 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ)
INTRODUCTION
Setting Up for the First Time
TROUBLESHOOTING
I Can't Open A Web Site
HTTP/1.0 404 Object Not Found
HTTP/1.0 403 Access Denied
I Can't See Any Images
Something on a Website Doesn't Work
The Server Does Not Have a DNS Entry
Using Ping and TraceRoute
TCP Error: No Route to Host
How Do I Register My Own Domain Name?
NEW
USER'S GUIDE
Introduction
Print This Document
What is the Internet?
What Is the WWW?
What is a Web Browser?
What is a URL?
How Do You Find Something On the Web?
How Do I Use Bookmarks?
How Do I Change My Default Home Page?
What is E-mail?
Can I Check My E-mail From Another Computer?
What is a Mailing List?
What is an e-mail Alias?
What Is a Newsgroup?
What is Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
Telephone & Video Conversations
Can I get a Virus from the Internet?
What Else Do I Need to Know?
Nettiquette
Smileys
Where Do I Go From Here?
GLOSSARY
Introduction
You
will come across many references to FAQs on the Internet (and many
other acronyms). FAQ stands for Frequently Asked
Question.
As
the name suggests, FAQ pages detail some common problems faced by users
and make suggestions on how to define and hopefully resolve the
issue.
TROUBLESHOOTING
"I Can't Open A Web Site"
Have
you been connected before? YES/NO
Setting Up for the First Time
If
you are apprehensive about changing settings in the Control Panel,
or configuring protocols, the set-up process can be automated with
the use of our Starter Kit. If you are a FutureWeb customer and
require a Starter Kit, contact our support office on 1300 361 355.
Are You Connected to the Internet?
YES/NO/How can I tell?
You
must be connected to the Internet via an ISP before you can browse.
Can You Browse Other Sites?
YES/NO
If you are connected to the Internet and you cannot connect to any
sites (try some of the sites listed on FutureWeb's Hot Links page), there may be a problem with
your Proxy Settings. If you have a Starter Kit, the proxies
for each city are listed on an insert at the front of the book,
you may confirm these settings, or if you prefer Freecall FutureWeb's
Support team during office hours on 1300 361 355.
"How Can I Tell If I am Connected?"
If you are using Windows 95 or 98 -- is there a picture of a modem
with red &/or green lights, or an icon that looks like two monitors,
in the Systray (bottom-right of screen, with the Clock)? No Connection Icon in the SysTray
Move
the mouse over the modem or monitors icon. If the tool tip
says "Disconnected" you must reconnect.
I am Connected
"I get an HTTP/1.0 404
Object Not Found" Error Message
This means that the URL you entered is unavailable. It could
be that the host server is down temporarily (attempt to ping or traceroute the site -- see Using Ping and TraceRoute), or that the
page has moved; but try the following:
Check your spelling.
Try html instead of htm (or vice versa)
Try deleting the page name i.e., everything after the last "/"
-- this will determine if the host or subdirectory is valid.
If it is, there may be a link to the page that you are looking for.
If you still get the same error, delete everything before the previous
"/", and so on until you get back to the domain name.
"I get an HTTP/1.0 403
Access Denied" Error Message
This error message means that the site requested requires a password
for access, or that it resides on a Microsoft NT server
that doesn't contain a default.htm file, so browsing the directory
is not permitted.
For
explanations of other HTTP error messages see W3C's (the World Wide
Web Consortium) Status Codes
in HTTP
"I can't see any images"
Check that your browser is configured to view images. In Netscape
4.xx select Preferences from the View menu. On the "Advanced"
tab, ensure Automatically Load Images is checked. In Internet
Explorer 4.xx select "Internet Options" from the View menu.
On the "Advanced" tab, under the "Multimedia" heading, ensure that
"Show Pictures" is checked.
Something
on a Website Doesn't Work
The Web is constantly evolving with new techniques being developed
and Standards being updated continually. To complicate matters,
browsers are not 100% compatible, with vendors often implementing
their own vision of what they think users want.
Older
versions of browsers may not have the capability to interpret recently
sanctioned HTML code, such as DHTML (Dynamic HTML) or CSS (Cascading
Style Sheets. Programming code may be non-standard (e.g.,
Microsoft use their own Java scripting language [JScript] rather
than the industry standard [JavaScript] developed by Sun.
At present, Netscape doesn't support ActiveX programming modules.
Sometimes
a plug-in is required to demonstrate a particular feature,
in which case the site should have a link telling you where you
can obtain the plug-in and how to install it.
If
the problem is version or browser specific, you may be able to upgrade
(if your hardware supports it). On the other hand, many users
move on from sites that force them to use a particular browser or
plug-in.
"The
Server Does Not Have a DNS Entry"
The entire error message may appear something like: "Netscape
is unable to locate the server: domain.com The server does
not have a DNS entry. Check the server name in the Location
(URL) and try again."
This
means that the Domain Name Service server, whose job it is to "look
up" the domain that you typed in the location box, was unable to
find that domain in the DNS tables. Check the URL for misspellings or
try to ping or traceroute to the site (see the following section
on how to use Ping and TraceRoute).
Using "Ping" and "TraceRoute"
Many operating systems contain basic utilities to
test if a network resource is available, or to check congestion
and the path that packets of data take between you and the source
server.
In
Windows 9x and NT click on the "Start" button (lower left) and from
"Programs" select DOS-Prompt. Ping sends small packets to
the specified location and is a good way to find if a particular
site is valid and working. At the DOS Prompt, type: ping
www.domain.com where domain.com is the site you
want to test. For example: ping www.futureweb.com.au.
Similarly,
to find where a domain is located, how many "hops" away, and the
path taken to reach the destination, use TraceRoute by typing: tracert
URL, where URL is the domain name of the site. For example:
tracert www.intel.com
For
a more technical discussion about how these utilities work, see
Ping and TraceRoute in the Glossary
"TCP Error"
The entire message may read: "A network error occurred: unable
to connect to the server (TCP Error: No route to host). The
server may be down or unreachable".
As
the message suggests the server you are trying to reach may be temporarily
unavailable because it is undergoing maintenance, or your connection
to the Internet may have been dropped (commonly due to noise on
the phone lines). Click here to find out how to check if you are connected.
"How Do I Register My Own Domain Name?"
Australian Domain Names are controlled by MelbourneIT, a quasi-government
authority. FutureWeb can make application on your behalf and host
your site, but you should be aware that you need a firm claim
to that name, such as a company or trading name.
NEW
USER'S GUIDE
Introduction
This
brief guide was designed as an introduction to the Internet for
those who are just starting out. This information should be
sufficient to give new users an overview of what is available on
the Internet and how to access it.
As
a next step, you may find the resources listed on FutureWeb's Hot
Links page, a useful launching site to get your feet wet.
The Links page also includes hyperlinks to tutorials and beginners' guides.
Print
This Document
You can print this document from your Web
Browser by clicking on the File menu and selecting
Print.
What
is the Internet?
The Internet is the interconnection of computers and computer networks
around the world. ARPAnet was developed in the late 1960s
by the Advanced Research Projects Agency, to keep US military communications
open if one centre was disabled. Later academic institutions
used the network to share resources in text-based communication,
and the Internet as we now know it grew from there.
The
Internet can be used for sending e-mail, transferring files (FTP), chatting (IRC), voice and video conferencing, and most widely, for
browsing the Web
Often
shortened to the 'Net', many people wrongly refer to the
Web as the Internet.
What
is the WWW?
WWW stands for the "World Wide Web", which is the graphical interface
to the Internet. The creator of the Web was Tim Berners-Lee
whilst at CERN in the early 1980s. The first browser to gain
public acceptance was Mosaic, written by Marc Andreessen and other
undergrads at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications
(NCSA), and many went on to form Netscape Communications Corporation.
What
is a Web Browser?
A Web Browser is a computer program that sends requests for information
to your ISP's servers which are then passed on to the computer on
the Internet where the information resides, the browser then interprets,
formats and displays the response -- that's what you are using to
view this page on your computer! The most popular browsers
are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft's Internet Explorer, but there
are other proprietary browsers such as AOL, Prodigy and CompuServe.
What
is a URL?
A Universal Resource Locator is a draft
standard for specifying an object on the Internet. It
is simply an address where the object can be found. For example:
http://www.futureweb.com.au/faq.htm
http://www.futureweb.com.au/images/logo.gif
ftp://ftp.futureweb.com.au/
news:alt.hypertext
telnet://futureweb.com.au/
The
first part of the URL, before the colon, represents the access method
or protocol, and after the forward slashes is the location of the
resource.
Looking
more closely at the syntax of a Web URL, the http indicates that Hypertext Transfer Protocol should
be used to relay the information, and the www indicates that the
object resides on the World Wide Web. The next part, futureweb.com.au
describes the domain, or host of the site, which can be broken down
-- The tail is the country identifier (in this case 'au' for Australia.
Similarly, uk=United Kingdom, in=India, jp=Japan; de=Germany, sg=Singapore,
etc. Where a country identifier is absent, the site will be
in the United States, where the Internet began). Domain Names Registries
Around The World has a listing of country codes.
Preceding
the two-letter country identifier, is a three-letter domain type;
'com' indicates a commercial domain. There are six top level
domain names, with 'edu' identifying an educational institution,
'mil' is used by military sites, 'org' is for non-profit organisations,
'net' indicates a network. The first part of the domain name
identifies the company or organisation.
After
the forward slash following the domain name, is the name of the
page (or file on the server), which will normally end in '.htm'
or '.html.
The
URL of the web page you are currently viewing is listed in the Location
field of the browser: http://www.futureweb.com.au/faq.htm Now
you know this represents a file called 'faq.htm' which is on an
Australian commercial site hosted by FutureWeb.
How
Do You Find Something On The Web?
If
you know the URL, you can type it in the Location field and press
the Enter key. More and more television programs and newspaper
columns are including URLs of web sites. Note that it is unnecessary
to include the http:// when entering the URL, as this is
assumed by the browser.
If
you don't know the URL of a particular site, or if you want to look
for sites on a particular topic, you can search the millions of
documents on the Internet using search engines designed specifically
for this purpose. There are hundreds of search engines available
that constantly roam the Internet looking for new and changed pages.
Since each indexes sites using different criteria, they produce
different results. If you can't find what you are looking
for using one search engine, try another. Look for a link
to advanced searching tips from each search engine as this will
offer help on narrowing your search to reduce the number of unwanted
'hits'. However, the syntax used for advanced searching differs
between search engines, as does the methods supported. For
this reason, it is best to find a search engine that you like and
use it by preference.
To
use a search engine, just enter a keyword in the field provided.
To assist you FutureWeb has provided a Search Page
Bookmarks
Rather than having to remember the URL of a site you may want to
revisit, the Browsers provide a method to store such sites.
These bookmarks can be organised in folders with separate themes.
Netscape
4.xx users: Click on the Bookmarks Button, and select Add a Bookmark,
or use the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl-D
Internet
Explorer Users: Click on the Favorites Menu and select Add to Favorites
How
Do I Change My Default Home Page?
Your Home Page is the site that your browser loads every time you
start (unless you selected to have a blank page), and the page that
loads when you click on the "Home" button.
You
can nominate any HTML page, whether it is a web page on the Internet,
or a file on your hard drive, e.g., your own bookmark file.
Use the following instructions to change your default Home page
to FutureWeb's Hot Links Page.
For
Internet Explorer users: After reading these instructions, Click
here to go to FutureWeb's Hot Links Page, and
from the View menu, choose Internet Options, then
on the General tab, Click on the "Use Current" button.
For
Netscape 4.0x users: After reading these instructions, Click here
to go to FutureWeb's Hot Links Page. Select Preferences
from the Edit menu, and click on Navigator in the left pane.
In the right pane, click on the "Current" button. If you wish
to start with your own bookmarks page, click on the "Browse" button
and find your bookmark file, which by default will be in:
C:\Program Files\Netscape\Users\YourName\Bookmark.htm
(substitute your own folder for the generic "YourName" in the line
above.)
What
is E-mail?
E-mail is simply electronic mail. While it may take a week
or more to send a letter to another country, at a cost of a dollar
or more, e-mail will arrive in the recipient's Post Box (at their
ISP) normally within seconds, and the cost is normally insignificant
(what's a couple of seconds when you are paying around a dollar
an hour for Internet access?). The message stays in their
Post Box until they dial in to their ISP and check for new mail.
Probably,
the most widely used facility of the Internet, E-mail makes it easy
to send copies of a message to multiple recipients, cutting down
on time, paper, costs and the frustration of being on hold when
the person you want to message is on another call, or "out to lunch".
Click here, for
a tutorial on e-mail.
But
wait, there's more... you can send images, documents and other
files as an attachment to the e-mail. See the tutorial
at Learn The Net, or for tips on style, see the Beginner's Guide
to Effective E-mail.
Can
I Check My E-mail From Another Computer?
If you are travelling, you can easily check your mail... All
you have to is change the POP3 server and the POP3 user name in the Mail Client
(program).
For
Netscape 4.xx users: Select Preferences from the Edit
menu, and click on the "+" to the left of Mail & Groups in the
left pane, to expand this tree, then click on Mail Server.
On the right change the Mail server user name to
reflect your log-on name (user-id), and change the Incoming
mail server to read "mail.futureweb.com.au" (without the quotation
marks). You do not need to change the Outgoing
mail (SMTP) server. If you want your messages to be available
for pickup when you get home, also click on Leave messages
on server after retrieval (a tick will appear in the Check
Box). See what to do after you have collected your mail,
below.
Internet
Explorer 4.xx users: Click on the "Mail" button to open the Mail
Client, and click on Read Mail. From the Outlook
Express Tools menu, choose Accounts
and go to the Mail tab. Click on the default Mail
account to highlight it, and then click on the "Properties" button.
From the Servers tab, change the Incoming mail
(POP3) to read "mail.futureweb.com.au" (without the quotation
marks), and enter your full e-mail address in the Account
name field. You do not have to enter your password (you
will be prompted when you click on the "Send and Receive"
button, nor do you have to change the Outgoing mail (SMPT)
server. If you want your messages to be available for pickup
when you get home, go to the Advanced tab and click on
Leave a copy of messages on server (a tick will
appear in the Check Box).
After
you have collected your mail, you should change
the settings back to what they were (or a generic name) and click
on the "Get Messages" button. This ensures that the next person
to sit at that computer can't collect your mail. You may also
wish to delete your received mail from the InBox and the Trash folder.
What
is a Mailing List?
A Mailing List is an automatically e-mailed newsletter. Many
web sites will offer the opportunity to subscribe to their
Mailing List, so you can be kept up-to-date with their latest news,
or it may be a group with a common interest. Mailing Lists
are administered by software, such as Majordomo, LISTSERV(R), and
LISTPROC, which sends a copy of the message to everyone on the list.
In the case of a user-group, you can post a message that the server
sends to everyone on the list. When replying to a message,
decide whether you want your post to go to the whole group, or only
to the person who wrote the message to avoid choking the system
with irrelevant material.
What
is an E-mail Alias?
An alias is an e-mail address that can be forwarded to any POP account.
You may have e-mail addresses for info@company.com.au
and sales@company.com.au and webmaster@company.com.au -- all of which are forwarded
to your POP3 account.
What Is a Newsgroup?
In the late 1970s began a project, called Usenet, to share information
within the UNIX community. Initially for academic information,
Usenet, through voluntary collaboration, evolved into electronic
discussion groups.
If
have a question that you can't find an answer to, the chances are
that there will be a Newsgroup that contains the answer, or has
someone who can provide the answer if you ask.
You
will need a special program to access Newsgroups, but Netscape and
Internet Explorer have modules that can be used. The next
step is to determine which Newsgroups are of interest to you, and
to subscribe to them. Because there are many thousands of
Newsgroups, this may be a formidable task, but DejaNews provides a search facility
for Newsgroups.
What
is Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
Internet Relay Chat is a method of communicating in real time
with other users from around the world using your keyboard.
Once the IRC software is installed, you need to connect to an IRC
server and join a channel or room with a topic of your choosing.
Moderators oversee behaviour and may kick (ban) users who
stray outside guidelines for that group.
For a comprehensive guide to using IRC see the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) Help Archive
where you'll find a "short intro for
beginners", Tutorials,
FAQs a detailed user manual, and much more.
Telephone & Video Conversations
There are a number of software solutions that permit users to talk
to each other via a microphone attached to their computer, such
as IPhone, Microsoft's NetMeeting and Netscape's
Conference, but the technology is recent and the lack of standards
mean that participants have to be using the same software each end.
This shouldn't be so much of an inconvenience, if you can
talk to overseas relatives for around a dollar an hour, but the
sound quality may be poor during periods of peak Internet traffic.
Microsoft's
NetMeeting & Netscape's Conference also allow video
conferencing with a low-cost camera (under $400), but because of
the vast amount of information that needs to be sent, results are
less than spectacular over a modem. However, for corporate
applications, higher bandwidth solutions are available at a greater
cost, but this is still more cost effective than flying executives
or sales representatives to a common location.
Now
under development is a ground-breaking technology, called Voice-over-IP,
that will permit you to use your normal telephone through your ISP
(instead of the national carriers) for long distance calls -- at
a small premium over your regular dial up rates.
Can
I Get a Virus From The Internet?
Viruses are akin to vandalism -- programs written solely for the
purpose of causing inconvenience or damage to computers and data.
Whilst
it is not possible to contract a virus through browsing, nor from
reading or downloading e-mail (despite hoax warnings of viruses
such as Good Times), it is possible to get a virus though downloaded
files. Most reputable FTP sites check files for viruses before making them
available, but it is a wise precaution to check downloaded files
with a virus scanner.
Java
applets and JavaScripts are relatively safe, as they are unable
to access files on your computer, but ActiveX controls used by Microsoft's
Internet Explorer can be written to cause damage.
On
the other hand, Cookies are only used for storing information
about your browsing habits, and may be indispensable to navigation
around some sites. They are most unlikely to damage existing
files on your computer.
What Else Do I Need To Know?
Nettiquette
The Internet developed through the military and academia before
becoming mainstream, and there are rules of etiquette that should
be observed. When writing e-mail, posting to Mailing Lists or Newsgroups,
or when chatting (IRC) remember that other people can't see your facial
expressions and subtlety may be lost. WRITING IN CAPS IS
CONSIDERED SHOUTING!; don't correct others' spelling or grammatical
errors; and don't write abusive messages (flames). For more
references on Nettiquette, see http://www.fau.edu/netiquette/net/
or http://web006.pavilion.net/users/morris-tim/chatmanners.html
or http://pixel.cs.vt.edu/class1/spinners/InternetSpeak/nettiquette.html
"When thou enter a city abide by its customs." -- The Talmud
Smileys
Emoticons are used to add emotion to pure text such as e-mail messages.
To make sense of a smiley, you need to rotate your head 90º
to the left. See Acronyms and Emoticons Indicator http://www.sisnet.com.mx/emoticons/
or http://www.learnthenet.com/english/html/25smile.htm
or Yahoo!
Arts:Visual Arts:Computer Generated:ASCII Art:Smilies for examples.
Where Do I Go From Here?
As suggested in the Introduction, you may care to visit FutureWeb's
Links page, where we have gathered some popular
and useful links to visit. The Links page also includes hyperlinks
to tutorials and beginners' guides.
GLOSSARY
Acronym
As in everyday English, an acronym is a word formed from the initial
letters of a multi-word phrase. The use of acronyms is widespread
in the computer industry (most of the entries in this Glossary are
acronyms), both as a tool but also for humour, particularly in chat
rooms and e-mail. For example, BTW = "By the Way"; FYI = "For
Your Information", HTH = "Hope This Helps". See Acronyms and
Emoticons Indicator at http://www.sisnet.com.mx/emoticons/
for further examples, or for technical acronyms, The WorldWideWeb
Acronym and Abbreviation Server at http://www.ucc.ie/info/net/acronyms/acro.html
has a database of around 20,000 acronyms.
DNS
A Domain Name Service is used to translate a domain name into an
IP address. Computers use a series of numbers (in the format
nnn.nnn.nnn.nnn where n is an integer, aka, a dot quad.
For example, FutureWeb's proxy server is 203.22.127.6) to look up Internet
addresses. Since it is easier for us to remember words rather
than numbers, we tend to use letter-based URLs, such as http://www.futureweb.com.au/
rather than entering the equally valid dot-quad.
FTP
File Transfer Protocol is a protocol optimised for transferring files over
the Internet. When downloading a file always prefer an FTP
site if offered the option.
GIF
In 1987 CompuServe developed a standard for coding graphics files
for the Internet. Two years later the format was refined to
include interlacing and animation (by playing multiple images in
a slideshow). The GIF format is used for simple graphics with
up to 256 colours, and has good compression if the image has large
areas of specific colours. See also JPG
HTML
Hypertext Markup Language is a simple way of adding formatting and
other objects, such as tables, frames and multimedia to a text-based
file, so it can be viewed by a Browser. You can view HTML tags
used in web pages: Netscape users can select Page Source
from the View menu, or View - Source for Internet Explorer users.
HTTP
Hypertext Transfer Protocol is the main protocol used for
transferring data between servers and client computers on the Web.
IRC
See the discussion on Internet Relay Chat
Java
Java is a programming language developed by Sun Microsystems that may be coded
into Web pages to enhance presentation by way of animation, sounds
or specially designed applications such as calendars and calculators.
The "write once, run anywhere" concept of Java, means that it is
designed to be platform independent -- basically a Java program
will run on any Operating System. Common browsers have the ability to interpret Java applets
(programs).
JavaScript
Designed by Sun Microsystems
and Netscape Communications, JavaScript is a simplified form of
the Java programming language that can be inserted into HTML code on a Web page. Microsoft later developed
JScript, which is based on JavaScript, but incompatible in many
areas.
JPEG/JPG
The Joint Photographic Experts Group produced a standard for coding
graphics files. This format is ideal for photographs, as it
may contain up to 16.7 million colours (as opposed to a GIF, which
is limited to a maximum of 256 colours). The JPG standard
also incorporates compression, resulting in smaller file sizes,
but since the compression is lossy, there is a trade-off
between size and quality.
Ping
Ping is a DOS utility that can be used to check a particular network
resource. Ping sends ICMP echo_request packets to
a specified URL. The reports round trip time can be used
as an indication of latency (congestion) on a network. Ping
also reports the number of lost packets (noise), and some versions
also report the TTL (Time To Live) which indicates how many routers
a packet has passed through. To see Ping in action, DOS and
Windows users can go to a DOS prompt and type "ping URL", where
URL is the domain name or its IP address, e.g. ping
www.futureweb.com.au or ping 203.22.127.1 Also see Tracert, and for further instructions, see
Using Ping and TraceRoute in the troubleshooting
section.
Protocol
Since there are so many types of computers and operating systems
connecting to each other in many different ways (modem, network
card), communication between computers requires a common set of
standards, or protocols. Each protocol is designed to optimise
the flow of data that is being exchanged, e.g., FTP for files, HTTP for web pages, etc.
Proxy
A Proxy Server is a computer that caches (stores) items requested
by users to speed up access. When surfing the Net, the Browser first attempts to find the requested information
from cache (an area of the local hard drive reserved for keeping
recently viewed pages). If the data cannot be found in the
local cache, the request is sent to the Proxy Server at your ISP
(a much larger storage area that saves sites most recently accessed
by all users). If the site has never been visited, or was
accessed so long ago that it has been flushed from proxy (to be
replaced by more recently accessed sites), the site is fetched from
the remote server where the data resides permanently. FutureWeb'
s Proxy Server holds 27G of stored data, and our uplink, Connect.com
has a futher 50G of proxy.
POP3
POP3 stands for Post Office Protocol (version 3). This protocol
is used to collect your e-mail from your ISP.
SMTP
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol is the protocol used to send
mail to the recipient's ISP.
TCP/IP
Internet Protocol is
the standard way of sending information in packets over the Internet.
Transfer Control Protocol
is used to check all of the IP packets have arrived (and request
lost packets to be resent), and to reassemble the packets in the
correct order at the destination. TCP/IP is an open protocol
-- meaning any device running TCP/IP can communicate with any other.
Tracert
Traceroute is a utility used to track the path taken to get to a
URL, and can give an indication of bottlenecks. It works by
sending UDP datagrams to a remote host, with the TTL (Time-to-Live)
initially set to zero, and incremented by one for each packet.
When a router receives a packet with a TTL of zero it discards the
packet and sends a ICMP time_exceeded packet back to the
originating host. If the TTL is non-zero, the router decrements
it and sends it on to the next router. By incrementing TTL
of successive packets, and determining the round trip time for the
ICMP time_exceeded packet from each router between the
two hosts, traceroute lists each router quantifying the time taken
to each. To see Tracert in action, DOS and Windows users can
go to a DOS prompt and type "tracert URL", where URL is
the domain name or its IP address, e.g. tracert www.microsoft.com
Also see Ping, and for further instructions, see Using Ping and TraceRoute in the troubleshooting
section.
URL
The definition and syntax of a Universal Resource Locator is explained in the New Users Guide.
VBScript
Visual Basic Scripting Edition is a simplified form of Microsoft's
popular and powerful Visual Basic programming language that can
be coded into HTML pages. Since it cannot
be interpreted by Netscape and other browsers, VBScript is used
basically for servers and intranets (internal company networks)
where users access information with Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Zip
To make files smaller so they require less space to store, or minimise
transfer time over a modem, they can be compressed. Zipping
is the most common method of doing this and WinZip is the most common interface
for Windows users. A further advantage is that multiple files
can be zipped together in one file giving a packaging effect.
As an analogy, it is far easier to bring home a dinner set from
the store in its original small package, rather than trying to transport
all the individual plates and cups.
Iomega make a storage device called
a Zip Drive, which holds a removable disk, similar in size and shape
to a 3½" Floppy Disk Drive, but can store 100M (soon to be 200M)
of files, rather than the 1.44M standard of a regular Floppy.
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