The 



Internet 



Connection 



David Brock 



This is the second of three articles 

 about the Internet and how it could 

 work for people in the Green Indus- 

 try. The third article will give a 

 brief history and broad overview. 



So you've decided to take the plunge and connect your 

 personal computer to the Internet. You've selected one 

 of the on-line services mentioned in the previous article 

 or, more preferably, chosen to connect directly to the 

 internet using one of the Internet service providers 

 (ISPs) located in the New Hampshire area With your 

 modem-equipped personal computer, a phone number 

 to dial the chosen ISP, and a software tool to see the 

 Internet — the internet browser — you're ready to "surf the 

 net." But what does this mean? What are you looking 

 for? How do you find it? What's available? And if you 

 want to offer content for others to see about your com- 

 pany or allow the user to order from you, what's the 

 next step? 



Okay, I'm Connected, Now What? 

 Prior to connecting, you should decide what you want to 

 view once "on-line." Are you simply exploring, looking 

 for something fun — a hobby or personal interest issue, 

 or are you looking to "do some work?" Determine your 

 road map before logging on — because the meter starts 

 ticking once you connect. If this is your first time con- 

 necting to the Internet, you are, by definition, exploring. 

 If you're a regular visitor to the Internet, a more specific, 

 focused search may be in order. In either case, you will 

 most likely use an Internet search tool or visit one of 

 your favorite sites. 



When you first make the connection (i.e., your com- 

 puter dials the telephone number which then connects 

 you to the Internet), you are usually directed to a pre- 

 defined destination. You can set your preference of this 

 launching-off point by configuring your Internet browser 

 to go to a specific place on the Internet automatically. 

 For example, if you are using a Netscape browser, it is 



pre-configured to open the Netscape Corporation Web 



Site. If you choose, you can ask it to automatically open 



a different site — The Horticultural Web, for example. 



Choosing the web site you want to visit is accomplished 



by typing in the address for a given site, such as http:// 



www.horticulture.com or 



http://www.cpa.gov or 



http://www.gardens.com. 



These addresses are 



typed into a one-line 



dialogue box which is 



an integral part of your 



software browser But, 



TABLE ONE 



INTERNET SEARCH TOOLS 



http://www.yahoo.com 



http://www.search.com 



http://www.altavista.com 



how do you know what http://www.excite.com 

 address to type? http://www.Iycos.com 



If you are familiar with 

 the Internet, it becomes intuitive — think of Internet ad- 

 dresses as new "telephone numbers." They begin 

 with (in almost all cases) "http://www." and end with ei- 

 ther "com" (commercial), "gov" (government), "edu" 

 (education), or "org" (organization). In the middle of 

 this prefix and suffix are terms you are familiar with 

 such as "ibm", "ge", "usda", "gardens", "newhampshire", 

 "boston", "horticulture", and millions of others. By com- 

 bining these, you can intuitively find many places on 

 your own: 



http://www.ibm.com 



http://www.ge.com 



http://www.usda.com 



http://www.unh.com 



http://www.newhampshire.com 



http://www.horticulture.com 



http://www.gardens.com 



For many, however, the best place to start your visit to 

 the Internet is with search tool as Listed in Table One. 

 These tools are offered by companies whose sole pur- 

 pose in life is to index all of the web sites available on 

 the Internet (reported at over 200,000 and growing 10% 

 per month!) and all of the pages at these web sites (es- 

 timated at over 15 million). By visiting one of these 



AUGUST >^SEPTEMBER 1996 



15 



