Maki & Brian DeLaet EduCyber founders

September 2005 EduNotes

Inside this edition of EduNotes: Some common Internet terms explained, Are you really saving money with your technology?, Finding “real” information on the Internet and Getting found in cyberspace. Send feedback or questions to edunotes@educyber.com .

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EduCyber is your technology partner. We partner with businesses that have technology needs. Whether you need a web site, a web host, help with the search engines, or some kind of computer or network help, we partner with you to maximize your technology investment. Call EduCyber today at 720-275-4646.

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Coming to Terms with the Internet
TechSpeak got you down? That's not uncommon in the Internet world. Let's take a few minutes to review some common Internet terms:
Web Hosting : This is the company you pay to have them put the files that make up your web site on their computer. The host computer is the computer where your web site actually resides.
IP Address : Not something most people need to know but every “device” (computer, network printer, router, etc) on the Internet or any network for that matter, has an Internet Protocol address that helps other devices find it. If your network printer didn't have an IP address, when you click the print button, your computer wouldn't know where to send the print job. If your web site didn't have an IP address, the browser wouldn't know what computer to look for to find the files.
Domain Name : Every web site has an IP address. Our web site's IP is 204.50.82.75. Go ahead, type that address in your browser and you should see our web site. Now, can you remember that number every time you want to visit our site? Of course not. So, for us lunkheads who can't (and don't want to) remember hundreds of numbers, the experts came up with domain names. Domain names are aliases or fake names for the IP addresses. They paired them up and have a bunch of computers around the world that match up a domain like www.educyber.com to 204.50.82.75 so that we can just remember the domain name.
Browser : The program you use to “browse” on the Internet. Most people use Internet Explorer – the blue e on your desktop – as their browser but there are lots of other choices from Netscape to Opera to Firefox.
SMTP and POP (or POP3 ): Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and Post Office Protocol are the main ways email gets where you send it and replies get back to you. SMTP is used to send messages from your mail client (Outlook, Outlook Express, Eudora, etc) to a mail server and is also used to send mail between servers. POP is used by your mail client to retrieve email from a server. Since one is used to send and the other to retrieve, you usually need both when setting up your mail client for the first time.
Other words you'd like to understand better? Drop us a line ( edunotes@educyber.com ) and we'll include them in a future newsletter.

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“Saving” Money
Technology is easy, right? Turn on the computer and you're off, saving all kinds of time and money. And if it happens to freeze up on you, simply reboot and you're off again.
Too often we get new clients who tried to save money by “fixing” a problem themselves. Or they called tech support from their computer vendor. And the technician had them change all the network settings and when that didn't work, they were somehow “disconnected”.
Computers are much more complex than TV's or cars (except of course where TV's and cars have computers in them). Your basic desktop computer with a standard office suite (such as Microsoft Office) installed has millions of lines of code that have gone into its creation. Then you start installing all kinds of cool games or other “time-saving” applications. Too often these applications where written (in a programming language) by someone who doesn't understand all the ramifications of how their program interacts with other programs. And trouble happens.
No, this isn't a long ad for our business. Below are some common sense solutions to problems for you to try before asking for help. Just don't go much further than these suggestions unless you're sure of yourself or you could be asking for trouble.

• Reboot. Yes, we still need to remind you to reboot your computer if you're having problems. As simple as it seems, we still regularly get calls from people having problems and they haven't tried rebooting yet.
• Identify what action or sequence of actions precedes the error. If it is the same or similar actions, it will help your technology provider help you solve the problem more quickly.
• Write down any error messages, especially the first time. If your computer gives you an error message, write it down. Frequently an error will give you the most information the first time with subsequent messages basically saying “I'm still having the same problem” without telling you what the actual first error was.
• Check cables. Shut the computer down and check all of your cables to make sure they are still plugged in properly. Even if they are, you might want to unplug each one and then plug it right back in. This procedure takes care of most “My printer isn't working” phone calls that we get.
• Test programs. When we get a call saying “My Internet isn't working”, and then learn that email is working fine, that tells us that the Internet connection is working and helps us look instead at the problem with the web browser. If you aren't able to bring up a web site, see if others are working. It may be the web site you are trying to view is down for some reason.
• If you have a network, check to see if the problem is identical on each computer. If so, then it is likely a network issue and not just a problem with that particular computer.

Once you've tried these out and either solved the problem or at least identified it, then give your technology provider a call. If you don't yet have a technology provider, then we would love to partner with you and discuss your issues. Call 720-275-4646.

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Searching for Answers
There is a wealth of information available on the Internet. Need to know who is Major League's all time RBI leader? Visit http://www.infoplease.com/ipsa/A0113255.html . When Lewis and Clark went exploring? Try http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Clark_Expedition . Stumped on square roots? Try http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SquareRoot.html .
But there's also a lot of junk out there. The first time I sat down with one of my children to help them do research on the Internet, I found that out. While the topic escapes me now, it was probably something about the Revolutionary War. Visit Lycos and type in “what's a redcoat?” for example, it looks like maybe the 6 th link down has the information I'd be looking for. Three of the top five links have absolutely nothing to do with the British soldiers called redcoats in the Revolutionary time period.
And the number one link is a tripod web site. Now some of these blogging and personal web space sites have some great information but certainly not something that a student should be footnoting or quoting from. A scholarly work (such as a student essay or research paper) should quote known authorities, not Joe Blow who has his own personal web site and lots of opinions. So sites like Tripod, MySpace, and Yahoo are great for sharing ideas but not for using in research.
Our best advice for sifting through the hay that is the Internet in order to find your needle, is to search for the right words. For example, to find out what a redcoat meant during the revolutionary war, I typed “define redcoat revolution” at Lycos and suddenly the results were much better. All of the first 10 links were somehow related and the top two links both gave good definitions of what a redcoat is.
When looking for information, discard the little words – a, the, is, etc. and try not to write sentences. Try using synonyms if you're not getting the right kinds of information – redcoat, British soldier, lobsterback.
Another good technique is to not limit yourself to one search engine. There are dozens available just in English. Need some alternatives? Google , MSN , AOL , Lycos , AskJeeves , About , Alta Vista , Dogpile , Excite , LookSmart and Yahoo are all good bets.
If you're looking for a scholarly article, you can also try one of Google's newer services, scholar.google.com .

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Lost in (Cyber) Space
OK, you've got your web host and your web site and your domain and now you're ready for people to start flowing in to your web site. But no one shows up. Is all that money down the drain?
Once you've got your web site up and running, you need to get where people can find you. EduCyber can work with you to optimize your site so people can find you. The best thing about having someone find you through a search engine is when your site is optimized just right, they search for key words that you actually have goods for.
If you'd like to get more traffic to your web site,and especially if you'd like to have targeted traffic (people who want your goods or services) call today.

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© 2005 EduCyber, Inc. This newsletter is brought to you by EduCyber, Inc. EduNotes can be viewed 24 hours a day, 7 days a week online at http://www.educyber.com/edunotes/ . Visit us on the web at http://www.educyber.com or call us at (720) 275-4646. Permission is hereby granted to redistribute all or part of this newsletter as long as this entire copyright message is included.

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