Overview
Internet, Web, eMail, Domain ... What is this? What
do I need?
The Internet and its Services
For a Private User: dial-up
connection and mailbox
For a Business or Organization: domain
name, eMail system, Web
presence, Intranet/Extranet
The Internet is a worldwide network of
computers, without any central administration. As soon as you connect
your computer (e.g. via a modem) to the Internet, you are part of
it!
The Internet provides several Services.
The mostly used and known are: The World-Wide-Web
and eMail. Other services, more in the
background, used to make the Internet work are: the Domain
Name System (DNS), File Transfer
(via FTP), Remote Administration (via
telnet) etc.
Most of the standards and protocols, which are used for the services
on the Internet, are developed by the Internet
Engineering Task Force (IETF),
a worldwide virtual organization of volunteering individuals. The
IETF, as well as ICANN and some other Internet-related organizations
work under the auspices of the Internet Society
(ISOC). Standards
for the Web are in addition being developed by the World
Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
As a private user,
the main services which you will use are most probably eMail and
the Web.
In order to connect your PC to the Internet, you will need a "dial-up
account" or an ADSL account
with one of the local "Internet Service
Providers" (ISP). In order to use
that account, your ISP will give you a dial-up (or ADSL)
username and a password. You need that when you connect to
the Internet. The password makes sure, that nobody else connects
to the Internet on your cost. Once you are connected, you can use
the Web, and Web-based eMail (like Yahoo! etc.).
mailbox
A usually more convenient, faster - and therefore cheaper way, is
to use an eMail program on your PC, like Pegasus Mail, Eudora, Netscape
and Mozilla, or MS Outlook and Outlook Express. In order to use
them, you will need your own mailbox.
Usually, every ISP provides one such mailbox with your dial-up account,
but in principle you can use any mailbox on every server in the
Internet. To check the eMail in our mailbox, you need the mailbox
username and password. This makes sure, that nobody can read
your mail without your permission. Although technically quite unrelated,
with dial-up accounts,
the mailbox username is usually the same like the dial-up username,
and some ISPs use even the same password for dial-up and mailbox.
Most of them however allow two different passwords for the different
functions.
As a business or organizational
user, you will require a bit more. While a free eMail
address like <myBigCompany@yahoo.com> is technically sufficient,
it does not really look very professional. So, the first what you
want is to be able to use your own name, in the Internet called
the "Domain Name".
Domain Name
Domain names were originally used to give Internet hosts a more
"user friendly" designation than the IP numbers by which
they are technically addressed, but the use of domain names exceeded
that meanwhile. A domain name has to be registered
via a registrar with the registry
of the next higher level domain: To get e.g. a "comapny.com"
domain name, you will need to register with a registrar of the ".com"
domain. To get a "company.com.vn"
domain, you need to register with a registrar of the ".com.vn"
domain, i.e. currently VNNIC
(which is right now playing the double role of registry and registrar)
or one of its registrars. There are domain fees
to be paid, usually per year, but in Vietnam in addition also to
setup the domain. The fees vary from domain to domain. A ".com"
domain e.g. is much cheaper than a ".com.vn" domain.
Domain names are usually available on a "first come, first
serve" principle. If you are looking to get "mySmartCompany.com",
but somebody else was faster and registered that name already, then
you will have to choose another name. So you'd better be fast to
register the name which you intend to use!
eMail
With your own domain name, you can have an eMail address like <sales@mySmartCompany.com>.
In order to use that, you will need an eMail
host, which either redirects your mail to your existing mailbox
(e.g. with your ISP), or which provides you a separate mailbox.
As you see, there is a difference between an eMail address
and a mailbox: Mail to many different
eMail addresses can end up in the same single mailbox.
As a small business or organization, you will probably not be permanently
connected to the Internet, so in order to save cost, it is advisable
to have your own internal mailserver,
which will pickup the mail for all your employees from the (single)
mailbox of your ISP and distribute it internally. Your staff will
have now their own eMail address like <John@mySmartCompany.com>
and <Thuy@mySmartCompany.com>. eMail to <sales@mySmartCompany.com>
might reach John and Thuy, but when she leaves the company one day,
it would be delivered to her successor, so that your customers don't
need to change their eMail directories.
Congratulations! You have now a well-looking, well-working and cost-effective
eMail system. You can proudly print your eMail address on your business
card: not <jo_noname2003@yahoo.com> (which also nobody can
remember), but <director@mySmartCompany.com>.
What's next?
Web Presence
Your Website, in its most simple form, might be only like a short
brochure, a business profile, which informs
your visitors about what your company is doing and how to contact
you. In its most complex form, it could be your virtual
shop, where you not only provide information,
delivery condition and prices about
your products (like in a catalog), but where your customers can
directly order and pay
on-line. Certain products might even get delivered
via the Internet.
While eBusiness starts already when you
use eMail to communicate with your customers and suppliers, true
eCommerce is only applied, when payment
is done online.
In order to create your Website, you will first need a designer.
A good one will not create a "nice, beautiful" site, but
one which fits your purpose. Similarly like a hotel lobby looks
different from a supermarket, the "look and feel" of a
website should correspond with its purpose and the brand image of
the owner. To get functionality beyond the basic navigation, especially
when it comes to online shopping, you probably will need a web programmer
to create all that code which is executed in the background either
on the webserver, or on the visitor's PC. Finally, you will need
a Webserver, i.e. a special computer which
is permanently connected to the Internet, on which your website
will be hosted. The technical requirements for that server depend
also on the complexity of your website.
Of course you will want that visitors find your site. One of the
most successful ways is to rely on search engines
to lead visitors to your virtual home. However, in order to get
a high ranking with search engines, a site has to be designed from
beginning with the corresponding requirements in mind.
Intranet/Extranet
Depending on your kind of business, the Internet might help you
with your internal operations. If you use the Internet to allow
your own staff to connect to your internal PCs, e.g. from home or
during business trips, then this setup is usually called an "Intranet".
If you allow your business partners (suppliers or certain customers)
access to part of your information network, then this is called
an "Extranet". In both cases
usernames and passwords permit access only for authorized users.
Intranets and Extranets can also be very useful to exchange
data between your branch offices or subsidiaries. Each of your shops
might e.g. submit their daily statistics via a password protected
webinterface to a central database and your headquarters' administration
department has thus crucial up-to-date data for their planning,
logistics, etc.
If this everything sounds too complicated to you, don't worry.
We have practical experience in all those
fields and can assist you in determining your needs. And since we
can provide and assist you with everything, from getting you a dial-up
account to creating and running an Extranet, you need to contact
only one place and don't need to care about co-ordinating a number
of different companies for different tasks.
For more details on what we do, please have a look on our sections
regarding Web Design, Hosting,
Domain Registration, and eCommerce.
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