Utility and Role of Internet

Nowadays if you talk of any application area, the role of Internet comes. The Internet allows people to access a vast information resource, talk to each other by email, and join electronic news, discussion and special mailing groups.

There are many advantages to using the Internet such as:

· Email.Email is now an essential communication tools in business. It is also excellent

for keeping in touch with family and friends. The advantages to email is that it is free ( no charge per use) when compared to telephone, fax and postal services.

· Information Retrieval.There is a huge amount of information available on the internet for just about

every subject known to man,ranging from government law and services, trade fairs and conferences, market information, new ideas and technical support. Go to a search engine and search for any subject topic. You will find a bulk of material.

· Services.Many services are now provided on the Internet such as online banking, job

seeking and applications, and hotel reservations. Often these services are not available off-line or cost more.

Cont………………..

· Buy or sell products.The internet is a very effective way to buy and sell productsall over the world. I think you all must have heard ofwww.baazi.com. It is a very popular site for selling andbuying products.

· Communities.Communities of all types have sprung up on the Internet.Its a great way to meet up with people of similar interestand discuss common issues. An example is like chatrooms, Electronic Bulletin Boards.

Internet ToolsHere is a list of some popular Internet tools. Some of these tools we will discuss in more detail later

in this chapter.· E-mail - Electronic mail is one of the most popular Internet tools. Users have their own e-mail

address and mailbox, which allow them to exchange typed messages.Some e-mail programs allow users to send documents as attachments to their messages.

· FTP - Short for File Transfer Protocol, ftp is a method used to transfer files from one networked computer to another. There are two ways to ftp files - privately and anonymously. If you have a private account on a machine (e.g., bullwinkle.ucdavis.edu), you can ftp to that machine with your login ID and password. To anonymously ftp, you must know the host name of the computer storing the information (e.g., itcap. ucdavis.edu). You can login by using anonymous as the ID and your e-mail address as the password. You can then use ftp to transfer any files to your own account or hard disk.

· Newsreader - A newsreader is an application that allows you to access Usenet news. Usenet news consists of several thousand discussion groups where people can post and read articles about selected topics. You can subscribe to newsgroups, which interest you. The USENET News system (or netnews) is an international organized system for the dissemination of information on almost every topic. Newsgroups are divided into hierarchies, such as:alt - for alternate newsgroupsaus - Australian newsgroupscomp - computer related newsgroupsnews - newsgroups about newsrec - recreational newsgroupssci - scientific newsgroups

Cont…………Telnet - Telnet is a method used to connect to another computer on

the Internet. This connection is often referred to as a terminal session. You may telnet to machines that provide access through either a private or public account.

WWW - An intricate web of information linked by names and associations, the World Wide Web integrates text,video, photographs, graphics, and sound. Every site – or homepage - on the Web has an “http” address and can be accessed using a Web browser (e.g., Netscape). You can download information on many homepages to your own computer. You can view text-based information on the World Wide Web using a command line browser such as Lynx.

Search Engines -The first thing most people do when they start using the WWW is to use a search engine to try to find information. There are many very common ones. A new one that we particular like is google.com. These have to be used with care. It often helps if you can start searching in a sub-area of the WWW.

Web Browsers

A web browser is the software program you use to access the World Wide Web, the graphical portion of the Internet. The first browser, called NCSA Mosaic, was developed at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications in the early 1990s. The easy-to-use point-and-click interface helped popularize the Web. Netscape Navigator developed by Netscape Communications Corporation & Internet Explorer, developed by Microsoft are the two most popular ones.

E-MailA message containing text, graphics, video and/or audio

transmitted electronically from one computer user to another computer user. The mail could be sent between two people using the same computer or between two people on different sides of the world.

Advantages of E-Mail

Speed

Because e-mail is based around computer networks, it is fast - much faster than standard mail (otherwise known as snail mail). An e-mail message that you send to someone in Finland or Brazil could take only a few seconds to reach them.

Cont…….Cost

Depending on how you have obtained your Internet access, email is either free or very cheap, much cheaper than the 45 cents it takes to send a standard letter within Australia.

FlexibilityWith the new MIME e-mail system being used today, you

aren’t limited to text in your e-mail messages. You can

Include pictures, sound files, movies, data files from your

favorite spreadsheet program, etc.