What is a modem? What should we consider before buying it??

                   A modem is the device that connects your PC to the net.  This device translates digital information produced by your computer into analog signals that can be sent down as a telephone line.

Before buying a modem the most important factor is the speed. Currently the fastest available modem is of speed 56Kbps.
  Next is the type of modem- internal or external. Internal modem is cheaper but you have to open your computer installation.  On the other hand, external modems are a little costlier but is easy to setup.
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Getting around the WORLD WIDE WEB.
          Every computer that is permanently connected to the net has a unique IP (Internet Protocol) address which allows other computers to find it.  The problem is that they are too huge to remember -they look something like-202.56.230.5.  To solve this problem the domain name system was invented. This replaced the numbers with letters.  Which is easier to remember.  These domain names form the basis of the web addresses or URL (Uniform Resource Locator) has three parts. For instance, www.cnbc.com.  The www tells us that it is a World Wide Web site; cnbc is the name of the site, it is often the company name and  .com is short for commercial, often used by the businesses around the world to give a global appeal.

.gov is used by the public bodies

.mil is used by the military organizations

co. is used by the Indian companies.

Most of the countries have their domains in the web addresses.
.au for Australia,  Tobago  .to and for India .in and so on..
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Popular search engines:
                                        Some of the search engines are,

www.hotbot.com
claims to scan 10 million web pages per day.
www.google.com
supposed to be the best on the web.......!!
www.yahoo.co.uk
takes the content of the web and breaks it down into categories and sub categories; acts as a giant directory of thousands of sites.
www.askjeeves.com
responds to the questions asked in plain English and comes back with a hand full of well-selected web sites gleaned form the main search engines.
www.lycos.co.uk
claims to cover 91 percent of the web. How ever it is difficult to narrows down your search.
www.infoseek.com
www.123india.com