Jack The Pug's
Top Ten Things You Can't Live Without Knowing
About The Internet!!!
2. For WebTV users, the instructions and details can be found at the WebTV website at http://webtv.net
3. You must have an account with an Internet Service Provider in order to receive Internet Access. This usually requires a monthly payment. You must decide a Username and a Password.
4. You can download viruses from the Internet by opening attachments in e-mail or by downloading games, music or any other files from different websites. See Jack's Virus Top Ten for more information.
5. Your Home Page is the page that comes up first when you connect to the Internet. You can pick any web page to be your Home Page by going to that site (for example, go to www.geocities.com/jackthepug) and hold down the CTRL key and the D key. Poof! Like magic it should be changed. To check it, just click on the Home button (picture of a house) at the top of your screen. To Change it Manually: for Internet Explorer, click Tools, Internet Options, General. There is a box where you can type in http://www.geocities.com/jackthepug to make Jack's website your homepage. Next, click Apply and OK.
6.Baudrate and bandwidth. Your 11 year old paper boy whines about it, the computer geek at your job tries to explain it with phrases like 56K, DSL and telco, the Internet Stock Page tries to tell you who controls it and at the end of the day, all you know is you keep getting disconnected. If you don't understand the concept, read Jack's Non-Nerd's Guide to Speedy Connections. Now, if you already know something about it, for goodness sakes, share your knowledge with everyone (e-mail Jack and I'll put it up on the site).
7. Your ISP is only human. An ISP (Internet Service Provider) is the company you pay to get your Internet Service from. They are a utility like the cable, satellite and phone people. They rely on computers, wires and techno gurus to keep up the connection. However, lightning, power outages, hack attacks and operator error can cause outages, or a loss of your connection. Best Advice: ask questions before you buy. E-mail Jack for more information.
8.To charge or not to charge? How do you know if a site is secure? Well, chances are if you are ordering online from a national, brand name company, their lawyers already told them that if your card number gets stolen they can be sued. It's also bad press for them if this happens, so believe me, they are going to do everything they can to prevent it. They will pay big bucks for a Secured Server which encrypts the numbers as they fly through cyberspace. This means that the numbers appear as jibberish and someone who is looking to steal them will not realize your credit card information, or that it is even a credit card number. Hooray for technology! If you do a lot of online shopping, it is a good idea to have one credit card that you use for the Internet only. The reason? You can track everything with that one statement AND if someone does manage to get the number, there is only one card to cancel. Some people go so far as to open one checking account and use the debit card for online shopping. They only keep a few hundred dollars in the account so the theif can't buy a trip around the world on the concord.
9. Is e-mail going to be free and private forever? Well, maybe. There have been no attempts to tax or charge people for e-mail and there is currently no bill before Congress, or anywhere else, to try and change that. Think about it: would you vote for the guy who approved an e-mail tax in the next election? As for private, I still feel comfortable e-mailing info to anyone, anywhere. However, I would never send credit card numbers, birth dates, social security or bank account numbers via e-mail. It's just not as safe as the encrypted forms used at online shopping sites and it has to pass through your ISP's computers, their backbone provider's computers, the other person's back bone provider and ISP's computers, and then the other person's computer (which if it's a business could be routed through 2 to 20 machines).
10. Bottom line: use common sense. If you don't have any, well, you shouldn't be allowed out in public, let alone on the Internet. Don't give any information to anyone if you don't know them. Just because someone knows your e-mail address, they don't neccessarily mean well. Guard your privacy and ask your local ISP, local Police Force or computer guru about advice on how to protect yourself. E-mail Jack if you have more questions and we'll post them on the site (your personal info will NEVER be given out).
