Internet Service Overview

Our how to guides will give you detailed information on how to use all these services. Mailinglists are not listed here because they are handled using standard e-mail.	If you know comercial online networks like Compuserve, you might be a bit confused. Unlike comercial online services, the Internet offers a variety of different services, for which you need a special client, depending on the service. There is no such thing, like a all-in-one client, thus a web browser gets very close to is. Click on the more button to directly go to a details description in the how to chapter.
	Archie Archie is a service for locating files on FTP servers. If you know a part of the filename, then archie will find some servers, where the desired file is located. Top
	Electronic Mail (E-Mail) You can use e-mail to communicate with people all over the world - cheap and fast. You need an email account on a mail server and a mail client to use this service. Optionally you can use a unix account. There is an interesting service taking advantage of electronic mail. These are mailinglist. Mailinglists are for discussion of a special topic. You have to subscribe to a mailinglist to participate in this discussion. Mails are being sent to a server (which address (more exactly: e-mail address)) you have to know. The server distributes mail to all subscribers. As for all the other discussion groups, be sure to have read the Netetiquette. Top
	File Transfer Protocol (FTP) This service is mainly used to transfer files from computer to computer. You need an ftp client to use this service. There are lots of anonymous FTP servers, you can connect to, to download files such as shareware or documents. There are two modes to transfer data: An ASCII mode, which is used to transfer plain text files and a binary mode to transfer all other files (executables, pictures, sounds, etc.) Top
	Gopher Gopher is a mainly textual oriented service. Information is stored in a hierarchical structure. As with all the others, you need a server to connect to and client software. The information is stored as a file on the gopher server, which also gives you the opportunity to download binary files. Top
	Internet Relay Chat (IRC) This one is the most fun to use. Its a big online discussion group. Online means, that there are other people connected at the same time and you can chat with them. There are lots of channel with specific topics for discussion. People are identified by a nickname. Try it out! Top
	Telnet Unix is a multi-user/multitasking operating system often used on workstations. If you have access to a unix account, you often can use several Internet services from there. This can include ftp, E-Mail, gopher UNIX is a command line interface. There also exists a graphical environment. Top
	Time Services Time services allow you to always correct the time of your local computer. The clock in your computer, is naturally not very exact. This service will always get the time from an atomic-clock and correct your computer's time everytime you connect to the Internet. Top
	Usenet Newsgroups (Netnews) The Newsgroups are a discussion forum, organized in a quasi hierarchical way. A newsgroup name could look like this: alt.binaries.windows.shareware. There also might exist a newsgroup called alt.binaries.mac.shareware. You see, how it is organized: Keywords separated by a point. You need to have access to a newsserver and you need a so called newsreader Note that newsservers are usually non-public. That means you have to know a username and/or password or you only might be able to connect, if you address (computer) has a specific domain name. There are some public newsservers on the Internet, but they are hard to find. Also note, that not each newsserver is carrying the same groups. You might have a server, carrying 10000 groups, while another one carries 23500+ groups. You can also post articles into the newsgroup. This feature is usually implemented in the client software. Popular webbrowsers also allow you to view and some even to post into newsgroups. Top
	World Wide Web (WWW) This is the most popular service. Information is presented like a newspaper. You'll see text, pictures, sounds, etc.. You need a web-browser to use this service. The most famous web browsers are NSCA Mosaic, Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. You can surf; through the web by clicking hyperlink. This way you can surf through the net, jumping from server to server. You also can download images, files and, of course, text. Top

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