Big Dummy 's Guide To The Internet

 

Chapter 1: SETTING UP AND JACKING IN

1.1 READY, SET …

The world is just a phone call away. With a computer and modem, you'll be able to connect to the Internet, the world's largest computer network (and if you're lucky, you won't even need the modem; many colleges and companies now give their students or employees direct access to the Internet). The phone line can be your existing voice line — just remember that if you have any extensions, you (and everybody else in the house or office) won't be able to use them for voice calls while you are connected to the Net. A modem is a sort of translator between computers and the phone system. It's needed because computers and the phone system process and transmit data, or information, in two different, and incompatible ways. Computers "talk" digitally; that is, they store and process information as a series of discrete numbers. The phone network relies on analog signals, which on an oscilloscope would look like a series of waves. When your computer is ready to transmit data to another computer over a phone line, your modem converts the computer numbers into these waves (which sound like a lot of screeching) — it "modulates" them. In turn, when information waves come into your modem, it converts them into numbers your computer can process, by demodulating" them. Increasingly, computers come with modems already installed. If yours didn't, you'll have to decide what speed modem to get. Modem speeds are judged in "bps rate" or bits per second. One bps means the modem can transfer roughly one bit per second; the greater the bps rate, the more quickly a modem can send and receive information. A letter or character is made up of eight bits. You can now buy a 2400-bps modem for well under $60 — and most now come with the ability to handle fax messages as well. At prices that now start around $150, you can buy a modem that can transfer data at 14,400bps (and often even faster, using special compression techniques). If you think you might be using the Net to transfer large numbers of files, a faster modem is always worth the price. It will dramatically reduce the amount of time your modem or computer is tied up transferring files and, if you are paying for Net access by the hour, will save you quite a bit in online charges. Like the computer to which it attaches, a modem is useless without software to tell it how to work....

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