Twin Oaks’ Internet Resources By Donald W. Larson February 22, 2006

Click mouse to continue Who Is Don Larson? Current Club Webmaster Almost 26 years of computer technology experience in: Programming Software Analysis and Design Database Design Project Management

Don’s Home Computer

Click mouse to continue Why Is This Topic Important? The club’s Internet Resources are owned by every member Know what you are paying for through your dues Someday you may be an officer of this club You might wish to learn more about Internet technology

Click mouse to continue First, A Few Definitions We need to understand the definitions of a few technical terms before we explore the basic understanding of the club’s computer technology resources: Protocol Internet Server ISP

Click mouse to continue What Is Protocol? A set of syntactic and semantic rules for exchanging information that includes: syntax of the information the ordering of words semantics of the information the meaning of a word or term rules for the exchange of information rules are prescribed patterns of behavior applied to the handling of data, such as rules of association, or rules of classification

Click mouse to continue What Is The Internet? A network of computer networks which operates world-wide using a common set of communications protocols The Internet, or simply the Net, is the publicly available worldwide system of interconnected computer networks that transmit data by packet switching using a standardized Internet Protocol (IP) and many other protocols

Click mouse to continue What Is A Server? In computing, a server is: A computer software application that carries out some task (i.e. provides a service) on behalf of yet another piece of software called a client There are many kinds of servers Some of those types of servers will be described in the remaining parts of this presentation

Click mouse to continue Domain Name Server A Domain Name Server (DNS) is the Internet’s way to map any valid and registered unique domain name to its actual Internet Protocol (IP) address: cnn.com becomes IP addresses from those four octets, define the actual locations of places on the internet Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) maintains registrations

Domain Name Server Illustration The ICANN Domain Name Server is the master of all other DNS It is the gatekeeper of all valid and registered domain names Click mouse to continue

Domain Name Components There are several hundred top-level domains:.com.org.net.gov.mil Other official two or three letter designations

Click mouse to continue What Is An ISP? The Internet Service Provider (ISP) is the vendor who purchases high-capacity communication lines and then sells smaller portions of that capacity to end-users such as you and I, via these types of connectivity: Dial-up DSL (Digital Subscriber Line) Cable

Click mouse to continue Twin Oaks Internet Presence We own a location on the Internet identified by our second-level Domain Name twinoakstoastmasters.org We refer to our domain name for simplicity’s sake instead of its Internet Protocol (IP) address of The first part of a second-level domain, such as “www” indicates the type of host (server) within a domain

Click mouse to continue File Server A File Server is a specialized computer program that allows authorized users to place, use, and retrieve files within their dedicated folder located on the file server We rent storage space on a file server for the club’s usage, such as: Images Web pages PDF’s Club schedule for members

File Server Illustration We are but one of many customers renting disk space on our server Our disk space is organized by folders holding different types of content Click mouse to continue

/List Server For club-wide messages, we use an /List Server: The /list server is a specialized computer program that maintains a list of addresses and associates that list to a particular address Any message and its content sent to that particular address is redistributed to all valid addresses maintained in that associated list Note: Our list server club-wide address is not publicized outside of our membership to avoid nuisance messages (spamming) being sent to our members

/List Server Illustration There could other lists constructed as needed by the club The same procedure is used for each list regardless of the number of recipient addresses Click mouse to continue

Web Server Our club maintains a Web Site on the Internet at: The President of the club assigns Webmasters as needed to keep the web and /list server information up-to-date and useful The web site accesses the files placed on the Club’s File Server within the folder structure or via links to external references on the Internet; such as content found on other web sites

Click mouse to continue Web Browser We members use a software program called a Web Browser to connect to our web site and navigate (surf) to the web pages there to view or download that content Some of the more popular web browsers are: Firefox Safari Internet Explorer

Web Server Illustration Click mouse to continue

Partial Club Web Site Content Mission and Vision Statements Club Meeting Schedule And Assignments Individual Member Progress Standard Meeting Agenda Workflow Of A Meeting Document Member PowerPoint Presentations Current and Previous Club Newsletters

Click mouse to continue Additional Information Links ICANNICANN Domain Name Management How Stuff WorksHow Stuff Works - More Internet Explanations Twin Oaks Toastmasters Web Site

Click mouse to continue I’m Done! Don Larson, CTM & CL Don Don’s Web Site Time Out Of MindTime Out Of Mind Former President and Vice President Of Education