Internet for Infants or Grandmas! Quiz

Answer: World Wide Web

The World Wide Web was the brain child of British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee and Belgian scientist Robert Cailliau. Proposed and released to the world in 1990, the World Wide Web has revolutionized information sharing and ushered in a remarkable technological age. WWW is a system where hypertext documents can be accessed through an internet web browser.

Answer: Local Area Network

A Local Area Network (LAN) is a computer network set up to connect computer terminals in a limited geographical area. These proximal networks have the advantage of higher data-transfer rates and the lack of a need for leased telecommunication lines. Early Local Area Networks were provided by coaxial cable. Recently, cable has been replaced by WiFi capabilities that do not require cables to access the Internet.

Answer: A device that joins multiple wired or wireless networks together

For surfing the internet, a router is a device that allows packets of information to be transfered to different points. The router generally is connected to at least two networks and is often included as part of a network switch. Businesses and home computers, using high-speed Internet connections, might use a router as a hardware firewall. A router often provides better protection against hacking compared to a software firewall. This is because no IP (Internet Protocol) address is directly exposed to the Internet.

Answer: www.yahoo.com

Yahoo! Inc. was started by Stanford electrical engineers David Filo and Jerry Yang. The company began operation in January of 1994 and was incorporated in March of 1995. An American company with corporate offices in Sunnyvale, California, Yahoo is one of the world's largest and most successful Internet companies. Online, Yahoo is known for its web portal, search engine capacity, free e-mail, news, online mapping, and news sites. Traded on the Nasdaq, the company reported net revenue in 2011 of over $1.04 Billion. Company statistics report that over 700 million people visit Yahoo sites every month.

Answer: Graphical Interface Operating System

Windows is a series of graphical user interfaces (GUI) operating systems developed and sold by Microsoft. Since its introduction on November 20, 1985, the Microsoft Windows program has developed a creative monopoly on the GUI market. Windows is the basic software that makes people's computer programs work. Popular Windows versions include Windows XP and Windows Vista. Microsoft Office programs allow people to type word documents, create spreadsheets and make presentations. Internet Explorer allows the user to bring up websites and navigate to information online.

Answer: HyperText Markup Language

HyperText Markup Language (HTML) is the programming language utilized to build webpages and websites. HTML language consists of unique tags and elements placed as code recognized by a program in order to create text, graphics, and other content. The web browser reads and interprets the HTML text and translates it into visible or audio content displayed on the web page. HTML is the most basic language of all websites.

Answer: Mice are pointing devices allowing for fine control of the graphical user interface

An early relation to today's computer mouse was invented by Canadian's Fred Longstaff, Tom Cranston, and Kenyon Taylor back in 1952. The "Trackball" was a secret military project using a bowling ball and was never patented. In 1963, Douglas Engelbart and Bill English at the Stanford Research Institute invented one of the earliest versions of the "mouse." Its name came from the tail-like cord attached to the rear of the device.

Unfortunately, Engelbart never received any royalties from his unique invention because the patent expired before the mouse became a regular part of home computing. Nowadays, the mouse is most often cordless using optical sensing software.

Answer: Uniform Resource Locator

The Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is the unique address of a specific file or web site found online. URLs can have no spaces and use forward slashes to denote a different directory. The first part of the URL suggests the kind of resource it is addressing (Examples might include: http=webpage with hypertext; ftp=directory of files; telnet=UNIX-based remote system you can log onto; WAIS=WideArea Information Search database).

The second part of the URL contains the address of the computer being contacted and the accompanying file path.

For example http://www.funtrivia.com is the URL for a world of fun and games for those with a propensity towards knowledge expansion.

Answer: Cookies

Cookies are small incidences of data generated by a website and then saved by your web browser. The most common purpose of cookies is to store login information for a specific site that you visit. On Funtrivia you can generate a login cookie that will allow you to be remembered everytime you visit the site. Cookies can also store user preferences for sites visited. Commonly there are two types of cookies. Session cookies are temporary and automatically become deleted when the browser session is closed (used for example when shopping online). Persistent cookies are designed to store data for an extended time (login information on Funtrivia).

Answer: Turn the computer on

More and more Seniors are becoming interested in computing and internet resources. There are a wide variety of classes and other resources available for people like my Grandma. Here is a list of just 5 websites that offer some basic internet instruction to the complete beginner.

Seniors Guide to Computers: http://www.seniorsguidetocomputers.com/default.asp
Internet100: http://www.internet101.org/
Eldy: http://www.eldy.eu/
Meganga: http://www.meganga.com/lessons/
Internet4Classrooms: http://www.internet4classrooms.com/on-line.htm