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A beginner’s guide to the Internet
Using the Internet is literally ‘the easiest thing in the
world’ so if you still don’t know much about the Internet then
you’ll find this section extremely useful.
In
order to guide you step by step, this section has been divided
into the following categories: Get Started, Net Use, Net Fun
and Tutorials. The Get Started section is especially helpful
to those people who have absolutely no idea about the
Internet, Net Use shows beginners how to use the internet, Net
Fun details all the fun stuff that you can do on the Internet
and in the last sub section Tutorials you’ll find many useful
tutorials on the Internet.
Get
Started: This section will Get You Started
in no time. In fact you’ve already started using the Internet
because you are reading this.
This section contains three parts: The first part will show
you how to set up an Internet account,
the second discusses how to setup an
email account, and the third will tell you how you can
setup your own web page.
How to
set up an Internet account?
In order to use the Internet, one needs an Internet account.
Internet accounts are obtained from Internet Service Providers
(such as WOL, Cyber.Net etc), which are commonly known as
ISPs.
The ISPs may offer different types of connections such as: a
Dial-Up Connection, which requires a phone line to connect to
the Internet or a Broad Band DSL Connection that does not
require phone lines. Since in Pakistan the dial-up connections
are more commonly used especially in households we’ll just
stick to such type of connections.
The Internet accounts can be obtained from any ISP of choice
either from the ISPs customer services or other outlets.
Different ISPs offer different number of hours for the same
amount of money. ISPs also offer Internet cards that are
available at different prices depending on the number of
hours.
Also, I must point out that the cable networks that can be now
found in every nook and corner of Pakistan are different from
the connections that are provided by the ISPs. In cable
Internet, your phone line is not used to access the Internet
but instead the cables (called Ethernet cables) are used.
A dial up connection is possible only when you have a modem
installed in your computer and a telephone line. A modem is a
device, which is inside your computer and uses the telephone
lines to connect to the Internet. So the first step is to
check whether you have a modem in your computer or not.
Setting up a dial-up connection is very simple and all one has
to do is follow the wizard that is provided with the Windows
operating system. A complete guide to the whole process can be
found at the following links:
How to
set up an email account?
One of the most frequent uses of the Internet is email. In
this section, we’ll help you set up an email account. Email
account is an account from which you can send and receive
emails as well. But don’t compare opening a bank account with
the opening of an email account because you don’t need to have
money to have an email account, just an Internet connection.
Many websites such as Hotmail and Yahoo offer free web
services to set up an email account. All one has to do at
these websites is sign up, i.e. register with the website
which in return provides you with an email ID and a password.
How to set up your own web pages?
It’s always a good idea to have a personal web page. A
personal web page may consist of your personal details,
pictures, and messages and just about anything you want to
have in it.
Net Usage
In this section, we’ll show you how to browse, search and
download from the Internet. We’ll also discuss using credit
cards online.
Browsing the Net
The term surf means the same as the word browse. In simple
words browsing or surfing refers to exploring the Internet. In
order to browse one needs a web browser like
Netscape Navigator 7
and
Microsoft Internet Explorer-the
two most popular browsing tools. Without a browser one can’t
explore the net. Usually the operating systems provide a
browsing tool in their installation so it’s probably installed
on your system already.
In a browser, one writes the URL of the website which one
wants to visit and then the browser opens up the website. The
URL can be thought of as the address of a destination whereas
the browser is analogous to a vehicle, which is used to reach
a destination. Check out the following websites that will
guide you on how to use the browsers to surf the Internet.
Searching Online
If you don’t know the URL (or the address) of the websites
then you can search the Internet for them. Searching can be
done topic wise, date wise, using keywords almost in any way
you want. For example let’s assume I want information on the
music band Metallica also that I’ve never visited Metallica’s
website. Then I can use a search engine to find the link of
Metallica’s official website. There are many search engines
available on the net such as
Google,
Yahoo,
Ask
that have powerful search engines to scan the Internet. Also
try out the following:
How to Download
Downloading refers to copying files onto your machine from
another location. It is a simple process in which you click
the program icon, which you want to download and a window
automatically opens up asking you where to save the file on
your PC. You can find many useful
tutorials on the net
detailing the whole process of how to download and what exact
buttons to click to complete a download.
You can download all sorts of stuff online. You can download
movies,
songs, softwares etc.
Some of the popular websites for downloading are
Cnet
and
ZDnet
which have huge variety of items available for download There
are many downloading softwares like
KaZaa
,
iMesh,
DAP etc that can be used to download material from the
Internet.
Using credit cards online
Credit cards can be used online for buying, selling, doing
trade and banking. However using credit cards on a website is
not secure and involves a lot of
security risks.
Many sites offer credit card transactions online. If you have
a credit card then you can experiment it using it online to
buy books, flowers, or any thing you want. Try out the
following links:
Amazon
The largest and the best site on the planet from where you can
shop online
Desi Store
The Pakistani version of
Amazon.com
Net Fun
You can have lots of fun online. You can chat online, send
e-cards, read newspapers, online window-shopping the list is
endless.
Chat Online
It's
one of the most popular attractions of the Internet. You can
chat with almost anyone online…it could be your relatives
living outside the country, or it could be your friends, or it
could be complete strangers. Many people use chatting software
to find romance online. Some of the most widely used chatting
software are
MSN Messenger,
Yahoo Messenger
, and
AOL IM
. Also
ICQ
and
mIRC
are popular chat softwares.
You don’t have to be a whiz to chat online as all of the
chatting softwares have a friendly user interface and have
help files, which guide on how to use the software. However
there are some rules that should be followed by the chatters
when chatting and when on the Internet in general. These rules
are called the
netiquettes
and represent the
code of conduct
for the net users to use the Internet.
Sending e-cards
E-cards are the Internet versions of greeting cards. Many
websites offer e-cards on a wide range of topics. One can
chose any type of greeting cards such as Miss You, Love You.
Hate You etc, personalize it and email it to a friend. It’s a
simple process which requires only the email address of the
person you want to send the e-card to, i.e. the recipient and
of course your own email address. The best part of the e-cards
is that they are absolutely free so it can save you money on
buying the cards from the stores and the money spent on
postage. Some of the best links on e-cards are as follows:
Tutorials
You can find tutorials on almost any subject online. If you
want to know the hows and whys related to any subject then
chances are that the answer to your questions are already
there on the net. It’s all a matter of searching a bit online
and viola you’ll find a tutorial that details everything on
the subject you’re looking for. Some of my personal favorite
sites are as follows:
If the above sections don’t satisfy you
and if you feel that you need to learn more then check out the
following sites that provide excellent guidelines and courses
for Internet beginners:
Spam
spam
is junk mail –
uninvited e-mails that flood your inbox every morning cramping
the world’s bandwidth and wasting your time. Who is sending
this spam? Emarketers, mischief makers and people with a lot
of time and free Net connections on their hand. Safe to say
they are nuisance to society at large. Their messages are
unwelcome and they impeach on your privacy. How do
spam spammer’s get your e-mail address?
Through websites, directories, newsgroups and guesswork.
Spam dunk!
You can sift through the pile of junk manually or you can use
software. Software to combat Spam has developed as quickly as
the problem itself. Yet there is always a 50-50 chance that
spam busting software or mail filters as they are known will
also eat up relevant messages.
For a list of email filters that can stop spam (to a degree),
see
1StopSpam. The filters
listed here include free and pay-for. Cnet visitors rate
filters for effectiveness at
Download.com.
PassTheShareware also maintains a huge list
of free e-mail filters downloadable from the Net.
Most web-based services such as Yahoo!, Hotmail and Lycos have
spruced up their junk mail fighting capabilities. Several spam
busting websites are there for help such as
Fight Spam,
CAUCE,
ORDB,
and
UXN Spam Combat.
If you use Microsoft’s Outlook or Outlook Express, you can get
add-ons and
help
here. If you are browsing with
Mozilla, their
Spam Filtering
page can help. For Eudora, see
the
GetNetWise
tutorial. Using IncrediMail is
cute and you can still activate the spam filter by reading
instructions
here.
SPIDER covered Spam in January 2003.
PC Mag
ran a timely article in
February 2003. Here are tips from Microsoft on trimming
Spam from your Email Diet.
Another good article on what are the costs involved for
business is by
Shelley Lowery.
Scambusters.org
maintains a huge page on
tricks to fight spammers.
Concepts
Email
iamsaadpk@yahoo.com
for more ideas.
ePublishing
Electronic
publishing is a booming business and a
‘revolution’ in media.
Broadly speaking, electronic publishing was first considered
as a threat to wipe out the existence of books, newspapers and
the anything printed from our tabletops and shelves. The
availability of text on the Net, mass circulation of
multimedia CDs, easy transfer of documents in the popular
Acrobat Adobe
format
and the growing industry of e-paper were some of the
indicators that led people to view it as a new revolution.
Hype aside, electronic publishing has vastly complimented the
print industry in moving to the digital age. Publishers attach
CDs with books, authors such as Stephen King have marketed
their novels online exclusively before actually printing it
and epaper is in evolution. For the Net community, downloading
ebooks
is a major
fascination but it hasn’t quite replaced the need to curl up
in bed with a paperback. Maybe downloading ebooks to PDAs
would be a good supplement. Plus there are copyright issues
and a look at
Digital Rights Management
will help understand
the complexities involved. This is a fundamental issue and you
can look at websites such as
Project Gutenberg
to
deliberate
over the future.
eCommerce
eCommerce
refers to online business and commerce. The Internet community
finds itself at crossroads today.
Ecommerce
threatens to
overtake its ‘free-dom’. To the horror of the old guard,
nearly every website and service is turning towards a pay-for
model. From web-based e-mail to
weblogs, it appears
soon every online service will be accessible if you become a
premium member. See
The End of Free
which
“chronicles from free to fee”. Lets face it, the costs of
hosting and running websites, plus offering commercial
services over them is substantial. To the industrialists who
watched the Web transform from a military project to one
exclusive to researchers and programmers, the Net was going to
play a major role in globalizing the worlds trade and
commerce. This is why
Amazon
and
eBay
are brand names – two ecommerce examples that combine the ease
and access of shopping online with first-rate delivery. Yet
the bigger picture is that ecommerce promises to transform
home owners into global brands as was the case with Amazon and
eBay. For more fresh thoughts and stats, see
eMarketer.
Virtual Community
Howard
Rheingold’s optimistic
‘The Virtual Community: Homesteading on
the Electronic Frontier’ characterizes the
essence of the Internet’s role in enhancing personal
communication. His book discusses the success of
The WELL
as a model
for emancipation, open democracy and the twenty-first century
actualization of ‘a global village’. The ‘invisible’ network
of friends Rheingold keeps bringing up in The Virtual
Community is one way of understanding how powerful the
Internet has proven in creating communities of people who are
linked in cyberspace for a mutual ideology, purpose, interest
or vision. Anything can draw people together and start a
virtual community or mailing group. This is the “borderless
society” postmodernists speak of, however,
identity and deception on the Net
is a major drawback in determining member
authenticity. Can the Internet uphold democratic values where
corruption in governance is rampant?
Open Democracy
thinks
so. Even weblogs are now being touted as the pillars of new
age democracy. Does the hype ever stop?
Intellectual Property
Our
lifestyle is defined to a large extent by brands and ideas we
adopt from all around us. This is the reason why intellectual
property is the most contested theme of our times. Registering
patents has a
history
going way back
to 1449.
Copyright
dictating
protection of books and written material materialized in the
1700s. Intellectual Property is thus serious business since
modernity. With the Internet, several new aspects have been
added including combating digital piracy in entertainment,
plagiarism on the Net and patenting websites to name a few. On
one hand is the commercial sector or private owners and on the
other are civil liberties or copyleft activists who say the
Internet was a meant to end social barriers on access.
WIPO
safeguards IP in
the digital age. Norman Lewis illustrates this well in
Repose the debate. The
New Scientist explored the debate and received exceptional
response to its ‘copyleft’ exercise titled The Great
Giveaway.
You can view a debate online about the
Future of IP
or see the
Economic Times Survey
of the tangled web surrounding
IP.
Top 5 Viruses
Viruslist.com:
Click on the Virus Top Twenty link to find the latest global
viruses threats.
Advisory
CA:
Computer Associates eTrust Threat information center. They
support a safe initiative computing philosophy and give a
virus information center and latest vulnerability alerts.
Antivirus.about.com:
Every thing you need to know about viruses, how to keep them
at bay and the most effective anti virus programs available.
CERT: The Computer
Emergency and Response Team /Coordination Center (CERT/CC) is
an Internet security expertise center located at the Software
Engineering Institute and is operated by Carnegie Mellon
University. Excellent resources on security practices and
evaluations are available here with updated news and listings
on network vulnerabilities, statistics and research reports,
training courses and certification programs, guides, tutorials
you name it!
My personal favorite in this website is the tutorial on
home computer security.
Also if you access the Internet from your home using a
broadband connection or a dial-up connection then there you
must read the
security threats
associated with it. In general, the
net security
issues are comprehensively described here.
PakCERT: Although
having no affiliations with the international CERT center,
this website can be labeled as the Pakistani version of the
CERT website. PakCERT is an Internet security company and the
brainchild of a former hacker turned security guru Qazi Ahmed.
The website has a virus alert and security news section, tools
and softwares, plus loads of information on viruses, listings
of best firewalls and anti-viruses etc. Although the layout of
the site needs to improve the information contained in it is
updated. Also here you can find the listings of the Pakistani
sites which have been hacked.
CIAC: Computer
Incident and Advisory Capability (CIAC) is an internationally
acclaimed advisory body that features an updated Bulletins and
Advisories section at its website besides a huge collection of
articles on network and internet security. Like CERT, it lists
and provides solutions to security threats.
The Network Security Library:
Hundreds of articles on network and Internet security, FAQs,
white papers, books etc-truly a fantastic resource which is
rightly labeled as the Network Security library. The best part
of this enormous information resource is that it’s free and no
strings like submitting credit card numbers to view the entire
contents are attached to it. Download entire tutorials, books,
articles or just about anything related to network security
then from this website. Finding a topic of your interest is
easy too because the site has a search engine of its own as
well. Tons of information on windows security is also
available here.
Internet Security Alliance:
The Internet Security Alliance is an advisory body that
monitors all the security threats associated with the Internet
and provides updated news. This alliance is a collaborative
effort between Carnegie Mellon University’s Software
Engineering Institute (SEI), its CERT Coordination Center
(CERT/CC), and the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA), a
federation of trade associations. A must visit for a security
guru.
Center for Internet Security:
The Center for Internet Security mission statement reads as
follows:” to help organizations around the world effectively
manage the risks related to information security. CIS provides
methods and tools to improve, measure, monitor, and compare
the security status of your Internet-connected systems and
appliances, plus those of your business partners.” The site
features internet security guidelines and risks that are
specifically targeted to the organizations. The security
specialists working in organizations will find this site
particularly useful.
Microsoft Security Guidelines:
If you use Microsoft products such as the Internet Explorer,
Microsoft Office, and Windows Operating Systems then you must
visit the giant corporation’s website to download the latest
security patches and guidelines. The security bulletin section
at the site provides information on threats specifically
targeting the Microsoft products. The best part is that there
are separate security guidelines for IT professionals,
developers, home users and businesses. The site also boasts of
a security support newsgroups section where you can post your
questions. To protect your PC it’s always a good idea to
update your windows
and to also
update your MS Office
.
Tools
Firewalls
ZoneAlarm: Download
the free version of Zone Alarm that protects your PC from
hackers and other intruders. ZoneAlarm also includes an
interesting feature called the stealth mode for ultimate PC
invisibility. Definitely, the best firewall around.
Sygate
Personal Firewall: Download the free
personal firewall provided by Sygate that provides top-notch
security for your PC.
Kerio Personal Firewall:
Kerio features three security levels for easy configuration
and options for advanced users to create their own rules. |