Internet FAQs: Part 2

Email lets exchange messages. Optional attached files can include text, pictures, audio and animation. A mailing list uses email to communicate to everyone that belongs to the list.

Which email program is the best? Outlook Express is a popular program, but many users use web-based 3email accounts such as Hotmail.

The Web consists of billions of documents living on web servers that use the HTTP protocol. You navigate through the Web using a web browser, which lets you search, view and print web pages.

How often are web pages updated? Some web pages are updated thousands of times a day.

Chat and Instant Messaging technologies allow having real-time conversations online, by typing messages at the keyboard.

FTP, or file transfer protocol, is used to transfer files over a TCP/IP network. This feature is nowadays built into browsers to let you download files to your hard drive.

Telnet is a protocol and a program used to log onto remote computer systems. You can enter commands which will be executed as if you were entering them directly on the remote server.

Newsgroups are the public discussion areas which make up a system called Usernet. The contents are contributed by people who post articles or respond to articles, creation chains of relating postings called message threads. You need a newsreader which may be a stand-alone program or part of a web browser. There are about 30,000 active newsgroups.

Your newsreader allows you to download the newsgroup addresses that your ISP has included on its news serer. An alternative is to visit web forums instead, which perform the same function but without the additional software.

V. Find words and phrases in Part 2 with the following meanings.

1 a system used to distribute email to many different subscribers at once

2  a program used for displaying web pages

3 to connect to a computer by typing your username and password

4 a series of interrelated messages on a given topic

5 a program for reading Usernet newsgroups

VI. Read and translate the text.

Electronic mail

Electronic mail or e-mail is the electronic transmission of messages, letters, and documents. In its broadest sense electronic mail includes point-to-point services such as telegraph and facsimile (fax) systems. It is commonly thought of, however, in terms of computer-based message systems where the electronic text file that is received can be edited, replied to, excerpted, or even pasted into another electronic document that can be used or manipulated by a word processor, desktop publishing system, or other computer program. Users of such systems, called store-and-forward or mailbox systems, can broadcast messages to multiple recipients, read and discard messages, file and retrieve messages, or forward messages to other users. Extensions to e-mail allow the user to add graphics and sound to messages, and files can be attached to e-mails. Computer-based messaging can take place on a single computer, a computer network, or across gateways linking different computer networks (as through the Internet). With the increasing use of e-mail, unsolicited commercial e-mail, known as spam, has become a significant problem. E-mail, especially through attachments, has also become a means for disseminating computer viruses and other malicious programs.