The Internet For Dummies: Quick Reference

The Internet is an active medium. You can’t just sit and watch it like television; you have to try things, poke around, and find the sites, information, and people that you need and enjoy.

The Internet For Dummies Quick Reference, 8th Edition, puts you on the road to online discovery and keeps you on track by showing you how to

• Buy the right computer hardware for Internet access
• Select an Internet Service Provider to make the connection
• Use popular e-mail programs
• Get the real deal on privacy, security, and cookies
• Buy and sell on the Internet
• Speak the online language with glossary guidance

This down-to-earth reference includes all the tasks and resources you really need, lies flat on your desk so that you can type with both hands, and weighs less than a laptop computer. The latest edition in a regularly updated series covers the newest versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape Web browsers, e-mail client software, and other basic Internet tools. You can expect to get the nitty-gritty on

• Getting into the swim with Web surfing
• Finding the best online resources for research and support
• Sending voice and pictures over the Internet
• Choosing between Windows and Macintosh systems
• Reading newsgroups and browsing with America Online
• Tapping shareware and freeware software
• Uploading and downloading files with ease

The Internet For Dummies Quick Reference, 8th Edition, also introduces you to the whys and wherefores of building and posting a Web page, a document that has its own URL and that can express anything you want to a big, wide world of visitors. Whether the Internet's new territory to you or you've been Web-wise for quite a while, this up-to-date, fast, and fun resource will have you cyber-traveling in style in no time!

About the Authors John R. Levine was a member of the same computer club Margy was in - before high school students, or even high schools, had computers. He wrote his first program in 1967 on an IBM 1130 (a computer almost as fast as your modern digital wristwatch, only more difficult to use). He became an official system administrator of a networked computer at Yale in 1975 and has been working in the computer and network biz since 1977. He got his company on to Usenet (see Part IV) early enough that it appears in a 1982 Byte magazine article in a map of Usenet, which then was so small that the map fit on half a page. He used to spend most of his time writing software, although now he mostly writes books (including UNIX For Dummies and lnternet Secrets, both from IDG Books Worldwide, Inc.) because it's more fun and he can do so at home in the hamlet of Trumansburg, New York, where he holds the exalted rank of sewer commissioner and offers free samples to visitors and plays with his young daughter when he's supposed to be writing. He also does a fair amount of public speaking. (See www.iecc.com/johnl.) He holds a B.A. and a Ph.D. in computer science from Yale University, but please don't hold that against him. Arnold Reinhold has been programming computers since they had filaments. His first introduction to the hype/so what?/wow! cycle that governs the computer industry evolution was the transistor. He has gotten to do cool stuff in spacecraft guidance, air traffic control, computer-aided design, robotics, machine vision and cryptography. Arnold has been on and off the Internet for more than 15 years. He is also a coauthor of E-Mail For Dummies (IDG Books Worldwide). Arnold studied mathematics at CCNY and MIT and management at Harvard. You can check out his home page at www.hayom.com/reinhold.html. Unlike her peers in that 40-something bracket, Margaret Levine Young was exposed to computers at an early age. In high school, she got into a computer club known as the R.E.S.I.S.T.O.R.S., a group of kids who spent Saturdays in a barn fooling around with three antiquated computers. She stayed in the field through college against her better judgment and despite her brother John's presence as a graduate student in the computer science department. Margy graduated from Yale and went on to become one of the first microcomputer managers in the early 1980s at Columbia Pictures, where she rode the elevator with big stars whose names she wouldn't dream of dropping here. Since then, Margy (www.gurus.com/margy) has coauthored more than 20 computer books about the topics of the Internet, UNIX, WordPerfect, Microsoft Access, and (stab from the past) PC-File and Javelin, including The Internet For Dummies, and WordPerfect 7 For Windows 95 For Dummies (all from IDG Books Worldwide). She loves her husband, Jordan; her kids, Meg and Zac; gardening; chickens; reading; and anything to do with eating. Margy and her husband also run Great Tapes for Kids (www.greattapes.com) from their home in the middle of a cornfield near Middlebury, Vermont.