When there is a high demand for certain sites you will find that these sites are slower to load, than times when demand is minimal. The NASA site did demonstrate this quite well last year when Voyager was big news. The link could not handle the *load. To relieve the load, *mirror sites soon popped up to spread the load around.

*Load – traffic
*Mirror Sites – additional sites with identical information

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How do I check my InfoChannel email from another Internet connection?

Answer: If you are away from your computer, just visit http://mail.infochan.com from any computer hooked up to the Internet! You will be prompted to enter the first part of your e-mail address (for username@mail.infochan.com enter “username”), your e-mail password, and then click Login. Please remember, if your e-mail address is username@infochan.com, you will need to change the E-mail Server to “infochan.com”. The first time you use the service it will ask you to customize the settings for your online account. Enter your name and verify that the return address reflects your e-mail address, and then click Save Config. After which you will be able to view all the messages in your inbox.

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For 28.8 or 33.6 modems, normal connect rates will be between 21.6 and 28.8. Keep in mind that the connect rate reported at logon is just a snapshot of that moment and your actual rates will fluctuate up and down during the time you are connected.

You can try disconnecting any other telephones, answering or fax machines hooked to any other phone jacks or you may want to run a dedicated line from your computer phone jack straight to the phone box on your house, bypassing other house phone jacks and circuits that may be causing line noise or other interference. You can check modem setup; be sure maximum speed is 115k (this is port speed for most 28.8 or 33.6 modems), data compression is on and flow control is set to hardware.

Regarding 56k modems and initial connect rates, some of the same factors apply. In addition, the distance between you and your local telephone company's CO (Central Office) or local exchange and the number of analog to digital conversions along that route will also affect your ability to connect faster. Generally, if you live more than 3 miles from your CO or local exchange, you may not be able to connect any faster with a 56k modem than you did with a 33.6 or 28.8 though, it is possible you may see some improvement in throughput.

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The Internet is a global network of computers that communicate using a common language. It's similar to the international telephone system -- no one owns or controls the whole thing, but it is connected in a way that makes it work like one big network. There are over thirty million people that have e-mail access to the Internet. That includes you.

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The World-Wide Web is a term used to describe all of the information and multimedia content available on the Internet. To access this information, you use an application called a web browser. *Microsoft Internet Explorer is a web browser application. Internet Explorer lets you search, find, view and download information on the Internet. "Hypertext" makes the web an easy place to navigate. Using a file format called "HTML" (hypertext markup language), "hypertext" lets you "hyperlink" or jump from one page on the web to other pages -- those pages can contain images, movies, sounds, 3D worlds, just about anything. The pages and files can be located anywhere on the Internet. The "hyperlinks" are the connecting strands that form the World Wide Web. When you are connected to the web, you have equal access to information anywhere in the world; there are no additional "long distance" charges or restrictions.

*Netscape Navigator is also web browser application

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File Transfer Protocol (FTP), a standard Internet protocol, is the simplest way to exchange files between computers on the Internet. Like the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), which transfers displayable web pages and related files, and the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP), which transfers e-mail, FTP is an application protocol that uses the Internet's TCP/IP protocols. FTP is commonly used to transfer Web page files from their creator to the computer that acts as their server for everyone on the Internet. It's also commonly used to download programs and other files to your computer from other servers.

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In information technology, a protocol is a special set of rules that end points (in a telecommunication connection) use when they communicate. Protocols exist at several levels in a telecommunication connection. There are protocols between each of several functional layers and the corresponding layers at the other end of a communication. Both end points must recognize and observe a protocol.

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SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a TCP/IP protocol used in the trasmission of e-mail. However, it is limited in its ability to receive messages. It is therefore usually used with one of two other protocols -- POP3 or Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) -- that lets the user access messages in a server mailbox and download them periodically from the server. In other words, users typically use a program that utilizes SMTP for sending e-mail and either POP3 or IMAP for receiving messages that have been stored for them at their local server.

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Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is the basic communication language (or protocol) of the Internet. When you are set up with direct access to the Internet, your computer is provided with a copy of the TCP/IP instructions, just as every other computer on the Internet, so that messages may be sent or information transmitted between any computer on the Internet.

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A server is a computer program (specific set of ordered operations for a computer to perform) that provides services to other computer programs in the same computer or other computers. A client is the computer requesting these services.

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Newsgroups are electronic discussion groups in which you can share information and opinions with people all over the world. Within each newsgroup, you'll find any number of articles on a given subject, and many subjects being discussed. Usenet newsgroups allow you to reply to articles you have read and to publish ("post") your own articles for others to read. Newsgroups are organized and grouped by title using compound names such as rec.sport.basketball.college. Here, rec specifies recreational topics, sport specifies a subgroup of recreation, and so on.

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A system capacity constraint that may result in reduced data flow during peak load conditions.

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A command for accessing limited account information for a user on a netowrk. On some systems, finger only reports whether the user is currently logged on. Other systems return additional information, such as the user's full name, address, and telephone number. Of course, the user must first enter this information into the system. Many e-mail programs now have a finger utility built into them.

Note: Finger is limited to providing information such as the full name of the account holder and address information, intentionally made public by the account holder.

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Short for Packet Internet Groper, PING is a utility used to determine whether a specific IP address is accessible. It works by sending a packet to the specified address and waiting for a reply. PING is used primarily to troubleshoot Internet connections. There are many freeware and shareware PING utilities available.

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An IP address is an identifier for a computer or device on a TCP/IP network. Networks using the TCP/IP protocol route messages based on the IP address of the destination. The format of an IP address is a 32-bit numeric address written as four numbers separated by periods. Each number can be ranged 0 to 255. For example, 1.160.10.240 could be an IP address.

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A packet is a piece of a message transmitted over a packet-switching network. One of the key features of a packet is that it contains the destination address in addition to the data. In IP networks, packets are often called datagrams.

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Freeware is copyrighted software given away for free by the author. Although it is available for free, the author retains the copyright, which means that you cannot do anything with it that is not expressly allowed by the author. Usually, the author allows people to use the software, but not sell it.

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Shareware is software distributed on the basis of an honour system. Most shareware is delivered free of charge, but the author usually requests that you pay a small fee if you like the program and use it regularly. By sending the small fee, you become registered with the producer so that you can receive service assistance and updates. You can copy shareware and pass it along to friends and colleagues, but they too are expected to pay a fee if they use the product.

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Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) is an international communications standard for sending voice, video, and data over digital telephone lines or normal telephone wires. ISDN supports data transfer rates of 64 Kbps (64,000 bits per second). Most ISDN lines offered by telephone companies give you two lines at once, called B channels. You can use one line for voice and the other for data, or you can use both lines for data to give you data rates of 128 Kbps, three times the data rate provided by today's fastest modems.

The original version of ISDN employs baseband transmission. Another version, called B-ISDN, uses broadband transmission and is able to support transmission rates of 1.5 Mbps. B-ISDN requires fiber optic cables and is not widely available.

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A type of digital data transmission in which each medium (wire) carries only one signal, or channel, at a time. Most communications involving computers uses baseband transmission. This includes communications from the computer to devices (printers, monitors, and so on), communications via modems, and the majority of networks. An exception is B-ISDN networks, which use broadband transmission.

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: A type of data transmission in which a single medium (wire) can carry several channels at once. Cable TV, for example, uses broadband transmission. In contrast, baseband transmission allows only one signal at a time.

Most communications between computers, including the majority of local-area networks, use baseband communications. An exception is B-ISDN networks, which employ broadband transmission.

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A technology that uses glass (or plastic) threads (fibers) to transmit data. A fiber optic cable consists of a bundle of glass threads, each of which is capable of transmitting messages modulated (to blend data into a carrier signal) onto light waves.

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"Cookies" are the little bits of information that Web sites leave on your system to identify you (and your interests) when you return to the same web site. They are largely harmless, but some people don't like them on principle and to others they raise privacy questions

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Answer: The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a standard way for a Web server to pass a Web user's request to an application program and to receive data back to forward to the user. When the user requests a Web page (for example, by clicking on a highlighted word or entering a Web site address), the server sends back the requested page. However, when a user fills out a form on a Web page and sends it in, it usually needs to be processed by an application program. The Web server typically passes the form information to a small application program that processes the data and may send back a confirmation message. This method or convention for passing data back and forth between the server and the application is called the Common Gateway Interface (CGI). It is part of the Web's Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

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