With that said, keep in mind that there is a tradeoff. The sooner you get on the net, the more valuable you are to employers. But like virtually everything else that is technology driven, the longer you wait, the cheaper and easier it will be to use. Deciding when to jump in is a personal decision.
One important key to understanding the Internet is to understand a little bit about how the computers hooked up to it communicate. It is actually a lot like (as scary as this thought may be) the U.S. postal system. When you want to send a letter to your sister in Peoria, you place information in a special place-her address, on the front of the envelope. That letter does not go directly to your sister's house, but is first passed from a local post office to a regional center, to another regional center, to her local post office, then to her house. This system works because every post office in the chain understands how to interpret the address on the letter and will forward it to the next, most appropriate place.
The Internet works in a similar fashion. Each electronic message is sent on it's way to another computer which, while it may not be the final destination, gets the message a little closer to the computer indicated in it's "address". There are some differences from the postal system, though. Each electronic message may actually be broken down into a smaller set of "packets", and each one of these "packets" may take a different route through the network before it reaches it's destination. (The receiving computer has to piece things back into the correct order.) Obviously, another key difference is that communications on the Internet are much, much faster than the U.S. Postal System. Transmission times of short messages can be measured in thousandths of a second, not days.
One implication of this communication system is very important to any user of the Internet. Because each message can pass through dozens or even hundreds of computers on it's journey, it is possible for other people to intercept your message, read it, and pass it on as if nothing had happened (this is called "packet snooping"). For this reason, it is currently very unwise to send confidential information like credit card numbers over the Internet. Several companies are currently battling to establish standards for "secure" communication over the Internet, usually using some type of encryption.
The World Wide Web (henceforth referred to as "www") is one of the most exciting ways to use the Internet. There are two things that make the www fun and useful: graphics and hypertext.
Many of the communications methods used on the Internet are text based. The www, however, has the ability to transmit graphic images along with text (and even sound and "movies"), making it a much more appealing medium. The www also incorporates something called "hypertext". This is difficult to describe, but very easy to understand when you actually see it used.
Imagine that you are reading a document on your computer screen, and you see the word Russia, and it is a different color than the rest of the text and is underlined. You use the mouse on your computer to point to this word and click on it, and a new document automatically opens up, containing information about Russia! You click on another icon on your computer and you go back to the original document. Now imagine that the document about Russia happens to mention Fyodor Dostoevsky, and when you click on his name you get a listing of his writings, along with an image of one of his portraits. When you click on Crime and Punishment, you are able to view a document containing the text of his classic novel!
This is the way hypertext on the www operates. You start out on a "web page" somewhere on the Internet, and by just pointing and clicking on hypertext links, you can effortlessly view other documents/ images.
If possible, the first thing you should do is find someone who has access to the www and have them show you what it is like. In some large cities (Houston, Dallas, Austin) there are places that support free or cheap access to the public, so you can "try before you buy".
One of your big decisions when getting onto the Internet is deciding who your "service provider" will be. Remember how we said that access to the Internet is free? Well, there's a catch. The computers that are on the Internet are connected 24 hours a day, 7 days a week over high speed communications lines. Although they pay nothing to be "on the net", they do have to pay someone (like AT&T or MCI) for the communications lines, and these are pretty pricey (thousands of dollars per month). Since you probably don't want to pay that much, what you need to do is pay someone who IS connected to the Internet to allow you to use their computer as a point of entrance (also called Point of Presence, or "POP"). The way it works is that you use your computer and modem to call their computer, and you are then temporarily "on the net", because you are connected to a computer that is permanently "on the net". Of course, they charge you a fee for this privilege. Fees for these service providers vary greatly, and can be a flat fee, per hour, or a mixture. In general, you should expect to pay $10-$25 per month.
There is a variety of criteria to consider when selecting a service provider, and I describe some of them below. Some good general advice is to find someone who can recommend a service to you if possible, and don't lock yourself into long-term agreements until you are pretty savvy. Fortunately, most service providers will allow you a certain amount of free time when you first sign up with them to entice you, allowing you to evaluate several with no commitment on your part. Service providers fall into two general categories: nationwide commercial services and local service providers.
These nationwide services each have their own "look and feel" and varying degrees of user friendliness, but all are more friendly than your typical local service provider. Unfortunately, the big nationwide services also have some major drawbacks.
The biggest negative associated with these national companies is that many of them do not offer 28.8 Kbaud access (although they probably all will eventually-after some higher speed is the new standard). This is simply because they are so big it takes them longer to upgrade.
A more important issue with the large services is that because each of them has their own proprietary interface, none of them is truly "on" the Internet. Essentially, they act as gateways to the Internet, which for many things (like electronic mail) is just as good, but can seriously restrict access to the World Wide Web. Some of the major companies do not even have www access, and currently few of them allow an individual user to set up his own web page. Also, the large nationwide service providers often censor what you can access on the Internet, and in some cases censor even what you are allowed to say over the net. Whether you use a nationwide service or a local provider make sure you get full www access. Without it, you miss most of the fun.
Using a local access provider also means that you will need to acquire some software to make it work (a "browser"), and you will probably need to pay a special one-time configuration fee to get on the www. A good provider will explain these things to you up front.
There is one technical issue to keep in mind when using a local access provider-the difference between the Internet and the www. Remember how we said that many of the ways to use the Internet are text based? Well, when you sign up with an Internet provider, you may get only text based access, which will not give you the full graphic access that makes the www so attractive. The key to ensuring that you get what you want is to ask if their quoted fees include a "SLIP or PPP" connection. (Don't worry what these stand for, it isn't important.) You will need one of these to be able to get www access. It would also be smart to ask if you will get full www access from them. Of course, this is a good question to ask when signing with a nationwide firm as well.
This may seem very complicated and difficult for first time users. Don't let it scare you. Do what millions of other people have done-try something, and if you don't like it, quit and try something else. If you are not comfortable with computers, your best bet may be to start out with one of the big nationwide companies and learn what it is all about. If you then find that there are features that you would like to have that are not offered, try something else. Pick up a magazine that caters to the Internet. Ask a friend. Go to a www demonstration. Watch a show on cable TV. Take a class at a community college. Read the list of frequently asked questions!
Learning to access the www is not difficult once you learn a few of the basics and get over the natural fear of the unknown. Be warned, however, that web surfing can be addicting. If you have no time in your life for it, you may be better off in the short run to just stay away.
Once you're on the www be sure to check out TPJ's web page at http://www.io. com/~lad. It has dozens of hypertext links to all kinds of information you may find useful both personally and professionally. Enjoy!