INTERNET: A Nursing Resource

           In the years since its inception, the internet has had a tremendous impact on society, changing the way we communicate, conduct business, obtain information, and manage our lives. While internet use it still conserved to globalize our thinking.  From the comfort of one’s home or office, a person can quickly and easily access information from around the world. Often, the user is not even aware of the location of the information source. In a sense, the world has become smaller, as we communicate in real time with people on the other side of the globe.

• Nurses are also finding the internet to be a constant source of up-to-date professional information. The net provides access to information  that previously was available only in large medical and nursing libraries. 

• Nursing professionals eagerly embraced the opportunities to use the internet to network with colleagues all over the world, sharing their knowledge and learning from each other, thus broadening the body of nursing knowledge.

• They are also searching the internet for information about approaches to specific nursing situations.

• The goal of this chapter is to provide a basic understanding of the internet and examine how we, as nurses, can use this tool to help us professionally an personally. 

 

Who controls the internet?

• Today, the connection of all major networks to the internet represents the pinnacle of computer communication. The internet itself has no owners, censors, bosses, board of directors, or stockholders.

• The overall organizing force is the ISOC (www.Isoc.org). An international, nonprofit, professional membership org. With no governmental allegiances.It is comprised of over 150 organizations and 16,000 individual members that represent over 180 nations throughout the world. For many sources of information regarding special needs, see http://www.isoc.org/isoc/access

Technology Behind the Internet

•                On the internet, the protocol determine how data will be transmitted between two devices, the type of error checking that will be performed, how data compression, if any, is accomplished, how the sending computer will signal that it as finished sending a message, and how the receiving computer will signal that it has received a message.

•                As a user, your only concern should be that the software and hardware you are using supports the protocols of the computer or device with which you wish to have your computer communicate. To make it easy for all computer users to use the internet, most computers sold already have software that supports these protocols installed.

•                The main protocols on which the functioning of the internet is dependent are referred to as TCP and IP. TCP allows computers to connect to a network and exchange data. When packets are lost or reordered, the TCP will detect this and re-transmit and or reorder the pockets as necessary. The IP is a lower level protocol,which is responsible for making decisions about these packets and routing them.

• Other protocols used on the Internet include http (hypertext transmission protocol), which supports the world wide web (www); FTP which permits usersto send all types f electronic files over the internet and Telner which allows users to access a distant computer as though they were sitting infront of it.

The Domain Name System

The Internets DNS permits us to give globally unique ‘’names’’ to networks and computers. There are several benefits to this system. 

• First, a name is easier to remember than the long string of numbers that makes up an IP address, which is assigned to each computer on the network.    
• Another benefit is that a name allows for a change of physical locating that is transparent to the user.

Pauls Mockapetris- pioneer in the protocols that allow the DNS to work.

 

Top-level Domains (TLD's)

Each country, as of 2003, has two-letter TLD. For example, Canada is .CA, Great Britain is .UK, Germany is .DE, and Switzerland is .CH. You can obtain all of the country codes at http:www.aiaa.org/cctld/cctld-whois.html

.AERO	For the air transport industry
.BIZ	For business
.COM	Commercial/business organizations
.COOP	For cooperatives
.EDU	Restricted to 4 year degree granting institutions in North America
.GOV	Restricted to the US federal government
.INFO	For all uses
.INT	Restricted to organizations that were established by international treaty

.MIL	Restricted to the US military
.MUSEUM	For museums
.NAME	For individuals
.NET	For network resources
.ORG	For nonprofit organizations
.PRO	For professions

For more information on the new TLDs see the interNIC site at http://www.internic.net/faqs/new-tlds.html

How large is the Internet?

On March 15, 2001, Internet Software Consortium released the results from the domain survey, which sought to discover every host on the Internet from data collected during January of the same year. The survey indicated that at that time, the Internet has over 109 million hosts in 230 countries.

 

The grown up rate of the internet is estimated to be between 43% and 67% annually. It is projected that in mid-2005, the internet would have 1 billion hosts. The INS estimates that the Net is growing worldwide at the amazing rate of 63 new hosts and 11 new domains per minute. 

Use of the Internet.. Then and Now

Even though the original purpose of creating networks was intended to be computer sharing, it did not take long for users to realize that they could also send message to one another. 

The first email software appeared in 1972. It allowed users to list, selectively read, file, forward and respond to messages. In next decades, e-mail was the largest network app.

File Transfer Protocol

File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard network protocol used to transfer computer files from one host to another host over a TCP-based network, such as the Internet.

FTP is built on a client-server architecture and uses separate control and data connections between the client and the server.

The first FTP client applications were command-line applications developed before operating systems had graphical user interfaces, and are still shipped with most Windows, Unix, and Linux operating systems. Many FTP clients and automation utilities have since been developed for desktops, servers, mobile devices, and hardware, and FTP has been incorporated into productivity applications, such as Web page editors.

Telnet

• Is a terminal emulation program that is part of the TCP/IP protocols.
• It allows a connecting computer to behave like a terminal for a distant computer regardless of the type of computer that is either the target or originator of the Telnet session.
• A log in and a password are required to begin a Telnet session.

• Telnet is also often used to control Web servers remotely. 

Use net and Online Forums

There are several type of discussion groups on the 

internet:

  Newsgroups- are sort of worldwide bulletin board system that is accessed using software called a newsreader. Most WWW browsers contain a newsreader that tracks the messages that you have read and can be set up to allow you to easily access new messages.

Online Forums- are often set up by organizations to allow members or anyone, depending on how the forum is organized, to share ideas. They often require that a user register and either create or be given password, which is used to access the site.

 


Mailing List- are set up to provide an arena for discussion on a specific topic. Mailing lists have found many uses. The enable nurses from the entire world to communicate. On lists, students as well as graduate nurses can and do get into discussions with faculty,deans and there nursing leaders. Many teachers open mailing list for their class to enable students to ask questions of the teacher and their students. Some organizations now use them to keep their members informed.

E-Mail

• One of the most popular uses for the Internet remains the ability to send and receive electronic mail or e-mail.

• The number of e-mail users is growing rapidly. Many individuals have more than one e-mail address, using each for different purposes.

• The most popular of these include Netscape, yahoo, and Hotmail.

Anatomy of An E-mail Address

• An e-mail address has two parts, separated by the ‘’@’’ sign.

• The first part is what may be called the user name, user ID, or login name. Some organizations let users select their user name while others assign them based on a system such as first initial and last name or first name dot (a period) last name.

• You may find symbols as an underline (_), a  hyphen (-),or even  percent sign (%) or pound sign (#) in the user name. What you will not find are spaces.

• Currently, most e-mail addresses are not case-sensitive, that is, whether you use a capital letter or a lowercase letter will not affect the address. Omitting any characters, or typing just one incorrectly,however, will. 

Using E-mail

• To send and receive e-mail, besides having an account on the internet that provides an e-mail address and having a computer, you need communication software.

• Additionally, most of the WWW browsers (software programs that allow you to use the WWW) have built-in email programs.   There are also other e-mail packages available; some are free an most can be downloaded from the internet.

• The functions that e-mail software provide vary with the package, but all permit a user to receive and read a message send a reply, initiate a new message, forward a receive message to someone else, and organize received messages in folders.

• Email communication is different from either telephone or face-to-face communication. On the telephone, you can hear voice inflections and in face-to-face communication, you can see and hear the other individual.

• E-mail is also different from a written letter in that it is often done ‘’on the fly’’ and is usually posted immediately after finishing. 

Use of Emoticons 

To make up for the inability of messages recipients to accurately judge the mood of the sender, the practice of typing  characters available on a standard keyboard to form a ''picture'' was begun.

These small icons small icons called emoticons or smileys are often to denote a mood.  

E-mail Etiquette

When sending e-mail, you should know the same consideration that you would show when writing to anyone. Given the nature of e-mail, there are few additional things that should be considered. Using capital letters is considered shouting. All messages should be signed; assuming that the recipient will know who you are leads to problems. 

For more details about online etiquette, see the comprehensive list by Arleen Rinaldi (1998), ''The Net: Use guidelines and Netiquette'' at http://www.fau.edu/netiquette/net/.


World Wide Web (www, W3) is an information system of interlinked hypertext documents that are accessed via the Internet and built on top of the Domain Name System. It has also commonly become known simply as the Web. Individual document pages on the World Wide Web are called web pages and are accessed with a software application running on the user's computer, commonly called a web browser. Web pages may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia components, as well as web navigation features consisting of hyperlinks.


Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist and former CERN employee, is the inventor of the Web. On 12 March 1989, Berners-Lee wrote a proposal for what would eventually become the World Wide Web.The 1989 proposal was meant for a more effective CERN communication system but Berners-Lee also realised the concept could be implemented throughout the world.Berners-Lee and Belgian computer scientist Robert Cailliau proposed in 1990 to use hypertext "to link and access information of various kinds as a web of nodes in which the user can browse at will",and Berners-Lee finished the first website in December of that year. The first test was completed around 20 December 1990 and Berners-Lee reported about the project on the newsgroup alt.hypertext on 7 August 1991.

The Essential Step-by-Step Guide to Making Your Own Website

1. Get Your Domain Name

   The first thing you need to do before anything else is to get yourself a domain name. This is the name you want to give to your website. For example, the domain name of the website you're reading is "thesitewizard.com". To get a domain name, you have to pay an annual fee to a registrar for the right to use that name. Getting a name does not get you a website or anything like that. It's just a name. It's sort of like registering a business name in the brick-and-mortar world; having that business name does not mean that you also have the shop premises to go with it.

2. Choose a Web Host and Sign Up for an Account

   A web host is basically a company that has many computers connected to the Internet. When you place your web pages on their computers, everyone in the world will be able to connect to it and view them. You will need to sign up for an account with a web host so that your website has a home. If getting a domain name is analogous to getting a business name in the brick-and-mortar world, getting a web hosting account is comparable to renting office or shop premises for your business.
   •  After you sign up for a web hosting account, you will need to point your domain to that account on your web host.

3. Designing your Web Pages

   Once you have settled your domain name and web host, the next step is to design the web site itself. In this article, I will assume that you will be doing this yourself. If you are hiring a web designer to do it for you, you can probably skip this step, since that person will handle it on your behalf.

4. Testing Your Website

   Although I list this step separately, this should be done throughout your web design cycle. I list it separately to give it a little more prominence, since too few new webmasters actually perform this step adequately.
   You will need to test your web pages as you design them in the major browsers: the latest versions of Internet Explorer (version 11 at the time of this writing), Firefox, Opera, Safari and Chrome. All these browsers can be obtained free of charge, so it should be no hardship to get them. Unfortunately, directly testing your site in all these browsers is the only way you can really be sure that it works the way you want it to on your visitors' machines.
   • If you want to improve the chances that your website will work in future versions of all web browsers, consider validating the code for your web pages. In layman's language, this means that you should check that the underlying code of your web page, called "HTML" and "CSS", has no syntax errors. You don't actually need technical knowledge of HTML and CSS to validate the page, since you can use one of the numerous free web page validators around to do the hard work. On the other hand, if the validator tells you that your page has errors, it may sometimes be hard to figure out what's wrong (and whether the error is actually a serious one) if you don't have the requisite knowledge. Having said that, some validators actually give concrete suggestions on how to fix your code, and one of them, called "HTML Tidy", is even supposed to be able to fix errors for you.

5. Getting Your Site Noticed

   When your site is ready, you can submit it to search engines like Google and Bing.  In general, if your site is already linked to by other websites, you may not even need to submit it to these search engines. They will probably find it themselves by following the links on those websites.
   Apart from submitting your site to the search engine, you may also want to consider promoting it in other ways, such as the usual way people did things before the creation of the Internet: advertisements in the newspapers, word-of-mouth, etc. There are even companies on the Internet, like PRWeb, that can help you create press releases, which may get your site noticed by news sites and blogs.