Harley Hahn's Internet Advisor - How to Make Online Life Work for You

Harley Hahn's Internet Advisor is a passionate and insightful book, written by the premier author, Harley Hahn. This book personally guides all users in how to do things and interact with the Internet through Harley's unique style and wit. It is uniquely organized by tasks that people want to accomplish on the Internet, arranged from the most common to the least common. It is easy to read, and contains additional nuggets of information separated from the main text, such as Internet Resources and Hints.

Contents

• 1 Understanding the Internet 1
• 2 An Overview of the Internet 19
• 3 Everything You Need to Connect to the Net 37
• 4 Internet Addresses 65
• 5 Mail 93
• 6 Using Mail Well 119
• 7 The Web 139
• 8 Talking on the Net 169
• 9 Downloading and Installing Software 199
• 10 Music on the Net 213
• 11 Finding Stuff on the Net 229
• 12 Safety, Security and Privacy 251
• 13 Usenet 281
• 14 Mailing Lists 313
• 15 Creating Your Own Web Site 331
• 16 Getting Your Own Domain Name 355
• 17 How to Do Stuff 363
• A List of Top-Level Internet Domains 381
• B Time Zones on the Internet 391
• C Abbreviations Used When Talking on the Net 395
• Glossary 401
• Index 433
• List of Figures
• Figure 1-1 Important Internet (TCP/IP) protocols 9
• Figure 2-1 Important clients and servers used on the Internet 36
• Figure 3-1 Various ways to connect to an ISP 49
• Figure 4-1 Organizational top-level domains 67
• Figure 4-2 Examples of geographical top-level domains 68
• Figure 4-3 The most common schemes used within URLs 82
• Figure 4-4 The most common file extensions used on the Internet 85
• Figure 5-1 A typical mail message 102
• Figure 5-2 A typical mail message showing the full header 104
• Figure 5-3 The life cycle of a mail message 110
• Figure 6-1 An example of a good mail message 122
• Figure 6-2 An example of a bad mail message 123
• Figure 6-3 Common abbreviations used in mail messages 127
• Figure 7-1 A typical Web page within Internet Explorer 143
• Figure 7-2 Variations in the appearance of Internet Explorer 144
• Figure 7-3 A Web page with frames 153
• Figure 7-4 A typical Favorites list within Internet Explorer 163
• Figure 8-1 An instant messaging conversation 174
• Figure 8-2 Instant Messaging systems: lists of names 174
• Figure 8-3 A chat room using a Java talk client 176
• Figure 8-4 A chat room using a browser as a talk client 177
• Figure 8-5 Abbreviations used while talking on the Net 179
• Figure 8-6 A typical IRC session 185
• Figure 8-7 Important IRC commands 187
• Figure 8-8 An imaginary setting within a mud 190
• Figure 8-9 Standard port numbers used on the Internet 192
• Figure 9-1 The most common file extensions used on the Web 201
• Figure 9-2 Dialog box asking to download an ActiveX control 205
• Figure 9-3 Beginning a download with Internet Explorer 207
• Figure 9-4 Specifying where to save a downloaded file 207
• Figure 11-1 Custom buttons for accessing search engines 238
• Figure 11-2 The Internet Explorer search facility 239
• Figure 11-3 Entering a search request into the address bar 240
• Figure 11-4 Entering a search request into an address window 242
• Figure 12-1 Security warning when sending data 255
• Figure 12-2 File extensions of attachments that are unsafe to open 268
• Figure 12-3 File extensions of attachments that are safe to open 268
• Figure 13-1 The seven original Usenet hierarchies 290
• Figure 13-2 Mainstream and alternative Usenet hierarchies 291
• Figure 13-3 The most important Usenet hierarchies 292
• Figure 13-4 Examples of regional and organizational hierarchies 293
• Figure 13-5 Sample Usenet newsgroups 293
• Figure 13-6 Reading a Usenet article with Outlook Express (Internet Explorer) 297
• Figure 13-7 Newsgroups to which FAQs are posted 300
• Figure 13-8 Some of the abbreviations commonly used on Usenet 301
• Figure 13-9 Related Usenet newsgroups, including a misc group 303
• Figure 13-10 Examples of Usenet newsgroups that contain pictures 305
• Figure 13-11 Usenet groups to which you can send test messages 307
• Figure 14-1 Examples of mailing lists 319
• Figure 14-2 Subscribing and unsubscribing to a mailing list 322
• Figure 14-3 Summary of important Listserv commands 325
• Figure 14-4 Summary of important Listproc commands 326
• Figure 14-5 Summary of important Majordomo commands 326
• Figure 14-6 Examples of gatewayed Bitnet mailing lists 329
• Figure 15-1 HTML for a simple Web page 335
• Figure 15-2 A simple Web page 336
• Figure 15-3 The most important HTML tags 337
• Figure 15-4 A Web page containing a table 341
• Figure 15-5 A Web page containing a form 341
• Figure 15-6 A Web page containing frames 342
• Figure 16-1 Whois information for a typical domain name 360
• Figure B-1 The 24-hour time system compared to the AM/PM system 394
• Figure B-2 U.S. time zones compared to GMT 394
• Figure C-1 Abbreviations used while talking on the Net 397