The following information is an attempt to inform and make it easier when talking to the technical help lines of suppliers or ISP's. Please treat it as a draft and let me know where you find it to be inaccurate. E.mail to [email protected]

Circa 2000 !!

Help with PC's/OP's/modems

Notes re: modems

• 56Kb modems can only achieve 52Kb/sec download rate in the UK

• Expect 36-48Kb/sec depending on the load within your house and the quality of the 'local loop'

• Systems using NT4 and router modems indicate the established connection rate.

• ISDN and ADSL give a much faster connection.

Choosing an ISP for those new to computing.

1.  For most people at home an ISP is necessary for the connection between the home and the 'Internet'.
2. Your computer Operating System will offer the choice of four or five ISP's. These are world wide ISP's and clicking on any of these and following the screen instructions (and handbook) will connect you to the 'net, setup your e-mail name/password, give you a browser and a mail reader.
3. Your computer supplier may also supply a (free) ISP service already loaded. Other free ISP's will offer a CD-Rom. This is where a major problem can start. Such software tends to embed 'bits' in the Operating System and reconfigure standard functions.
4. The dangers are: (a) This can tie you to that ISP (for ever!). (b) If you load in another ISP's CD then you may have a totally unusable computer. This has happened to many.
5. My advice is only to use such ISP's if their software can be totally 'uninstalled'. Contact your supplier or the free ISP technical help line, probably at £1 a minute, and ask if this is possible and how to do it.. This will also give you a flavour of how good the ISP is at giving usable help. 

Mac's pride themselves in being 'Internet ready' but they have the same problems if you want to change the ISP. I recommend that you contact your supplier if you want to change ISP.

Information required from an ISP

The following information is an attempt to inform and make it easier when talking to the technical help lines of suppliers or ISP's

Personal details

The ISP will provide some of the following: (the names and numbers are fictional)

Server details

The ISP will provide some of the following: (the names and numbers are fictional)

The DNS cell's job is to convert the server names to IP addresses needed by the 'net communications.

This coloured cell name and the DNS are needed to receive mail.

This coloured cell name and the DNS are needed to send mail

browser / mail reader

The two main browsers are:

1. Netscape Communicator, current version is 4.6x. It is capable of reading POP3 mail, sending mail and fires up 'Dial-up Networking' if the connection is not made. Several Mb in size.
2. MS Internet Explorer, current version is 5. Doesn't always come with Java engine. Fires up 'Dial-up Networking' if the connection is not made. Several Mb in size. Reads mail via other mail readers.

There are many stand-alone mail readers. eg.

1. Eudora Lite. Around 4 Mb in size. Fires up 'Dial-up Networking' if the connection is not made,  downloads mail and closes the line connection. Shareware and easy to configure.
2. PC Pine. Around X Mb in size. Does not make or break the line connection. 'Low overhead'; ie.PC Pine starts by reading only message headers. This allows you to decide which messages to open and which attachments to download. Not always easy to configure.
3. MS Outlook. Sophisticated mail client but spends a long time synchronising folders.
4. Outlook Express. As above, plus one real failing, it has no way of leaving mail on the server. This means you cannot read your mail from different sites/computers. 
5. etc.

Cookies

What are cookies, and why do web servers use them?

A cookie is a very small text file placed on your hard drive - with your permission - by a web server. Acting like your identification card, your unique cookie cannot be executed as code or deliver viruses, and it can only be read by the server that presented it to you. Like many web sites today, web servers use cookies to identify users and track their movements through the site. Specifically, cookies perform the following functions:

• Identification. A number of areas within sites require that content be displayed according to preferences you have set, such as your privacy settings. In such cases, the server needs to know who you are. If it didn't use cookies, you would have to sign in (with your username and password) each time you accessed a new page.

• Tracking. Because each web page is unique, a service must use cookies to track your status as you move from page to page. Say, for example, you have accessed an online shopping basket: As you fill your basket with items to purchase from separate web pages within a service, the web server uses cookies to verify that you are indeed the person requesting those items. When you are ready to check out and complete your purchases, it can retrieve all of the requested items from your cookie file.

Cookies provide information about what's important to the site's visitors. This in turn makes it possible for them to discard web pages you don't use and instead focus on providing the information you need.  In addition, if you personalize pages or register for products or services, cookies can help you save time by assisting the site in remembering who you are so that it can show you the information you have requested the next time you visit. When you register for additional products or services, all you need to do is type in your  username, and password; the site will then fill in any questions you've already answered. Of course, if you never register or leave personal information with the site, the server will only know that someone with your cookie has returned to the web site. You decide what, if anything, you want the site to know about you. Keep in mind, however, that the more you tell them about yourself, the more helpful they can be in providing the information and services you desire (!).

[03apr00 00:40]; [24apr00 22:30] logged; [02sep00 20:30] upd;