The Internet is a communication system that allows computers around the world to communicate and to exchange of the data with each other. This also allows to access their resources, such as files, services, or other people. Each of the fellowing pages explains one of the services that are possible thanks to the Internet. You already know and use some of them. Here's a short list.
What turned the Internet so popular since 1995. Many people still mix-up the
terms Web and Internet. In fact, Web is one of the services available
thanks to the Internet.
Leave messages on the equivalent of " community board " on subjects that interests
you. You can return later to see if you had answers to your comments or questions.
This is to have conversations by the voice on the Internet. Because of the
configuration of the Internet, the parts of the message does not arrive in time
and is not so agreed by the receiver. It's the equivalent of interurban without
paying the expenses of it. To pay you only the costs of subscription of the
service of access to the Internet.
The video conference is the communication from the users by using of the
video and the sound. With a small specialized video camera and a special program
of communication, you connect to a server who takes charge of the communication
between two or several persons. The most known is called CUSeeMe (See you, see
me). It's the one that opened this segment on the Internet. There are now some
competitors on the market.
It's regrettably all that I can say you on the domain because I had no chance
to experiment.
" Plug-ins "
You can add capacities to your web browser such as Netscape or Internet Explorer.
These options are called " plug-ins ". They become attached to your visionneur
so that it's capable of showing of the video, of listening of the music or the
voice and even to show environments in three dimensions.
Be careful!
It's strictly forbidden to the students of the university
to install software, including " plug-ins ", on the computers of the computer
lab, even "temporarily".
Pluisieurs " plug-ins " for the sound allows you to listen of the music. This
music often results from sites that make of the promotion of musical groups
in you offer extracts of songs. Another source is the connection of certain
radio stations in the Internet. EIles passes on not only their programmings
on the waves but also on the Internet.
You can make a query by using one of the sites of query for the World Wide
Web by using the word "radio" to have a short list of the stations that announce
the service. You can sit in front of your computer and listen of the music resulting
from Hong-Kong, from Hawaï or moreover. It's necessary however that your computer
possesses a card of sound such of the company Creative Labs with its " Sound
Blaster " either of the company Ad Lib or Aztec from the others.
You can also have " plug-ins " to see clips of video. As for the sound, there
are several companies that are in competition in this market. Some of these
companies are QuickTime, Real Player, VDOLive...
Here is an example with the RealPlayer plug - in.
There is also " plug-ins " to walk you in environments of three dimensions.
This environment is called VRML, pronounced "worm - mul" in English, for virtual
reality modeling language. He allows you to navigate in a building(ship) or
in an extraordinary mode. With the standard VRML 2.0, it's possible of resources
of the animation and the sound.
It's also possible to enter some of these worlds in the skin of a person or
a creature. They are called the "adversities" and begin to be popular. I have
more data about these or the way that they communicate or interact from them
without is needed supplementary plug-ins. The time only allowed me to inform
me a little and to try to navigate in one of these virtual worlds. The navigation
is more difficult than I believed it.
You can find more data about the site on VRML of the company Sillicon Graphics
in http://www.sgi.com.
ICQ, Yahoo pager, AOL Messenger ( AIM), Microsoft Messenger have the advantage
of IRC to communicate with the other persons who are on the Internet. Contrary
to the IRC, Instanat messaging allows you to contact only the people that interests
you. So, not need to connect in one of the IRC servers and to enter a room to
know who is there. By connecting you to one of its services, you know instantly
if a person of your contact list is available or not or ready to begin a conversation.
The short history of the Internet
It's in the 60's, in the middle of the "cold war" between the east block and
the western countries, that one finds the starting point of the Internet. The
American army needed a way to coordinate their nuclear weapons in case of atomic
war. They needed a system of communication that could "survive" even
if several bases were destroyed.
1964: ARPANET project: The beginning of the project to create
the first distributed network. The advantage of this technology is that it's
decentralized. The system is not dependent on a main computer to coordinate
communications. If one, two, even several computers go out of order, are overloaded
or are unavailable, the system can by-pass these problems without any difficulty.
This is the kind of network the military needed.
1969: The ARPANET is put in operation with the use of a protocol
for communications called NCP (Network Control Protocol). It's the first time
computers communicate among each other over long distances. The whole network
is composed of super-powerful computers for the period. The network could even
survive the devastation of an atomic war because every site is physically connected
to four others. The communication and the coordination of the surviving armed
forces in a nuclear attack was and still is assured. For reasons of national
security, the armed forces refuses scientists the access to the military network
and the use of the protocol of communication between sites.
1973: The scientists take their revenge by developing their
own network through universities and by using an improved protocol of communication
named TCP / IP (Transfer Control Protocol Protocol/Internet Protocol). The protocol
IP makes sure that every computer connected with the network has an unique address
and that each is capable of communicating with the others. This protocol is
used on several platforms to allow a communication from these. The access became,
in time, international. The foundations for the current Internet ware placed.
Research started to increase the potential of the Internet with several other
services.
Among these services, there is a E-mail. It allows people to send messages,
"e-mail", to each other who have an e-mail address. There is also " gopher "
who allows to show data, mostly text, and to make it available to all. It's
in a sense the "grandpa" of the World Wide Web. There is also a FTP
service, for File Transfer Protocol, wich allowa the transfer of files through
the Internet to FTP servers. There are several other services that will be
described in this section of the site.
1989: Tim
Berners-Lee creates the bases of what will become World Wide Web.
1995: It's this year when the term "Internet" entered the
vocabulary of most people. It's especially because of a "new" service: the World
Wide Web (WWW or W3). Some people think, even today, that the WWW is the Internet.
By now, you should know better.
The Internet offers you several services. The main ones are explained in the
following pages. I can not give you a complete list of services because some
people invent news ways to use the Internet every day ! The potential of the
Internet increases constantly.
For students at UQÀM (Université du Québec à Montréal)
who have a Merlin account, you have access several of these Internet services.
The possibilities are descriped in the main menu when you enter Melin.
Other terms
Intranet
The use of tools and necessary resources to work on the Internet but for the
internal needs of the company. For example, more and more companies use internal
documents (memos, company reports and policies ...) by using the same tools
as on the Internet. However, these documents are only available from inside
the company.
Extranet
It's the former term to describe what is now called Business to Business or
B2B. This consists in the purchase of services and materials by transactions
on the Internet between companies. The value of these commercial transactions
is estimated to reach 6 billions of dollars U.S. by 2005.
IP Adress
Every computer connected to the Internet at an address IP (Internet Protocol).
Like a postal adress or a telephone number, it's used to know that computer
made a query for data and to pass it on the correct place. So forget the anonymity
on the Internet. It doesn't really exist. Your IP adress is always used, always
know. Act accordingly.
This address consists, at present, of a series of four figures between 0 and
255 ( 256 possibilities). All the addresses you will find so between 0.0.0.0
and 256.256.256.256. That gives you more than 4,2 billions addresses. The addresses
are assigned in segments, or blocks, of 256 addresses to Internet service providers
(ISP). It's they that assign an address to its users.
With more people around the world wanting to connect, and also the increasing
number of machines that want to connect (from cell phones to your refridgerator
if some people have their way) the number of used addresses is getting closer
to it's limit. A new version of the addresses IP should go out soon. It's called
IP version 6 or IPv6 offering more addresses as well as the other advantages.
