Smiling Linked Computers

The Internet is a global network of computers. This global network connects many smaller individual networks. For example, the computers in the East Los Angeles College Library are connected to other computers on campus. All the departments on campus are then connected to a larger network in the state. The state network is connected to regional, national and international networks. The resulting network is a global communications system that allows you to access millions of files.

The Internet functions based on a set of "protocols" that allow you to communicate with people, move files between computers, and find and share information. The protocols you are likely to use are:

email
 for communicating with people across the Internet.
http
 (hypertext transfer protocol) for accessing web pages.
ftp
 (file transfer protocol) for transferring files from one computer to another across the Internet.
telnet
 for logging into other computers such as databases. This was commonly used before the Web, but today is used much less frequently.
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