Exercises

1. Find in the text the English equivalents of the following words and word-combinations.

Механизм; механизм поиска; браузер; гипертекст; слоями; читаемый; средство; всемирная паутина; быстрое и стабильное соединение; звук; графика; динамичное видео; технически возможный.

2. Match the following terms with their definitions.

InfiNET	The mark-up language used to create web documents
CD-ROM	A part of the Internet made up of computers that store text, graphics and sometimes audio and video files
HTML	The disc which can hold vast quantities of computer date
WWW	The quantity of material and information in layers which are infinite

3. Answer the questions.

1) Why do people enjoy using the World Wide Web?

2) What makes technically possible to use the Web?

3) Why is the use of the Web limited for many people?

4) It is the Web that is driving the Internet today, isn’t it?

5) What is the volume of information and data characteristic of the Web?

6) Name the reasons which make the use of the Web so attractive for many netters.

7) Is hypertext the most important attribute of the Web or TV?

8) What is hypertext?

9) What does the abbreviation “HTML” stand for? What does it denote?

10. What does the color coding indicate?

11) What does hypertext allow to do?

12) Is the Web the only place one can find hypertext? Where else can hypertext be found?

13) What are the 2 important tools of the Web which let it be usable?

14) In what cases is a search engine necessary? Name the most famous ones.

15) What is a browser? What is its function?

16) Name the most famous browsers.

4. Express the main idea of each passage of the text.

5. Give a summary of the text according to the plan.

1) The factors that make the use of the Web technically possible.

2) The characteristics of the Web.

3) Hypertext as the most important attribute of the Web.

4) A search engine.

5) A browser.

Text 5 newsgroups

Newsgroups are bulletin boards – collections of messages from all over the world, unedited and unexpurgated, divided up by topic. There are literally thousands of newsgroups, several of which will be of at least some interest to any new user. The whole system is known as USENET or NETNEWS. USENET is one of the original Internet fun-houses, but it is not particularly easy to use or friendly to “newbies”. On the other hand, USENET is a good place for the novice to start because it does not put any strain on your personal electronic mailbox with a lot of unsolicited electronic mail, because no mail comes to you. For newsgroups, the reader has to go to the group…nothing comes to the mailbox.

To access USENET or NETNEWS newsgroups on many electronic systems, a new user can simply type whichever of these 2 names his system uses. However, each system is different, and the new user should ask the people who run the system at his site for details on what services are available and how to access them. Unfortunately, some commercial services do not yet include NETNEWS or USENET in their offerings, but subscribers are asking for the opportunity to belong to newsgroups, and more and more commercial services are obliging.

After a time of reading newsgroups, the netter might well yearn for a more active or organized participation in the net, at which point lists are a good idea. Lists (also known as LISTSERVERS) are electronic discussion groups that bring together like-minded individuals to “discuss” a given topic. It is necessary for would-be readers of lists to “join” the list and become a subscriber since the mail generated by the forum (or list) only goes to members. There are lists to satisfy every taste, and if you find that there is a field without a discussion list, you are free to start your own. When you join a list, you join an international group to discuss whatever topic the list is about.

With thousands of topics to choose from, USENET, like e-mail discussion lists, enables you to read and post messages to bulletin board-like newsgroups. They are, in essence, an exciting international meeting spot.

Some of USENET’s categories include:

1. comp. Computer-related topics

2. news. USENET information

3. biz. Business

4. rec. Recreational activities and hobbies

5. sci. Science

6. soc. Cultures and current events

7. talk. Debates and discussions

8. misc. Discussion on topics that don’t fit into other categories

9. alt. Alternative expressions of various subjects

10. clari. A subscription service for commercial wire-service stories

11. k12. Educational subjects relating to K-12 (kindergarten through 12-th grade)

To read USENET newsgroups articles, you will need a newsreading program. The most popular Web browsers have newsreaders automatically built into them, but other alternatives include Newswatcher for the Mac (http://charlotte.acns.nwu.edu/jln/progs.html) and Free Agent for Windows (http://www.forteinc.com/forte/).

With over 20,000 newsgroups floating around in Cyberspace it is not always easy to find what you are looking for. Here are 3 useful sites to help narrow your search.

Liszt (http://www.liszt.com/cgi-bin/news/cgi) search over 15,000 different newsgroups.

Tile.net News (http://www.tile.net/tile/news/index/html), great for searching but lacks the ability to read the news.

Reference.com (http://www.reference.com/), search and read over 16,000 newsgroups.