Introduction to Internet

What's Internet?
Connecting to Internet
Internet services

Telnet
E-mail
Newsgroups
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
WWW (World Wide Web)
Talk and chat

What's Internet?

Internet is a system of computer connection all around the world. It contains a huge amount of information accessible from everywhere. It has its origin in 1969, when the U.S. Department of Defence developed a project called ARPAnet, consisting of several interconnected nets by means of satellite and radio, in order to have an effective and secure communication system for military research. The idea was that every computer on the network could communicate, as an individual, with any other one.

Some universities realised of the great potential that system of communication had, so they found ways to connect to ARPAnet. Some time later, ARPAnet stopped being an exclusively military forum and scientific discussions were more and more frequent. The network grew and lost interest for military purposes, so a new net, called MILNET, was created in 1983. Meanwhile the first work stations appeared and local networks geared up. In the beginning of 1984, four big nets joined and gave birth to what we call today Internet.

At first only universities and other research centres had access to the network, but with the development of personal computers, private demand increased. In 1994, the big American suppliers got the exploitation of the main access and since then Internet is developing in a spectacular way. The number of users doubles each nine months and more and more countries have access to the net of nets.

Connecting to Internet

The basic equipment you need is a computer and a modem in order to connect to the telephone line. Once you have the necessary hardware, you have to contact a supplier, the bridge between the user and the network. The prize depends on the supplier, which offers you an electronic address and a software package to use the different services.

Internet services

In Internet you will be able to find information about any subject, no matter how odd or specialised it may be. These are the main services it offers:

Telnet

It allows the user to connect from his or her own computer to a remote host and therefore to have access to all the server's resources (disks, software, printers...). Once the connection is completed, the client computer becomes a dumb terminal. The telnet application has different user interfaces, for instance telnet for UNIX and Windows or WNQVT, for Windows, that also offers the chance to read News or e-mail.
E-mail

With this tool we can send and receive documents very quickly. There are many kinds of documents: texts, software, images, sounds, etc. To use the e-mail it is necessary to have an electronic address and a mailbox where messages are stored and classified.
There are many applications to access the e-mail. Here are some of them:
UNIX systems
When we start a UNIX session with TELNET, one of the first messages on the screen, after introducing our login and password, indicates whether we have mail or not. There are several mail systems for UNIX, like mail and pine.

Mail is a program that gives access to every e-mail service. To open it, we have to type mail and press Return. This application is always available in a UNIX machine.
Pine is an application that allows us to read, send and process e-mail. It is very easy to use and is based on a set of menus appearing on the screen. To execute this program, we have to type pine and press Return. Then you just have to follow the instructions on the screen. Besides, it includes a help file.

PC and Macintosh systems
One of the most famous applications is Eudora, running under Windows in PCs. It allows several users to have confidentiality guaranteed in their correspondence even if they are using the same computer. It makes also possible to customise the options it offers.
Apart from Eudora, modern browsers such as Netscape 4.0 and Internet Explorer 4.0 include a client program to use e-mail.
On the other hand, we have the so-called mailing lists, systems that allow the distribution of messages to a group of people interested in a particular subject. All the lists have a manager, which may be human or a machine, whose task is the distribution of messages, the updating of members' subscriptions and unsubscriptions, etc. Some lists are moderated, which means that messages are filtered by the moderator (normally the list owner). Appart from the list manager's, it is necessary to have a different address to which messages are sent, even if you are not subscribed to the list.
In the Virtual Translator you have some links with a good number of mailing lists.

Newsgroups

Their function is similar to that of mailing lists, to take part in debates on a particular subject. The main difference is that the News articles are stored on the net and they are managed by the system manager. Therefore, in this case you don't need to be subscribed, anybody can access to a group as long as the News manager of your local network has included it (there are over 13,000 newsgroups and you can't have access to all of them).
As the number of articles sent to a group is huge, it is necessary to remove the oldest ones. They are usually available between a week and a month. When an article interests you, you can save it in your computer.
There are several client programs to access newsgroups. Modern browsers have normally one included, like Netscape 4.0 (Netscape Collabra) and Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0.
In the Virtual Translator you can look up the Usenet groups.
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

It allows you to transfer files from remote machines to your own and vice-versa. There are millions of files (texts, images, applications, sounds, etc.) stored in thousands of computers. Usually, to have access to them, we will need a password, but others can be used without restrictions. This procedure is known as anonymous FTP.

WWW (World Wide Web)

It is the most popular service, and it includes all the rest. It is a system of computer connection which allows users to have access to the whole of documents it contains. It was born in 1989 and on a first stage it was thought for the scientific community. Nevertheless, the interest on this system of global information increased among enterprises and eventually private users, who started building this collection of pages that mix up text, images, sounds and animation.
It is very simple for the user, who doesn't need any computing knowledge to surf Web pages, although a few patterns are usually advisable, for there are so many pages and the web is so inter-related that the surfer may be completely lost in a sea of data. There are information catalogues on every subject and the so-called searching engines, which the user can look up in order to have a general idea of what may be found.
One of the Web features is that a link can go to any kind of resource in Internet: text files, images, a Telnet session, a newsgroup... Web servers are also valid for all the platforms.
To look up this information, we need a program called browser. The most popular at the moment is Netscape, which is freeware.
On the other hand, the system is based on three elements:

A protocol that makes possible to jump from one page to another. This protocol is the HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol). It can be used to transfer all kinds of data and it is open to future innovations.
A language that represents the document structure and the links's origin and target. This language is called HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). It is very simple and allows you to enter pages with any platform you are using. The HTML labels are defined by the characters < >, which usually go at the beginning and at the end of the text they affect. There are many HTML tutorials, either printed or on the net, for example Writing HTML in English and Webmaestro, in Spanish.
The URL (Uniform Resource Locator). This is the document address and constists of two parts, usually separated by two slashes: the first part identifies the type of resource (http, ftp, telnet, mailto, news...) and the second one is the route followed to get to the file.

Talk and chat

They are two connection systems between computers to communicate in real time. Talk stablishes a connection between two users.
The chat service allows several people to communicate with each other connecting to a channel, normally devoted to a particular subject. There are some applications to use this service. You can access through TELNET, directly on the WWW or with special software, like IRC, one of the best known, that you can load free on the net in some sites. In most of cases you can create private channels and a password will be needed to participate in them.

What can a translator do with Internet?

The global network offers a great number of possibilities for translator professional development. It is a useful tool in their work. They can look up all types of dictionaries and glossaries or solve doubts by communicating with other colleagues on newsgroups and mailing lists. Ideas can be exposed on these forums.

On the field of scientific research, they can found groups with common interests and take part in their projects. There are also specialised magazines where you can send articles, information about conferences and courses all around the world, specialised books, etc. Besides, there is a service called videoconference, which makes possible to receive images and sounds from a remote centre.

Another Internet facility is the tele-work. Both free-lance translators and agencies offer their services on the network, and apart from the text translation there is an open field translating web pages and servers of agencies and firms, that increase more and more on the WWW.