The World Wide Web seems to get all of the limelight. Addresses for Web sites can be found on billboards, TV shows, magazine ads, business cards-even ABC and National Public Radio proudly announces their Web site address where you can listen to the news of the day-who needs a radio or TV? In fact, many people seem to think that the World Wide Web IS the Internet. Well, they do have a close relationship, but they are not quite one and the same.

Started as a U.S. government research project back in 1969, the Internet is the largest computer network in the world. With approximately 50 million users, the Internet ties together 50,000 computer networks in more than 80 countries around the world. For this reason, it has been appropriately called a "network of networks."

One measure of both the growth and the overall size of the Internet is the number of host computers that are connected to it. For the most part, a host computer is connected on a 24-hour-a-day basis to the Internet. When you "visit" a site on the Internet, you are actually connecting your PC to one of these host computers. It may be a computer run by a university in Holland, a government agency in the United States, or a business in Africa. Host computers should in no way be confused with the total number of Internet users.

With a combined total of more than 4 1/2 million hosts, the United States and Canada continue to lead the world in terms of Internet hosts. What's interesting is that while other, smaller countries may not have as many hosts, they often have faster overall growth rate. This confirms the fact that the Internet is gaining international recognition as a medium that can help individuals, companies, and countries with their global communication needs.

The Internet is composed of a "web" of computers connected through a central spinal cord called the backbone. The backbone of the Internet is, as the name implies, the major connecting point where computers transmit data to and receive data from. This back bone is capable of carrying millions of bits of information per second.

You can connect to the Internet several ways. The most common method of connection for consumers is to purchase a service provided by a commercial company which we call an Internet Service Provider (ISP). Many companies offer this service to consumers. (America on Line, Compuserve, etc...) This service provides access to the Internet by giving an access phone number for your computer to dial to connect to the Internet. (Note: Your computer dials this number using a piece of hardware called a modem.) This type of connection to the Internet is called non -dedicated access. With a non-dedicated

account you connect your computer with the Internet and Web and pay a monthly fee for a certain number of hours of access. With a non-dedicated account you use your modem and call up an Internet

service provider (ISP), electronic bulletin board, or on-line service such as America On-line. Your computer connects to a modem at their site and then you gain access to the Internet. Most people who want individual access to the Web, as well as small-to-medium sized companies, choose non-dedicated access because it is flexible and affordable.

Dedicated access means that you have (and are paying for) 24-hour-a-day access to the Internet-either for yourself, or for your employees. There are several advantages to a dedicated access account. For one, you'll never get a busy signal. Dedicated truly means dedicated and this can be a big plus. If you have a non-dedicated account, then you have to hope that the ISP or commercial on-line service has enough modems at their site, so that when you dial in, you'll get an open line. If, however, the ISP doesn't have enough modems for the number of subscribers, then you'll get a busy signal and have to wait until a line opens up. For this simple reason, most schools have dedicated access to the Internet. This access is often delivered to the individual computers throughout a school building through their local area network (LAN). This LAN consists of computers connected to a larger computer (File Server) via cables. The larger computer or file server is then connected directly to a dedicated Internet access line.