This chapter introduces the reader to different Internet tools and how these are used for different purposes such as browsing, searching and sending and receiving e-mails. The chapter mainly focuses on the browsing and searching the internet and using it for sending and receiving e-mails. The web browser tool is discussed with its functions and how it helps in quick searching. An important searching tool–search engine is discussed along with its working. The second part of the chapter discusses e-mail client to send and receive e-mails offline. The latter part of the chapter describes the messenger, which is used for sending instant messages from one computer to another.
After reading this chapter, you will be able to understand:
The Internet tools, which are versatile tools that enable a user to collect information and interact with people across the world
Web browser—a software application, which provides the user an interface to navigate the Internet
How to browse the Internet using Internet explorer
The e-mail client, which is used to send and receive e-mails over the Internet
Various search engines used to access information on topics desired by the user
Instant messaging—a web-based service used to exchange messages in real time between two or more people over the Internet
In recent years, Internet has become one of the most popular means of communication. Whether one wants to know about computers, literature, commerce, or other such subject matters, Internet is probably the best solution that provides all kinds of information at a single place. We have discussed some of the most important terms related to Internet in the previous chapter, such as e-mail, browsing, instant messaging, etc. Now let us study those concepts from a practical perspective. This chapter focuses on various Internet tools like browser, e-mail client, and messenger. All these versatile tools enable the user to collect information and interact with people across the world.
A web browser is the most essential tool for accessing the Internet. Through a browser, one can browse, search, and collect information from the Web. It is also used to send and receive e-mails in online mode. If users want to manage their e-mails offline, they can use an e-mail client, which is specially designed for the purpose of sending and receiving messages without the need to be online. Apart from these tools, many websites provide a special application known as the instant messenger which permits users to send and receive instant messages, transfer files, conduct audio/visual chatting, listen to Internet radio stations, and many such useful services.
A web browser (or simply browser) is a software application, which provides a graphical user interface (GUI) so that the user can navigate the Internet easily by clicking on menus, icons, or buttons instead of learning difficult keyboard commands. A web browser uses the HTTP protocol to request web pages from the web server. These pages contain special instructions (written in HTML) that tell the browser how to display the web contents on the user's screen. The instructions may include hyperlinks to other web pages, information about text formatting and colour, position information for images contained in the document, and other such things. Most browsers natively support a variety of formats in addition to HTML, such as the JPEG, PNG, and GIF image formats, and can be extended to support more through the use of plug-ins (an add-on piece of software that extends the features or functionality of a larger application). The two most popular web browsers are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer.
There are many web browsers available having different features. However, every browser shares some of the basic features mentioned below:
Note: In this book, we have used Internet Explorer 8.0 (IE 8.0) for explaining web browser concepts Internet Explorer 8.0 is freely available from Microsoft website (http://www.microsoft.com). It is also bundled with the Windows 7 operating system.
To open Internet Explorer, perform any one of the following steps:
When Internet Explorer is opened, the main screen of the Internet Explorer is displayed. This main window has many parts, which are described in detail below (Figure 18.2).
Figure 18.2 Main Internet Explorer Browser Window
Title Bar: The title bar is located at the very top of the window and tells you the title of the page you are viewing. The title bar also tells you which Internet Explorer application is currently active. In addition, like all other Microsoft applications, it has the Minimize, Restore/Maximize, and Close buttons.
Tabs: Internet Explorer 8 allows opening multiple tabs in a single browser window with each tab displaying a web page. You can switch between the tabs to view web page of your choice by clicking on the respective tab. Tabbed browsing helps reducing the number of items in the taskbar. To open a new tab either click the New Tab button or press CTRL+T.
Back and Forward Buttons: The Back button allows the user to move to the most recently displayed web page. On the other hand, the Forward button allows moving to the page the user most recently has moved back from. This way the user can navigate through the most recently viewed websites easily.
Address Bar: The Address bar displays the Internet address (URL) of the page currently being displayed. You can access a site by typing its URL into the address box and pressing Enter (pressing ALT+Enter opens the web page in a new tab). In addition, you can search the Web by typing Find, Go, or ? followed by the keywords, phrase, or website name in the Address bar and pressing Enter. The Address bar uses the default search provider for searching.
Refresh Button: The Refresh button reloads the current document that the user is viewing. Reloading the current page is useful when the page is updating very frequently as the user can view these changes as soon as they are available.
Stop Button: The Stop button stops the operation that is currently being performed by the Internet Explorer. For example, if it is pressed before a page has finished loading, the page will display only those elements that had been loaded before the button was pressed.
Search Box: The search box is used to search the Web. Simply type the keyword or phrase that you want to search and then press Enter to open the search result in the same tab or ALT+Enter to open the result in a new tab. To go to the search box, you can either click in the search box or press CTRL+E.
Menu Bar: The menu bar has many different sub-menus, which control all options, functions, and commands for the entire Internet Explorer. Some of the browsing controls can also be found in these sub-menus. Each command in the menu bar represents a menu and is activated by pressing ALT+ the underlined letter of the menu from the keyboard. Different menus include File, Edit, View, and so on.
Favorites Bar: The Favorite bar replaces the Links toolbar available in previous versions of the Internet Explorer. Like Links toolbar, it enables you to keep the links of your favourite websites so that they can be accessed with just a click. Now, you not only can drag links from the address bar, but also from web pages you are viewing. In addition, the Favorites bar can hosts RSS feeds and Web slices. Web slice is a new feature that lets you notice about updates to the contents on your favourite websites.
Command Bar: The Command bar hosts many buttons that are used to perform frequently used actions. Buttons that appear on the command bar are Home button, Read Mail button, Print button, Help button,etc. You can customize the command bar to add or remove buttons from it.
Content Area: The content area is the portion of window that holds the web page present in the current tab. Text, images, animation, and links available on the web page appear in this area. It is quite common that a web page is too large to fit in the browser window at once. In such situation, scroll bars located on the right or bottom of the window are used to view the page's area that is beyond the window region.
Status Bar: The Status bar displays the current state of activity on the web page. The information that appears on the status bar includes the item currently being downloaded, the current web page's download progress, error (if any) in downloading, and zoom level of web page.
Browsing is an act of looking for information on the Internet by repeatedly going through several web pages usually with the help of hyperlinks. It is also known as navigating or surfing the Web. Browsing the Internet is the same as walking through a shop with an intention to purchase something or just for fun. Let us consider an example to illustrate how to browse Internet.
There is no standard way for browsing the Internet. However, usually when a user opens a website through the web browser, it contains several hyperlinks. With the help of these hyperlinks, a user can jump to a new web document in the same or a new window. Remember that efficiently browsing the web is just like any other task in life, it requires practice to be good at it.
Opening and Navigating a Website: In the Address bar, enter the website's address (URL) and press Enter to open the website. When the website opens, its home page is displayed. Since most web pages contain more information than can be displayed in one window, you need to know to move through a page to view all the information. Some common methods that can be used are as follows:
Usually a web page contains many hyperlinks, in the form of both text and images. You can always tell when the mouse pointer is over a hyperlink because it will change to hand with a pointing index finger (). To open a hyperlink, simply click on it and the related web page opens in the same window of the Internet Explorer. You can also open a hyperlink by right-clicking it and selecting the Open option from the short-cut menu. In addition, you can select the Open in New Tab or Open in New Window option from the short-cut menu (see Figure 18.3) to open the link in a new tab or a new window, respectively.
Figure 18.3 Web Page in Internet Explorer
If you have browsed through several pages in a window, you can move backward and forward by clicking the Back and Forward button at the top of Internet Explorer. You can go back or forward one page at a time or you can select from a list of pages. To do this, click the down arrow () beside the Forward button and click on any site from the list of visited sites (see Figure 18.4).
Figure 18.4 Moving Backward and Forward
Saving Text and Images: If you wish to save any text from the Internet, first select the text on the web page. After selecting the desired text, right-click it to open a pop-up menu, which contains options like Cut, Copy, Paste, Select All, and Print. Note that, often the Cut and Paste options are inactive to prevent users from deleting the important data from the website. Once you copy the text from a web page, you can paste it in any text-editing software like the Notepad or WordPad (Figure 18.5).
Figure 18.5 Copying Text
You often come across pictures on the Web that you would like to save, print, e-mail to others, or save them as wallpapers. To perform these activities, right-click the image and select the Save Picture As option. This will display the Save Picture As dialog box where you can select the location and enter a name for the picture.
In case you want to save the entire web page for future reference, click on the File menu and select the Save As option to display the Save Webpage dialog box. Now choose where you want the file to be saved, under what name, and in what format and then click the Save button (Figure 18.6).
Figure 18.6 Saving an Image
Downloading Files from Links: Many web pages have links to files (like .ZIP or .EXE files) that are not natively displayed in the Internet Explorer content area. Such files have to be copied on the hard disk so that the user can use them. To save such files, click on the link. Internet Explorer will ask you whether to save the file to the hard disk. If you intend to save the file then click the Save button to display the Save As dialog box so that you can provide the location on the hard disk to save the file. Another way of saving a file is to right-click the link and selecting the Save Target As option from the short-cut menu. Again, the Save As dialog box will appear where you can name the file and provide the location to where it will be downloaded (Figure 18.7).
Figure 18.7 Downloading a File
Add to Favorites: Internet Explorer uses a feature called Favorites to put websites, one visits often,within easy reach. That way, a website can be opened simply by a click without the user having to remember or type anything. It is similar to a bookmark in a book. It lets users find their place without checking the table of contents or the index or having to write down the page number. To learn how to use Favorites, follow the steps given below:
Figure 18.8 Add Favorite Dialog Box
Once a website is added to the Favorites list, simply click the link to the web page you want to visit (Figure 18.9).
Figure 18.9 Favorite Menu
The Internet was developed mainly to communicate and interchange knowledge irrespective of the distance limitation. Hence, from the very beginning, users used Internet primarily for sending and receiving messages. Even today, communicating through the Internet is the main application of the Internet. Since these messages are communicated electronically, they are known as electronic mail or e-mail. Thus, electronic mail can be defined as the process of exchanging messages electronically, via a communications network, using the computer. E-mails allow users to communicate with each other in less time and at nominal cost as compared to traditional telephone or mail services. Apart from a textual message, e-mails can also consist of other data formats such as pictures, sound, and video. E-mails can be sent anywhere in the world using your computer and a modem. Its delivery is almost instant and is very economical to use especially for international messages, costing only the price of the telephone connection to the Internet service provider (ISP). You may send many messages at one time or just one to a designated location.
In order to use e-mail, one must have access to the Internet and an e-mail account. An e-mail account is a service that allows the user to send and receive e-mails through the Internet. Usually, e-mail accounts are provided as part of ISP's monthly packages. One can also obtain free e-mail accounts such as Yahoo and Hotmail on the Web. An e-mail account provides a unique e-mail address and a mailbox where the user can save all his/her mails.
Generally, there are two parts of an e-mail address: the logon identity and the identity of the e-mail server. These are separated by the symbol @ (pronounced as at the rate). For example, a typical e-mail address would look like:
The first part of the address indicates the identifiable name of the user. It is just like a home address (and it is unique) so that the mails could be sent to that address. The user name is a name, which was assigned to or desired by the user, while signing up for e-mail address. For example, [email protected]. The @ symbol in the address is used to separate the user name from the rest of the address. Next comes the host name (itlesl), also called the domain name. This refers to the mail server, the computer where the recipient has an electronic mailbox. It is usually the name of a company or an organization. The end of the domain name consists of a dot (.) followed by three or more letters (such as .com or .net). This part of the domain name indicates the type of organization or the country where the host server is located. Note that you may find variations in e-mail addresses, but these common elements will always remain the same.
Note: There are no spaces in an e-mail address and it is usually (but not always) in lower-case letters.
To send and receive e-mails, the user must have an e-mail account. In case, you do not have a mail account, you must sign up with e-mail provider. Let us assume that we have an e-mail account. Now, follow the steps given below to check mails.
Figure 18.10 Home Page of Yahoo
Figure 18.11 Login Page
Figure 18.12 Inbox Page
Figure 18.13 Reading E-mail
One of the important functions of an e-mail service is to provide a platform to send e-mails. A user can reply to the received e-mail or send a new e-mail. To send an e-mail, follow the steps given below.
Figure 18.14 Compose Mail Page
The key elements of the Compose Mail page are listed below:
Earlier we discussed how to send and receive e-mails that involve only text message. However, sometimes one needs to send or receive files like compressed (.ZIP) files or any executable (.EXE) files. Since Internet Explorer does not natively support these files, you will have to “attach” them in your e-mails.
Receiving and sending attachment is similar to receiving and sending normal mails, with some extra steps. To view an e-mail containing an attached file, follow the steps given below:
Figure 18.15 Attachment
Note: Always scan the attached file(s) for viruses. In addition, it is a good practise to avoid unsolicited attachments because they may contain virus.
To send an attachment with the mail, follow the steps given below:
Figure 18.16 Attach Files Page
Figure 18.17 Sending E-mail with an Attachment
To send e-mail, one needs a connection to the Internet and access to a mail server, which forwards the mail. The standard protocol used for sending e-mail is called SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol). It works in conjunction with POP (post office protocol) and IMAP (Internet mail access protocol) servers.
When an e-mail is sent to a person, who has an e-mail address like [email protected], it is broken down into two parts: xyz (the recipient's account name) and hisdomain.com (the recipient's domain name). The SMTP server contacts a DNS (domain name service) server and asks for the location of hisdomain.com. The DNS server sends the address back to the SMTP server. The SMTP server then sends the e-mail message to the SMTP server where hisdomain. com is located. This SMTP server delivers the e-mail message to xyz's account on the POP or IMAP server. Finally, when xyz logs on to his computer and opens his e-mail client, his e-mail client requests the POP or IMAP server to send all mails from the account to his computer. Note that if you are sending mail to someone whose account resides on the same mail servers, the SMTP server will simply direct the mail to the local POP or IMAP server, where it will be delivered to the appropriate account (Figure 18.18).
Figure 18.18 Working of E-Mail System
Communicating online, whether by e-mail, chat rooms, or message boards, is informal, quick, and easy. However, there are certain unsaid rules that one should follow. On the Web, you are what you write, so take some pride in your work and do it correctly. The standard rules of a polite Internet behaviour are called netiquette. Like e-mail and other online communication, the rules of netiquette are short and to the point. Some of these rules are briefed below:
E-mail can be sent anywhere in the world to anyone who has an e-mail address. It can take days to send a letter across the country and weeks to go around the world. To save time and money, more and more people are using e-mail. However, the slightest error in the address can deliver the mail to the wrong address. Hence, like there are two faces of a coin, e-mail also comes with its own share of benefits and limitations (Table 18.1).
Table 18.1 Advantages and Disadvantages of E-mail
Advantages | Disadvantages |
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In the previous section, we discussed how to send and receive e-mails using a web-based e-mail service like Yahoo. This kind of e-mailing is known as webmail, which is a World Wide Web interface that allows users to read and write e-mails using a web browser. Webmail has certain limitations like most webmail providers offer only a limited amount of space to save mails and the user has to stay online to manage all his/her e-mails. To solve such problems, e-mail clients are used. Some examples of e-mail clients include Microsoft Outlook Express, Eudora, and Pegasus Mail.
The main advantage of using an e-mail client is that it is generally used offline. Users have to connect to the Internet only when they are ready with all their mails. For example, if a user wants to send a long mail, he/she can compose and send it without going to the website and wasting precious Internet access time. Furthermore, once all the mails are downloaded, they can be managed into separate folders, again in offline mode. This is simply not possible in webmail because, the users cannot organize them in offline mode even if they can copy–paste mails. Some of the most fundamental features that an e-mail client provides are given below.
Note: In this book, we have explained e-mail client with the help of Microsoft Outlook Express 6.0, which is freely available from Microsoft (http://www.microsoft.com).
To open Outlook Express, perform any one of the following steps:
Figure 18.19 Opening Outlook Express
When Outlook Express is opened, the main screen of the program appears, as shown in Figure 18.20. Notice that the screen is divided into four panes: Folders, Folder Contents, Contacts, and Preview Pane. The Folders pane displays different folders where messages are stored. The Contacts pane displays the names in your address book. As the name suggests, the Folder Contents area of the Outlook Express screen will display the content of various folders in the Folder pane, and the Preview pane lets you glimpse your messages.
Figure 18.20 Outlook Express Environment
Before you can send or receive e-mail using the Outlook Express, you need to configure it to communicate with incoming and outgoing mail servers. However, before setting up an account, you must know the following information:
Note: In this book, we focus on the most popular configuration—an Internet-standard SMTP server that supports POP3 connections.
To create a new account, follow the steps given below:
Figure 18.21 Selecting Mail Option from the Add Button
Figure 18.22 Entering Display Name
Figure 18.23 Entering E-mail Address
Figure 18.24 Entering Mail Server Names
Figure 18.25 Entering Account Name and Password
Figure 18.26 Saving the Settings
As you click on Finish, Internet Accounts dialog box re-appears containing the newly created mail account in the list as shown in Figure 18.27.
Figure 18.27 Newly Created Mail Account
Sending mails using Outlook Express is similar to sending mail using any web-based mail accounts. To send e-mail, follow the steps given below:
Figure 18.28 New Message Window
To open the received e-mails in Outlook Express, there is no requirement to open a web browser. Instead, Outlook Express itself downloads the received e-mails. The e-mails sent to you are stored on the mail server of your ISP until you retrieve them. For checking e-mails in Outlook Express, the following steps are required:
Figure 18.29 Connecting to Mail Server
Figure 18.30 Checking for New Mails
Figure 18.31 Viewing a Mail with Attachment
A newsgroup is a virtual place where people with common interests can ask questions and get answers on just about any imaginable topic ranging from sports to space. Newsgroups generate huge volumes of messages for which you need a newsreader to read. That is where Outlook Express comes in. Not only Outlook Express is an e-mail client, it is also used to gain access to newsgroups. To gain access to a newsgroup, your first step will be to set up a news server account.
As with an e-mail account, the Internet Connection Wizard provides an easy-to-use interface to create a newsgroup account. The steps involved in creating a newsgroup account are given below:
Figure 18.32 Selecting News Options from the Add Button
Figure 18.33 Entering News Server Name
Figure 18.34 Showing Newly Created News Account
Once you subscribe to a newsgroup, it will be displayed in the Folders pane, as shown in Figure 18.35. In a newsgroup, engaging with people works a lot like e-mail. People correspond by posting messages back and forth, which you can read and reply to, adding your thoughts to the discussion.
Figure 18.35 Reading News
The Internet provides access to a wealth of information on countless topics contributed by people throughout the world. However, the Internet is not a library in which all its available items are identified and can be retrieved by a single catalogue. In fact, no one knows how many individual files (could be in billions) reside on the Internet. Hence, to conduct a search on the Internet, a special search tool known as search engines is used. Search engine searches a database of Internet files collected by a computer program called a wanderer, crawler, or spider. It allows the user to enter keywords relating to particular topics and retrieve information about the Internet sites containing those keywords. As such, a search engine consists of four components:
Figure 18.36 Working of a Search Engine
A search engine does not really search the Web directly. To find information on the millions of web pages, a search engine employs special software, called spiders. After spiders find pages, they pass them on to another computer program for indexing. This program identifies the text, links, and other content in the page and stores it in the search engine database's files so that the database can be searched by keyword. Note that creating index and updating search database is a never-ending process because of the constantly changing nature of the Web. As a result, the spiders are always “crawling.”
When users search the Web using a search engine, they are provided with the links of all the searched web pages. On clicking on the links provided in a search engine's search results, the current versions of the web pages are retrieved from the server.
With most search engines, you fill out a form with your search terms and then ask the search engine to find web pages relevant to the search terms. Some of the well-known search engines are www.google.com, www.hotbot.com, www.lycos.com, and www.altavista.com.
Let us assume that you want to search the Web to get information regarding computer generations. To do this, first open the search engine's website (such as www.google.com). Now type your keyword(s) in the search box and click the Google Search button or press Enter (Figure 18.37).
Figure 18.37 Google Search Engine
The engine searches its index and generates a page with links to those resources containing some or all of the search terms. Clicking on any link opens a website or web page in which the searched keyword appears (Figure 18.38).
Figure 18.38 Search Result Page
The major search engines allow the user to choose whether to search for the exact typed phrase, all the words in the phrase, any of the words in a phrase, and so on. However, a few search engines do not provide such options. In this case, the user Figure 18.38 Search Result Page can refine the search by adding one or more words or symbols to the search topic.
Instant messaging is a web-based service to exchange messages in real time between two or more people over the Internet. It is a combination of e-mail and chat room. For sending instant messages, users create a list of users with whom they wish to communicate. The messages sent through this service take less time and the delivery of messages is instantaneous. However, to send and receive instant messages, Internet connection along with instant messaging software (known as instant messengers), such as Yahoo Messenger or MSN Messenger, is required. Instant messenger is one of the most popular Internet tools, which allows the users to communicate over the Internet through voice, live pictures, or text. It is free and faster than e-mail because instant messages can be sent to friends whether they are online or offline. It allows the users to carry multiple conversations at a time.
Usually, users send their messages in text format. However, while sending instant messages, a user can also communicate through webcam (video chatting) as well as through speakers and microphone (voice chatting). In addition, one can send audio or video files along with instant messages. The recipients can view the received files at that particular time or later as desired by them.
A messenger is installed on the user's computer and it facilitates sending and receiving instant messages, graphical symbols, audio, and visual information. The features of messenger that make it a favourite among Internet users include:
Note: In this book, we have used Yahoo Messenger 6.0 for explaining instant messaging concepts. Yahoo Messenger 6.0 is freely available from www.google.com.
To use Yahoo Messenger, a unique Yahoo ID (such as [email protected]) is required. When you start the messenger, it will display a screen asking you to enter your yahoo mail ID and password (Figure 18.39).
Figure 18.39 Signing in to Yahoo Messenger
If you are using the messenger for the first time, you may wish to add the e-mail addresses of all those known ones who also use Yahoo messenger. Once you and your friends are online, you can chat and send instant messages. To add a friend to the list, follow the steps given below:
Figure 18.40 Add to Messenger List Dialog Box
Figure 18.41 Friends List
A message can be sent to a friend whose e-mail address you have stored in your Friends List. To send a message, the following steps should be followed:
Figure 18.42 Instant Messaging
Table 18.2 Smileys
In addition to the messages, you can also send and receive text, image, audio, or graphical files using the messenger. To send a file, follow the steps given below:
Figure 18.43 Sending a File
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