Internet Technology

Every day, billions of e-mail messages are sent. But sometimes even e-mail isn't fast enough. Learn about instant messaging and check out what you can do with real-time computer communication.

By Jeff Tyson & Alison Cooper

It can be truly frustrating -- one minute you're zipping along just fine, the next, you can't get one page to load. What's causing the backup? Cable modems are part of a loop that begins at the cable company's central office, goes through a certain neighborhood or area, and comes back to the central office.

Fiber-optic lines have revolutionized phone calls, cable TV and the internet. It's a really cool technology that enables the long-distance transmission of data in light signals, and is used in many more ways than you think.

By Craig Freudenrich, Ph.D. & Chris Pollette

Your IP address is one of 4.3 billion unique numbers that identifies your computer on the internet. Learn the different IP classes and discover how your computer gets its own address.

By Chris Pollette & Stephanie Crawford

Odor-producing peripherals will bring smell to the Internet, and are just around the corner. Find out how they will work!

How far will the Internet go? The next phase of the Internet will take us to far reaches of our solar system and lay the groundwork for a communications system for manned missions to Mars and planets beyond.

By Kevin Bonsor

These days, you can find animated figures all across the Internet! Ready to give life to your own creations? Learn about dynamic HTML, animated GIFs, Java, Shockwave and Flash animation techniques.

By Tom Harris

Do you get the shakes when you're offline for more than 10 minutes? The wireless Internet lets you browse Web pages from a cell phone or PDA. Learn about the Wireless Application Protocol that makes it possible to surf on the go.

By Jeff Tyson

The funny little "a" with its tail circling back around it is probably one of the most commonly used symbols today. So it is truly amazing to learn that there is no official, universal name for it.

To make it easier to pick out a particular link from your list of favorites, Internet Explorer versions 5.0 and higher include custom bookmark icons for some sites. Learn how they do it and how these icons make your web surfing easier.

Internet search engines are special sites on the Web that help people find information stored on other sites. There are differences in the ways various search engines work, but they all perform three basic tasks.

By Curt Franklin

Learn how a cable modem works and see how dozens of television channels plus any Web site out there can flow over a single coaxial cable into your home.

By Curt Franklin

You can put anything you want on a Web page, from family pictures to business information, to your random thoughts and musings. Learn how to create, upload and promote your pages so they're available all over the world.

By Marshall Brain

Banner ads generate a big part of the revenue for many Web sites. Learn how banner ads work, how much they cost and how much you might earn if you put them on your Web page.

By Tom Harris

When you connect to the Internet, you might connect through a regular modem, a local-area network connection, a cable modem or a digital subscriber line (DSL) connection. DSL is a very high-speed connection that uses the same wires as a regular telephone line.

By Curt Franklin

One of the greatest things about the Internet is that nobody really owns it. It is a global collection of networks, both big and small, that connect together in many different ways to form the single entity that we know as "the Internet." How is this possible?

What's so special about a T1 line? It means the phone company has brought a fiber optic line into your office that can carry data at a rate of 1.544 megabits per second!

Once you spend a good deal of time on the Web, you start learning the language of internet addresses. Have you come across sites that use something in place of www? (Hint: you're on one now!)

Are you ready to get your brilliant idea online and active? Here's the breakdown of what you'll need to do.

While .html may be the most common file extension, what do the others mean? What about .htm, .asp or .php?

When you try to leave a Web site, either by using the Back button or by closing the browser window, the site reappears in a new window. Or maybe the site pops up in three or four new windows when you try to leave it. What's going on here?

How do large Web sites handle the load of millions of visitors a day? Learn about Domain Name Servers and load balancing switches.

"Howstuffworks.com" is a domain name. The com portion of the name is called the top-level domain name. See the other standard top-level names and who uses them.

Cookies have, for some reason, gained a rather sinister image, but a cookie is just one or more pieces of information stored as text strings on your machine. Find out how they work and how they got their dangerous image.

It's a frustration most of us encounter daily - the broken link. It's especially annoying when you're really looking forward to that page you expect to load! Find out what (besides human error) creates broken links.