Welcome ~ Introduction ~ Internet ~ Web ~ Downloads ~ E-Mail ~ Newsgroups ~ Glossary ~ Bibliography
Welcome to Internet Basics, a course designed to help you reach cruising speed on the information superhighway. This course will teach you the basics of computer communications, including accessing the Internet, browsing the World Wide Web, exchanging e-mail and downloading files, and offer some advice on Internet do's and don't's.
We are honored to be the Internet tutorial of choice for the Mt. Sinai Medical Library. Additionally, we have developed two other related helpful pages on our server that are not directly part of this course. They are:
Because anyone can put virtually anything on the Internet, I tell students to consider the source when they view Web pages. That is, be certain you are aware of who prepared the Web pages you are seeing and why so that you can assess a site's credibility and put it into perspective. With that in mind, I would like to tell you a bit about myself:
I became a webmaster for an Internet service provider in Poplar Bluff, Mo., in 1995 but had started my cyber adventures with America Online about two years before that with a 2400-baud (!) modem. I am now a web designer/publisher whose family includes my financial-planner Rush-Limbaugh-dittohead husband, two wonderfully creative but extremely messy children (neatness may stifle their creativity, I keep telling myself), a jumping dalmation, a chihuahua, two almost identical cats ("Big" and "Little" but "Little" is big now and "Big" is little), a bird and an outside "front porch" cat family I have recently adopted. I work mostly from home, where my refurbished "office" was once a guest room closet and now encompasses a whole room, while trying hard not to ignore the aforementioned blessings of my life. ("Mommy, get away from that computer and please fix my toast!")
Before the computer revolution brought the world to our desktop, I worked as a newspaper reporter, photographer and editor after graduating from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. I used to love my job as wire editor checking the news wires for bulletins and redoing page layouts to make room for the latest developments, many of them Cold War related as I reflect. While I never got to be the one to shout "Stop the Press!", several breaking stories that required new front pages fast still cling to memory -- the deaths of Soviet leaders Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko, the Korean Air Line tragedy, the day that President Reagan was shot and the day that Challenger exploded. The immediacy of the day's news (broadcasting media aside) was, for me, a thrill of my job at the time. I get that same feeling now every time I access the Internet, where the world is close at hand and global communication instantaneous.
A decade and a half ago I put aside my newspaper endeavors with the arrival of my first born. I had no idea then that I would eventually find another creative outlet via my home computer and a telephone line.
I offer the advice herein based on endless hours of research, study and practice. I hope you will find what I have to share helpful. This site was originally created in 1996 and updated in 1997, 1998, 1999 and 2000. I plan to continue to update it periodically due to continued interest in the site. Typically, most of the information remains valid except for ocasional outside links to websites that go out of existence and my recommendations for computer specifications, which are outdated almost as soon as I post them.
Thank you for visiting. I welcome your comments and suggestions on how I might improve this site. As with most Web sites, it will continue to be a work in progress.
Julie Wolpers ~ Dec. 28. 2000
Internet Basics is listed on All the Best Cool Sites on the Web. It has lots of additional helpful Internet learning links.
c. 1996-2001 Julie Wolpers, Poplar Bluff,
Mo. Made on a Mac.