When a company or organization wants to use the Internet, they must decide whether they want to do it by directly attaching to the Internet system or whether they will use another company to supply the connection. Many companies choose to use another company, called a service provider, because it reduces the amount of equipment, administration, and costs involved. If the company or organization wants to directly connect (and sometimes when they are using a service provider), t....

The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is one protocol in the TCP/IP family used to transfer files between machines running TCP/IP (FTP-like programs are also available for some other protocols). The File Transfer Protocol enables you to transfer files back and forth and manage directories. FTP is not designed to give you access to another machine to execute programs, but it is the best utility for file manipulation. To use FTP, both ends of a connection must be running a program th....

Just because Linux is distributed for free, it doesn’t mean the software is not copyrighted. Linux has been registered as copyrighted under the GNU General Public License (GPL), which is known in the programming community as a copyleft instead of copyright because of its nature. The GPL allows you to redistribute the Linux software, along with the complete source code, to anyone who wants it. However, the original owner of the components retains the copyrights to the sof....

Nearly all new computers come with a CD-ROM drive, a sound card, and speakers, which can turn any computer into a simple CD audio player. You can play your own audio CDs on your computer, but you may have more fun scouring the Internet for free music to play from your hard disk or a CD-R (CD recordable) drive.One reason there are so many free music files on the Internet is the restrictive nature of the recording industry. In the old d....

Log files track the activity on a computer so administrators can see who has used the computer, what they did, how long they stayed connected, and where they came from. Since a log file can also record the activity of an unauthorized intruder, much like a surveillance camera can record a burglar breaking into a store, hackers look for the log file as soon as they get access into the computer. Script kiddies often delete the log files to prevent the administrator from seeing ex....