TUTORING ABOUT THE INTERNET If you live in the Green Valley or Tucson area and want private or semi-private tutoring about the Internet - how it works, how to get access to it, definitions or clarification of terms, how to choose an ISP, how to work with a web site designer, how to create your own web site, how to choose a domain name, how to register a domain, how to search the Internet, and other Internet-related things, see the Contact page to arrange meetings with Marilyn. The following information provides a general overview and some basic Internet-related terms. OVERVIEW OF THE INTERNET AND ISPs In the illustration of the Internet below, the ISPs (Intenet Service Providers) are represented by the red buildings. Suppose you live in the green house. The thick black line indicates the connection between your home computer and the server computer at your local (or national) ISP. It is through the ISP's server computer that you connect to the Internet which is a large network of many computers. Your connection can be through a regular dialup ("analog") phone line - the same one you use for voice calls; this is considered a "slow access, low cost" connection. A "fast access, higher cost" connection to the Internet can be through a DSL line or cable access method. Different connection methods vary in cost and access speed, depending on your ISP's available services and the services available from all the ISPs that you access when browsing the Internet.
	In the above illustration, the thin black lines represent telecommunication between the ISP servers. If you want to browse the Internet to see a web site, you must first specify a URL (Universal Resource Locator) which is the "address" of the specific web site you want displayed on your home computer. Each web site in the world has a unique URL (address) much the same as each house has a unique street address in any city. If you want to send email (a personal message) to someone who also has access to the Internet with email service, you must specify a unique email address for that person. Your specification of a web site address or an email address is a request to your ISP's server. After your request is received by your ISP's server, that request travels through the Internet network of many ISP servers at varying speeds depending on each server's capabilities; you have no control over that speed or of the route taken. However, it could travel faster at midnight than at mid-day. And, your email message could be sent through ISPs around the world before it lands on your neighbor's computer down the street. For example, suppose you live in the green house in the illustration, and that it's located in Colorado. You want to send email to someone who lives in the purple house (down in Florida). Each of you have access to an ISP. It doesn't matter whether it's the same (national) ISP or two different (local) ISPs. It doesn't matter if both you and your friend have a fast DSL connection (although that usually helps speed up the process). Your email message could be delivered faster to your Florida friend than to your neighbor's computer, depending on connection speed, time of day, and many other factors at the moment. Remember, when you pay for a "fast" access speed, that fast speed occurs only between your home and your ISP's server computer at his place of business (the thick black line). When shopping around for an ISP, it is also important to know at what speed the data leaves your ISP server and goes out to other servers (i.e., out to the Internet). Is the ISP using T-1 lines? If so, how many? (You don't want to get annoying busy signals when dialing your ISP server.) Does the ISP have the greater bandwidth of a DSL connection? You'll most likely want a server that has a fast connection to the Internet. Every ISP's server can access every other ISP's server around the world to retrieve various web sites that reside on other servers and to bring that data (the web site you requested) back to show it to you on your computer -- or to send your email to someone, or receive your email from someone. Various ISPs on the network (through which your request for a web site to be displayed on your computer or through which your email travels to and from another person) have varying degrees of speed. The bandwidth available (here and there throughout the network) and the number of people who are online at the same time as you, also can greatly affect your access speed and data transfer speed. Considering that other ISP servers through which your request travels may have slower access to the Internet, one day you may appear to have "fast" speed and another day, things may seem to be "slow." This is especially true for users with analog (dialup) connections. As various servers are being connected to your server for downloading graphics and text to you, notice the status bar at the bottom of your browser window. When the downloading (or "loading") of a file is done, words similar to "Document done" will be displayed there. (Browsers and servers sometimes call a file a "document.") It is usually best to wait until the loading of the document is done before you start to scroll or click a link, else some graphics you may expect to see later on the page may not be there. In that case, simply click your browser's RE-LOAD button and wait to get the page fully loaded.