Lesson 1

Welcome to the Internet Technologies Course.
The certification program is specifically designed to prepare you to take the exam providing an overview of entry-level knowledge of Internet technology. This is the second in a two-part series that teaches basic Internet terms and technologies. These are terms, types, and technologies you will use throughout your Web developing experience.

After completing the course, you will be able to:

1. Describe and evaluate the hardware and software you need to access the Internet
2. Describe the core components of the Internet infrastructure and how they relate to each other
3. Troubleshoot problems with Internet connectivity using various diagnostic tools
4. Describe the nature and purpose of Internet protocols
5. Explain the purpose of HTTP
6. Explore search engines and best practice techniques for searching
7. Explain the basic methods used to keep connections to the Internet secure

In this course, you will learn with two kinds of applets:

1. Image Display and Carousel
2. Tool Tip

This work is aimed at people already familiar with using the Internet, who want to know how and why it works. When I say technology, I do not mean the software and hardware, but also the human components which are an integral part of the overall system of the Internet.
The Internet is a worldwide collection of computer networks that began as a single network that was originally created in 1969 by ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency), a U.S. government agency that was far more interested in creating projects that would survive a nuclear war than in creating anything useful for the civilian population.
With ARPANET, the U.S. government hoped to create a network of computers that would allow communication between government agencies and certain educational centers that would be able to survive a nuclear explosion. It is doubtful that the original founders of ARPANET foresaw what we now know as "the Internet." From its humble beginnings as a military project, the ARPANET grew slowly throughout the 70's and 80's as a community of academics.
In addition to the U.S. ARPANET, other countries developed their own computer networks which quickly linked up to ARPANET, such as the UK's JANET (1983 onwards), and Australia's ACSnet (mid-1970s until replaced).
The various protocols, including IP, TCP, DNS, POP, and SMTP, took shape over the years, and by the time the World Wide Web (HTML and HTTP) was created in the early 90's, this "Internet" had become a fully functional, fairly robust system of network communication, able to support this new pair of protocols which eventually turned the Internet into a household word.

Internet Technologies is the second of two courses in the Internet Development Series. In the next lesson, you will learn about prerequisites to this course.