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Unit 7 - Information and Comunication Technologies

Initial situation

Javier had been working as a night security guard for two

years in a hospital. .His labour situation was stable and his
salary was adequate, but he was a bit tired of working the
night shift, so he decided to look for another job. He had a
lot of spare time during the night, so he registered for a
Vocational Training Course which could be done through
the Internet using the E-learning methodology. Finally, with
a little effort and commitment he got his degree.

Javier went
to his
friend’s
house, Ana,
who had
found her
first job
short time
ago. He
wanted to
talk to her
about his
idea of
getting
another job.
Source: www.wpclipart.com
He also told
her that he was going to write his curriculum because he
wanted to hand it in several companies. Ana thought it was
a good idea but she pointed out that nowadays there are
many useful tools which could help him get a job.

Ana told Javier that he only had access to a small number

of the job vacancies which are available in the labour
market, because, when you use the traditional ways of job
searching, the information you get is restricted mainly to
advertisements, applying for posts in companies and the
information that your friends and acquaintances can give
you (what is known as your social net).

“If you use the new technologies of information and

communication -Ana told him- you will gain access to much
more information because your social net will also change
completely. On the one hand, it is easier to keep in touch
with people who, for any reason, you cannot frequently see
or talk to, as our friend Laura, who moved to Rome last
year. On the other hand, your social net will widen a lot to
 include many people who you really don’t know but who
can help you achieve your goals, such as getting a job,
acquiring specific knowledge about any subject, sharing
experiences and hopes, etc.

Ana offered herself to help Javier. She explained him which

tools he could use, how they are used and what they are
used for.

All these opportunities that Ana showed Javier made him

feel very excited so he decided to go deeper into the world
of new technologies.

World Wide Web I

The next day Javier comes back to Ana’s house to begin

their “classes” about the different tools that are available to
get a job. Ana points out that his first thing he has to do is
to install a client application (or web browser) in his
computer, such as: Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox,
Opera, Konqueror, Safari, etc. Javier installed Internet
Explorer in his computer some time ago and he is uses it
regularly, therefore he thinks he doesn’t need to spend
much time with this tool. However, Ana thinks she may
clarify and complete some of his knowledge.

Internet is just a wide net of interconnected computers which are able to communicate with each
other. It is the tool which allows communication between computers.
One of the main uses of the Internet is the access to the WWW (abbreviation of World Wide
Web), which is a system of interlinked documents (or web pages) which are usually written using
a code known as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). However, it can also be written using
other encrypting codes such CSS, ASP, PHP, etc.
Other applications which are available in the Internet are: e-mail, remote access, collaboration,
file sharing, internet telephony, etc. Therefore we must always bear in mind that the Internet is not
the same as the Web, although many people say “I have connected to the Internet” when they
really mean “I’m using the WWW services through the Internet”.
The tool used to access the WWW contents is the web browser. When anyone wants to ask for a
specific resource from the Internet they have to write in the web browser’s address bar the URI
(Uniform Resource Identifier) of the computer which has got the resource (a web server or
website).

Every machine in the Internet has a unique address which identifies and distinguishes it. It is the
IP address, which is a group of four numbers separated by dots, for example, you can write in
your web browser 209.85.227.103. Sometimes it is very difficult for us to remember those
numbers, so each IP is associated to a domain name, for example www.google.com is the
domain name associated to the IP address just mentioned. You can check this writing both
addresses in your web browser.
 World Wide Web II

A website is a collection of related webpages, images,

videos or other digital assets that are addressed with a
common domain name or IP address in an Internet
Protocol-based network. A website is hosted on at least
one web server.

When the client browser and the web server exchange information they have to use a common
language (the protocol). The protocols used in web exchanges are: HTTP (HyperText Transfer
Protocol) or HTTPS (HTTP SSL, which codes the text that will be transmitted through the net).

Web servers can also work as mail servers, ftp servers, etc. Therefore when the web client
(web browser) begins the exchange of information the communication protocol must be explicitly
indicated. That is, the web client must point out the service number which is going to be used. It
is usually 80 for HTTP, 443 for HTTPs, 20 and 21 for FTP, 25 and110 for mail, etc.
There are many web pages where the user can find all these service number and their uses,
such as:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers.

When the web server saves information it arranges this information in different folders (as any
computer user does with the hard disk), so an URI is formed by: protocol + domain + folder path
+ the name of the web page or the resource you ask for, for example
http://www.museodelprado.es/coleccion/que-ver/2-horas-en-el-museo.

To know more ...

How the web works

Understanding web addresses

Self-assessment
Fill in the missing words

is a system of interlinked documents accessed via the internet.

is a safe protocol for web communication.

A identifies the right place of a web resource.

Each IP address has associated a name.

A web browser is a application to work in the web.

 E-mail

Ana told Javier that electronic mail (e-mail) is a very useful

tool which would allow him to keep in touch with his friends
and acquaintances. She also told him that if he used the e-
mail he wouldn’t have to spend much time moving around
companies to hand his curriculum in, because he could do
that right from home.

E-mail is, in fact, quite similar to ordinary mail, although there are some differences which make
this tool more advantageous:

You don’t need paper, envelopes or stamps.

E-mails are much faster than ordinary mail. The messages get to the receiver in just a few
minutes, no matter where the receiver is.
From the user’s point of view, e-mail is a computer facility which allows the user send a message
right from his computer to the receiver’s computer. Any e-mail consists of two components: a brief
subject and the text itself.

Both the sender of the e-mail and the receiver need to have a
unique e-mail address in the Internet, which takes the
following format: name@mailserver, for example
john@gmail.com. The software application that sender and
receiver use to communicate is the email client (for example
www.hotmail.com. or www.yahoo.es).

Any e-mail consists of four different parts: from (the sender’s

address), to (the receiver’s address), subject (the topic of the
e-mail) and the text (the content of the e-mail).

To know more ...

Understanding e-mail addresses

E-mail technology

What we have explained up to now regarding e-mails is just the user’s perspective of it (that is,
what the user actually sees). However, e-mail technology is much more complex.

The sender does not send the e-mail directly to the receiver’s computer using the e-mail client
application, but to a different computer: a mail server, which is part of an ISP (Internet Service
Provider). The mail server forwards the original e-mail to another mail server. This process goes
on until the e-mail is delivered to the mail server of the receiver’s ISP. The receiver’s mail server
stores all its clients’ e-mails and arranges them in different mailboxes.

When users want to read their e-mails, they have to log on to the mail server of their ISP, using
their e-mail client, and ask for the e-mails from their mailbox. The e-mails are instantly sent by the
mail server to the client’s e-mail and shown in the users’ screen.

Source:www.learnthenet.com

Demonstrations

In this web page you can see how e-mail works

To know more ...

How private is your e-mail?

Protect yourself. Top ten privacy tips

Important aspects

Some important aspects to bear in mind:

The e-mail sending mechanism works properly even if the receiver is not on-line when the
e-mail is sent because the messages are automatically stored in the receiver’s mailbox.
When an e-mail cannot be delivered to the receiver’s mailbox, the mail server must send a
bounce message back the sender, indicating the problem.
Privacy of the e-mails is guaranteed because the receiver can only access their mailbox
using a log-in name and a password.
Most e-mail applications allow: attaching files, sending an e-mail to more than one receiver
(multiple recipients), replying e-mails, creating a mailing list, arranging contacts and e-mails
in different folders, etc

Fuente: www.learnthenet.com

Self-assessment
Regarding format, which one of the following e-mail addresses is wrong?

xxx@yyy.zzz
@Dav.hotmail.com
Gary_yahoo@gmail.com
Rob.Phoenix@mimail.gov