spiders can work. Initial system
was build using multiple spiders, three at one time. Each spider was able to keep about
300 connections to Web pages at a time. At its peak performance, their system could
crawl over 100 pages per second (using four spiders at a time), generating around 600
kilobytes of data each second. Ensuring everything running quickly requires building
a system that can feed necessary information to spiders. These spiders, takes a note of
Google's index of web
two things, while searching:
pages is the largest in the
world, comprising of • Words within the page
billions of web pages. • Location of the found words
Google searches this
immense collection of web Spiders are built to index all significant words, leaving out the articles like "the", "a,"
pages often in less than "an" etc." There can be different strategies for searching, like pointing the most
half a second. frequently used words on the page, searching for the whole sentence including "a,"
"an," "the" and other "insignificant" words, or indexing the most significant words in
the titles. But the ultimate aim of any logic is to fmd the words of interest most
efficiently and in the minimum possible time.

Sometimes, the words that we wish to search may have different meaning at different
As the web grows, search places. The same word may have double or triple meanings. The capability that can
becomes more important. guide the search engine in deciding that which of these several possible meanings is
It is like a library - the correct is called the meta tags. However over-reliance on meta tags can be risky
bigger the library, the sometimes, because a page owner might add meta tags that indicates topics that are
more important the index. popular, but are different from the actual contents of the page. That can be because the
owner of a site wants his page to be included in most of the search results, or does not
want it to show on major searches, or does not want the spider to access his page.
3.5.2 Google search results
After going through the basics about Google search, you will now study about the
components and features of this search results. In this section, you will learn about
search result screen of Google and the interpretation of the entries there-in.

72
 Internet Search

The Figure 5 shows the search results screen. Please not that this screen may change
when you make an actual search as Google may change its website:

1 3
,- ~~ ~2.~
rweb ~ l2mwa tmn SCh~~~ 4
~azon riverin brazi~ _ ~ ~
Search. e the web 0 pages from India --...;;...-- •••••
~ 5
Web ResOtt. 1 - 1. 0( aboIJt 1.190/000 for amlZOQ dy.r In W.dl ,"S HCDfl6s)

Tip: Save time by hijlmg Ihe return key instead of clicking on "search"

~ Amazon river, Peru and Brazll- FactMonster.com

7 ~ !lows across N Brazil before enlering Ihe Allanhc Ocean near Bel~m. The Amazon carries ] 8 6
more water Ihan any other .ive. in Ihe wo~d....
_.factmonster.comlce6lwo~d/NJ8D3618html· 16k ~. Similar pd!)e'

Amazon River· Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia &

The low .ive. banks are interrupted by only a few hills, and the river enters the enormous
Amazon RaIDfo,est. The river systems and flood plains in Brazil, ...
en'M",ped,. orglwikVAm.lZoll_Rlve •. 89k . ~. Simlla. pages

Amazon River In Brazil

The Amazon is a gigantic system of rive.s and forests, covering almost half of Brazil and
extending into neighboring countnes. The wide stretch of .iver, ..•
_.mdwe'l.comlamazo'~rlver·pg htm- 11~ . ~. $'mriar pages

brazO map and map of brazil and information page

Today Brazil is justifiably famous for Ihe Amazon River; Carnival in RIO;the beaches of
Copacabana and Ipanema; its many champion soccer teams, .•.••
_.graphlcmaps cor'n/weblmage/countryslsamencalbr htrn- 55k· ~ - S,m.I.•• pages

Fact File: The Amazon River

fact frle abcut the Amazon. Length: The Am,tzon River is 62f1Jkm long Source Catillona,
Peru. The Mouth(Oe~a) is located In North Eastem Brazil .•..
www.mbarronnIrllAmazon/factfile.htm • 4k· : .rhed· Srn;"r NgoS

l I l \
9 10 11 12

Figure 5: Search Result Screen of Google

1) Navigation Bar: You can customize your search and navigate to all the products
of Google. You can click this link for the service you want to use. You can search
the web, browse for images, maps and videos, news and navigate to other Google
products.
2) Search Field: You just type in a few words of interest or descriptive search terms
Google's index of web
and press the "Enter" key or click the "Search" button.
. pages is the largest in the
3) Search Button: you can click this button or press the "enter" key to submit a world, comprising of
search query. billions of web pages.
Google searches this
4) Advanced Search: Links to a page on which you can make your search more
immense collection of web
precise, by selecting various options available (explained later in the section).
pages often in less than
5) Preferences: Links to a page that allows you to set your personal preferences for half a second.
search' Some of the preferences that can be set by you using this page include the
language, total number of results that you would like to see in a page and many~.
more options.
6) Search Statistics: This line indicates the time taken by the search engine to
search the current data, as well as describes the total number of results. (if you
notice, the search engine in this example has searched for "amazon river" and
"brazil", leaving aside "in", this being one of very common words).
. 7) Page Title: The ftrst line of any search result is the title of the web page found. If
instead of a title, you see a URL, then either the search engine have not yet
indexed that full content of that page or the page has no title. But this being in
Google index still indicates that it may be a good match for your query.

73
Internet
Concepts 8) Text below the Title: This is an extract from the page that is resulted from your
query terms. If you click on the page title, you can see the whole contents of that
page.
9) URL of result: This is the web address of the page found.
10) Size: This is the size of the text portion of the web page. This gives you some idea
of how much time it might take to display. If the site is not yet indexed, you will
not see the size of that site.
"
11) Cached: This link will show you the contents of web page when it was indexed
last time. If for some reason you are not connected to the site link of the current
page, you may still find the required information in the cached version.
12) Similar pages: Selecting this link for a particular result, Google automatically
explores the web for pages that are similar or related to this result.

By putting "Quotation 3.5.3 Narrowing down your Search Results

Marks" we have requested If you notice the search results in Figure 5 and Figure 6, you will find that the search
Google to search for term words are same in both, but the search results are different. That is because of the
amazon river in brazil as use of "Quotation Marks" in Figure 6. You can narrow-down your search by using
a phrase. this technique. If you put "Quotation Marks" in your search term, the whole search
term will be considered as one phrase.

Web ~ ~ ~ Scholar more»

I"amazon
, river in brazil" I(
, . Search I
' AdVlnced
Prefer.notS Surch

Search: @ the web 0 pages from India

Web Results 1 -

Tip: Save time by hitting the return key instead of di.cking on "search"

Amazon River In Brazil

Amazon River area of Brazil. The Amazon is a gigantic system of rivers and forests, covering
almost half of Brazil and extending into neighboring countries .•.•
www.mdweil.com{amazon-river-pg.htm - 11 k - Cached - Similar pages

Manaus, Brazil- Largest City on the Amazon River in Brazil

Manaus, Brazil is the largest city on the Amzaon River. Manaus was once the richest city in
South American due to its rubber industry.
cruises.about.com/-od!southamericacruises/ss/amazon cruise 10.htm - 26k -
Cached - Similar pages - -

Parinti ns, Brazil - Amazon River Town and Home of the Boi Bumba ...
Parintins is a small town of about 80000 people on the Amazon River in Brazil, about 350
miles from Manaus. The village is 200 years old and has a rich ••.
cruises. about. com!od/southamericacruises/ig/Parintins-Brazill - 24k - Cached - Similar pages
[ More results from cruises about com )

Peacock bass fishing in Brazil aboard the Santana I with Westside ...
Welcome to one of the most exciting fishing adventures anywhere - a week exploring the
fabled waters of the Amazon River in Brazil with Westside Adventures .••.
www.westsideadventures.com/peacockbass/- 19k - Cached - Similar pages

Figure 6: Search results by putting "Quotation Marks"

You can further narrow-down your search results by using the Advance Search
option. To do so, you can select any or all the options available. Some of the search
options available are "with all the words", "with the exact phrase", "with at least one

74
 Internet Search
of the words" and "without the words". You can also choose the language & region
options and the required file format. In addition to all these options, you can also
select the pages modified before, after or between specific dates.

G 8 Advanced Search Mva6c.d Search Tipa I About Gopgle

WIth all ofthe words 10 re.uhs y I..I_G_O_O.:::91e_S_e_a_re_h--,

Find r ••• oI
WIththe e.aet phla,. amazon river In brazil
Wllh .11 least 0". of the word.
without the word.
language Relurn pages wrrtten in [ any language
Regl.n Search pag •• localed in: [ any region _
FU. FOllnat Only .•• relurn resulll of the file format [any format __
Date Return web page. fir.t seen In the [anyti,!!e-
I
Ocelli. enc •• Return results where my terms occur C!nywhere in the page
l -..: -1
Domain

Utage Rights
[On~.r Y return results (rom the site or domain

Retum results that are

.9 go091.cum.

ll1.iI!.l!.Jo!2
Dig ll1.iI!.l!.Jo!2
[not filtered by license-,--_- ----=-
Sal.Suleh o No filtering 0 filter uSing ~

Page-Speclflc Search

Slmllal Find pages similar t~ the page

-I S_ch I
• 9 wwwgoogI8com/helphtm-'--
lInb Find page. that link 10 the page I --- -1Search I
Figure 7: Using "Advance Search option to narrow-down search results

You can use preferences option in the Google window to select several display
preferences. The Figure 8 shows this page:

l" httpl/J~.ooooIe.co.tn/pr"",enc •• ~ !Cl-

G 8 Preference. pm.renc •• Help, AbOu' GOggl.

Glob._ Pref'erenc •• (chang •• apply to all 13000'.' .ervlc:.s)

D,apley Googl. tips .nd rn •••• g •• in: ['Engush

If you do not find your ".tive language In the pulldown albav.-, you can
help Google or •• te It through our GAggle 10 ygur I 800"eo_ pmgrem

5e.,..,ch Lanu••""o.

o Afrikaa". o Engll.h Cl ttalla" Cl Slovak

Cl ...,.ble o Esperanto o .Japa"e •• Cl Slov.nia"
Cl Arm."I." Cl Estontan Cl Ko".a" Cl Spa"'.h
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o S__ dl.•h
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Cl Ca'*'a" Cl Fre" h Cl NO""""8g.an Cl Thtl'
Cl Chi" ••• (SlmphfJ.d) Cl German Cl Pe,..la" o Tuf1c:•• ""
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Cl Gr•• k
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•••
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o Dutch o l"do"_.J." Cl S.rblan

GOOg'.·· s.(.s··CSb blocks •••••.•

b pag •• cont.fn'ng ellCpUctt•• wu.' content fro,," .•ppe ••.•n9 '" •• arch
r •• utt.
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A •••• ' •• Wh.dow

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o 00 not prO'offde query .ug09Sl!ona In the ••• reh box

CQ:O()9 (3.oogl.

Figure 8: Showing Preferences for searching

75
Internet
Concepts You can use Google search preference for making changes in interface language,
search language, safe search filtering, display of numbers of results on a page, results
window and query suggestions.

Interface Language: You can use this option to set the preferred language in which
Google will display tips and messages. Try setting it to Hindi.

Search Language: You can use this option to set the preferred language of the pages
that are being searched.

Safe Search Filtering: you can use this option filter to block all the unwanted
contents to show in search results. You must use this filter.

Number of Results: You can change the number of results that may be shown in one
result page using this option. Try changing it and perform a search to see its effect.

Results Window: you can use it to open search results in a new browser window.

Query Suggestions: You can use this option to allow Google to provide query
suggestions in the search box. This will help in refming your search.

You can also use "Language Tools" option given below the preferences. It presents
the following window of various language tools:

c (~. htt:P:fI-.oooge.co.~_I:ooIs?hl-en

Most v..-:ed • GettInO Started latest Headines Customlze

LInks

W.b Jm.aau. ~ ~ Qrk.UI. J:Wl.ail lllSWl.

G 8 -Language Tools Aboyt GOQ91a

Search acro •• language.

Type a search phrase In your own language to easily find pages In another language We'l translate the results for you to read

S •• rc:.hfor' r-

Tip U •• adyancgd aearch to r •• trtct your search by language and country 'Without translating your search phrase.

Tran.late text

.....» I Englllih
-' Tran.late a web page
Ihttp//
...... »' Engllah I Tro.nsle.te .)

U.e the Google Interface In Your Language

Sel Ih. Googhahomepage, m•••• g••• and button. to d•• pl.y in your selected language via our Prgrftraoc •• page
Google currently off.rs the following interface languag..
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Figure 9: Language Tools

76
 Internet Search

You can use Language Tools of Google search for searching across language,
translating text or a web page etc. It has the following options:

Search Language: You can use this option to type a search word or phrase in your
own language to easily find pages in another language. The result is translated in your
language so that you can easily read it.

Translate Text: You can use this option to translate any text into a language of your
choice.

Translate a Web Page: You can use this option to translate any web pages into the
language of your choice for the purpose of viewing.

3.5.4 Google Products

•
In addition to the most powerful search engine, www.google.com also offers some
more useful products. Following are some of the commonly used products:

• Specific search : You can search Books, Blog, and Pictures on specific topics.

• Gmail : Fast, searchable email with less spam.

• Talk : Call your friends through your computer.

• Earth/Maps : Explore the world / Maps from your computer

• Google Health : Organize your medical records online

• Translate : View web pages in other languages / Translation

• Calendar : Organize your schedule & share events with friends

• Orkut : Meet new people and stay in touch with friends

• Does : Create and share your online documents & files.

• ... and many more.

-.
.., •••• ,..." ..• 114., fJ,..IIU" •• t

C:ommunIcet •. $how ~ aNr.

Gomobll.

Figure 10: Screen showing Google'products

77
Internet
Concepts 3.5.5 The Essentials of Google Search

Searching on Google is easy. Just type one or more "search terms" (search terms
are the set of words which best describe the information you want to find) into the
search box and hit the search button or just press 'Enter' key. In response, Google
will show you the results in the form of a list of web pages related to your search
terms. The most relevant pages will be appearing first, then the next, and so on.

______ i [ Search)

Below are some of the basic tips that will help you maximize the effectiveness of
search on Google search:

Selecting search terms: Selecting the right search term is the most important key
for finding the right information you need, so it should be selected very carefully.
Start with the most obvious, but it is advisable to select multiple search terms for
better results.

Capitalization: Google searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters will be
understood as lower case, regardless of how you type them.

Automatic "and" queries: Googlerby default, searches pages that include all the
words of your search terms. But the order in which the terms are typed will affect
the search results.

Exclusion of common words: Google does not search for the common words in
search terms, being generally unimportant and tend to slow down the search
without actually improving the results. So the search engine ignores words like
"in", "that", "of' etc. But for information of the user, Google will indicate if a
common word has been excluded.

, Word variations: Google has a very good feature. In addition to searching for your
search terms, it also searches for words that are related to some or all of those terms.
This is called stemming technology.

Phrase searches: Sometimes you may be interested to search the whole phrase as it
is. To do that, put quotation marks around search terms.

Negative terms: If the word you are searching has more than one meaning, you can
avoid one of the meaning by putting "-"sign between the word and its meaning you
want to avoid.

And fmaUy...
[I'm Feeling Lucky 1 : Just enter your search terms, and try "I'm
Feeling Lucky" button. This will take you straight to the most relevant website that is
found for your query.

3.5.6 Category Based Search

This is a very important feature of most of the popular search engines which allows
you to limit your search results to the category of your interest. It allows you to fmd
out your query while restricting your search to the category decided by you, like:
Books, Blogs, Pictures, etc. Using category based search, you can also make your
search results specific to the type of files like: MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint etc.
by entering the file type extension. The search can also be restricted to the type of web
sites, like: .com, .org, .edu, etc. So by making your search category based, you can get
rid of the countless result output that you may not be interested in, and truncating your
search result to only what is of your curiosity.

78
 Internet Search

r:::;:r Check Your Progress 2

1) State true or false.

a) For given search words, your search results will remain unchanged
irrespective of the search pattern used.
b) The time taken by the search engineto search also depends on the search
pattern.
c) Truncation is used to narrow down your search.
d) Search results depend largely on the case sensitivity of the search terms.
e) By using "Calendar" on Google, you can also share your schedule with your
friends. . ,

2) Explain the feature "Negative terms" on Google. Try this with some examples.

3) List down the popular search engines that supports Category based search.

3.6 OTHER SEARCH ENGINES

Like Google which you have studied, there are many more search engines available
on the web. We shall be taking an overview of two more popular search engines.

3.6.1 Yahoo! Search http://www.yahoo.com

Yahoo! is one of the most popular portals on the web. In addition to its full-featured
search engine, it also offers many more utilities for the users which include e-mail,
messenger, news, shopping etc. In February 2004, Yahoo introduced its own search
.database, making its search much more powerful. Before that, it was using the search
engines of other portals available on the web.

Web . Images Video Local Shopping mora v

naukri Web Search

79
Internet
Concepts The advanced search option of Yahoo! gives the facility to use Boolean operations,
use of key words in URL, title or in the entire page. It also allows the user to filter the
search results based on the period of updating of the page.

hllwl ul with Ihe Id. u n

, «I orO.

It 0011I.111 @1loJ.,don"! In
o Only, 0111 dom Ins On!y .tllll dOmaln$
OOIlIY.9 \I dom n 0"'1 .019 dom "$

In addition to Search Engine, Yahoo! web site also offers a lot of other facilities like
e-mail, messenger, shopping, news, weather, horoscope, maps, jobs, games and a lot
more.

3.6.2 AltaVista http://www.a1tavista.com

AltaVista is a popular search engine on the Web. In addition to searching text key
words, it can also search graphic images and other documents like most search
engines. Alta Vista's search robot is known as "Scooter". It is capable of searching
over three million Web pages per day. Its indexer "Ni2" can index one gigabyte of
data per hour.

AltaVista by large is similar to Yahoo!. However, the most popular feature of

AltaVista is its "Babel Fish Translation", This is basically a language tool that
supports various languages and you can use it for translation from one language to
another.

80
 InternetSearch

Search field options

Images MP3/Audio Video News

MY'Deed Surcb

Search window
USA RESULTS IN:

B.lbel Fish Translation 0

~i'!i~.

English. Sp.ni.b

Advanced Search Options

,
SItting. /

Toolbar Answel"5 Directory Shopping Travel Yellow Pages People Finder More H

The most popular feature of Alta Vista

I Advanced Search ~

I The Boolean
-l
logic is in-
built and you can use
In-built "AND", "OR" etc by
Boolean using radio buttons. Search
can also be limited by
Logic
using the date range when
the document was
r·_ Search option modified. Document can
by time fence also be searched by the file
type by giving search
options as ".doc", ".xls",
, •• '1'1"'. ".ppt", ".pdf' etc.
Search option
by file type.

3.7 SEARCH RESULTS

In this section, you will study about some search results. A couple of web sites that
you get as the result of your search terms are being discussed in this section. For
example:

• If you enter "Railway Reservation" as your search term in a search engine, then
your search results will also include ••http://www.irctc.co.in ". The basic features
of this site are discussed below.

- If you try with search term "Job Search" and keep your search limited to the pages
from India, then ••http://www.naukri.com ••will surely be your search results among
top pages. The main elements of this website are also discussed below.

81

,
Internet
Concepts 3.7.1 Railway Reservation http://www.irctc.co.in

~-..- r.•-' YJrSY~'-"'\!:"" ~

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;

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; •• •••••

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Agent LogO>

Ii"; User Profile

Update Prolile
Change PassWlltd
Ma~er List of Passengers
Passenget' Tr6IVel List
• My Tranaac:tJona

Booked TICkets
cancel! Re·Pr •.• E,TICket
Cancelled Taets History

Plan My Troyel
o...clBook
Ml.nnba< Season Tocket
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PIl1 'coes Cover ea
Populal ilaK'lS
PoI~lJlar Stertlons _

This is an official web site of Indian Railways and offers various easy access facilities
for the users related to Indian Railways. To use all the features, you need to create a
log-in ID.

You can book or cancel train ticket from anywhere to anywhere as per your own
preference of seat or berth, can print the tickets, check the schedule and status of any
train, confirm timings, route, stoppages and fare of all the trains running between a
pair of stations.

Many special offers by railways for the users are also being recommended for the
users on this web site from time to time.

Accessing this site on the web allows you to use almost all the online facilities related
to Indian Railways, for which the user was required to personally go to the railways
office and that too during the specified working hours. For example, a lot of time and
energy was required to be wasted for getting a train reservation done, which is now
possible at the click of a button and that too sitting at home. All that is made possible
by this wonderful thing called Internet.

3.7.2 Job Search http://www.naukri.com

There are many job search portals available on the web. You can use anyone of these
portals or a combination for doing job search. One such common portal is
www.naukari.com.ltis perhaps one of the most popular websites for job search in
India. It allows you to search with a lot of powerful options and various filters. To
search the web for the jobs available, you can enter the most relevant key words,

82

M
 ,----------------------~~

Internet Search

criteria for search, experience in number of years, preferred location where the you
want to search the job and the related field of experience. You can also limit your
search by category of job and also by putting lower and upper limit of expected salary.
Using all these choices of selection available on the website, the user can pin-point
his/her searches to find out only the jobs available that meets his/her various criteria .

••••••

Search Jobs
114,••• <1. C .rlb bp.
P "-13 -.11 0.<1, 16

Jobs By Cat.gory Mln,I'I'urn S la,..,

IT, $(1 r Ie l<ecm. VI,OO,ooo v BP
Constru n, En'l eeMO Po".,
ot!. tnel!) , Ind
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8est PI4Ce. to Wort! ~
Select
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tNAyA I Note: The fl!SU will onl, b
~~dtJUC'flf ( t-'nlflllUflK .I~·.' ordered based on e values
sele ad.

. Login to Apply R I- New User Apply

Naukri.com search results:

o procmement Manager (DMRC) (13-20 yrs.)

CONFIDENTIAL
8angalore, Chennal, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Pune, Chandigarh, DelhI/NCR. United States (USA)
1) Candidate should have excellent track record In procurement of heaVy'construction ,..
Similar Jobs - All jobs by this Advertiser Posted Date. 13 Dec

o Senior Milllt1(ler.SCM & Procurement (10-20 yrs.)

Fibcom India limited
Gurgaon
Global Sourcing of components Negotiation with vendors Inventory Management MIS ISO
documentation ."
Similar jobs - All jobs by this Advertiser Posted Date 05 Dec

You can create your own profile and use various facilities offered by this website,
including uploading your resume for the employers to access.

3.8 MORE ON SEARCH ENGINES

Internet has a number of search engines which are useful for fmding information. But
can these search engines be categorized? Since, the purpose of search engines are to
find information on the web, therefore, the Contents may be a good criteria for
categorization of search engines. The following are some of the categories of search
engines with Contents as the criteria.

Web Directories: A web directory attempts to catalogue important useful pages on

the web, essentially as a subject indices. You may find them useful if you can identify
suitable subject hierarchy under which topic of your interest can be found. Some
common web directories include Yahoo's directory, the Google Directory and the
Open Directory Project (dmoz).

83
Internet
Concepts General search engines: These engines are useful for finding any kind of information
on the web. Some of the popular general search engines are listed below:

• Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves) : It is a search engine developed by Garrett

Gruener and David Warthen in 1996. The main theme behind this search engine
was to allow users to get answers to questions posed in everyday, natural
language.
• Google : It is a most popular used web search engine on the Web. It was
developed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1997. Google Search provides more
than 22 special features. Google is thorough and fast. Google is based on the
technology that considers pages that are linked from many other sites to be more
important than pages that only have a few links from other sites.
• Live Search (formerly MSN Search) : It is web search engine developed by
Microsoft. The search engine has some unique features, such as ability to show
extra re~ults on same web page, dynamically adjust the information displayed on
web page.
• Yahoo! Search: It is a web search engine, owned by Yahoo. It is originally
referred to as "Yahoo provided Search interface". Yahoo has now developed their
own search technology.
• Alltheweb is one of the newer search engines. It claims to be faster and more
efficient than other searchengines, with the largest index. It has been acquired by
Yahoo.
• Alta Vista was the favourite of web searchers a few years ago till Google. It has
excellent search refinement capabilities. It also has now been acquired by Yahoo.
• Lycos was one of the original Web search engines, but now has been converted
into a general web portal with something of a European focus.
• HotBot search engine at one time was rated as the fastest and most accurate
engine for business and professional purposes. However, it is not a very popular
engine today although it is still is a good alternative to .the more popular engines
for finding specific person on the web.
• Excite was a concept-based search engine. Although an interesting idea, but
concept-oriented search is now web history.
• Some popular Chinese search engine are- Baidu, Sogou, and Sohu

Geographical limited scope: These types of search engines have limited

geographical scope of operation. Some of these engines are:
• Rediff and Guruji, India
• Ansearch , AustralialUSIUK/NZ
• Goo, Japan
• ZipLocal, CanadalUS

Accountancy: Used specifically for finding information about accountancy. It

provides articles, presentations, thesis etc on accountancy.
• IFACnet: International Federation of Accountants (IFAC) developed global,
multilingual search engine IFACnet. It provides professional accountants
worldwide to its members.

Business: for business related information, you may like to use the following:
• Business.com
• GlobalSpec
• Thomasnet (United States)

Enterprise: these provides enterprises details such as:

• Microsoft: SharePoint Search Services

84
 Internet Search
• Northern Light
• Oracle Corporation: Secure Enterprise Search 109
• SAP: TREX
• IBM

Job: there are some specific sites for job hunting. Some of these are:
• Bixee.com (India)
• CareerBuilder.com (USA)
• Hotjobs.com (USA)
• Monster.com (USA)
• Recruit.net (International)

Medical: For medical help or queries, go to these search engines/sites

• Bioinformatic Harvester I

• GenieKnows
• Searchmedica
• PubGene
• Nextbio (Life Science Search Engine)
• VADLO (Life Sciences Search Engine)

People: for social networking and meet to your friends and relatives. You can search
out easily in these information sources:
• PeekYou
• InfoSpace
• Zabasearch. com
• ZoomInfo

r:::;? Check Your Progress 3

1) Use any popular search engine and find out five web sites which describes the
concepts of "keyword auctioning" using anyone of the Boolean operations .

...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................

2) Using Yahoo! search engine, find out the web site of "India Today" magazine and
study the on-line publishing and archiving system .

...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................

3) Make a suitable search criterion using meta-tags for finding out list of the dealers
of Hyundai Motors in Delhi .

...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................

85
Internet
Concepts
3.9 SUMMARY

In this unit, we learned about the objectives and need of Internet search and utility of a
search engine. We discussed here the basic principle and the working of a search
engine. Various associated key terms were also discussed in details. Searching
Internet for information gives much better control over what the user want to see and
in what form, unlike in printed media. While searching, often users get irrelevant
information or do not get anything because of the poor query formulation, so building
the right search term and by using the relevant tools for the same, even a frequent user
can improve the search results to a large extent. We also discussed various methods
and tools to build a search term for an efficient search. The features of some popular
search engi~es and search results were also discussed in the unit.

3.10 SOLUTIONS/ANSWERS

Check Your Progress 1

1) For the same reason you need a card catalogue in a library. There is lots of great
and useful information in a library, but it is physically impossible to examine all
the books personally. Not even the most regular web-surfer could hyperlink to all
the documents in the World Wide Web. There are billions of pages on the Web
and every minute of the day, new pages are being uploaded.

The search engines and directories help you to find the specific information you
need.

2) State true or false

a) False
b) False
c) True

3) Fill in the blanks

a) Spidering
b) Meta-tags
c) Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

4) Indexer is a program, that creates a index (just like an index at the back of a
book), from the countless pages gathered by the search term. The indexer looks at
various constituents of a page like its <title>, <meta> tags, comment text, link
, titles, Heading and Body text. After that the page is analyzed to various keywords
and ranked with respect to other pages with similar keywords and stored in
'databases. The criteria for ranking or prioritizing may be different for different
search engines.

Indexing is very useful because it arranges the searched pages in such a manner
that the most relevant page is at the top, and then all the pages are arranged in
decreasing priority.

Check Your Progress 2

1) State true or false

a. False
b. True

86

,
 Internet Search

c. True
d. False
e. True

2) If your search term has more than one meaning (bass, for example, could refer
to fishing or music) you can focus your search by putting a minus sign (If_If) in
front of words related to the meaning you want to avoid.
Remember
If you write "bass - lakes", you will get web pages containing term bass but
Boolean function
not lakes. "AND" gives
you the results
Note: when you include a negative term in your search, be sure to include a that contains
space before the minus sign. "both" the words

3) With Google, Yahoo and Altvista, you can 100k for more on the Internet.

Check your Progress 3

1) Go to URL bttp://wwW.google.com Type "Keyword AND auctioning" as your
search query in the search field and press enter. This will give you the web pages
that contains the words "keyword" and "auctioning"

•k d AND
_e"-ywo_r
L.-'
tioni
a_u_c_l_on_l....:ng=--
i I'-.__
Search )
-'.
A4nncsd Surd!
Preferences

Search: @ the web 0 pages from India

The results of this search will be as follows:

SSRN-Auctioning Keywords in Online Search by Jianqinq Chen, De Liu ...

Providers of keyword advertising, such as Google and Yahoo!, profit by auctioning
keywords to advertisers. One issue of increasing importance for '"
papers ssm.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstracUd=900603 - Similar pages
by J Chen - Cited by 1 - Related articles

Trends - Sealed Vs. Open Keyword Auction

Each keyWord is an item, and the process for having your ad associated with that keyword
involves a dynamic .mction. Unlike e8ay where auctions involve only".
www.dmconfioential comlblogslcolumnlTrends/620/ - 33k ' Cached - Similar pages

eBay auctioning Google style cost per click keyword based text ad .•.
14 Jun 2(lJ5 ". e8ay Keywords is a Google AdWords style CPC keywor~based text ad
product available right now only to e8ay sellers, by auction bid, ,.,
blogs zdnet.comlmicro-marketsl?p=120 - 60k - Cached, Similar pages

Google, Microsoft Sued OIer Keyword Auction Patent - Patent ...

14 Feb 2(lE ••• Paid Search Engine Tools says Google's AdWords and Microsoft's AdCenter
advertising services violate its Paid Search Engine 8id Management •••
WWtN. informatlOnweek comlnewslintemetlebusinesslshowArticle jhtml?articlelD=206504250 -
123k - Cached - Similar pages

Find Top Auction Keywords

Tells you what people are looking for on the top auction sites.
W>/>NrI auctionkeywords. coml - 20k - Cached - Similar pages

Now try various sites to check the concept of keyword auctioning and note down the
short listed websites.

87
Internet
Concepts
2) Go to URLhttp://www.yahoo.com Type the "India Today" in the search window
and press enter. It will automatically suggest some most popular search queries.

YAHOO!
INDIA Search:
Web

I
India Today
Images Local

[ Web Search I
India today magazine Suu:" Assist, On I OH
mm::!!!·!!I· Yahoo.com
India today book club ":;'

Q Answers Elections India IDdllV group , ,

• Cricket
India lodllY news ,,. <~. > >

Li iudin today hind: .:. £ ;; t r' :.. ' ",~~,,;!~

:~:
."... l!F.r.J;amtTIIr

Choose "India Today magazine" and study the topics of your choice.

3) Go to any ;earch engine, Example http://www.altavista.com

Try by finding Hyundai motors dealers in Delhi by typing search queries like
"Hyundai dealers in Delhi" or "Dealers of Hyundai automobiles in Delhi" etc.

D7 altavista Web Images News

Adv.nsed SIlrch
Hyundai dealers in deihi
~
USA English. Sp.nisb

Find Hyundai Dealers in Delhi. LouiSiana

Edmunds.com features a convement directory of Hyundai DealelS in Delhi, Louisiana making It easy for shoppers to iocate
a new or used car, truck. or SWat the ••.
"'-.vw edmunds comJdea!ershlp5lH1drdal 'LOUt rana/Dellu hlml
More paqps (IOlll edmunds cam

Hyundai Car Dealers in Delhi. Hyundai Dealers in Preetvihar. Rohini ...

Hyundal Car DealelS In Delhi. Hyundai DealelS in Preet vihar, Rohini, Paschim •.• Home· Cars in India· DealelS "Delhi
"Hyundai Car DealelS Automobile News .•.
w vw autor-iobnemdra co'n/cars/dealersidelhilhvundaL html
More pages from dlJ19!lJobllelodl1l com

Hyundal Dealers near DelhI. Iowa I Car.com

Hyundal Pricing Guide· Buy your next new or used Hyundai here using our pricing and comparison guides .•• no Hyundai
DealelS ware found for Delhi. Iowa. Top •.•
VvWW car com/catdealers cfm.~o'Na/Delhi!Hvundal
MQr~ pages from car com .

3.11 FURTHER READINGS

• Thomas A.Powell, Web Design: the complete reference, Tata Mc.Graw-Hill,

2004.

• Search Engines: www.google.com, www.yahoo.com

• Web Sites:
o www.unf.edu/library/guides/search.html
o www.lib.berkeley.eduffeachingLib/GuideslIntemetlSearchEngines.html
o www.sc.edu/beaufortllibrary/pages/bones/lesson7.shtml

88

c
UNIT 4: WHAT WE CAN DO USING
INTERNET?

Structure Page Nos.

4.0 Introduction 89
4.1 Objectives 90
4.2 E-mail 90
4.2.1 How to Create an E-mail Account? 91
4.2.2 How to Access your Account? 92
4.2.3 How to Read your E-mail? , 95
4.2.4 How to Send their E-mail to Receivers? . 95
4.2.5 How to Sign out from your Account? 98
4.3 Messenger 98
4.3.1 How to Sign in to Yahoo Messenger? 99
4.3.2 How to Sign out or exit Yahoo Messenger? 99
4.3.3 How to send an Instant Message (IM)? 100
4.4 Chat : 101
4.5 Newsgroup 104
4.6 Electronic Educational Resources 105
4.7 Downloading 108
4.8 Bulletin Board 109
4.9 LISTSERV 110
4.10 Summary 112
4.11 Solutions/Answers 113
4.12 Further Readings 114

4.0 INTRODUCTION

By now you can explain various concepts of Internet, browsing and web servers. This
unit discusses about some of the important internet services which are very useful for
every Internet user and have found large number of persons using them. These
services are very convenient to use. As you know, the Internet provides some useful
services. The main services offered by an internet are: World Wide Web, E-mail,
Messenger, Chat, Newsgroup, list server, and Bulletin Board. In this unit, we discuss
these services in details (except www which has already been described in the
previous units). These services are very basic and simple in nature having very large
scale benefits. Thus, a large number of users are using these services on a regular
basis. E-mail services are used by many users to send their message to anybody
worldwide. Messengers and chats are using for real time conversation. These also
provide facilities for text, voice and video based chat. You can also send files, audio
and video through messenger. Newsgroup and Bulletin board are like an electronic
notice board where you can enter messages and other can read it. List serv is used to
maintain a list of subscribers in such a way that if they get any e-mail then they pass it
to all other subscribers.

89
Internet
Concepts
4.1 OBJECTIVES

After going through this unit, you should be able to:

• explain e-mail and its purpose;

• compare e-mail to other communication services just like fax, telephone, postal
mail;
• create an e-mail account and create and send e-rnails;
• use messenger and its functions;
• define chat. newsgroups and their uses;
• download files from internet;
• use bulletin board and identify. their purpose; and
The E-mail • define the use of listserv.
started in 1965 »

4.2 E-MAIL

E-mail is the major Internet service for exchanging information (messages) between
different users (hosts) on the internet. E-mail stands for Electronic mail. An E-mail is
a service for an internet user to send a message to another internet user in any part of
the world. An e-mail takes time to reach its destination user because it passes from
one network to another network until it reaches its destination. The time taken by the
e-mail is relatively very small, may be of a magnitude of few seconds.

E-mail services are logically very similar to the postal mail services. Like postal
mails, e-mail users also have to write an e-rnail address of the recipient for sending
mails to them. An e-mail user has a logical mail box just like each one of you may
have a mail box in your house. When you send mail to another user, you specify the
e-rnail address of the receiver just as you write postal address of the receiver in the
postal mail system. The recipient of mail need not be present at the time of delivery of
the mail. S/he can extract the mails from the mailbox and read it as per his/her
convenience. Therefore, the e-mail system is also called asynchronous
communication, as the recipient need not be present at the time of delivery. After
reading the message you can save it, delete it or pass it on to someone else.

An e-rnail message may contain text, images and graphics. In addition, you can add
video and audio data with the mail. An e-mail system, if compared to postal mail,
telephone, and fax, has the following advantages:

• An e-mail can reach their destination very fast than that of a postal mail. Thus,
e-mails are faster mode of communication than the other modes.
• An e-rnail system, unlike the telephone system, does not require the recipient to
be online. Thus, the persons can still communicate with each other without being
online.
• An e-mail document, unlike fax documents, can be stored in computer and can be
easily edited using editing programs like Microsoft Office, Open Office etc.

First a user prepares ari e-mail on mail creation program, called user agent. After
creating a message user agent passes the e-mail to a mail server, where message is
lined up for transmission. The mail server of mail sender uses SMTP (Simple Mail
Transfer Protocol) to transmit the e-mail message to the mail server of the recipient.
The sending mail server uses DNS (Domain Name Service), to resolve the IP address
of remote (recipient) mail server. Once you find out the correct IP address of the

90
 What we can do
remote mail server, the sending mail server starts SMTP client and initiates a TCP using Internet?
connection to the SMTP server of the remote mail server at a TCP port 25. When
connection is established, SMTP client and server exchange SMTP commands and
transfer the e-mail message. Commands and e-mail messages are transmitted as plain
text using ASCII characters. Non-text file are first converted into ASCII characters
ASCII stands
before transmission.
for American
Standard Code
The structure of E-mail addresseasuch as citwignou.ac.in, has two parts. The first for Information
part (cit, before @) is the local-part of the address. It signifies the username of the Interchange.
recipient (cit), and the second part (ignou.ac.in, after @) is the domain name which
identifies the mail server location.

4.2.1 How to create an Evmail Account?

•
By now you can explain the basic purpose of an e-mail and advantages over other
types of communications. An Internet user is able to use this service to send e-mail to
hislher friends anywhere in the world. But for sending and receiving mails you must
have your own e-mail account. You can get an e-mail account from:

• The Internet Service Provider (ISP), which has given you the Internet connection,
or
• Your organisation may set up its own server or hire the services to set up their
own e-mail system, where you may get an e-mail account.
• You can create your own account with free e-mail service providers (some times
called web mails) like yahoo, gmail, hotmail, rediffmail, etc. Let us' discuss more
about this.

First of all, you have to register with any website which provides free e-mail account.
Some of these websites are Yahoo, MSN, Rediffmail, IN.com etc. The registration
process is very simple and easy, just you put some basic information about you. In the
subsequent discussion we have used an account with Gmail; however, you may create
an account with any of the web service that provides free e-mail account.

For registration, there are few steps to follow:

• Open web browser, by clicking on your Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox icon.
• Type URL or address of website. www.gmail.com and press the Enter key.
• It will open the Gmail home page; on this page select the Sign Up for Gmaillink
for opening an account.
• Fill up your information in related fields, create an e-mail id. Gmail will make
sure that your e-mail ID is unique. You need to set a password for your account
for security, and a security question and its answer. Remember a password is the
only authentication between your mail account and you.so it should be long
enough such that you can memorise it easily, yet others should not be able to
guess-your password. The security question helps in recovering the password in
case you forget your password.
• Your can check various policies of Gmail. If you have no objection to those, then
click on I accept. Create my account button. Before clicking this button be sure
to fill all the required information including the verification word as shown in
Figure 1.

91
 Internet
Concepts

--._'"-
c

Cre a Goog/eAccount _Gm

-- -- -I·

Cr-eate an Account

\'QUI' Goaogte .A.cccunt gNeS you eccees 10 GnUd and olber Google S.MCt. if you al~"d1 h~'t! •• Google A.<'Cf3Unl. you
c~S!9Rin""

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, hal')' f"ane2003

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Type th@ ch~ract.f'$ you see In th@ plt:ture below

Teflus ", Service:

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(fael free to change anything you li"'e). and r~ew Ih~ T.ma or
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Print.blt Vtt'SlQO
the$e v1~1 be acees$~ble ~or you to read
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Serv1.ce.

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Figure 1: Gmall Registration Form

4.2.2 How to Access your E-mail Account?

For sending messages,
E-mail server software
Once you have created an account, you are ready to access it at any point of time later.
uses SMTP to send
You need to perform the following steps to access your account so created:
and receive messages

• Open web browser, by clicking on your Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox icon.
• Type address of website - www.gmail.com.
• Open the Home page of the website.
• Fill same Gmail ID (sometimes referred to as username) and password which you
had created at the registration time and then click on to Sign In button.
You will now enter your account where you can write e-mail, read e-mail, save your
e-mail etc.

92
 What we can do
using Internet?

LItHt HHdInM Customt.

•• Lni<s Ft" Hotmall

Do~ W4nt F.e/o< to rememberthis ~_d7

.....
·....
·-il W.lcom. to Gm 11

A Googl. approach to .mall.

Gmlll" a new kmd of web mail, built on the idea that em II can be more SI n In to Gmall WIth your
IntuitIVe, efficient, and useful And maybe Mn fun After all, Gmall has
I
Co 81 Account
Lt •• pMII
Keep unwanted messages out of your Inbox with Google's Usernamt hany rana2003
InnovatIVetechnology Password •••••••••• -1
Mobllt ace••• o Remember me on thiS
Read Gmall on your mobile phone by pOlnllng your phone's computer.
web browser to IInll: gllhlll,colll IIPI) Leam more
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Lots of Pilct
Over 7:IJ7.027374 megabytes ( nd countmg) offr •• storage so I caf'!'!Ct accesS my !CCOlri
you'l never need to delete another message.

Late" Hews flOIll the III<lIl 81 9 Sign up for Gmall

_ ,/IJOIIe ,c.om
Done
---"'"
Figure 2: Sign In process

Once you have successfully Singed In, you can access your mails. Please notice that at
this point, you will see a list of Links (Refer to Figure 3). These Links are: For receiving
• Inbox: It contains all the good mails that have been received in your account. messages, client
• Starred keeps track of all important mail that you have starred. Please notice a application uses
star mark before the mail. When you click it the mail is starred. You star a mail if POP protocol and
!MAP protocol for
it requires your attention in the near future.
accessing their
• Chat stores all the chat details or conversation. Inbox.
• Sent Mail: It keeps track of mails that has been created and sent by you, You can
reference this link for any future use.
• Draft: It keeps track of the mails that has been created by you but have not been
sent so far.
• All Mail shows all the mails like; inbox mail, sent mail, chat etc.
• Spam is a special Link which stores all the unsolicited e-mails like junk mails.
Sometimes some important mails are directed to sparn folder, so please keep
checking this folder periodically.
• Trash keeps track of all the recently deleted mails. This folder is emptied
periodically.

One word of caution before you start using e-mails. In the present time, you may
receive many mails asking for details about your account such as ID and password or
any other information. Please do not give such information to any body. If you do that
the chances are that your e-mail account may be e-jacked that is you will not be able
to use your account but somebody else may start using it. This may result in sending
of unsolicited or fraudulent mails from your account to some person in your address
book or otherwise. Thus, to avoid any such thing to happen, Please make sure that you

93
Internet
Concepts
use a safe password which is difficult to guess even by your friends and never give it
away. Also remember NOT to divulge any information related to the security question
that has been put while registering for the e-rnail account. This information may also
be used maliciously. Please also DO NOT disclose any information about your
account.

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Figure 3: Inbox

If you want to read your e-mails then you have to click "Inbox" link. Inbox is
basically a box where your all emails are stored till you delete them or move them to
other folders. In inbox, there are few option related to mail such as Starred, delete,
Move to, Labels. mark Read or Unread, report spam etc. (Refer Figure 3)

As you can put a star mark in any mail that are important to you. Just click on the
dimmed star button in starting of the sender name. You can also move a mail to any
folder by selecting that mail and click in to Move to button.

You can also mark a mail as read or unread. If you mark a mail as read it will be
dimmed out otherwise it is shown in bold font. The Report Spam button is used to
move a particular mail to the spam and in future any mail from this sender comes, it
will automatically be redirected to the sparn. If a mail is not useful to you then you
can delete it by using delete button from the inbox. If you want to write an e-mail then
you have to click "Compose" Button.
 What we can do
4.2.3 How to Read your E-mails?
using Internet?

So, now you are ready for accessing your e-mails. You may follow the following steps
to do so:

• After signing in to your account, click on "In box" link.

• Then it will show all the mails with sender name, subject of the mail, date and
time.

• Click on a particular mail which you want to read.

• The next page will display your mail along with sender address, subject,
attachments, date, time and other important details .

•
4.2.4 How to Send your E-mails to the Receiver?

You need to know receiver's address before you can send mail to hirnlher. Suppose
you want to send the mail to CIT coordinator who has the e-mail address
[email protected] then you need to follow the following steps:

• After Signing In to your account, click the Compose button.

• ..
It displays a page where you can write your mail (refer to Figure 4) .

• First put the address of the receiver (in your case [email protected]) and then
subject of the mail (for example for your mail your may have a subject as: "Query
relating to duration of CIT").

• If you want to send an email to more than one person then place a comma
between the addresses. For example, you may send the above mail to
[email protected], [email protected] .
Compose a
• You can also use "add Cc" and "add Bee" options for sending mails to other
message to your
person.
friends with an
• Ce stands for "carbon copy". The person whose address is listed in the Cc field of attachment like
a message receives a copy of that message when you send it. All other recipients images, files etc.
of the message sent by you can see the addresses of the persons whom you have
send a Cc (carbon copy). Bee stands for "blind carbon copy". This is almost
similar to cc except that in Bee recipients are invisible to all the other recipients of
the message.

• If you want to attach a file with the mail click the attachment button. You can
attach image, text document, audio and video. 'In our example, we upload
"032009.doc" file as attachment.

• Write your message in text area where you can use some styling text tools like
color, sizing, smiley etc.

• After writing all these things just click send button. Your email will be sent to the
respective addresses.

95
 . ,

Internet
Concepts

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Figure 4: E-mail writing page (compose page)

An e-mail service is just not for sending or receiving of mail but it can also be used to
store contacts. (please refer to Contacts button in Figure 5), The Contacts provides
all information about the user like offline/online status, e-mail id, usemame etc.

96
 What we can do
\:) Gmail Contacts harry rana2003~gmall.com MOZllla Firefox ~GJ t:J~I~ using Internet?

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Most Contact. 10 help you orgaOlze your contacts. You can move
Irllh contacts in and out ofthese groups at any time.
Various Google products let you share information
with people in these groups.

- Chat In addition. you can create a Google profile to help

people in these groups keep in touch with you.
Search. add. or invite They will be able to easily find your profile from
Done

Figure 5: Contacts Book

You can easily search out an e-mail id or contacts information with Search contacts
option. You can also add an e-mail id with "New Contact" button, edit contacts using Try to use
''Edit'' button and delete unused contacts using Delete contact option. different
Google service
For convenience you can create groups, so you can send a similar mail to all the like document,
members of a group easily. For example, you can create a group for e-mail Ids of CfT Photos, web,
colleagues of yours. For adding a group in your Contacts book you have to click on Google doe etc.
"New Group" button and give an appropriate name to your group. After that you can
add your contacts in particular group. There is also an option to erase or delete a
group of contacts by clicking Delete Group button. For sending mails to a group,
you may select all the members of that group using "Select All" and then pressing the
emaillink that appears after your selection.

As you can see Figure 5, Gmail provides lots of facilities to their users. They are not
providing just an E-mail service to others, but it also has lots of option such as Chat,
Photos, Orkut, Calendar, Documents, Web and many more.

Orkut is a social networking website where you can go and find friends, communities.
The social networking web sites have completely changed the usage of internee
Through orkut you can search out your friends whom you met many years ago.

Photos option is used to create your online album where you can upload your pictures
and finally share it with your friends and relatives. For this purpose Gmail using
Picasa for uploading images and sharing these images with friends and relatives.

Chat option is also included in Gmail. You can chat with your friends in real
environments while sending e-mails to other. Gmail also launches its messenger for
interactive chat with lots of functionalities. The chat messenger of Gmail is gtalk.

97
.Internet
Concepts

Documents option is used to upload your important document online. Whenever you
required your important documents you just have to log in to your account and view
your document with the help of document tool provide by Gmail. The document tool
allows collaborative editing of a document. It is named as Google Does.

4.2.5 How to sign out from your Account?

After checking your mails or sending mails to other, you have to sign out from your
account. You should sign out properly to make sure the security of your account.

For sign out from your account, you should do these steps.

Click on the sign out button. Then make sure you sign out from your account. After
that, close-the website.

4.3 MESSENGER

Messenger supports instant messaging service. Instant messaging is a way to

communicate with other users over the Internet in real time. Messengers are tools for
real time communication whereas e-mail collects messages for you and send it to you.
You can use messenger for exchanging messages with several users at once in a single
conversation window. Messaging looks like a chat but there are important differences.
By using Messenger, you can choose the users whom you want to communicate. You
need to approve requests for communication. There is no public log assigned for
messenger. You can communicate with other users in separate windows without
involving others. Others have no idea about with whom you are conversing.
Messenger allows you to send and receive messages either online or offline. You can
use the Messenger to make a phone call, send a file or image or audio file or video or
play games, as well as to receive alerts of new e-mail messages.

Messenger supports real time conversation of the multiple users. In messengers, there
is no need to have a server for transferring the messages. The user directly sends
message to the other users. But be careful, while sharing a file or accepting a file
Yahoo Messenger request through messenger, as it may contain any harmful viruses or any type of errors
was originally that may harm your computer system.
launched under the
name Yahoo Pager There are many free messenger services available through the internet such as Yahoo,
on 3rd September MSN, RediffBol etc. You should have a user id and password for "signing in" into a
1998. messenger. You can also use your e-mail id and password for "signing in".
Alternatively, you can create a messenger id and password by clicking button Get Id.
Please note that your id and password works with a particular messenger software
only, for example, if you have a yahoo e-mail id, it can be used with yahoo messenger
only and NOT with rediffBol.

If you want to access messenger services then first you have to install messenger
software on your computer system. You can download it from their respective
websites. After installing it, you can open it by double-clicking on the Messenger icon
located in the taskbar beside your computer clock or by selecting access messenger
from your Start menu under Programs. The following discussion is based on Yahoo
Messenger as an example; however, you can use any other messenger service for this
purpose without any problem.

98
 What we can do
4.3.1 How to Sign in to Yahoo Messenger? using Internet?

To sign in to Yahoo Messenger:

• Click the Start button-> select Programs -> Yahoo Messenger (make sure that
you have already installed the yahoo messenger on your system).
Try out other
-. Enter your Yahoo ID and password. messenger
• There are three check buttons which. are not mandatory to click on. These are: for instant
messages.
o Sign in as invisible to everyone check box is used to make you invisible
(shows offline to others).
o Remember my id and password check box is used to remember your id
and password for next login. Please do not check this box, if you are
accessing the messenger from a computer that is shared among many
users.
o Sign in automatically check box allows you to sign in to your account at
the start of the computer or messenger program automatically.
• Now, click the "Sign In" button.

If you do not have aY ahoo ID, you should click on the Get Yahoo ID button and
create an account with the service provider.

Messenoe< Help

Yahoo! to.

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systems.

e,
Figure 6: Signing in to Yahoo messenger o
4.3.2 How to sign out of or exit Yahoo! Messenger? o
o
To sign out of Yahoo Messenger, click the Messenger menu in Yahoo Messenger and
select the "Sign Out".

To exit Yahoo Messenger, right-click on the emotion icon located in your system tray
(bottom right corner of your screen) and select Exit.

99
 Internet
Concepts

" FriefMk(O/I)
/&ct"..Cy. :

Figure 7: After signing in to your yahoo account

4.3.3 How to send an Instant Message (IM)?

One to the key use of Messenger is in sending instant messages. To send an IM you
need to follow the following steps:
• Click the "Actions" menu in Yahoo Messenger and select "Send an Instant
Message".
• Double-click the ID of the person you wish to send a message to.
• An IM window will open, you can type your message in the designated area and
press the Send button.

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Last" T- •.
eoetve<SOn2S/~0/2007at!.1~17

Figure 8: Instant Message Wind~

For PC-to-PC calls Other Features of Messenger

messenger uses
VolP (Voice over Messenger software provides a variety of facilities for user convenience. The main
Internet Protocol). features or facilities provided by yahoo messenger are:

Instant Messaging: You can use the Instant Messaging to send text messages in real-
time to your friends. For this both the sender and receiver should be online at the same
time.

Chat Rooms: You can join a chat room to meet new friends with whom you want to
discuss your favourite topics.

100
 What we can do
Photo Sharing: You can share digital photographs from your hard disk, and even you using Internet?
can discuss about them over IM while you and your friend view them together.
PC-to-PC Calls: You can make a voice call to another Yahoo Messenger user who is
currently online. For using this facility you should have a microphone and
speakers/headset in your computer system. Some messengers also allow PC to other
phone calls; however, you need to pay charges for such facilities. However, please
make sure that it is legal to make such calls as per the contract of your Internet service
provider.
SMS (Text Messaging): You can use messenger to send text messages to your friend's
mobile phones. However, such facilities may be charged.
Webcam: You can use messenger to share live video created by the plug in webcam
on your PC with your friends.
IM Conferencing: You may use instant message with many friends at once in a
conference room. I

File Transfer: You may be able to use file transfer facility to send files instantly to a
friend while using messenger. The maximum size of file for this function at present is
limited to 2 GB - a huge file.
Buzz Alert: you can get the attention of your friend by clicking Buzz button or ctrl+g.
Voicemail: your friends can leave you a voicemail if you are NOT available.
Mail alerts: You may be notified about a new Mail message arrival.
Address Book or Contact Book: You may view and edit your Address Book
information for your contacts.

4.4 CHAT

A chat room is a website, or part of a Web site. Chat provides the functionality to the
users to communicate in real time environment. It is different from forums and
discussion groups. In forums and discussion groups, you can post a message;
however, they do not have the functionality for interactive messaging. In most cases,
you need not install any special software to join a chat room.

FilUre 9: Yahoo chat window

101
Internet
Concepts You can register for any chat room of your choice. You can log on to a chat room by
first choosing a user name and password. Once in the chat room you can see the list of
people who are currently online in that chat room. All these users are alerted about
your arrival in the chat room. You chat with them by typing a message into a text box
and sending it. All the messages sent by you and others are displayed in a message
area. This message area is visible to everyone who is currently logged in to that chat
room. You can also use chat software to send files to other users, or to add a user, or
to send private messages to specific user, or to view the profile of a user etc. Most of
the present day chat service providers provide voice chat and video chat. You can
send private messages to any user available in the chat window by double clicking on
their name. You can use chat window menu for text styling, sending emotions and
buzz. You can also change the window's environment for better look. In case, a chat
message arrives when you are not online, it may be saved as offline chat messages till
you join the chat again.

My contact Details
My Account Info
My Display Image Ctrl+Shift+F8
MyWebcam
MyPinQbox

PT"efet'ences Ctrl+Shift+P
PriVo!!Ky Options
MlK'lage tJpct&es I 6f"04dcast ...

Ctrl+D

Close Ctri+Q

Plug-Ins

Action canceled

Figure 10: Joining room for chat

Chat is formally How to start Chat?
known as
Synchronous As discussed earlier, the basic concept behind the chat is to provide an interactive real
Conferencing time environment for the communication. Nowadays we have lots of chat providers in
market such as Yahoo, MSN, Gtalk, Rediff etc. In this section you will go through the
details aboutYahoo chat. To start chat; you have to follow the following steps:

• First, install Yahoo messenger or any other messenger in your system.

• Sign In to your account by using your ID and Password into the Messenger.
• Click in to Messenger option from Menu as shown in Figure 10.
• Select Yahoo! Chat and click join a Room option. Join Room Dialog box gets
invoked as shown in Figure 11.
Select option from Categories list. A list of that particular category will open in
right side. Double click on it. For example, in Figure 9 the Fight Rooml is the
name of opened Chat category.
• A Chat window gets invoked as shown in the Figure 9.
• You can enter your text in text area and hit enter. That will go to the display
window. If you want to chat with a particular person from the list shown in right
of the Figure 9 just double click on it, the IM windows gets invoked and you can
enter text on that window.

102
 What we can do
• For the other options, chat window has buttons such as Webcarns, Voice, and using Internet?
Send File etc. The Webcarn option is used for video conferencing. If you want a
voice conversation with others, then use Voice button. If you have some files
which you want to share or se~d to others, then use Send File option.

To help cut dnvm on spam and

bats, you'll be asked to 'Verify your
account before entering a c!lat
room. Just click on the verification
link when you enter a chat room to
gel started.

Yf!NJdo.t isnaw
_to uson
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Figure 11: Join Room dialog box for selecting categories

You will find that the Internet has a wide range of chat rooms where multiple users
can interact on a common topic. You can join these chat rooms as per your interest
and make new chat friends. You can also create a chat room and/or customize it.

Check Your Progress 1

1) What is an e-mail? How is it similar to postal mail?

...................................................................................................
....... , .
.....................................................................................................

2) What are the advantages of an e-mail over other communication services?

....................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................

3) What is messenger? Write some uses of messenger?

...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................

103
Internet
Concepts 4) What is chat?

4.5 NEWSGROUP

One of the interesting services on Internet is called Usenet. Usenet allowed a group of
Internet users to exchange their views/ideas on a topic of common interest. There are
many such gr9ups on the internet and are collectively called newsgroups. Each
newsgroup has a unique name. A newsgroup is like a large electronic notice board. It
can be accessed by all the members belonging to that group. As a member of the
news group, if you want to share your views on a particular topic with other members
of the group, then send a formatted message, which is processed and interpreted by
moderator of a group before being posted on the notice board. Once a message is
posted on the board then it can be easily accessible (read) by any members of that
group.

There are two types of newsgroups:

• Moderated
• Non-moderated

In a moderated newsgroup only selected members can'post their messages directly on

the notice board, whereas in a non-moderated newsgroup any member can directly
post his/her message to the notice board. In moderated news group, if an ordinary
member of a moderated newsgroup wants to post their message, then first the message
will go to the selected member of the group who has the right to directly post the
message to the notice board. Selected member will check your message. S/he decides
whether the message is appropriate for being posted. S/he also does any editing, if it is
required, to improve the quality of the message. This member then posts the message
on the notice board.

The main idea behind the moderated newsgroup is to maintain the quality of the
messages which have been posted in the newsgroup for its members. In non-
moderated Newsgroups, no one moderates the quality of the message. Anyone can
post anything.

If you want to become a member of a newsgroup, you have to first subscribe to the
newsgroup. You can also unsubscribe the newsgroup at anytime.

Although the Newsgroup were started as a discussion services, but many newsgroup
users do not participate in the discussion. In fact, many of the newsgroup reader
software today primarily use newsreader software. Some such software include-
Windows Live mail, Opera Mail, Mozilla Mail etc. A sample Newsreader software is
shown in Figure 12.

104
 What we can do
using Internet?

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Figure 12 Newsgroup software

In general newsgroup software has the following features:

• You can search messages using keywords.

• They provide built-in newsgroup reader for reading online / offline messages.
• You can read individual messages within a news group.
• They can manage unlimited newsgroups, filters, addresses, etc.
• You can Post Messages through them.

How news group works?

These days many organization and institutions host Newsgroup servers. Most ISP
hosts their own news servers. Every host of a news server has an agreement with other
news servers to regularly synchronize. Whenever a user posts news to anyone server,
the message is stored locally. Then that server shares the message with the other
servers that are connected to it. These messages are then made available to the
news group subscribers as per their choices.

4.6 ELECTRONIC EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES

In the present era, you can get access to a large number of electronic educational
resources through the web. These resources may be on different specialized areas.
These resources include the electronic journals, digital libraries, educational resource
databases, indexing and abstracting databases and electronic books. However, please
note that some of these resources require paid subscription. These resources allow you
to browse through the abstracts, search on various topics, and access the complete

105
 Internet
Concepts information for research in specific areas. Some of these electronic resources are listed
below:

E-Journals and Databases

ACM Digital Library
EBSCO database
IEL Online
JSTOR
Lawyers Collective Magazine
Lecture note in Mathematics
Maths Sci_net
Project Muse
ProQuest
Springer Link
Taylor and Francis
WTO E-library

Indexing and Abstracting Databases:

LISA
J-Gate

E-Books
Credo References
Idea-Reference Resources
NetLibrary

wuo
A wiki is an online
content management Wiki's are a powerful tool for creating collaborative knowledge resources created by
system (CMS). the community. A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to create and
edit contents. Wiki supports hyperlinks and has simple text syntax for creating new
pages. Wiki's are also used to create websites, to enhance the features of community
websites and for knowledge management. The collaborative encyclopedia, Wikipedia
(www.wikipedia.com) is one of the best-known wiki's. It contains very large number
of articles - all created and moderated by the community. Ward Cunningham
developed the first wiki software, WikiWikiWeb in 1995.

Characteristics of Wild

• A wiki invites all users to edit any page or to create new pages within the wiki
Website.

• Wiki promotes meaningful topic associations between different pages by making

page link creation very easy.

• Wiki promotes discussion and also keeps the history of changes of a document.

106

,
 What we can do
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Wiki
From Wlklpedla, the free encyclopedia

For other uses, see Wiki (disambigu8lion).

WIKIPEDlA WikiNode" redirects here. For the WikiNode of Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:WikiNode.
l1N F,., ElKydop.diJ
"Flagged revisions"redirects here. For its proposed implementation on Wikipedia, See
na\/lgati_on
Wikipedia:FJagged revisions.
• Main page
A wiki is a page or collection of Web pages designed to enable anyone who accesses it to contribute
• contents
• feelUred content
or modify content (excluding blocked users), using a simplified markup langu9ge.l11J21Wikis ~re often
I • Current events used to create collaborative ~ebsrtes and to power community websites. The collaborative encyclopedia·
• Rondomarticle

search
~I Wikipedia is one of the best-known wikis.121Wikis are used in business to provide Intranet and
knowledge management systems. Ward Cunningha'm, the developer of the first wiki software,
WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work."l3)

I Go ---==~Il
I ( Se ••ch I "Wiki" (fwi:kiIl) is a Hawaiian word for "fast".141"Wiki
as "What I Know Is," but this is a backronym. (6)
Wiki" is a reduplication. "Wiki" can be expanded

interaction
• AboltVW<ipedia Contents (hide)
• c~~ MN-
http://en.wiIQpedOd.orgfwrJldex,php7tlie-WiI<i&.actIon-edit
~~~------------------------------------------~v~'
..•
Figure 13: WIKI in Wikipedia
Wiki stands for
A wiki is used to write documents in a simple markup language using a Web browser. "What I Know
A single page in a wiki is called "woo page". But the entire collection of pages, well Is".
interconnected by hyperlinks is "the woo". Thus, a wiki is a database for creating,
editing, browsing, and searching through information.

Check Your Progress 2

1) What are Newsgroups? What are the two types of Newsgroups?

...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................

2) How the Newsgroup works?

...................................................................................................
....................................................................................................

3) List the features of Newsgroup Software?

...................................................................................................
...................................................................................................

4) What is Wiki? List the characteristics of Wiki?

...................................................................................................
....................................................................................................
...................................................................................................

107
Internet
Concepts
4.7 DOWNLOADING

Downloading means moving a file from remote location to another location may be on
Uploading is the your computer hard disk. Downloading means not only to download the content from
inverse operation the internet such as downloaded books, songs, videos, pictures etc., but also the web
of downloading. page which shows the information or content related to that item. That means
everything you access over internet its downloaded first form its remote location. You
can download lots of thing for free from internet, sometimes you may have to pay for
the download. Technically, download means to receive data from a remote system,
such as a web server, FTP server, mail server, or other similar systems. You can
download Images, music files, documents or almost anything from the Internet. You
can start downloading of a downloadable object by simply clicking it. The
downloading starts
, automatically. Figure 14 shows a file download dialog box.

'00 you wont to run or save this file?

Name: A06EPHSPCS3_WWE.exe
Type: Applicotlon,463MB
From: trlals.adobe.com

____ R_un 1 [ Save I ( Cancel

While file, from the IntOfnet can be useful. this file type can
potentially halM your computOf. If you do not trU$t the ~ource. do not
fun Of aave this softwale. Whot' a the risk?

Figure 14: File Download Dialog Box

This is file download dialog box which has three options:

Run: It is used to open the file from remote system without saving the file on hard
disk.
Save: It is used to first save the copy on hard disk and then open it for reading
purpose.
Cancel: It is used to cancel the file download.

AOeEPHSPCS3_ WWE.e).'e from ~.adobe.com

l.!ili! _ __ _ _@~!:IIj!ill~~~1IIj
Oownloaded: 163MB In 5 mIn 57 sec
DownIoadto: C:\OOCU ••• \AOBEPHSPCS3_ WWE .exe
Transfer rate: t.29M6/Sec
o Cbe tM diaIog bole when downIoad ~es

.: [•••••_RUrl_· ]1 Open Folder I[ Close

Figure 15: Download Complete Dialog Box

108
 What we can do
This dialog box of Figure 15 shows the downloading status of your file. It shows the . using Internet?
following information related to download.

• Downloading speed and downloading time

• Downloading location
• Transfer rate

After download completes, then it shows three options:

Run: It is used to run the saved file. . •
Open Folder: It is used to open the folder where your file is stored.
Close: It is used to close the Download complete dialog box.

You should be very careful of downloading files from the websites that you are not
sure about. Such files may contain computer viais. If you have to download files from
such websites make sure that you have some up to date internet security software /
which can help you identify the computer virus in any infected file from such
unknown sites.

Some of the points for consideration about file downloading are:

File Size: File size does matter if you have a slow connection or Dial up internet
access or a shared connection. Try to avoid very large file download in such situation.

In downloading, file compression is important. Compressed files take less time to

download, however, require a utility to uncompress the document.

Finally, to avoid the problem of viruses download contents only from trustable
websites. Also check these downloaded files using good antivirus software. In case
antivirus detect any virus or harmful content then never open or run the file on your
computer.

4.8 BULLETIN BOARD BBS was accessed

only over a phone line
using a modem.
Bulletin Board is an electronic communication system. It allows users to send or read
electronic messages, files, and other data that are of general or common interest.
Bulletin boards were widely used before the Internet became popular. It is also an
electronic version of a notice board. Bulletin board programs allow people to write,
read and give response to previous messages. Newsgroups are similar to the early
bulletin board systems (BBSs) of the 1980s. Posts or messages sent to the Bulletin
Board appeared in sequential order. A new thread starts when a member starts a new
discussion topic. All members of a particular group can read all threads in that specific
group and participate by adding their own replies or ideas.

109
Internet
Concepts

Figure 16: Monochrome BBS

In the early 1990s
some BBSes accessed The main difference between Newsgroup and a BBS is:
via a Telnet, packet
switched network, or A Bulletin Board Systems commonly had a single and dedicated server used by users
packet radio
living in the same geographic region. Newsgroup has a decentralized network of
connection. global news servers. Newsgroup share messages with one another in order to share
posts worldwide.

The integrated F- 4.9 LISTSERV

Secure Anti-Virus in
LISTSERV software
scans message and A listserv was developed by Eric Thomas in 1986. It was developed for BITNET.
attachment. BITNET was a cooperative US University network founded in 1981. Listserv is a
program in which all users (subscribers) send an email to one specific address, which
resends those messages to all other users (subscriber) to the list. In the list serv a
mailing list is prepared. When an e-mail isaddressedtoaListservmailinglist.itis
automatically send that mail to everyone on the list. List serv is similar to a
Majordomo is a mailing
newsgroup or forum, except that the messages are delivered as e-mail and are
list manager (MLM)
available only to individuals on the list.
developed by Brent
Chapman of Great Circle
A <:<:()('i Mp<:
Listserv developed by L-Soft Company is currently a commercial product. Listserv is
basically refers to a specific mailing list server. Another example of popular mailing
list server is Majordomo, which is freeware.

110

c
 What we can do
using Internet?
Emaol

Subscriber Iteports (NEWSLETTER)

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NEWSLETTER (4 Subscribers)

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Figure 17: LISTSERV Subscriber reporting

Benefits of using LISTSERV

Listserv are:
• User friendly
• Scalable
• Flexible
• Reliable
• Secure

Features of LISTSERV
The features are divided into two views, first is Owner point of view and other is Site
Administrator point of view.

Owner Features
Supports All List Types: It supports all types of emaillists, like both moderated and
unmoderated groups,
Automatic Subscriptions: It allows users to automatically subscribe and unsubscribe
the list.
Automatic Error Handling: It also takes care of errors, or bounces while E-mail
delivery.
Searchable Web Archives: It maintains text and HTML messages as well as
attachments in archives automatically. You can search this message from the archives.
RSS Support: It supports the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. It also allows
the subscribers to view their messages using an RSS reader.

111
Internet
Concepts Site Administrator Features
Multiple License Sizes: It comes in multiple license sizes. You can select it
according to their purpose.

Virus Protection: It provides software with built-in virus protection. The system
scans all messages before delivered to other users.
Spam Control: It also offers a blacklistlwhitelist system to prevent spam. It also used
third-party spam filters for preventing spam from reaching LISTSERV site.

Database Connectivity: It can also connect with ODBC databases like Microsoft
SQL Server; IBM DB2; ORACLE and MySQL.

Customizable Web Interface: It provides a complete customized web interface to fit

with in your existing Website.

,
Check Your Progress 3

1) What is the meaning of downloading?

2) What is the difference between Newsgroups and Bulletin Board System (BBSs)?

3) What is list server?

4) List the Feature and Benefits of LISTS ER V?

4.10 SUMMARY

In this unit, you studied about different type of common internet services which are
available these days. First, you looked at the concept of e-mail, E-mail in current
scenario is playing an important role. Through e-mail services you can send messages,
read messages worldwide within a minute. They also offer some other facilities like
saving your e-rnail for future uses, creating groups etc. After that you studied
messenger and chat and how can they be used. Messenger and chat provides real time
conversation between multiple users. After that you studied how to download things
from internet. We also discussed some techniques for secure and fast downloading.
Lastly, you studied Newsgroup and Bulletin board concepts. Both are the same in
most of the manners but they are different in architecture. This completes the block on
Internet Concepts. However, please note that Internet is dynamically changing entity
so many new developments are going on Internet. So, the best way of knowing more
about Internet is to keep using it for more information.

112
 What we can do
using Internet?
4.11 SOLUTIONS/ANSWERS

Check Your Progress 1

1) E-mail is the major Internet service for exchanging information (messages)

between different users. An E-mail provides services to an internet user to send an
electronic mail to another internet user in any part of the world.

E-mail services are logically very similar to the postal mail services in following
ways:
a. Like postal mails, e-rnail users also have an e-mail address.
b. An e-mail user has a logical mail box just like a postal mail box in your
house.
c. When you send mail to another user:you specify the e-rnail address of the
receiver just as you write postal address of the receiver in the postal mail.

2) An e-rnail system, if compared to postal mail, telephone, and fax, has the
following advantages:
a. E-mails are faster mode of communication than the postal mail.
b. In e-mail system, there is no need for the recipient to be online. But while
using telephone, the other user must be online at that time.
c. An e-mail document can be stored in computer and easily edited using editing
programs that is not the case for a faxed document.

3) Messenger supports instant messaging service that allows you to communicate

with other users over the Internet in real time. The messenger is used for:
• Real time communication
• PC-to-PC calls
• File sharing

4) A chat room is a web site, or part of a Web site. Chat provides the functionality to
the users to communicate in real time. In most cases, you need not install any
special software to join a chat room.

Check Your Progress 2

1) Usenet services are used to exchange their views/ideas that is of common interest
to all the members belonging to the same group. Those types of groups are called
newsgroups. The two types of Newsgroup are:
• Moderated Newsgroup
• Un-moderated Newsgroup

2) First of all you need a newsgroup server for hosting the services to users. Most of
the ISP hosts their own news servers. Every Newsgroup server synchronizes
regularly with other hosts such that the up-to-date information is shared with the
users.

3) Newsgroup has following features:

• Search messages.
• Built-in newsgroup reader for reading online / offline messages.
• Read individual messages within a newsgroup.
• Manage unlimited newsgroups, filters, addresses, etc.
• Post Messages.

113
Internet
Concepts 4) A wiki is a Web page or collection of Web pages. It is designed to create and edit
contents by using a markup language.

Characteristics of Wiki:
• In Wiki, any users can edit any page or create new pages within the wiki Web
site.
• Woo promotes hyperlinks to connect meaningful topic with different pages.
• Woo maintains history of changes.

Check Your Progress 3

1) Downloading means moving a file from remote location to another location, may
be its on your computer hard disk. You can download books, songs, videos,
pictures etc.
,
2) The main difference between newsgroups and a BBS is:
A Bulletin BOiU"dSystems commonly had a single and dedicated server used by
users living in the same geographic region, whereas newsgroup use decentralized
network.

3) List server is a program in which all users send an email to one specific address,
which resends those messages to all other users (subscriber) to the list.

4) The Benefits of using LISTSERV are:

• User friendliness
• Scalable
• Flexible
• Reliable
• Secure

The features of LISTSERV are:

Owner Features
• Supports both moderated and un-moderated e-mail groups
• Takes care of errors, or bounced e-mails while delivery.
• supports the RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds.

Site Administrator Features

• Built-in virus protection.
• Offers a blacklistlwhitelist system to prevent spam.
• Can connect with ODBC databases.

4. 12 FURTHER READINGS

• For GmaiI Help -- http://mail.google.com!supportl?h1=en

• For Yahoo Messenger help --
http://help.yahoo.comll/us/yahoo/messenger/messengerS/index.htmI
• For Chat Wiki -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wikilChat
• For Wiki's Wiki -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wikilWOO r

• For Newsgroup Wiki -- http://en.wOOpedia.orglwikilNewsgroup

114
 NOTES

,
SOCIS-IGNOU/P.O. 5T/June, 2009

ISBN-978-81-266-3979-3