Master the Basics

We expect other drivers to observe the rules of the road. The same is true as we travel through cyberspace. That's where netiquette comes in handy.

The distinctive chatter of a dial-up modem is rapidly becoming a sound of the past as broadband sweeps the global. It's no mystery why when you consider the enormous benefits.

Finding the right deal on mobile broadband should not pose a problem. While you can use a variety of resources to locate the best deal, we recommend that you start your research online.

To go online your computer must be equipped with a modem, a device that translates the digital signals from your computer into analog signals that travel over a standard phone line.

Telephone lines were designed to transmit the human voice, not electronic data from computers. Modems were invented to convert digital computer signals into a form that allows them to travel over phone lines.

Your monitor or laptop screen can be set to different screen resolutions and to display different numbers of colors. For optimum viewing of web pages, we recommend that you use a minimum monitor setting of 800 X 600 pixels with thousands of colors. Here's why.

The Internet has had a relatively brief, but explosive history. It grew out of an experiment begun in the 1960s by the U.S. Department of Defense--a computer network that would continue to function in the event of a disaster.

Even though the Internet is a global network, in many ways it resembles a small town, with similar services.

While PCs were once the primary means of accessing the Internet, we're now seeing Internet-enabled devices such as netbooks and smartphones that send and receive e-mail and access the Web. Soon, everything from your car to your refrigerator will be connected to the global network, communicating with each other wirelessly.