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A Brief Tutorial On
The Components Of Small Business Internet Services
The goal of this essay is to
itemize and define all of the different Internet services a small
business buys and uses.
The Internet works so well, we rarely think about its individual components.
However, sometimes we have to make decisions. Sometimes you have to fix things. In both cases what follows may be what you need to know.
The Swiss Army Knife vs. Hammers, Screwdrivers, Saws and Files
Information Technology types like to compare "all in one" solutions with the famous Swiss Army Knife(tm) (SAK). The SAK isn't a particularly good hammer, screwdriver, saw or file, but it's better than nothing and easier to carry with you.
If that idea is hard to swallow, let's try a food metaphor. Some businesses buy their Internet services in a "full meal deal," - all services purchased from a single provider.
Others purchase their Internet services "ala carte," picking specialized firms for two (2) or more of their Internet
infrastructure components. The latter case is more common.
Because you should know what each of the components are, and who provides it for you;
this essay will introduce these components, in halfway simple terms, so you can.
Some details:
THE INTERNET (THE NET)
"The Net", is a publicly accessible worldwide system of interconnected computer networks, made up of hundreds of thousands of smaller commercial, academic, domestic and government networks. The Net carries various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, online games, usenet newsgroups, and the interlinked web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web.
There are few limits to your use of The Net, beyond connection, and connection speed. You get connection to the net via an ISP, an employer, a university or a library. Other than bandwidth and availability, the only limitations on free use of The Net, come from governments like the People's Republic of China, Cuba, N. Korea, and most Islamic dictatorships.
Sometimes we conceptualize the internet as a Magic Cloud. If you give The Cloud a request it will answered, though sometimes with that annoying literal interpretation unique to computers. If you give The Cloud a properly addressed message, it will be delivered, or the Cloud will tell you why not. If someone sends you a properly addressed message, it will be held for you until you pick it up. More than you probably want to know about the PFM Cloud is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet
WORLD WIDE WEB ("WWW" or simply the "Web")
A system of interlinked, hypertext documents that runs over the Internet.
Using a Web browser, users can view Web pages that may contain text, images, and other multimedia.
Users may navigate between web pages using hyperlinks.
For a larger description see this article on Wikipedia .
LOCAL WIRING / WiFi
You can think of them the same way you think about telephone wiring and/or wireless
telephones. This part of your Internet connection will include: Modem,
Firewall, Router, Hub, Base Station. Sometimes they are all in one box, sometimes
one box for each function. And of course connecting cables.
INTERNET SERVICES PROVIDER (ISP)
Somebody has to connect you between the wires to your building and the
Internet. That's the job of the ISP. Sometimes ISP service is included
with transport / connectivity, and sometimes it is separate as can be the
case with DSL. Sometimes your ISP does everything below, sometimes each
item below is a separate vendor. Usually it's a mix.
The ISP may be the same as your transport provider, or it may be someone
else. With cable, satellite, municipal WiFi and cellphone, your ISP is almost always the
same as your transport provider. With DSL it may or may not be the
telephone company. Telephone companies may offer ISP services but are required to offer
connections to other ISP's like MSN. Whomever provides that connection also provides
end user support. If you the customer have strong preference for another
provider, they connect you to that ISP - where technically possible.
Some telephone companies offer "naked DSL" which is Transport and ISP
service but nothing else, not even mail or news services
Some ISPs will connect you to the Internet and provide other services
like mail and news and web hosting. Sometimes this "all in one" makes
sense, other times it does not.
One way to look at this decision is to ask yourself whether you carry a
tool box full of tools - or - a Leatherman(tm) / Swiss Army Knife(tm)
type tool. The all-in-one does indeed have screwdrivers and saws and a
wine bottle opener. An all-in-one is always better than having *none*
of these tools when you need one. However the all-in-one tool is not a
particularly good screw driver or wine bottle opener. Specialized tools tend
to be better when you work with them all the time.
TRANSPORT / CONNECTIVITY
The wires between your home/building and the ISP. (or wireless)
In the early days, transport wasn't very confusing. You had a modem
that used a telephone line, and that line wasn't available for phone
calls when you were online. The phone company did NOT connect you to
the Internet, it connected you to an ISP who did that and who billed you
separately.
Nowadays we have broadband, delivered either through DSL on a telephone
line that CAN be used for phone calls while you're on line, or Cable
Modems delivering connectivity via your TV cable service, radio or
satellite connections that continue to work when you're watching TV.
Some businesses get connectivity via the phone company using older tech
like ISDN or T1. New technologies will include broadband over your power
lines, cellular/wireless phone networks, municipal wireless links and orbital satellite links.
OUTGOING MAIL SERVER
This is generally a service of your ISP. However, "naked DSL" is
Transport and ISP service but nothing else, so you don't even get
incoming and outgoing mail services and have to get them from someone else.
INCOMING MAIL SERVER & MAIL BOX
We love email. With all of those free email services offered by Google,
Hotmail and Yahoo, most of us have several email addresses, in addition
to the ones we get from our ISP. These email addresses are user
"accounts" on some computer system that's attached to the Internet
somewhere. It doesn't matter where on earth it resides.
Your incoming mail server is a computer connected to the Internet
24/7/365. Mail addressed to you is stored there in your MAIL BOX till you connect to the Internet and ask to see it. You can connect from anywhere on the internet to anywhere on the internet to get or see your email.
Some mail boxes are also available to you via the world wide web through
a browser - however that is a completely different Internet service, called WEB MAIL SERVICE discussed below.
Your incoming mail server should have value added services like spam
filtering and virus filtering. Sometimes these services cost extra,
sometimes they're free.
POP MAIL BOX
Nearly all subscribers to individual Internet service provider e-mail accounts have a POP mail box.
A POP mail box is simply a file on a computer somewhere that holds your mail for you until you decide to pick it up. Your email client software
identifies you to the computer holding your mail and your mail is delivered to you when you ask for it. Most email client software when it is
running, checks back with the POP mailbox about every 10 minutes to see if there is any new mail for you.
Some people have more than one POP Mail box to handle the different aspects of their lives - work, family, hobbies, etcetera.
Most modern e-mail client software uses POP3.
DOMAIN NAME REGISTRAR
You lease your domain name by the year through a Domain Name Registrar.
A Domain Name Registrar is a company who will check to see if the name you want is available, and if so, register you as the owner.
Ownership means forever, but in realty, it's more like a lease. If you don't keep making payments on time, it's not yours any more.
Still, if you don't miss a payment, the domain is yours as long as you want it.
Once you have secured YourDomain.com the Domain Name Registrar tells the global DNS that any request for
your domain name should be translated to the
TCP/IP address of your web host.
Examplewww.YourDomain.com = 199.242.204.106.
You can pre-pay your domain name registration (lease) for up to ten years or pay for it annually.
Leases are typically $15/year but you can find them cheaper at places that are tougher to work with.
There are dozens of Domain Name Registrars, including TuCows.com, NetworkSolutions.com, Register.com and www.Dotster.com.
Generally if you have less than five or six domains, you're better off working with a small company
like Dotster.com who will charge you a tiny bit more than
a big company like GoDaddy.com whose business is
based on registering hundreds and thousands of domains to the same customers.
DNS Changes:
When you lease a new domain name, or make changes to your existing domain's DNS information,
(like move to a new web host) it takes 24-48
hours to inform all of the DNS servers on the global Internet of that
news. It may seem odd that a global service that instantly serves
billions of requests a minute would take 24-48 hours to spread the news
of your changes, but it does. The best way to manage the complexity of
hundreds of millions of domains and web sites is "batch" mode - once or
twice a day, rather than "real time" or instant mode.
You can register a domain name without having a designated Web Site
Host. You can, if you're in a hurry, but it's generally better to have that decided ahead of time.
Generally you will tell the registrar'S web-based domain management pages that requests to
the WWW for your domain www.YourDomain.com should be referred to two
nameservers. e.g.:
NS1.NAMESERVER.COM
NS2.NAMESERVER.COM.
Sometimes the Registrar will want to know what IP number translates to a
given nameserver. For example
NS1.DNSname.COM translates to 204.228.229.170
NS2.DNSname.COM translates to 204.228.229.171
IMPORTANT: When you register your domain name be sure to ask your Web
Site Host for at least two (2) name servers and their associated IP
addresses.
DNS
Domain Name Service (DNS) is how things are sorted things out on the World Wide Web. There are many DNS servers at all levels.
At the global internet level, a DNS server will translate a request for Google.com into a number called a
TCP/IP ADDRESS. A TCP/IP address is four 256-bit numbers
(0.0.0.0 to 255.255.255.255 - about 4 billion options) but that's more than you need to know now.
It's just part of how this big complex internet thing works so well.
DNS happens at every intersection on the the internet (The Global Information Superhighway). It also happens
inside of your ISP (AOL/MSN) and inside your office/home.
Generally your web-host will not charge you separately for DNS service (there are exceptions for complex services).
You may pay a setup fee that includes DNS setup.
You mainly need to be aware of the Global DNS when you set up your domain at the registrar, but it may come up in conversations with your web-host.
WEB MAIL SERVICE
This is getting email through your web browser instead of an email client that lives on one or more computers that are normally used by you.
Generally the same company that gives you incomming mail service and POP email boxes will offer a web option.
Most of the "internet free mail" services have you read your email through your web browser.
INTERNET FREE MAIL
These are Services like GoogleMail, Hotmail, Yahoo mail, etc. What you get is
A unique email address like myname@gmail.com
Incoming mail services
Outbound email services
Generally you don't pay money
Generally you get mail through a Web Browser.
Some Internet free mail services, Like GMail, let you access your mail though an email client like Outlook or Thunderbird.
WEB SITE HOSTING
Somewhere on the net there lives at least one computer that stores your
website. Anytime anyone in the world asks for something from your
domain, your server(s) hear the request and reply.
Some business own zillions of web servers (Google has over 100,000) and
employ teams of systems administrators to manage them. Most small
businesses rent timeshare space from a business who hosts dozens of
other customers.
WEB SITE DESIGNS
Web design, like architecture and fine art is an area where there are
limitless options and a limitless range of costs.
Your web site designer MAY be the same as your web host service. However
buying separate host and designer services is quite common.
If your designer doesn't also host, s/he can generally recommend a
number of worthy companies to host your site. They will in such cases be
likely to have some history and other business relationships. This is
good for you because they probably can talk tech with each other much
faster than either of them can talk tech with you.
WEB DELIVERED SERVICES (i.e.: VISA processing)
Your web host may offer online VISA processing, or it can be delivered
by a financial institution with whom the web host has a contractual
relationship, or you can go out and find your own. PayPal.com is a
popular option for small volume businesses.
The costs of these services will vary widely so shop hard, and review
your options and circumstances about once a year.
EMAIL CLIENT SOFTWARE
It is important to understand the difference between email that is
viewed from your own hard drive and email which is viewed via a web
browser.
An "email client" program lives on your computer. When you look at your
mail via a web browser, it is called web mail. (See WEB BROWSER below):
Web mail does not make copies on your hard disk. You read it only
when you are connected to the Internet.
An email client copies your mail off the net, and stores it on your own
hard disk. Products in this class of program have names like: Outlook,
Netscape, Mozilla, Firefox, Eudora.
Generally email is deleted from the inbox server as soon as it is
downloaded to your workstation. There are exceptions, as when someone
reads email from both work and from home. In these instances, the home
system is instructed to NOT delete email from the inbox server on
download - email is left there when viewed from home, so that a copy can
be viewed from work the next day.
Email client software lets you read your email and compose replies even
when not connected to the Internet.
Mozilla and Netscape and some other programs, include both an email
client and a web browser. They don't use different names for the two
components. This can be confusing.
EMAIL ALIASES
Aliases are cool, but a lot of business owners don't know what they are
and how they work.
Say you have leased the right to use the domain "YourDomain.com" and
want email addresses like:
|
sales@YourDomain.com | |
accounting@YourDomain.com | |
service@YourDomain.com | |
info@YourDomain.com | |
charlie.lim@YourDomain.com
|
You can have your Web Host create these actual mail boxes for each of
the above, or you can have them create aliases. Email aliasing is
generally provided by the same company that hosts your website.
An alias simply says:
Translate THIS to THAT.
Here's some examples using the addresses above as aliases followed by
the email account to which email will be 'bounced.'
|
sales@YourDomain.com | --- forwards to--- | nancy1232@aol.com | |
accounting@YourDomain.com | --- forwards to--- | charlie54@msn.com | |
service@YourDomain.com | --- forwards to--- | blowfish@yahoo.com | |
info@YourDomain.com | --- forwards to--- | shotgun@verizon.net | |
charlie.lim@YourDomain.com | --- forwards to--- | charlie32984@gmail.com |
In your email program, (Outlook, Netscape, Mozilla, Eudora) the alias in
the left column above is what you would place in the "Reply To" field.
The address on the right column are where you would go to retrieve your
mail. The outside world need never see the right column.
WEB BROWSER
These are programs like Microsoft's Internet Explorer, Netscape,
Mozilla, Firefox, Opera etc. All are free. These programs live on your
workstation and when you ask to see www.google.com or www.gmail.com they
show it to you.
USENET NEWS
For more comprehensive introduction see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usenet
I describe usenet as 65,000 specialty magazines (Persian Cat Fancier, Cigar Aficionado, Model Railroading News) with no editorial and a wide open
"letters to the editor" section.
This is another aspect of the internet that is provided for free, but access to usenet may cost you.
Usenet news ("news") is normally provided by your ISP but not always. For instance Basic DSL
(also called "Naked DSL") does not include usenet news.
Usenet news readers are a part of Outlook, Thunderbird, Netscape, Eudora and Mozilla. In fact most email clients have them. Setting up a
usenet reader is surprisingly confusing, so if you're doing it for the first time, have patience.
Google has a usenet access system that you can access via your web browser.
The total volume of Usenet news is over 20 gigabytes a day, so most
ISP's don't' carry all newsgroups. This creates a market for
specialized news services who do carry all usenet news groups as a
separate business. Some ISP's contract out usenet to specialized
businesses - Comcast for instance, contracts usenet service to
www.giganews.com, who gives Comcast customers limited access as way to offer their full service deals for extra fees.
Not all of those daily gigabytes are porn. There are newsgroups where people publish copyrighted and not-copyrighted materials
including music, movies, talking books, funny videos and so on.
So there you have it: |