Computer Issues and a possible "Dummies"-style explanation?

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thesilence
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Computer Issues and a possible "Dummies"-style explanation?

Post by thesilence » Thu May 28, 2015 4:43 pm

Our home Internet suffered a severe outage last night; we have not yet been home to confirm whether the problem has magically fixed itself, as they invariably have in the past (whenever the issue was not failure to pay our phone bill, in which case proactive efforts were necessary). While our router and wireless network were both functioning correctly, no webpages could be displayed in either IE or Firefox. An hour on the phone with various tech-support and customer-service departments of our ISP failed to illuminate the issue, past the fact that it was not the network which was at fault. Attempts at Googling since then have failed to produce clear indications of what may be happening; firewall problems can be largely ruled out, so the most probable issue would involve a DNS issue or something still more arcane, but we have no way of being certain. We are not really asking the community for help, as our visits to public Internet hubs are rare enough that they would avail little amelioration of the problem at hand; we mostly mention the issue because of what follows.

While attempting to comprehend the problem, and debating explaining it to our tech-phobic stepfather who is theoretically responsible for the bill-pay (although in practice we frequently handle both the money and the necessary telephone operations), we came up with a "Computers for Dummies"-esque analogy comparing the Internet to radio technology, in the hopes of rendering the issue comprehensible to our Luddite elder. It is unlikely this conversation will ever actually take place, so this is simply idle curiosity on our part, but we wonder as to how nearly accurate the analogy was, based on our extremely limited understanding of the technology. We therefore present the account below, more or less in its entirety, with the caveat that it may be entirely wrong, to say nothing of horrendously inadequate, and should not be taken as useful advice by anyone. Those who actually know what they are talking about with regard to computer science, we heartily encourage them to amend, correct, or utterly-disavow-as-nonsensical any or all of the following cavemen-discovering-a-spaceship-level efforts at comprehension.

The Internet is sort of like a radio....

In order to go on the Internet and look at a webpage, at least four things need to be in place and functioning properly. If we equate Internet technology to a typical radio, those components can be regarded roughly as follows:

* You need a wireless network, which is sort of like the radio tower which broadcasts the signal of the station you want to listen to.

* You need a "modem" or "router" (not sure whether either or both terms are fitting), which is sort of like the physical radio itself, in particular its antenna.

* You need a browser, a piece of software on your computer which functions sort of like the tuning knob on your radio, enabling you to "dial in" to the particular frequency of the station you're looking for. (The analogy fails somewhat at this stage, in that a radio whose knob is missing will at least receive *a* station, on whatever frequency it is tuned to by default, while a computer with no browser cannot receive any webpage at all, though doubtless Google is working on changing that, so that all computers worldwide are connected to it even when the nearby transmitter towers have been destroyed by a hurricane.)

* Finally, there needs to be a server somewhere which contains "The Internet" or part of it, and can send webpages to your computer and receive altered versions back from it. The analogy largely fails here; at nearest, we may compare the server to a Deejay or other host who sits in the radio station, providing actual content for the signal which the transmitter is broadcasting. Without the Deejay, the radio is just sending out dead air; if no servers existed anywhere, you could "connect to the Internet", but there wouldn't be any webpages to load.

This concludes the analogy. Please feel free to tell us how flawed and primitive our understanding is, and to make any and all corrections as appropriate, if you are moved to make the effort for the benefit of our largely-idle interest.
ÔÇ£I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if I could only transmit to posterity the reputation of an honest man.ÔÇØ --Sam Houston

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Re: Computer Issues and a possible "Dummies"-style explanati

Post by WearsHats » Thu May 28, 2015 5:44 pm

That's... perhaps good enough to help someone understand the basics, but it's not very accurate.

The Internet is a vast web of interconnected computers sharing information in structured ways. It's perhaps most like our roads. If you want to drive from your home to a friend's house on the other side of the country, you'd take local roads to the highway. The highway would connect you, going through a string of major cities, to your friend's town. Then you'd get on to more local roads to get to your friend's house. That's kind of how it works. Except that the roads are cables (phone cables, TV cables, fiber optic cables, and others), the cities are "backbone" server hubs that you never actually see, and rather than you and your car moving, it's information being passed along.

It used to be that there were thousands of "backbone" server companies who would charge competitive rates and were forced to treat all information equally. Now, though, most of it (at least in the US) is handled by a few large telecommunication companies who have managed to get an exemption to antitrust laws and therefore do not actually compete with each other.
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A server is a computer whose primary function is to hold and deliver data across the Internet. For example, the information that makes up this post that you're reading now is stored on a computer in Germany. That's the server that hosts the forums and the comic. When you loaded the page that showed you this post, that computer passed along the information to another server closer to wherever you are, which then passed it along to the next server, and so on. Until it got to the company that you pay for Internet access, and they delivered it through their network to you. When you write a post, the same thing happens, but in reverse.

A modem is the device which connects your computer to your Internet Service Provider (ISP). There are different types of modems which use different types of cables and can provide different connection speeds, but they all serve that basic function.

A modem by itself can only connect to one other device. If you have one computer, you can hook it up directly to the modem and you're good to go.

These days, many people have more than one computer, and also want Internet access on a variety of mobile devices. That's where the router comes in. A router is a device that connects to the modem and can then connect to multiple devices. Most routers have wired capability, where you plug a cable from the computer into the router and information is passed along that way. Many routers now are also wireless. They can connect to multiple devices via radio signal.

There are also now devices which combine the functions of modem and router. The two are so commonly used together that it just made sense to create a single device which does both.

So your phone talks to the router via radio. The router may also be talking to your laptop and some other devices. The router sorts out what information is supposed to where, and then passes it along to the modem (probably via ethernet cable). The modem passes it along to your ISP (probably via coaxial cable), and the ISP's servers direct it from there (probably via fiber optic cable). When the response comes back, it goes from the Internet to your ISP's servers to your modem to your router. The router then figures out which device that piece of information is supposed to go to and passes it along.

The browser is the piece of software on your computer, phone, or other device which interprets the data and presents it in a format you, the user, can (hopefully) understand. You will always need a browser to access web pages. But you're probably right that, as time goes on, that browser will become more and more an integral part of the computer's operating system. (Windows already, several years ago, made Internet Explorer an inherent part of the way the system is built, and Apple did similar with Safari. But there are always other options you can use.)

If you want an analogy, you may be better off with the Post Office. You write a letter, taking the words from your head and putting them on paper with your pen (the computer and browser). You (the router) then go out to your mailbox (the modem) and post the letter (perhaps also adding letters from other people in the house addressed to other destinations). Your postman (the ISP) carries those letters to the Post Office sorting station (the nearest server). Your letter gets sorted and put on a truck to the nearest Post Office hub (backbone server), where it is loaded on a plane (fiber optic cable) to be sent from hub to hub until it gets close to its destination. Then it gets sent by truck to the recipient's local Post Office, delivered by his mail carrier to his mailbox, brought inside, and read. At that point, the recipient can write back to you. It makes its way back by a similar (though not necessarily identical) path. Someone from your house (your router) then checks the mailbox, gathers all the letters, looks through them, and hands each letter to the appropriate person as it's addressed.

It's kind of like that, only the whole thing happens in a matter of seconds.

Does that make sense?
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Re: Computer Issues and a possible "Dummies"-style explanati

Post by thesilence » Thu Jun 04, 2015 3:07 pm

We thank you for the explanation, but do not feel any wiser....
ÔÇ£I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if I could only transmit to posterity the reputation of an honest man.ÔÇØ --Sam Houston

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Re: Computer Issues and a possible "Dummies"-style explanati

Post by WearsHats » Thu Jun 04, 2015 5:39 pm

Hmm. I'm not sure how better to explain it at the moment. You could try reading the How Stuff Works article on the subject or any of the other top results for "how does the Internet work?" Or we can take it one piece at a time, if you can come up with specific questions.
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Re: Computer Issues and a possible "Dummies"-style explanati

Post by Krulle » Fri Jun 05, 2015 1:06 am

If you can understand German: how http works: http://www.wdrmaus.de/sachgeschichten/s ... ernet.php5
(how the browser and the servers communicate)
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Re: Computer Issues and a possible "Dummies"-style explanati

Post by thesilence » Mon Jun 08, 2015 11:07 am

Krulle wrote:If you can understand German: how http works: http://www.wdrmaus.de/sachgeschichten/s ... ernet.php5
(how the browser and the servers communicate)
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ÔÇ£I would give no thought of what the world might say of me, if I could only transmit to posterity the reputation of an honest man.ÔÇØ --Sam Houston

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