What are the Internet and the World Wide Web?

The Internet is simply a huge number of computers interconnected by various means - microwave relay, cable, phone line, and satellite link. The larger computers (servers) store and distribute information, and smaller computers like PCs, Macs, and VTs (nodes), retrieve the information.

The World Wide Web is a subset of the Internet. Documents written specifically for the Web are written in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). The Web allows users to use hypertext (point and click) to view multimedia web pages, incorporating texts, pictures, sounds, and video sequences.

As of January 1995, there were approximately 30 thousand Web servers and 30 million nodes. The number of servers is increasing by about 10% per month, while the number of nodes is increasing by about 20%!

What kind of information is on the Web?

News, weather, sports, government publications, scholarly databases, full text books and journals, maps, commercial products, multimedia publications, and much more. The scope of information on the Web is extremely broad, covering virtually every subject area. The depth of coverage in any given area, however, varies widely. Examples of some of the information available on the Web.

Who owns the information on the Web?

Anyone with storage space on a machine with a Web server (usually a mainframe or UNIX box) can make information available on the Web. This accounts for the serendipitous nature of information on the Web, as well as for the wide variation in quality.

Be warned - very little of the information on the Web goes through anything resembling an editorial process, and some of the information on the Web is outright offensive.

How do I find information on the Web?

Many professional journals and electronic discussion groups now post URL's of interesting sites. The URL (Uniform Resource Locater) is the address of that information on the Web. To access that page:
from Netscape or Mosaic, click in the long white box at the top of the screen, type in the URL and press Enter.
From Lynx, press G, then type in the URL and press Enter. For example, the URL of this page is: http://www.uncg.edu:80/~bucknall/tim/bi/answers.html

If you don't know the URL of the site you want to visit, you can search the Internet by subject or by keyword.

If I stumble across a good Web site and can't remember how I got there, how can I make sure I'll be able to find it again?

You can write down the URL, which appears in the big white box at the top of Mosaic and Netscape screens, and then follow the instructions above to get back there. An easier way is to use bookmarks. In Netscape, click on Bookmark on the top menu bar, then click on Add Bookmark. In Mosaic, click on Navigate on the top menu bar, then click on Add Current to Hotlist. To review your hotlist, click on File, then Open. In Lynx, use a to add a site to your list of bookmarks and v to view and use your list of bookmarks. If you are not able to save bookmarks from one session to the next please contact me and I will help you fix it.

I went back to a neat Web site that I have visited before, but now it is gone. What happened?

It may not really be gone. The machine the information is on may be down temporarily, or may be too busy to honor your request. Try again later.

Sometimes information is removed by the owner of the machine or by the person who originally made it available. If this happens, search the Web to see if there is another copy residing on another machine.

Can I dial in to the Web?

Yes. Dial in to your Steffi or Hamlet account. (If you don't have one, you can get one from CIS at x5350.) Then type lynx. Warning - Lynx is a text-only interface, so you won't get any pictures or sound.

Dialing in and using Lynx will change your print and download options. The exact changes may depend on your telecommunications software. Call me if you need help.

CIS can provide you with information on setting up a PPP connection, which enables UNCG faculty, staff, and students to use Netscape from home wihtout having to pay an Internet Service Provider like AOL or Compuserv.

What is the big deal about the Web anyway? Isn't all that information already accessible in printed form?

Yes and no. The universe of information contained in printed form currently greatly exceeds the amount of information available on the Web. Books also have other advantages:

• portability - you can read them at the beach or in your bathtub
• permanence - the book will have the same information in it tomorrow that it does today
• quality control - this is obviously not true of all printed works, but at least most scholarly works go through an editorial process
• simplicity and familiarity

• multimedia - books have pictures, but not sound
• huge distribution - anything on the Web is accessible to millions of people world wide
• immediacy - the Web can distribute information very quickly. For example, you can find out what the stock market was doing 15 minutes ago.
• Indexing - every word of every document on the web is searchable

The Internet isn't better than print, and print isn't better than the internet. Use the right tool for the right job.

What do I do if I need a little help? Or if I'm completely lost?

Ask me. That's what I'm here for. No question is too basic and, with any luck, no question will be too complex.