culture.gov.au
Connecting you with Australian culture online
Website collection policy - survey
Please take the time to fill out this surveyFeatured Stories
Art of the land in Western Australia Heidelberg School Crossing the Great Dividing RangeTop 10 Stories
Henry Lawson: Australian writer Convicts and the British colonies in Australia Australian food and drink The Great Depression Australian weather and the seasons Sydney Opera House Christmas season celebrations in Australia Remembrance Day European discovery and the colonisation of Australia The Australian Gold RushGuide 1. What's in it for me?
Introducing the Internet (screen 2 of 5)
The Internet (aka 'the Net') encompasses a range of computer-based communications activities including email(1), FTP (file transfer protocol)(2) and usenet(3).
The Internet is a medium for digital communication and it is expanding rapidly. It allows you see pictures, read text, view movies, type messages in real time, hear sounds, see and talk to others, and more.
How does the Internet work?
Information exchanged by computers over the Internet is in digital format - that is information is transmitted in binary code (which basically means in an arrangement of zeros and ones like 1 0 0 1 0 1). Of course the arrangement of ones and zeros is complex but it is in that way that the information is able to be transferred from computer to computer. But luckily, you don't need to know anything about how this all works. All the interpretation of the binary code is done by the software you use.
A vast number of computers makes up the Internet
The Internet is made up of a vast number of computers linked to each other, mostly over telephone lines, but also by fibre optics, microwaves and even satellites.
The World Wide Web is just part of the Internet
Although the terms World Wide Web and Internet are often used interchangeably, the World Wide Web is only one part of what makes up the Internet. Other parts include gopher and usenet.
The World Wide Web (WWW) is probably the part of the Internet you're most familiar with and would use the most.
Browser software
To access the World Wide Web, your computer needs browser software like Microsoft Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator or Mozilla.
To use electronic mail (email) you need an email software package like Outlook Express, or access to a World Wide Web browser which has an email component. For example, the Netscape Communicator Internet package includes the email component, Netscape Mail.
Connect your computer
When connecting to the Internet you are connected to a computer which feeds information into the Internet. These computers are called servers(4)- because they serve up information on demand.
To access the Internet you will need to get an account with an Internet Service Provider (ISP)(5) which will provide access to the world's servers.
Free browser software
To download a free copy of 
Microsoft
Internet Explorer(6)
To download a free copy of Netscape Navigator(7)
To download a free copy of Mozilla(8).
Note: these downloads are large files and may take considerable time.
|
2 of 5 |
References
- Guide 3 screen 8 http://culture.gov.au/resources/guides/g3/s8.htm
- Guide 3 screen 11 http://culture.gov.au/resources/guides/g3/s11.htm
- Guide 3 screen 12 http://culture.gov.au/resources/guides/g3/s12.htm
- Guide 2 screen 3 http://culture.gov.au/resources/guides/g2/s3.htm
- Guide 6 screen 5 http://culture.gov.au/resources/guides/g6/s5.htm
- Microsoft Internet Explorer http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/Search.aspx?displaylang=en
- Netscape Navigator http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/download.jsp
- Mozilla http://www.mozilla.org/
If you can see this message, you are probably not seeing this site in the way it was designed. This site uses cascading style sheets (CSS2) to control the way in which elements are displayed on the page.
You will still be able to access everything in this site, but we do recommend you upgrade your browser to a more recent, standards compliant, browser.