Help:Internet

Many of us spend a lot of time on the Internet, which is certainly not helped by the wireless network that surrounds us all.

Average download speed max out at around 1 MB/s wireless, 10 MB/s wired. This assumes the server you're pulling data from has a similarly "phat pipe."

MIT owns all IP addresses starting with 18. This effectively means we have control of 1/256 of the territory on the Internet. This also means that we have multiple IP addresses per person, depending on whether they're using an Ethernet cable, what building they're in, and in some cases, which of their computers they're using. If certain sites are failing to authenticate you, it might be because you logged in on one IP address and then attempted to get through with cookies after switching to another IP address (e.g. by moving to the lounge).

Structure

The Internet is not something you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand that these tubes can be filled, and if they're filled, your message gets in line, and it gets delayed by anyone who's putting into these tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material.

You should commit this data to memory.

Data Replication

Ultimately, the Internet is about transmitting data over vast influences, and conversely, having a fair approximation of the aggregation of all human knowledge at your fingertips (of course, this means that you also have a ready about of human unknowledge at your fingertips). Part of participating in this exercise is to share the information you have, and you are highly advised to do so.

Inversely, please do not share all data you come across. We have probably already seen it, and much sooner than you got to it. This especially applies to XKCD fans, who as smart as they tend to be, can also be a gibbering pile of idiots (thx, Internet!).

Reaching Through The Internet

Reaching through the Internet is done in two steps, given a target:

1. Look for your target yourself
2. If the first step fails, find someone who might know better.

Hear that, you fuckers? Before you ask a question about something, at least Google it or Wikipedia it before asking someone else about it, because that's the first thing they're going to do in response to your query.

Gullible

ANYONE CAN POST ANYTHING TO THE INTERNET.

1. Don't believe everything you read. Check your sources and make sure that one source isn't just a copy of the other.
2. People lie, which is different from saying that people post incorrect information thinking it's the truth. It's hard to do without body language and inflection cues, but do try to detect sarcasm when it arises as well. It can save you from some nasty consequences.
3. Don't feed the trolls. People sometimes write something in an environment that they know is hostile to it, just to get a reaction. Ignore them or brush them off. Doing otherwise get generates utility for the troll, and causes you to waste a lot of effort fighting a comment with content they don't actually give a shit about. Notably, the most famous troll is Stephen Colbert, who started out by trolling Bill O'Reilly and now gets paid to troll the rest of America too.

How To Not Suck At The Internet

1. Before you post something, ensure that it is fresh material.
   • In the context of a wiki, this means that you shouldn't spawn superfluous pages for subjects that already exist in the wiki. Posting about things that people already know about it fine, if only to poke jokes at it and to give its reality a hall-filtered sort of perspective (e.g. GARM BROOD PWNS N00BZ).
   • In the context of link-sharing, this means that you shouldn't share a website unless you're sure it hasn't been shared in the recent past. This also means, on StumbleUpon, you shouldn't Stumble a variant of a page that you just fucking Stumbled to.
   • As an edge case, also think about the logical implications of the group you're sharing to. For example, it is useless to Stumble people to "Convert to Firefox!" pages, since use of StumbleUpon requires that you are already using Firefox. Similarly, don't post a FUNNY SITE to an attention-grabbing spot on this wiki, and then simultaneously send FUNNY SITE to the hall mailing list.
2. Try to help yourself before you try to get others to help you.
   • And when you do get others to help you, tell them what you've already tried so they don't have to waste time repeating it.
3. If it sounds too good to be true, and no independent source confirms it, it's an utter lie and you should run before you compromise your computer.
4. In messageboards and fora, veterans can smell a newbie from first post, and will go out of their way to make membership difficult for the annoying ones. Before you attempt to blend in with a new crowd, lurk first to make sure you understand the group dynamics, and after that lurk moar.

Utilities

This bunch of information is for useful things on the Internet which pertain to the Internet. For useful things that pertain to your computer as a whole, see Help:Box.

Browsers

Firefox is the most commonly used not-suck browser. If you have not tried it already, do so. With that said:

Iceweasel is like Firefox, except with a history of wanking over logo art. Also, there might be some open-source or licensing issue involved. Anyhow, it is the preference of Debian users.

Opera is like Firefox as well, but with a cleaner interface. Also, it eats less memory by a factor of at least four. The main drawback is that Firefox has many more developers for extensions and the like. One feature it has that Firefox doesn't is the Speed-Dial, which allows for 9 pages to be hotkeyed to the sequence Ctrl-T Ctrl-number.

Camino is the bastard child of Firefox and Safari. It only runs on Macs. It may be necessary to use Camino instead of Firefox if your memory requirements are stringent, or if you computer just arbitrarily doesn't like Firefox (yes, this problem does actually exist).

Safari ships with Mac OS X, and is Mac only for some reason now comes in a Windows flavor as well. It is a sufficiently good alternative to Firefox to be preferred by some users, and because it is Mac developed it interfaces with the OSX environment better.

Internet Explorer is a steaming pile of shit. It ships with all versions of Windows. You may be required to use it for updates if you're running Windows. Also, some pages are programmed to not work in any browser other than Internet Explorer (either intentionally, or because people are just using what is unfortunately still the most popular API). If you are using a Mac, you can kick your computer in the balls more effectively by installing Internet Explorer than by partitioning your drive and dual-booting into Windows. That's right -- using Internet Explorer is even more inconvenient and useless than sectioning off a part of your drive just to use a different OS.

Communication

The default AIM client sucks. You can try Pidgin (formerly Gaim), regardless of what OS you're using. If you want audio chat Skype will work for you. Skype also supports video chat on Windows and Macs.

If you're on Windows, you should try TerraIM for a lightweight chat client (It fits on a floppy! Assuming you still use those...), or Trillian for a heavy-duty client (but with horrible memory use and some very bad behaviors, particularly with less common protocols). Use mIRC or XChat for IRC.

If you're on a Mac, you should Adium for AIM, MSN, and Yahoo, and Colloquy for IRC. iChat, which should have shipped with your OS, should support webcamming, but only to other iChat users. Skype also supports video chat.

Zephyr is antiquated but pretty neat. You should learn how to use it; the SIPB how-to is helpful. Most heavy Zephyr users are twinkies.

Sharing (Is Caring)

FrostWire is a p2p program based on Limewire. The hierarchy of such programs is as follows: FrostWire is better than LimeWire because it's not as subject to RIAA pressure. LimeWire is better than KaZaA because it doesn't have ads and adware. KaZaA is better than Napster because it's free.

Ares Galaxy is connects to the Gnutella network, and can get through some college firewalls (not that that's a problem here). Some people also outright prefer it for its search results over Frostwire.

The original BitTorrent client sucks. You should use Azureus, which is big and clunky and Java-based, or μTorrent, which is smaller and Windows-only. For .torrents that won't get your ass caught, see iPodNova (requires registration), PirateBay, TorrentReactor, or Demonoid (requires a buddy who has registration).

In addition, ∃ Furk, which torrents the file for you and lets you direct download. (Note: The effectiveness of this site is unverified as of this moment. Additional comments would be appreciated.)

Websites

For websites whose registration is used for read-access only, go to BugMeNot and enter the domain. They'll give you a communal username/password so that you can get in without registering.

If you are registering for something that you don't want to give out your e-mail for, and whose e-mails are by and large useless confirmation notices, you should send the mail to foo@mailinator.com where foo can be anything you want. Then just go to Mailinator to pick up your mail. There is no security on this- that is, don't use it to receive sensitive information. Also, you e-mails will vanish in 10 minutes, so be quick to get that confirmation notice. If you want to use a fake e-mail address that is linked to your real e-mail address, Akapost allows the creation of one @akapost.com e-mail address redirect target.

Google is your friend -- and good thing, too, because it'd suck to have an enemy who's recording your every move.

4chan is your friendly reminder that it could be worse.