Philadelphia Website Articles - Website Benefits (text only) In the last 25 years computers have become an integral part of our lives. The ability to process and exchange information through digital networks has resulted in new technologies, businesses, and an unprecedented ability to communicate with the world at large. The Internet is one such network. Comprised of numerous smaller networks. the Internet’s original framework was developed in the 1970s as part of a military communications project. Later it was adapted for public access. The Internet is a global network that connects commercial, government, research, and academic institutions around the world. Connecting to the Internet Like a telephone each computer needs its own identification number, called an IP address (Internet Protocol address), to be able to communicate with other computers on the Internet. And like a local telephone office the thousands of computers in your local area are connected to the Internet through various Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Often the phone company itself, Verizon for example, will serve as the ISP. But unlike telephones a computer can be connected to the Internet at different speeds. The most common Internet access account is a Dial-Up connection typically costing around $20 per month. With Dial-Up access you connect to the Internet through an ordinary phone line and modem. The modem dials a local phone number the ISP provides for Internet access. Faster access, such as through DSL or cable modem, costs between $40 and $150 a month depending on the connection speed. What You Can Do on the Internet While it seems there’s no limit to the variety of activities you can pursue on the Internet: chatting, posting messages, listening to one of thousands of online radio stations, or viewing movie trailers, by far the two most common activities are using electronic mail and viewing websites on the World Wide Web. Email Like postal mail, email lets you send and receive messages to specific individuals through an email address like “tigerwoods@golf.com. Once you’re connected to the Internet you use email software, such as Microsoft Outlook or Qualcomm’s Eudora, to create messages, “attach” documents, and have them delivered to the recipients’ e-mailbox specified by their email address. You can always tell an email address by the “at” (“@”) character. You can always tell an email address by the “at” (“@”) character. World Wide Web (WWW) Design fashions and want to show off your fantastic new summer product line? Want to publish a few sample chapters of your latest novel? Want to discuss your obsession with salt and pepper shaker collecting? The World Wide Web is where you can. The WWW is to the online (Internet) world what desktop publishing is to the offline (print) world—it’s where you can publish your company’s information, online, through a website as a collection of individual web pages. You can see the incredible popularity of the WWW anywhere you see advertising: newspapers, billboards, business cards, the sides of trucks, anywhere there’s a surface HREF="../ilable you’ll see a “WWW” address.