Internet Technology Webmaster Certificate Program: How to Get Internet Software

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How to get Internet Software
You may already have it! If you are running Windows 95/98/ME or Windows NT/2000, you have everything you need to get onto the 'Net now. Once your dial-up connection is set up with an ISP, you can get on the Web with Internet Explorer, connect to campus servers using telnet, or transfer files with FTP. To telnet, just click the "start" button, select "run", and type in "telnet itwebmaster.iit.edu" (or whatever machine you want to connect to); than hit enter. Just login and you're in business. Do the same for FTP except you type "ftp" instead of "telnet". (The Windows 2000 telnet application is a "command line" (DOS) application that lacks the bells & whistles (and even the menus) of earlier Windows telnet apps...)

Download it. If you are reading this, you are probably using a Web browser. If you are using a Web browser, you have a gateway to all of the Internet software in the world. The remarkable thing about the stuff is that most of it is free! Some of it is pretty big, and might take a while to download over a modem, but hey, it's worth it! Unless you are paying hourly rates for your Internet access, you should just download and go do something else: read a book, watch PBS, go for a walk. If it takes an hour, so what: just do it! If you are on the campus network here at IIT, even the real big stuff ought to just zip down.

But where do I download it? There are a lot of sites out there but some are clearly better organized and easier to use:

IIT has useful software, much of which is commercial products licensed for campus use, at http://www.cns.iit.edu/html/downloads/overview.html
Tucows is the largest and has mirror sites all over the world The software is reviewed and rated. The nearest mirror (and it's fast, too) is at http://tbcnet.tucows.com/
Strouds Consummate list of Winsock Applications is an institution and has been given a home by Internet.com at http://cws.internet.com. The software is reviewed and rated.
Another enourmous resource is maintained by Network Computing at http://www.itprodownloads.com/. They have over 800 items in the Web Authoring category alone.
Other sites:
1. http://www.winfiles.com/
2. http://www.moochers.com/(all free and only free!)
3. http://www.hotfiles.com/internet.html
4. http://www.davecentral.com/(extensive reviews...site is no longer maintained but is still there)
5. http://www.shareware.com/
6. http://www.download.com/
7. http://www.winsite.com/
8. http://www.jumbo.com/
9. http://www.completelyfreesoftware.com/
10. http://www.tusafe.com/nonags/
If you need the latest version of your browser and you don't want to stand in the long virtual lines at Netscape or Microsoft, go to browsers.com to get the newest one, at http://www.browsers.com/
For servers, try http://serverwatch.internet.com/

So what do I need? A good basic suite of Internet includes a dialer (built into Windows 95), a telnet application, a File Transfer Protocol (FTP) application, an electronic mail (email) application, and a World Wide Web browser. If you rarely have a need to send files using FTP, you could get by with one application for FTP, email, and Web browsing. Netscape Communicator from Netscape Communications at http://home.netscape.com/computing/download/index.html supports FTP and email as does Internet Explorer, and there are other suites as well. Once you start building Web pages, you may want an HTML editor, and there are all sorts of other products to help you buid a Web site as well. © Page content Copyright 2001 Webmaster Sources LLC; used by permission.