What Can You Do with an Intranet?

An intranet adds Internet-like services to your LAN. Many organizations, especially those with large existing computer systems, have lots of information that is hard to get at. The intranet can change all that, by using Internet tools. Here are some ideas for ways that your organization-large or small-ean use an intranet.

E-mail within the organization and to and from the Internet People can use one e-mail program to exchange mail both with other intranet users and with the Internet.

• Private discussion groups Using a mailing list manager or a news server accessible only to people in your organization, you can set up mailing lists or newsgroups to encourage people to share information within departments or across the organization. Alternatively, you can use web-based message boards,
• Private web sites Each department in your organization can create a web site that is accessible only to people on the intranet. Instead of circulating memos and handbooks, information can go on these web sites. For example, the marketing department can post information about products, including upcoming release dates, how products are targeted, and other information that isn't appropriate for a public site on the Internet-based web. By using the intranet instead of printing on paper, it's economical to publish large documents and documents that change frequently.
• Access to databases If your organization has information in databases, you can convert the data to web pages so that everyone on the intranet can see it. For example, a nonprofit organization might have a database containing all of its fundraising and membership information. By using a program that can display database information as web pages and enter information from web page forms into the database, all the people at the organization can see, and even update, selected information from the database by using only a web browser. Naturally, the program would need to limit who could see and change particular information in the database.
• Teleconferencing Rather than spend big bucks on video teleconferencing systems, think about using your intranet (and the Internet), instead. If your organization has offices in several locations, you can use the Internet for online chats with text, voice, shared whiteboards, and even limited video

What Are Databases?

A database is a collection of pieces of related information that is organized so its various informational items can be located and retrieved when needed. Billions of electronic databases exist, but only some of them can be accessed on the Web. Your health insurer, for example, probably has a searchable database that contains information about your recent health history, but that database is not available on the Web.

On the other hand, many databases are indeed available on the Web. Some databases on the Web can be used by anyone at no charge, and others require that users belong to a particular organization or pay a fee. Web-accessible databases are part of what is sometimes referred to as the hidden Web, the deep Web, or the invisible Web: information that cannot be directly located with today's general-purpose search engines because it is "hidden" behind query forms. To locate information in most web-accessible databases, you need to be able to find the database itself and make your query. Databases on the Web include library catalogs, telephone books, public records, and news and magazine archives. For example, if you use a web search engine to look for a specific book, you probably won't find Amazon.corn's page about the book because Amazon's book information is stored in a database that isn't indexed by search engines.

Some databases are fully indexed, meaning that you can search the entire database for the occurrence of any word. Other databases are indexed only by fields. For example, to find someone in a white pages database, you need to search for information for a particular field. If you type "Mckinley" into the last name field of a white pages search, you see only people with the last name of McKinley rather than people who live on McKinley Avenue.

How Do Search Engines Work?

Dozens of search engines are available on the Web. Each search engine gathers information a little differently. Some engines scan the entire web page; others focus on the page title; some analyze the references from one web page to another; still others read keywords and information included in meta tags (tags that include keywords about the page) on the web page. These different methods are the reason you can get different results from different search engines.

Popular search engines include Google (www.google.com), MSN Search (search.msn.com), AltaVista (www.aItavista.com), and Yahoo (www.yahoo.com).
Most search engines go beyond just searching for web pages. Some search engines allow you to search for information from Usenet newsgroups.