You should know how to start and shutdown your computer.
Please Note: These are basic computer skills not related to the
Internet. Your operating system vendor is responsible for supporting
users in performing these types of activities. RNi
cannot support all of our users in the basics of using their
computer and operating system, and because these issues are not
Internet-related, we do not offer free technical support in these areas.
Learning basic usage of your own computer is your responsibility, and
supporting you in that task is the responsibility of the operating
system vendor. Technical problems involving proper routing and delivery
of TCP/IP to your site or problems with our servers are always answered
with free technical support.
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Q: What is an ISP?
A:
ISP stands for Internet Service Provider. RNi is
an Internet Service Provider. We provide access to the Internet for home
and business users, consulting of various kinds related to the
Internet, and programming and services for the Internet. Our primary job
function is to correctly deliver TCP/IP packets to our subscribers, to
produce and maintain services on our Internet servers, and to provide
custom consulting and programming related to inter-networking,
databases, the Web, UNIX, and TCP/IP.
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Q: What is a protocol?
A:
For our purposes, a protocol is an agreed-upon method of communicating
information between two computer systems.
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Q: What is TCP/IP?
A:
TCP/IP stands for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. It is
the standard, basic protocol for all services on the internet. Invented
by the Department of Defense, it was first put in use as a basic, native
networking protocol for the Berkeley UNIX operating system. TCP/IP
standards are maintained by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
and described in documents known as RFC's (requests for comments).
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Q: What is a client?
A:
In the language of the Internet, a client is a piece of software that is
designed to interact with a remote server. (Usage: "Netscape is my
favorite Web client.")
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Q: What is a server?
A:
There are basically two meanings for this word in the Internet
vernacular:
(1) Hardware: A 'server' can be the word used for the actual piece of
hardware (the 'computer') that is running, delivering services to users.
(2) Software: A server is the word used for the piece of software that
runs on a particular port, accepting requests from and interacting with
remote clients.
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Q: What is a 'PPP' account?
A:
A PPP account is a TCP/IP networking type of account. When you dial in
to RNi's modems, our Terminal Server begins a PPP (point-to-point
protocol) session with your computer. This means that your
computer gets a unique IP number, and that traffic destined for your IP
number is successfully routed to your machine. Unlike a BBS, shell, or terminal-type
connection, the PPP connection is a network connection -- your computer is not talking
directly to another computer, it is just given a network address and
routing is begun.
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Q: What is telnet?
A:
Telnet is a protocol for remote computing on the Internet. It allows a
computer to act as a remote terminal on another machine, anywhere on the
Internet. This means that when you telnet to a particular host and port,
the remote computer (which must have a telnet server) accepts input
directly from your computer (which must have a telnet client), and output
for your session is directed to your screen. There are many library and
information resources that are accessible through telnet.
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Q: What is FTP?
A:
FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol. FTP is the best means for moving
large files across the Internet. FTP is a client/server protocol that
enables a user with an FTP client to log on to a remote machine,
navigate the file system of that remote machine, and upload and download
files from that machine. There are two basic types of FTP on the
Internet: Anonymous FTP and Private FTP. With Anonymous FTP, one logs in
as user "anonymous," giving one's email address as a password. With
Private FTP, one logs in with the username and password one has
established on that particular system. You are logged into your home
directory, with all the file permissions you would normally have there.
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Q: What is the World Wide Web?
A:
The World Wide Web, which uses Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP), is a
connectionless client/server protocol that was invented in 1993 by Tim
Berners Lee at CERN. Web servers can deliver a wide variety of media
files using MIME. Web clients, like Netscape and MS Internet Explorer,
make requests (i.e., they send URL's to servers) of Web Servers, to
which the Web server responds by delivering the requested file, running
the requested script, or generating an appropriate error message (like
"Error 404 file not found"). Standards for the World Wide Web (HTTP)
protocol are kept by the IETF.
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Q: What is a URL?
A:
A URL is a Uniform Resource Locator. It is a general purpose Internet
addressing protocol, used in WWW (HTTP) service. It is of the form:
<protocol>://<hostname.domain.name>/<directory or file
names>/<moredirectory or file names>.<file extension>
For example, the URL for RNi's Web Server is:
http://www.rni.net.
In this manner, most of the resources on the Internet can be uniquely
addressed, something necessary for the WWW to work.
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Q: Why does my URL have this funny '~' thing in it?
A:
The funny ~ thing is called a tilde. It is located on the upper left on
most keyboards, usually next to the 1 key. Traditionally, a UNIX user's
home directory has been known as ~. Therefore:
hostname.domain.name/~username is the generic form for a user's home Web
space, located in his or her WWW directory. When the Web server sees a
URL like this, it knows to look in username's home directory for a WWW
directory.
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Q: What is HTML?
A:
HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is the language used to
develop and write Web pages.
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Q: How do I see the HTML code that makes a Web page?
A:
On most WWW browsers, you can click on 'view' then 'source' to examine
the underlying code that makes up a page. This may give you ideas for
your own code. Source code is the text (HTML code) from which your
browser creates a Web page.
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Q: How do I access the newsgroups?
A:
There are many clients that offer access to newsgroups. Two of the most
popular are Free Agent and Netscape News (released with Netscape 2.x and
above).
To access the newsgroups with Netscape, you'll first have to check to
make sure the settings are correct:
(1) Under 'Options', click on 'Mail and News Preferences'.
(2) Click on the third (3rd) tab at the top (labeled 'Servers').
(3) Close to the bottom there should be a field labeled 'News Server
(NNTP)' -- make sure that 'news.rni.net' (leave out the quotes) is entered there.
(4) Now, click 'OK' to leave the configuration. Once you're back to
Netscape, click on 'Window' and 'Netscape News'. You'll be presented
with a window similar to Netscape Mail.
(5) Click the appropriate button in the top right corner to maximize the
window.
(6) If you're using Netscape News for the first time, you'll need to
download the latest list of newsgroups. To do this, click the right
mouse button on the news host folder (it should say 'news.rni.net'
beside it). A menu should then pop up -- in it, click on 'Show all
newsgroups'. It will query you to download. Click on 'Yes' and you'll be
set to go!
From there, just click on the newsgroup (in the left window)
you're interested in, click on the messages (in the right window), and
read the text (bottom window).
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Q: What is IRC?
A:
Internet Relay Chat, or IRC, is a protocol for real-time chatting and
file transfer on the Internet. There are several large IRC networks,
such as the popular Efnet. These large networks usually have around
4,000 servers, with as many as 20,000 users on over 1,000 channels
active at any one time. You can use IRC from an IRC client like MIRC, or
you can use IRC from your UNIX shell account. Some common IRC servers
are: irc.phoenix.net and irc.warnerbros.com
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Q: What is a port?
A:
A TCP or UDP port is what an Internet server uses to distinguish between
requests for different service uses. For instance, traditionally telnet
is served at port 23, while a Web server listens for requests on TCP
port 80. Ports are sometimes shown at the end of a URL; for instance the
URL telnet://server.com:9900 refers to a telnet server that is running
on port 9900 of the host server.com.
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Q: What is a host? What is a hostname?
A:
A host is merely the word we use for a computer that is connected to the
Internet and has its own processor and IP number. A hostname is the name
of that computer, and a fully qualified hostname describes the hostname
and the network name of the computer in question, thereby giving the
full path to that host. For instance:
octopus.rni.net - a fully qualified hostname
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Q: What is an IP number?
A:
An IP number is a unique identifying number that your computer uses
during its time on the Internet. Traffic coming from you or going to you
is routed based on your IP number, which identifies the unique machine
you are on and its place in the Internet. For instance, 209.144.217.5 is
the IP number of host for www.rni.net. The Domain Name Service sends
all packets on the Internet destined for www.rni.net to this IP
number. All traffic coming from this host is identified as such because
the packets contain the originating IP number in the packet headers. All
routing and traffic on the Internet ultimately depends on IP numbers.
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Q: What is meant by 'static IP number'?
A:
Normally a user is given an unused IP number that is his to use during
the duration of that session, and then is put back in the pool of unused
numbers when the session is ended. This means that the user will not
generally get the same IP number twice. For some users, their
application (many times games) requires that they know their IP number,
and so they request a 'static' IP number. This means they have a
permanent IP number and hostname that they use every time they get on
the Internet.
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Q: What is a domain? A domain name?
A:
A domain is a name for a network that is connected to the Internet, that
has the IP numbers of its hosts mapped to their hostnames by the
domain's domain name server. A domain name is the suffix placed on all
hosts in that domain. For instance, our domain is rni.net. All of our
email addresses show this. All of our hostnames (like www.rni.net,
octopus.rni.net) end in the rni.net suffix. We are known by name to
the other networks connected to the Internet as the domain rni.net. All
the computers directly connected to our network are in the domain
rni.net.
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Q: What is a domain name server?
A:
A domain name server, also called a DNS, or name server, is a machine
that handles name queries for all hosts within a particular domain. The
domain name server is the authoritative source for addressing
information about hostnames within its domain. What this means is that
when another computer needs to know the IP number (address) of a host
within that domain, it sends a message to the domain name server for that domain, asking that
the host name be resolved and the host's IP number be returned to the
machine sending the query. This occurs because all routing and
addressing on the Internet happens via IP numbers, and not names. Names
(like rni.net, netscape.com, and yahoo.com) are used for human
convenience. All actual addressing is done based on IP numbers. The
domain name system is the name for the world wide distributed database
that maps all the world's host names to their proper IP number. A domain
name server serves host names and their IP numbers for a particular
domain.
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Q: What is the InterNIC?
A:
The InterNIC, or Network Information Center, was the single central
registry for domain name registration in North America. Recently
there have been other companies which have begun to offer
registration services competing with InterNIC. The InterNIC was
originally funded by the National Science Foundation, but now it is
a for-profit entity. The InterNIC takes money for maintaining the
root servers, which are servers that answer queries about one of
the seven 'root' domains (.com, .net, .edu, .gov, .org, and .mil).
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Q: What is a gateway?
A:
A gateway is a computer that lies at the intersection of two networks
and routes traffic correctly from one network to another, while keeping
traffic internal to the two networks separated. Our gateway, one of the
routers, lies at the border between rni.net and our backbone provider.
It correctly routes your traffic bound for the Internet out to its
destination, while keeping traffic meant for RNi's network on RNi's
side of the router.
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