How does Instant Messaging work?

Instant Messaging is one of the fastest growing forms of communication, both at home and at work. IM helps people send quick text messages around the world, talk for free on the internet and transfer files, all pretty much instantly. What is Instant Messaging? Instant Messaging allows you to quickly send a message to one or more of your friends over the internet. As you continue chatting you see a full transcript of your conversation form in the chat window. A message takes very little time to reach the other person and it doesn't matter whether that person is next door to you or around the world! How does IM work? Most IM programs connect to an IM company on the internet that both verifies a particular user's identity, called authentication, and sends information between users. When you start up an IM program, called an IM client, it tries to contact to a particular company's IM server, such as Google or Yahoo. The IM server verifies your username and password and then logs you in. At this point you're connected. Now you'll see a list of your buddies that are currently online. As your friends sign in and out you'll see them appear and disappear from your contact list. You'll notice that the statuses of friends automatically change from "Online" to "Away", "Busy" or "Offline" based on whether that person is logged in and using his/her computer. When you send a message to your friend it travels from your IM client to the IM server to which you're connected. The message then travels directly to your buddy and a window pops up on his/her machine. As you continue your conversation the messages go back and forth between the clients and servers with very little delay. Now let's suppose you want to send a file to your friend. Your IM client essentially asks the IM server where your friend is located on the internet and then helps your computer make a direct connection to your friend's computer. The reason a direct connection is made is it's more efficient than trying to send every file through the IM servers and means the IM companies don't have to use as much internet bandwidth. Instant Messages are tiny while files like movies and audio can be quite large. On average, a whole month of Instant Messaging internet traffic adds up to under 1 megabyte, a tiny amount of space. As a result, it's no wonder Instant Messaging works on both slow and fast internet connections.

A broadcast network is an organization, such as a corporation or other voluntary association, that provides live television or recorded content, such as movies, newscasts, sports, Public affairs programming, and other television programs for broadcast over a group of radio stations or television stations. Most networks are primarily either a television network or a radio network, although some organizations run both types of networks. In telecommunication and information theory, broadcasting refers to a method of transferring a message to all recipients simultaneously. Broadcasting can be performed as a high level operation in a program, for example broadcasting Message Passing Interface, or it may be a low level networking operation, for example broadcasting on Ethernet.

A newsgroup monitored by an individual or group (the moderator) who has the authority to block messages deemed inappropriate. Moderated newsgroups have fewer flames and less spam than unmoderated forums.

Various Internet Services: There are various Internet resources located on n number of servers on the Internet. It is a veritable source of knowledge and inexhaustible source. internet services can be broken down into two main categories.
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Communicating in the cyber space. Locating and retrieving the Internet services. The various Internet Services are:

E-mail also called as electronic mail. It enables an individual to send letters, messages, advertisements, game programs, data files etc. to one or more internet addresses. The messages can be send within few minutes, inexpensive, volume-independent and distance independent. The user normally pays a flat rate for connectivity to the ISP. Email software comprises, mail servers on the Internet, mail user agent or mail reader at the user end. Simple mail transfer protocol, Unix to Unix copy, post office protocol, etc. are used on the mail servers for the purpose of sending and receiving mails. Mail user agent software running on a P.C. is used to compose and send mail via server, retrieve mail from a server and display the same on the users screen.

mailing lists-a mailing list is used to send the mails to a smaller domain or group of a specific nature, Servers allow the user to enlist themselves in the mailing list by sending an email message. A discussion group of members restricted to only subscribers as per the mailing list, receives messages from the server as soon as someone has sent. Internet relay chat- it is a multi user implementation of Unix talk program. Developed in 1998 by j-Oikarimen offering a unique type of talking experience on the net. It has been used extensively for live coverage of world events, news and sports commentary.

The IRC network on the Internet consists of multiple interconnected servers. The IRC consists of a number of channels-public, private, secret. A user can choose a channel of his choice and be part of a particular conference on the Internet. The IRC allows user to change from one chat group to another, join any conversation or listen only.
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Internet talking: This Internet line audio/video service allows users computer to connect to other user computer on the Internet. The messages are exchanged in real time by these users as soon as they are typed by any of them. A program called talk daemon handles the actual communication service. This program should be compatible between the users designing to engage in Internet talk. Once the connection is made with talk daemon, the server dives into two, allows the user to enter the messages in the lower half, to view/ receive the massage from others through upper half of the screen. Video exchanges can also be conducted in real time over the Internet. Internet search-Internet provides huge amount of information newspaper, magazines, library books, articles, literature on philosophy, history, art, health, etc. User can browse through this information through search facility. This helps to locate the information and the server on which it is located.

A search engine that queries other search engines and then combines the results that are received from all. In effect, the user is not using just one search engine but a combination of many search engines at once to optimize Web searching. For example, Dogpile is a metasearch engine, mamma, metacrawler etc.

point-to-point network A type of network, the opposite of a BROADCAST NETWORK, in which when a message is sent from one computer to another, it usually has to be sent via other computers in the network. A point-to-point network consists of many connections between individual pairs of computers. As a general rule, large networks such as WIDE AREA NETWORKS are organized in this fashion. This type of network is sometimes called a store and forward network or a packet switched network.

The Internet has revolutionized a whole range of fields and applications with a myriad of possible uses. To list them all could possibly fill pages. Here are therefore just a few of the main uses of the Internet in different fields.
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Business

Within the field of business, the Internet has opened up a broad range of uses, from world wide advertising, the undertaking of transactions and making payments to Internet banking, etc. Business communications also benefit through e-mail, direct access to companies via websites, chat based customer service facilities and online conferencing.
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Training and Information

Apart from a vast range of online study facilities, the Internet also presents an unlimited resource for study related research conducted by students of every imaginable and unimaginable subject. It allows access to resources and communication with distant tutors. As a matter of fact, anyone requiring any kind of information is likely to be able to find and access the necessary resources via the Internet.
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Communication

The Internet makes it possible to stay in touch and communicate with friends and family around the world via e-mail, social networks and chat facilities. Commerce and education equally benefit from some or all of these facilities.
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Leisure

Whether an individual's favorite pastime involves music, movies or games, it can be easily accessed via the Internet. Travel destinations, information and arrangements, arts, crafts, hobbies and any related information are equally easy to access.
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Shopping

From appliances and books to clothing, groceries and gadgets; from insurance services to software, in short anything the heart desires can be found and purchased via the Internet.
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To Put it in a Nutshell

As previously stated, the Internet has a vast range of both commercial and personal applications. The one thing it does not do is make a nice cup of tea.

A newsgroup is like an electronic public notice board on a particular subject. Anyone can post a message or read a message. Newsgroups provide a way to communicate with people who share your interests from all over the world. You can read a newsgroup any time and anyone can participate in a newsgroup... though not all Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have a news server or offer access to every newsgroup. There are literally thousands of newsgroups covering virtually every topic imaginable - from computers, social issues, literature and science, to recreation, entertainment, hobbies and current affairs. In newsgroups you can find job postings, business and health care advice, announcements about events, referrals, political and religious discussions - even photos you can download. Reading newsgroups is easy. You can use a newsreader that is nested or bundled in your email program although a specialized newseader will allow you to manage the huge volume of information in most newsgroups. You will need to set up your newsreader. This means "pointing" it at your ISPs news server. You will need to know the name of your ISPs news server. It will look something like news.yourisp.com.au. Categories

Newsgroups are divided into categories. The categories help you determine what kind of group and what kind of postings you will find there. For example, alt.bicycle.rec.oz means this is an alternative newsgroup for recreational cyclists in Australia. Be aware that some newsgroups are not for the faint hearted. alt.gay.leather would not be a place to read interesting stuff about spring flowers. Some common examples are:
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alt. means "alternative" and refers to newsgroups that are alternative (and sometime absurd), or simply that they dont fit into other categories. com. means "computers" and newsgroups proceeded with com. cover areas of interest to computer users or professionals soc. means "social" and cover topics like politics, community groups and social policy talk. Means "talk" and sci. means "science" denotes more discussive newsgroups rec. means "rec" and proceeds newsgroups that are not work related

Subscribing You "subscribe" to newsgroups that interest you. To do this you first get a complete listing of all the newsgroups that are available from your ISP. It takes a few minutes to download because the list of newsgroups is very long - there are over 50,000 newsgroups and rising. Once downloaded to your computer, use the "search" or "find" functions in your newsreader to look for topics that interest you. You can build a list of subscribed newsgroups or just view a newsgroup once. When you subscribe to a newsgroup, your newsreader automatically downloads new messages or "posts" to that newsgroup each time you log onto your ISP's news server. Posting A message on a newsgroup is called a "post" or an "article". It may a response to a previous post or be a new post. People reading the newsgroup can reply to any post and in this way a discussion or "thread" is formed. It is often a good idea to read through a thread before posting your own ideas. When replying to a post, try to keep the information relevant and to the point. You post a message in much the same way you create a new e-mail message. Click the "Post a new message" or "Compose a new message button", the name of the newsgroup appears in the "To:" line, put in your subject and type your comments or questions and then hit the "Send" or "Post" button. A few minutes later your message will appear in the newsgroup for everyone to see. Similarly, you can forward a message from a newsgroup to a friend using the "Forward" function, or "Rely to the Author" to send your comments or questions directly to original author without your message going back to the newsgroup. Note that some newsgroups are more active than others, just like some IRC channels are more active than others. If you go a newsgroup and there are only a handful of postings there, you are not doing anything wrong, there are just fewer people posting and reading that newsgroup. Also, note the dates of the posts, there is probably no point in posting a reply if the original post is more than a week or so old. Some people just read the posting to the newsgroup, without posting their own message. This is called "lurking".

Flaming Avoid personal attacks or you will be "flamed" by one or more people. A flame is a particularly nasty personal attack on somebody for something he or she has written. It is usually a little hysterical. Dont flame; it is a waste of bandwidth and politeness shouldnt cost anything. There are plenty of articles on "Netiquette" on the web (yes, the Net has its style police as well).

Hub The hub allows branching of the cable which then might form a loop-free tree of cables with the same appearance to the computers. The hub may shape and amplify the signal. The hub sends the incoming signal out on each of the lines that it did not come in on. I don t know how smart it is upon packet collisions. It has no storage beyond about one bit. Ethernet theory calls this a Repeater and includes bridges in the hub category. Bridge The bridge examines the 48 bit destination address for the packet and directs the packet only to the cable where the recipient resides. One packet causes less congestion thereby. A bridge may buffer enough bits to interpret the destination address. It could buffer a whole packet and queue it for the correct outgoing link. I don t know if they do. Bridges learn who s where by watching return addresses. Bridges may join into the Spanning Tree Protocol. Switch A switch will typically talk some protocol besides Ethernet, such as PPP over longer lines provided by the Telco. The switch knows about IP (internet protocol) packets within the Ethernet packets and routes according to 32 bit IP addresses. The switch will typically buffer and queue packets. It will to talk to the LAN with Ethernet as well. Router A router is a node that forwards IP packets not explicitly addressed to it. The router talks PPP over very fast links such as fiber. It probably talks only to switches and other routers. Routers must be know to confine packets with IP addresses that are of local scope. Network Address Translation (NAT) happens in routers. A gateway acts as a conversion from one protocol to another or in the case of VoIP from the VoIP network to the POTS network. A router works by looking at the IP address in the packet and decides if it is for internal use or if the packet should move outside the network (to the WAN). In a VoIP conversation,
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A gateway may contain devices such as protocol translators, impedance matching devices, rate converters, fault isolators, or signal translators as necessary to provide system interoperability. It also requires the establishment of mutually acceptable administrative procedures between both networks. o A protocol translation/mapping gateway interconnects networks with different network protocol technologies by performing the required protocol conversions. Loosely, a computer or computer program configured to perform the tasks of a gateway. For a specific case, see default gateway.
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Gateways, also called protocol converters, can operate at any network layer. The activities of a gateway are more complex than that of the router or switch as it communicates using more than one protocol.

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a protocol for real-time Internet text messaging (chat) or synchronous conferencing.[1] It is mainly designed for group communication in discussion forums, called channels,[2] but also allows one-to-one communication via private message[3] as well as chat and data transfer,[4] including file sharing.