The Internet Basics

Believe it or not - the first ideas behind the Internet were spawned in 1962 by the RAND Corporation.  The first live connections were in 1968.  The concept behind the original network of systems was to preserve federal government communications command and control in the event of a nuclear strike against the US.  The firsts networks were put in place under the leadership of the Advanced Research Project Agency under the Department of Defense.

Over the course of the next two decades development of this "network" (the Internet is after all a worldwide connection of computers sharing files) would increase at a rapid rate.  Several crucial inventions would be made that would eventually spawn the internal networks we use today, high-speed data transmission and graphical display of data using a web browser.

In 1972 there were 23 connections using line speeds equal to our modern modems.  Today, there are more than 15 million connections and that number is ever expanding.  The line speeds for our primary Internet carriers (Sprint, Cable & Wireless, AT & T, etc) are at 155mbps (megabytes per second) - which is 10 to 15 times faster than our own internal network speed.  That does not even include the latest fiber optic, cable and satellite connections. Enough - now on to the nuts and bolts!

World Wide Web

The WWW as we know it was originally invented in 1991 at the European Laboratory for Particle Physics (go figure!) or, abbreviated as CERN.   Tim Berners-Lee, a researcher at CERN, was seeking a convenient way to share multiple levels of text and data in a nonlinear way.  Basically, users would be able to jump from place to place via hyperlinks - like this. So in short, after Tim shared this protocol, the web browser was born for viewing hyper-linked data!  Marc Andreesen, of Netscape fame, actually created one of the first free browsers available for download over the 'net. Jump from here to some excellent starting points that act as guides to the web!

Saving Sites

Keeping track of the sites you visit on the 'net is quite simple via your web browser.  If you are using Internet Explorer, simply go to a site you would like to save, and select Favorites, and then Add to Favorites.  An even quicker step is to simply right-click on the web page.  The pop out menu will include an "add to favorites" choice.  In Netscape's browser, select Bookmarks, and Add Bookmark.

Both browsers offer the ability to also customized what your favorites are called and what folders are stored in.  Go to Bookmarks | Edit Bookmarks in Netscape, or Favorites and Organize Favorites in Internet Explorer.