Introduction to the Internet

[andrewducker]

In response to green_amber's request for an introduction to how the internet works, so she can hand it to non-technical people who deal with the internet, I've written this on my Wiki.

I'd really appreciate people taking a look and leaving comments here.

Comments

[akicif.livejournal.com]

Um. Did you mean to paste the same link into both?

Did you perhaps mean to link to this one?

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

I like it. Particularly your beginning explanation of what the internet is NOT. Good analogies make things clear.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Good, except "Internet" should be capitalized... in fact, that would be a good thing to include there. There are lots of internets, but only one Internet.

[biscuitware.livejournal.com]

Might be nice to explain how it started.. and include some of the earlier pre-cursors to the "Internet"...

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

Succint. Not as succint as this

I drank too much caffeine back then

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

Hate to be a pedant (Actually, I love it - I'm a pedantry whore) but the IP address you use in your 'just the basic facts' section is not an Internet routable address. Its part of 3 reserved private ranges detailed in RFC 1918 which can be used by anyone who doesn't want to connect to the Internet or will use some kind of address translation to change the address into a public Internet routable address. Arguably, this makes it not such a good example of a 'basic fact' Internet address ;-P

Otherwise its an excellent document. I'd have gotten completely carried away and written a small book with way too much detail and explanation and it would have ceased to be concise and simple... I think you have a good balance there.

[red-cloud.livejournal.com]

A non-techie audience will stop reading the moment you use the synonym TCP/IP. Actually, you're on probation the moment you use the terms "mainframe" and "server farm" in the introduction (hell, even I only have a vague idea what a server farm might be). You've lost your non-technical audience at TCP/IP. That moment, right there.

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Every computer on the internet has a unique number.

That suggests to me the number will always be the same for any given computer, which I believe isn't the case. Would Every computer while connected to the internet has a unique number. be more accurate?