The Internet is a large computer communication network that spans hundreds of countries and includes millions of computers. It is a heterogeneous network of networks, all communicating via the TCP/IP communication protocol, that provides a number of valuable services, including:

World-Wide-Web

Once you get connected to the Internet, the web is accessible through a standard web-browser (e.g., Microsoft Internet Explorer). You just need to tell the browser the Internet address (or URL) of the page you want to download (see the image to the right).

There are any number of useful websites, covering a vast range of information resources, including:

The Web is so large and is growing so quickly that it’s increasing difficult to keep track of it all. For this reason, search engines have become a necessity. A search engine allows you to enter search terms (e.g., “Calvin College”) and will return a list of websites that may be relevant to those terms. The most popular search engine these days is Google (http://www.google.com/):

Exercise 2.a.1: Use the WWW to find answers to the following questions:

  1. What will the weather be like tomorrow?
  2. What is an average cost of electricity per kilowatt hour?
  3. What is the energy cost of performing an average Google search?
  4. Find a website with information about you (if you can!).
Record your answers so that you can email them to the course instructor at the end of the lab period.

To get help on the basics of Google search, visit the Google help page (http://www.google.com/help/basics.html). Do this even if you think you know Google well, I learned some things when I looked through this help, and I use Google hundreds of times per day.

Protecting Yourself on the Web

As in real life, not everything on the web is good, and some sites can be dangerous. Here are some things to watch out for, and some things you can do to protect yourselves and your families on-line:

Exercise 2.a.2: Consider one of the following websites:
Determine if your website is legitimate, questionable, authoritative, foolish, despicable, etc. Record your answers so that you can email them to the course instructor at the end of the lab period.

It can be hard to tell if a site is legitimate or not, but you some resources to answer these questions and determine the purpose and legitimacy of these sites:

Electronic Mail

Electronic mail (Email ) is a service that allows you create, send and reply to messages, world-wide, in an inexpensive and convenient way. To use email, you need to have access to the Internet (as discussed in the last session) and an email service account. There are a number of companies that offer free email service, including:

Exercise 2.a.3: If you don’t already have an email account, set one up for yourself now by going to one of the given companies and following their instructions. We’d suggest using Gmail because it provides a good email client. Here are some things to note:

Protecting Yourself on Email

As with all things on the Internet, Email is a very useful tool, but carries with it dangers. Here are some things to look out for and what you can do about them:

You can find further information on all of these topics at Wikipedia (http://www.wikipedia.org/). Webfoot has a guide to writing effective email (http://webfoot.com/advice/email.top.html).

Exercise 2.a.4: Look through your email system and find an example of a Spam or Phishing email. Record it so that you can submit it to the course instructor at the end of the lab period.

Other Internet Communication Services

There is a wide variety of Internet or web-based communication applications out there.

Exercise 2.a.5: If there is time, try out one of the following communication utilities:

There is no end in sight to the variety of Internet-based communication applications.

Checking In

When you are finished with all the exercises, do the following: