Welcome to Multimedia Fundamentals! Karen Popovich Yahoo Messenger: popovich_karen

Today’s Agenda Course syllabus, class procedures, etc Introduction to Multimedia Introduction to Internet Lab time: Introduction to the CD Establish Yahoo Messenger account

Who needs to know about Multimedia? Anyone who plans to learn, teach, work, play, govern, serve, buy or sell in the information society would be at a great disadvantage if he or she were not familiar with multimedia technology. Who needed to know how to read books after the printing press was invented?

How is Multimedia changing the world? Mergers & Alliances (MSNBC.com, Time Warner, etc) Telecommuting Home shopping Business & Advertising Electronic Publishing Teaching and Learning Mass Media

What is a multimedia PC? A multimedia PC must have a CD-ROM (preferably DVD), enough RAM to interact with media in real time (128 MB+) and audio drivers supporting 16 and 32 bit waveform audio recording. It should have MIDI sound synthesis, MPEG movie playback capability and a Pentium IV+ class CPU with a clock speed of at least 1.0 GHz. Obviously, standards are changing monthly, but the above specifications should be minimally acceptable for the next six months or so. Each of the features listed are discussed in the textbook.

Pondering Questions Give examples of how multimedia has affected (a) the nation as a whole, (b) your local community, and (c) your personal life. In your chosen career or profession, would telecommuting be appropriate? How would it help or hinder your work? This chapter described how multimedia is changing the world through mergers and alliances, telecommuting, home shopping, electronic publishing, and computer-based learning. How else do you see multimedia changing the world? Compare the advantages and disadvantages of online shopping as you see them. What impact does online shopping have on traditional stores and shopping malls?

Pondering Questions Think of an example showing how a computer helped you learn something. What was the subject matter? What role did the computer play? Did you learn better because of the computer? Why or why not? Of all the different kinds of occupations you can think of, which ones need multimedia the most? The least? What is your chosen occupation? Why will you need to know about multimedia to do well in your line of work? Find out the domain name of the computer network at your school or place of work. If you have an address on that network, the domain name will be the part of your address after sign. For example, if your address is the domain name is toymakers.northpole.com.

What is the Internet? The Internet is a network of millions of computers that follow the Internet Protocol (IP) Because actual Internet addresses consist of four numbers separated by periods which would be quite difficult to remember, the Domain Name System (DNS) was invented to permit the use of alphabetic characters instead of numbers. This permits users to address, for example, the Library of Congress as instead of having to remember www.loc.gov The Internet also includes ftp://, gopher, usenet, archie and other services not usually considered part of the World Wide Web

What Are Domains and Subdomains? Every computer on the Internet has a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address. The numbers range from 0 to 255. The smallest address is and the largest is To make IP addresses easier for human beings to remember, a Domain Name System (DNS) was invented to permit the use of alphabetic characters instead of numbers.

What Are Domains and Subdomains? Domain names have the format: –hostname.subdomain.top-level-domain In the United States, top-level domains normally consist of one of the following: –. edu educational –.com commercial –.gov government –.mil military –.netnetwork support centers –.org other organizations

What is the World Wide Web? The World Wide Web is a networked hypertext system that allows the easy sharing of documents and multimedia files over the Internet. It was developed at the European Particle Physics Center (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland When the Web started, it was purely text based. After the National Center for Supercomputer Applications (NCSA) released the easy-to-use graphical interface named Mosaic, the Web became increasingly popular.

What Are the Internet Services? An Internet Protocol (IP) connection provides you with access to Internet services all over the world.

Electronic Mail

Listserv Listservs distribute messages to people whose names are on an electronic mailing list.

USENET Newsgroups USENET Newsgroups organize information according to a hierarchy of topics.

Chat A chat in progress on the Internet.

Videoconferencing This Figure shows how videoconferencing enables users to see and hear each other over the Internet.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) FTP transfers files over the Internet from one computer to another.

Multimedia Streaming Broadcasters are using multimedia streaming to distribute real-time content over the Internet.

What Is Client-Server Computing? The term client-server computing refers to the manner in which computers exchange information by sending it (as servers) and receiving it (as clients).

Brief History of the Internet The Internet originated when the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the United States Department of Defense began a network called ARPANET in 1969.

Brief History of the Internet During the 1970s, universities began using the Internet Protocol to connect their local networks to the ARPANET. Access to the Pentagon’s computers on the ARPANET was tightly controlled, but the university computers were permitted to communicate freely with one another.

Brief History of the Internet Because the IP software was public- domain, and the basic technology made joining the network relatively simple, the Internet became more diverse. Diversity posed security risks, however, and in 1983 the military segment broke off and became MILNET.

Brief History of the Internet In 1986, the National Science Foundation (NSF) began the NSFNET, a backbone that connected the nation’s five supercomputer centers at high speed. In 1991, NSF lifted the restriction that prohibited commercial entities from using the backbone.

Brief History of the Internet During the late 1990s, usage of the Internet exploded as costs declined, access increased, and new companies such as amazon.com, ebay.com, and yahoo.com pioneered the commercial potential of the Internet.

U.S. Web Advertising

Lab Time! Review CD Create Yahoo Messenger ID Taking a look at multimedia sites