OTHER INTERNET SERVICES

OTHER INTERNET SERVICES

The Web is only one of the many services on the Internet. Hue Web and other Internet serv¬ices have changed the way we communicate. We can send e-mail messages to the president have a discussion with experts about the stock mar-ket, chat with someone in another country about genealogy, and talk about homework assign¬ments with classmates via instant messages. Many times, these communications take place completely in writing without the parties ever meeting each other.

At home, work, and school, people use com¬puters and Internet-enabled mobile devices so that they always have instant access to e-mail, mailing lists, instant messaging, chat rooms, VoIP (Voice over DP), FTP (File Transfer Protocol), and newsgroups and message boards. The following pages discuss each of these Internet services.

E-Mail

E-mail(Short for electronic moil) is the transmission of messages and files via a com¬puter network. E-mail was one of the original services on the Internet, enabling scientists and researchers working on government-sponsored projects to communicate with colleagues at other locations. Today, e-mail is a primary Comunications method for both personal and business use.

Internet access providers typically supply an e-mail program as a standard part of their Internet access services. Some Web sites, such as Google Gmail, Windows Live Hotmail, and Yahoo! Mail, provide free e-mail services. To use these Web-based e-mail programs, you connect to the Web site and set up an e-mail account, which typically includes an e-mail address and a password. Read Ethics & Issues 2-3 for a related discussion.

Just as you address a letter when using the postal system, you must address an e-mail message with the e-mail address of your intended recipient. Likewise, when someone sends you a message, he or she must have your e-mail address. An e-mail address is a combi¬nation of a user name and a domain name that identifies a user so that he or she can receive Internet e-mail.

A user name is a unique combination of characters, such as letters of the alphabet and/or numbers that identifies a specific user. Your user name must be different from the other user names in the same domain. For example, a user named Carly Martinez whose

Server has a domain name of scsite.com might want to select CMartinez as her user name. If  scsite.com already has a Cmartinez (for Carlos Martinez), Carly will have to select a different user name, such as carlymartinez or carly_martinez.

Sometimes, companies decide user names for employees. In many cases, however, users select their own user names, often selecting a nickname or any other combination of charac¬ters for their user name. Many users select a combination of their first and last names so that others can remember it easily.

In an Internet e-mail address, an @ (pro¬nounced at) symbol separates the user name from the domain name. Your service provider supplies the domain name. a possible e-mail address for Carly Martinez would be carlymartinez@scsite.com, which would be read as follows: Carly Martinez at s c site dot com. Most e-mail programs allow you to create an address book, or contacts folder, which contains a list of names and e-mail addresses.

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When you send an e-mail message, an out¬going mail server that is operated by your Internet access provider determines how to route the message through the Internet and then sends the message. SMTP (simple mail transfer protocol) is a communications protocol used by some outgoing mail servers.