Embracing Technology: Get Tech-Savvy by Learning About Your Computer, Smartphone, Internet, and Social Media Applications (English Edition) 9391030009, 9789391030001

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Embracing Technology

Get Tech-Savvy by Learning About Your Computer, Smartphone, Internet, and Social Media Applications

Maniik R Grover

www.bpbonline.com

FIRST EDITION 2021 Copyright © BPB Publications, India ISBN: 978-93-91030-001

All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher with the exception to the program listings which may be entered, stored and executed in a computer system, but they can not be reproduced by the means of publication, photocopy, recording, or by any electronic and mechanical means.

LIMITS OF LIABILITY AND DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY

The information contained in this book is true to correct and the best of author’s and publisher’s knowledge. The author has made every effort to ensure the accuracy of these publications, but publisher cannot be held responsible for any loss or damage arising from any information in this book.

All trademarks referred to in the book are acknowledged as properties of their respective owners but BPB Publications cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

www.bpbonline.com

Dedicated to

My dad Mr. Rajnish Kumar Grover and my son Ridhim, both of whom I consider to be tech savvy in their own right And

The cause of digital literacy and inclusion

About the Author

Maniik R Grover is a technology entrepreneur from New Delhi, India, with 20 years of experience in Information Technology (Software). He is a B.E in Telecommunication Engineering from Bangalore University. He has held technology and management positions at Expedia, Yahoo!, Fidelity Investments among other MNCs and startups. Over these last two decades, he has worked on a wide variety of software products for the Internet in the domains of travel e-commerce, fraud prevention, digital marketing, VoIP, and equity trading. He started his software company Atishrri Technologiess in 2019, where he currently works as the founder and director.

He cares for the cause of digital literacy and digital inclusion. Through his interactions with his friends, family, seniors, and other associates on day-to-day technology topics, he realized the need for guidance on this topic and decided to write this book to address that need.

Apart from technology, he’s enthusiastic about options trading, perfumery, and singing karaoke. This is his first book. His home on the web is

About the Reviewers

Pooja Grover has over 12 years of experience in Software Development, in the areas of Internet Security, Telecommunication and e-Commerce. She has worked with several Startups and Services companies during this tenure, in India and abroad. Some of her core skills include Linux(Ubuntu, Cent OS), C/C++, Python, SIP/VOIP, TCP/IP, Clustering, Asterisk etc. She enjoys writing, and blogs about Technology and Life in general. She is blessed with two kids, and loves spending quality time with them. Currently, she is working with a well established Startup providing Contact Centre Software solutions over the Cloud.

Ratnadeep Rakshit is an experienced, hands-on software architect involved in the architecture, design, and implementation of microservices architectures, service-oriented architectures, and distributed systems. He has been in the software industry since 2002. He is significantly experienced and has expertise in application, integration and enterprise architecture. He has worked in various capacities for multinational companies like IBM, Deutsche Telekom, Cognizant, etc. and has developed mission critical systems for the telecom industry. He is currently working on a news aggregator and smart magazine platform called Gopono. He is also actively involved with Ankur Trust, an NGO that provides free education to underprivileged children in the remote villages of Sundarbans, West Bengal.

Acknowledgements

To borrow the words of Alfred Adler, I am grateful for the idea that has used me. Additionally, I would like to thank many more people for their direct and indirect support.

First of all, I would like to thank my darling daughter Shirin for a continuous supply of love and sunshine. Thanks to my wife Pooja for her support, advice, and critique of my work, as the first reader and one of the reviewers of this book. I would like to express my gratitude to the entire BPB Publications, especially Nrip Jain, for giving me the opportunity to write my first book,

I am also grateful to my colleague and friend Ratnadeep Rakshit for his valuable contributions as a reviewer of this book.

I would like to thank Sidharth Shah for his mentorship and guidance, and my co-participants at the TAGR Academy for their camaraderie.

A shout-out to my friends Shraddha Kuhupriya and Dheeraj Grover; their music served as the perfect soundtrack for the writing of this book. And to Rhydhun, who I discovered during the same period.

I would also like to thank my family, friends, and associates. It was through our numerous interactions on day-to-day tech topics that I came to realize the need for a book like this.

Last but not the least, to the readers of this book who are embarking on this journey with me to embrace technology: Thank you! Good Luck, and let’s Go!

Preface

Our lives today are surrounded by technology; although very often, we don’t recognize this consciously. There are both positive and negative aspects of this. On one hand, technology touches our lives in such a natural manner that we quickly adapt to it and then start taking it for granted. Mass technology of current times is often so intuitive that we can use it without having to deal with the complexity behind it. This can be easily illustrated with the example of a telephone; we don’t need to understand telecommunication engineering to be able to use a phone. The downside to this is that we assume that everyone understands how to use these technological innovations. But this assumption often turns out to be a wrong one.

Most technical innovations are built on top of one another, using previous innovations as building blocks and utilizing similar patterns. For example, if you are comfortable with one social media website, you can learn to use another one by exploring and drawing parallels between them. But learning to use the first social media website may require you to understand some basic concepts related to social networking first. Often, a lack of knowledge on these building blocks and patterns becomes a stumbling block in learning how to use newer innovations. The rate at which technology is evolving and gaining mass adoption today is much faster than it was a few decades ago. Hence, it has also become important to learn quickly to keep pace with technology.

Over the last couple of years, I have had numerous interactions with my friends, family, and community members on day-to-day digital tasks. Many of these interactions have made me realize that there is a need for structured learning on technology and digital products, and technology can be made more inclusive. Getting more people using technology platforms is essential not only for people and society but also for the digital platforms themselves. A more diverse representation of users acts as a forcing function for companies to design simpler and more intuitive systems, thereby making digital products more inclusive. The hard reality is that our society is at a point where we cannot escape technology and the Internet. The easiest way to witness the impact of Internet is to turn off the Internet router of an urban family for a few hours. The discomfort and the outrage you witness will attest to the level of dependence we have on the Internet today. Technology has become so intertwined with our day-to-day lives that computers, smartphones, and Internet connectivity seem close to becoming basic necessities like water and electricity. Today, the Internet is the most convenient way to even pay for basic necessities like electricity and water. If you look around, you’ll notice that technology and the Internet have changed the way we consume information, connect, communicate with people, share information, make purchases, book movie tickets, travel, commute, capture moments, entertain ourselves, and even pay for purchases made in the real world. If we avoid learning these skills, it will keep us dependent on others and repeatedly distract us from the real tasks at hand.

In this environment, being Tech-savvy is a skill we need not only to thrive but also to survive. Tech-savviness is often thought of as a talent that someone is born with, and we often look towards tech-savvy people to sort out our technology-related But being techsavvy is not a talent at all, it a skill that can be systematically acquired just like any other skill. It’s like learning a new language. You can start by learning the alphabets, then form words, then learn the rules of grammar, which gets you to a level where you can get better at it with some practice. Digital skills can also be learned in the same manner and anyone can become tech-savvy if they have the curiosity and access to a guide or learning materials.

As proof, I present you this all-in-one guide that will give you a structured learning path to get introduced to the most common applications of computers and Internet in the world around you. It does not require any prior knowledge; we will start with the basics and build up from there. As you read through the chapters and practice the exercises, you’ll acquire useful digital skills and find yourself becoming more independent on day-to-day digital tasks. It will also help you develop an awareness of the building which will position you favorably for self-learning new technical innovations that the future promises. Let us now look at how the content is structured and presented in this book, and the methodology we will be using. Throughout this book, I’ll be using some analogies to help explain key concepts. At the very outset, I want to mention that an analogy is something common between two unrelated concepts. Analogies are powerful as they help you leverage your knowledge

of one concept for understanding another new concept. However, it’s important to note that while analogous things may be similar in some respects, we shouldn’t try to equate the two. This is something I want you to be aware of, as you think about these analogies.

There are numerous books dedicated to each of the topics that we will discuss in this guide that can help you understand that topic in detail. You can refer to https://bpbonline.com for a great collection of technology books. My objective in this book is not to make you an expert on any of these topics. The objective is to introduce the key concepts related to each topic, explain how things are related, and to get you to a beginner/intermediate level of usage. To give an analogy, it’s like providing you with a 30,000 feet view of the ground; the kind you see when you’re on an airplane. You can see the different buildings and the roads that connect them and some basic features of the buildings. But you may not see every detail of the buildings like how many doors and windows they have or what each room in those houses looks like. To simplify some of the concepts and accommodate all these topics in a single guide, I will be making some compromises with respect to comprehensiveness.

As we begin this book, we’ll learn about devices such as your computer, smartphone, and tablet. The next section discusses device connections and the Internet. We’ll then learn about the different types of productivity applications such as email, photos, music, videos, office apps, and maps. We’ll then switch gears and discuss the different ways in which you can connect with people

on the Internet, We will learn about social media, online communication tools, and WhatsApp. Privacy will be discussed next to round out the sections on productivity and communication. In the next section, we’ll discuss the various nuances of online shopping, namely, online payments, reviews, ecommerce, tracking, event/movie booking, and booking travel online. Towards the end of this book, we’ll discuss some applications of computing and Internet that go beyond your computer, smartphone, and tablet before we summarize and conclude. It’s recommended that if you’re a beginner, you should read the book as per the chapter sequence. After reading the first four chapters, you may jump forward to a chapter of your interest if you feel a desire to do so, or are in a situation where you can’t wait to learn a particular topic. Alternatively, if you already possess a working knowledge of your computer, smartphone/tablet, the Internet and are aware of basic connections, you may skip the first four chapters and jump directly to the chapters of your interest. As you go through the chapters, I would strongly encourage you to practically try out the examples shared. This will help you make the most out of the content, get hands-on experience with the concepts discussed, and become more independent with practice. Most of the chapters show examples and screenshots from online systems and apps. You may find that some screens may have changed from what is shown in the book. Most of the theoretical concepts would still apply though, and I would encourage you to find your way around the updated system or app. You can also perform a web search to find something (we'll also learn about web searches in Chapter 3 of this book).

Here’s a summary of what you’ll learn in each chapter: Chapter 1 elaborates on the hardware and software elements of your smartphone and tablet. It introduces the Android user interface and provides instructions to set up a new phone. It also shows how to do some common tasks on your phone/tablet and discusses about apps and permissions.

Chapter 2 focuses on computers, their hardware and software, and the different types of computers. It introduces the Windows 10 user interface with instructions for personalizing your OS and carrying out some common tasks on it. It also discusses how to manage programs, computer security, and the different types of malicious programs that pose a security risk. Chapter 3 talks about the Internet and explains how it works. It also introduces you to a web browser and walks you through the basic features of the Chrome web browser on your PC and smartphone. It also discusses Internet-enabled apps, Internet security, content on the Internet, and the uses of Internet in the world around you. Chapter 4 covers device connections. It discusses some common connections like USB, and a few others. It also talks about connection speeds. Chapter 5 focuses on email and explains how it works. It introduces Gmail and explains the usage of its basic features. It

also covers some special features of Gmail like conversation view, search and filters, and introduces Google partner apps like Calendar, and It also discusses email etiquette and security.

Chapter 6 talks about photos. It begins with the attributes of digital photos and introduces the Google Photos service. It walks you through some common features of the Camera app on your smartphone and also demonstrates how you can manage, modify, and share photos using the Google Photos service. It also discusses copyrights, licensing, picture etiquette, and best practices for picture privacy.

Chapter 7 explores music and videos and covers the basic concepts related to digital audio and video. It shows how to capture videos using the Camera app on your smartphone and covers some useful settings. It also discusses about streaming services, introduces YouTube and YouTube Music and shows commonly used features of these services. It also talks about piracy.

Chapter 8 discusses productivity applications and common types of office files such as documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and PDF files. It introduces the Google Docs/Drive suite of apps consisting of and and shows how you can use these services to create and share productivity files. It also discusses some security and privacy considerations. Chapter 9 talks about maps and begins by discussing concepts related to paper and digital maps. It introduces Google Maps and

shows how you can search for places, plan a trip, get travel directions, and share places using the Google Maps service. Chapter 10 focuses on social media, starting with its key concepts and terminology. It introduces three popular social networks: Instagram, and Twitter and covers the key features of each. It also discusses privacy and recommends privacy settings for these three networks. It also discusses social media etiquette. Chapter 11 describes online communication tools, discusses some of their key concepts and the user interface elements commonly found on these tools. It introduces Google Hangouts and demonstrates some of its features. It also discusses privacy aspects of online communication.

Chapter 12 focuses on a popular online communication app. It demonstrates WhatsApp features related to contacts, groups, communication modes, data management, notifications, and privacy. It also discusses etiquette and responsible usage.

Chapter 13 talks about online payments. It discusses the different payment mechanisms popular in India. Payment methods like NEFT, IMPS, RTGS, UPI, credit cards, and digital wallets are covered, and recommendations are provided to transact securely and protect you from payment frauds.

Chapter 14 discusses privacy and ties together the different applications of privacy that you would’ve seen earlier in the book. It discusses information classification and the difference between

security and privacy. It also discusses social engineering, how it relates with security, and how you can safeguard yourself against it.

Chapter 15 talks about online reviews and discusses how you can leverage them to decide what to buy. It discusses the anatomy of an online review and shows some useful ways in which you may peruse reviews. It also lists some useful websites where you can read reviews and discusses ways in which you can derive insights from them.

Chapter 16 talks about online shopping It introduces e-commerce terminology and walks you through the typical workflow of ordering a product on an e-commerce website, showing examples from a popular e-commerce website. It also discusses shopping and payments models which employ a combination of online and offline modes. It discusses post-ordering actions like returns, tracking, etc. It also discusses event/movie booking.

Chapter 17 talks about booking travel online It walks you through a typical travel booking workflow and discusses the booking process for flights, hotels, buses, and trains, along with the specific nuances of each. It shows examples from popular travel booking websites such as RedBus, and It also discusses package bookings.

Chapter 18 talks about some applications of computing and the Internet that go beyond your PC and smartphone/tablet. It introduces the concept of cloud computing and discusses some of its applications. It also discusses digital media players and smart

TVs and looks at how the Internet is changing home entertainment. It also talks about digital voice assistants, introduces Google Assistant, and demonstrates its usage on your smartphone.

Summing it up summarizes what we’ve learned in this book and offers some tips and recommendations for staying tech-savvy and continuing your learning journey further.

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Please follow the link to download the Coloured Images of the book: https://rebrand.ly/c74eae

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Table of Contents

1. Your Smartphone/Tablet Structure Objective How phones became smart? Tablets Device hardware Android software interface What is a gesture? Setting up a new Android smartphone Personalizing your device Finding an app Choosing a background photo Choosing a ringtone and volume Choosing a screensaver Customizing your screen lock Adjusting your display size Using phone features Making a call Receiving a call Call controls Sending and reading SMS Typical tasks on your device Adjust screen brightness Auto rotate Managing contacts Adding, modifying, and searching contacts Contacts storage Connecting to Wi-Fi

Checking space usage Toggle flight mode Capturing a screenshot Some common apps Clock Calendar Calculator Installing apps securely Play Store Security and permissions Searching and installing apps Updating and uninstalling apps Conclusion Key terms

2. Your Computer/Laptop Structure Objective Your computer What is a computer? Types of personal computers Computer hardware Internal hardware Internal interfaces External interfaces Computer peripherals Your computer's keyboard Your computer's mouse Software interface Starting a computer

Windows 10 interface Start menu Window Taskbar System tray Desktop Files File explorer Recycle bin Action center Clipboard Turning off your computer Personalizing your computer Setting a desktop background Setting a lock screen Common tasks on a computer Managing your files Create a Text file Create a shortcut to a program or a file Check space usage Taking a screenshot Connecting to Wi-Fi Changing settings Computer security Types of malicious programs Dealing with security Prevention and cure Security best practices Managing programs on your computer View list of programs installed Removing a program

Installing a program Keyboard shortcuts Conclusion Key terms

3. The Internet Structure Objective What is the internet? A real-life analogy Internet concepts Anatomy of a URL How the internet works? The web browser Browsing on your PC Browsing on your smartphone/tablet Beyond your web browser and PC/smartphone Programs and apps Other internet-enabled devices Internet security Content on the internet Creation of content Free and paid content Uses of the internet Conclusion Key terms

4. Connections Structure Objective

Connection mediums and media Connection directionality Digital and analog media Classification of data connections IP-based connections LAN connection Wi-Fi Mobile data network Fiber Your internet connection Non-IP-based connections Bluetooth USB Consumer infrared Audio and video connections Combinations of IP-based and non-IP-based connections Hotspots and tethering Viewing data from smart devices online Understanding connection speed Usage of different connections Conclusion Key terms 5. Email Structure Objective What is Email? The human network analogy Email and the internet Email protocols Email program/apps

Gmail Gmail web interface Gmail mobile app Email concepts Signing up for email Your mailbox Organizing emails Folders Labels Folders and labels on Gmail Gmail categories Gmail inbox type Parts of an email Email actions Composing an email Replying to an email Forwarding an email Printing an email Other email actions in Gmail Gmail features Conversation/threaded view Search Filters Gmail as an email tool Email etiquette Other Google web apps

Email and security Conclusion Key terms

6. Photos

Structure Objective Introduction Basics of digital photos Attributes of a digital photo Picture quality File formats Acquiring photos Clicking a picture Managing photos Google Photos Modifying photos Basic image modifications Sharing photos Sending an image Sharing an image Sharing online for a limited time/views Other photo services Using photos Picture privacy Conclusion Key terms

7. Music and Videos Structure

Objective Introduction Basics of sound Attributes of a digital audio Audio quality File formats

Basics of videos Attributes of a digital video Video quality File formats Acquiring audio/videos Recording an audio Shooting a video Managing media Modifying songs and videos Sharing audio/videos Music streaming services YouTube music Video streaming services YouTube Shooting and using videos Video privacy Conclusion Key terms 8. Productivity Apps Structure Objective Introduction to productivity apps Types of productivity apps Editor vs. viewer apps Offline vs. online apps Native vs. web apps Free vs. licensed apps Significance of the categorization Some common apps Documents

Creating/opening/exporting a document Text formatting Additional content Page layout features Other useful features Presentations Creating/opening a slideshow Presentation features Slide content Slide animations and transitions Spreadsheets Creating/opening a spreadsheet Worksheet layout and cell operations Formulas and functions Portable Document Format (PDF) Converting to PDF Sharing documents File privacy and security Conclusion Key terms

9. Maps Structure

Objective Introduction to Maps Paper maps Digital maps Place Source, destination, and distance Route, time, and mode Google Maps

Planning a trip Navigation Sharing Conclusion Key terms

10. Social Media Structure Objective Introduction to social networking Types of social networks Social media terminology Facebook People profiles Businesses on social media Network connections Indirect networks Anatomy of a post Feed Content interactions Private messaging Instagram

Twitter Privacy on social media Who You and your information Your content Apps Privacy from specific people Social media etiquette Conclusion

Key terms

11. Online Communication Structure Objective Introduction to online communication Communicating online versus online communication Features and interface elements Common interface elements Google Hangouts Privacy in online communication Conclusion Key terms 12. WhatsApp Structure Objective Introduction to WhatsApp People Your profile Communication

Types of communication Chat Audio and video call File attachments Group communication Message actions Common actions Actions on Sent Messages Actions on received messages

Managing data Download preferences Managing space on your phone Notifications Status updates Utility features Managing your privacy Profile info privacy Message privacy Group privacy Status update privacy Etiquette and responsibility WhatsApp etiquette Responsibility Conclusion Key terms 13. Money and Payments Structure Objective Introduction to money and payments Introduction to money sources Introduction to payment methods Money transactions on the Internet Payment methods in India NEFT, IMPS, and RTGS Unified Payments Interface (UPI) Credit card Digital wallets Inter-source transactions Cash

Transacting securely Conclusion Key terms 14. Managing your Privacy Structure Objective Introduction to information privacy Classification of information Privacy versus security Social engineering Conclusion Key terms

15. Reviews Structure Objectives Introduction to reviews Anatomy of a review Navigating reviews Popular review websites Deriving insights from reviews Conclusion Key terms 16. E-commerce Structure Objectives Introduction to e-commerce E-commerce terminology

Key pages on an e-commerce website Ordering workflow Product research and selection Product discovery Add to your cart Cart checkout Order confirmation Online and offline commerce models Post-ordering actions Tracking How tracking works? Tracking alerts Examples of tracking E-commerce Couriers India Post Movie/event booking Conclusion Key terms

17. Booking Travel Online Structure Objective Introduction to online travel booking Advantages of online travel booking Online travel booking process Booking workflow Post-booking actions Product discovery Hotel booking Search criteria

Sort and filter Search results Hotel details Booking information Checkout Booking confirmation Post booking actions for hotels Flight booking Search criteria Sort and filter Search results Booking information Checkout Booking confirmation Post booking actions for flights Train booking Search criteria Sort and filter Search results Booking information Checkout Booking confirmation Post booking actions for trains Bus booking Search criteria Sort and filter Search results Booking information Booking confirmation Post booking actions for buses Packages

The downsides of travel research Conclusion Key terms 18. Beyond Your PC and Smartphone Structure Objective Cloud computing A recap of cloud computing applications Pros and cons of cloud computing Your TV and the Internet Connecting your TV to the Internet Categories of online TV content Digital voice assistants Types of voice assistants Google Assistant Customizing your Voice assistant Voice assistants and home automation Conclusion Key terms Summing it up Staying tech-savvy Technology and communication

Index

CHAPTER 1 Your Smartphone/Tablet

The day will come when the man at the telephone will be able to see the distant person to whom he is speaking.

- Alexander Graham Bell, Inventor of the Telephone

In the next 10 years, I expect at least five billion people worldwide to own smartphones, giving every individual with such a phone instant access to the full power of the internet, every moment of every day.

- Marc Andreessen, Technology Entrepreneur and Investor

Mobile phones have had a significant impact on our lives since they gained adoption amongst the population. These days, there is hardly anyone who does not own or has access to a mobile phone. Smartphones are the latest generation of mobile phones that place an immense amount of power in our hands, but only if we know how to harness that power. Smartphones have now become an essential part of our lives, almost an extension of our own selves. With each passing year, they are becoming smarter and smarter, just like us, and also becoming more affordable. A smartphone is a gateway that can open up a whole new world for us, and hence it is crucial to understand how to unlock this gateway.

Learning about smartphones is just like learning anything new; it seems difficult when you think about it, but it's definitely achievable when done in steps. In this chapter, I will guide you through the first few steps that will take you closer to understanding your smartphone.

In this chapter, I will familiarize you with your Android smartphone and show you some of its capabilities. The instructions and illustrations shown are for Android version 8 on a Motorola smartphone, the screens on your device may vary depending on the manufacturer and Android version. We will also talk about Android tablets and discuss how they are similar and different from smartphones. We will walk you through the configuration steps for a new smartphone and the different ways in which you can personalize it. We will also cover some common tasks and look at some apps on your phone. As you are reading through the chapter, I would encourage you to pick up your device and try doing what is being discussed. If you do this, you should have become comfortable with the usage of your smartphone/tablet by the time you reach the end of this chapter. So, grab your device and let us take the first step in this journey.

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: How phones became smart?

Tablets

Device hardware Android software interface

Setting up a new Android smartphone

Personalizing your device

Using phone features

Typical tasks on your device

Some common apps Installing apps securely

Objective

This chapter will introduce readers to their Android smartphone and tablet. They will become familiar with the hardware and software interfaces of their device. The chapter will also discuss how to personalize a device and carry out common operations on it.

How phones became smart?

You must be familiar with the wired telephone in your house. Once upon a time, we used to just call it The Over time, different types of phones came about and the term Phone started to become ambiguous. When you say Phone these days, it is not clear if you are referring to your wired telephone or your mobile phone. The good old wired phone is now called a Landline for the purpose of disambiguation. Do you know why your wired phone is called a landline? Your phone is connected to the nearest telephone exchange by a copper wire. Your phone wire is tagged to your phone number on the exchange's end, so when you receive a phone call, the signal is sent on the wire which comes to your home. These wires are laid on land; they either run underground or over the ground, hence the term We will talk about this in more detail in Chapter 4: To make or receive a call on your landline, you have to be at home. And to talk on a landline phone, you have to be close to it while you are using it. How far from the phone can you go when you are having a conversation? Well, you can go as far as the length of your handset's cable allows you to, which is typically 4–16 feet.

To get around this limitation, cordless phones were invented. A cordless phone has two parts: a base station which is connected

to the telephone network by wire, and a handset that is connected to the base station wirelessly. The handset uses radio waves to communicate with the base station and has a range of about 50 m indoors. With a cordless phone, you can make or receive a phone call anywhere around your house. You can also go about doing your chores while you talk on the phone. A cordless phone works using the landline connection, but gives you some mobility.

The next evolution of the phone, the mobile phone, provided a real leap in mobility. You could be anywhere in your city and still make and receive phone calls on your mobile. It also allowed for a new form of communication: via short text messages or SMS. A mobile phone connects your phone wirelessly to the nearest mobile tower. As you travel beyond the mobile tower's range, your connection is handed over to the next mobile tower. Think of it as a runner handing over the baton to their partner in a relay race. The mobile tower recognizes your phone number by a small chip provided by your mobile company, which you insert in your mobile phone, called a SIM card.

As mobile phones continued to evolve, support for internet browsing using the mobile network was the most notable step forward. Mobile keyboards became larger with a dedicated key for each alphabet and the screens started became colorful, bigger, and more vivid. Cameras also started to appear on mobile phones but the quality of cameras was not comparable to digital cameras. This was about a decade or so ago, and these mobile phones are now called feature phones.

Feature phones have been evolving since the last decade and have taken the form of smartphones, as we know them today. Modern smartphones have a screen that covers almost the entire face of the device, and an on-screen touch-sensitive keyboard instead of a physical keyboard. Most devices have two cameras, one on the front and another on the back, and the quality is now comparable to a small digital camera. We now have larger batteries, more file storage, more working memory, and much better software (also called the operating system Support for Wi-Fi has also become standard and some phone models also support multiple phone numbers by allowing for two SIM cards. These improvements have happened gradually over the last 10 years, and notably, have not increased the price of mobile phones proportionately. In fact, the prices have reduced. So, you can get more features for your money today, compared to 10 years ago. The current generation of smartphones is so powerful that they can be thought of as a small computer in the palm of your hand. You might see some new terms above that you do not fully understand. Does not worry; we will learn more about them in this book.

The key things I would like you to take away from this section are: Mobile phones offer wireless connectivity and support SMS, voice calls, and mobile internet Smartphones are mobile phones that have:

Bigger screens that respond to touch Bigger screens that respond to touch Wi-Fi data connectivity A more modern and standard OS (Android)

Better cameras More storage and memory You might be wondering about how tablets fit into the whole ecosystem. Let us discuss that next.

Tablets

To understand how tablets are different from smartphones, let us look at their evolution.

The earliest smartphones had much smaller screens which posed a limitation in their use as entertainment devices. Since smartphones were mobile phones with added functionality, size and weight were, and continue to be important considerations. A smartphone has to be able to fit comfortably in your hand and pocket. As smartphones were evolving, portable entertainment was also turning out to be an important need. Tablets started off as smart devices that had larger screens but without any features of a mobile phone. These tablets worked only with Wi-Fi connectivity, which limited their range to the house or office. Later, some models added support for mobile data as well (using a SIM card) and increased the range beyond the home/office. These days, both these variants continue to be available in the market. Tablets are useful as small portable computers and entertainment devices. They are quite useful for professionals who have field jobs, for shops and businesses that need a basic computer and as entertainment devices. There are accessories like external keyboards that can be attached to tablets to make use of the full screen without having to use the touch keyboard, making them very similar to a small computer.

Android smartphones and tablets have a very similar interface. The key differences between them are:

All smartphones provide features of a mobile phone. Whereas tablets are not intended for use as a mobile phone. Some tablets may provide such features but that is not the norm.

A smartphone has a smaller form factor, and it's usually of a size that can fit in your pocket. Tablets are usually larger and make use of much larger screens.

It would be interesting for you to know that there are some smartphones that have a screen size larger than a typical smartphone's but smaller than a standard tablet's. These are called a word made up by combining phone and

For the remainder of this chapter, a lot of what we discuss, except the features of a mobile phone, applies to both Android phones and tablets. So, when we say something can be done on a smartphone, you may try the same steps on a tablet too.

Device hardware

Hardware refers to the physical parts of a device, some of which you can see and touch, and some that you cannot. The parts of hardware that interact with the external world form the hardware interface, and there are some other parts like internal components, which enable the core functions of the device.

For example, think of the toaster in your kitchen. The hardware consists of some things that you can see like its plastic body, slots to place bread slices in, a lever to push the slices down, and sometimes a temperature control knob too which controls how crisp your bread turns out. There are also some things you cannot see, like a heating element and internal circuitry. When you buy a toaster, you may pay more for better hardware. For example, a toaster that takes 4 slices instead of 2, allows you to control the timer and comes in a vibrant color that matches your kitchen's décor. Now, the toaster in question is purely a hardware appliance. Some other appliances like a microwave have additional features like a screen and pre-programmed keys, using which you can make popcorn or defrost food without having to remember the mode and temperature settings. An appliance like a microwave has both hardware and software, and you may pay more for better hardware features, software features, or both. Likewise, your smartphone also has some hardware specifications which can help you decide which one to buy. The key features of a smartphone's hardware are:

Screen The screen is measured in inches diagonally, from top left to bottom right, or from top right to bottom left. Larger screens offer better usability, but typically consume more battery and also make the device bulkier.

Processor type and Impacts how fast and how many programs can run.

Also called memory, impacts the number of programs and services that can run on your phone together, and also impacts their performance. Internal The size of files (photos, videos, and programs) that you can store on your device. Expandable This allows you to add more external storage.

Camera Affects the quality of photos captured using a Smartphone. Battery Affects how long you can go without charging your phone.

Software platform and Affects the user experience and also the library of programs that you can install on your phone. Android is an OS platform.

The following are the external hardware interfaces and parts that are present on most smartphones. You may find some of these buttons on the edges (top, bottom, left, or right) or on the faces (front or back) of the phone. The covers most of the front face of the phone. A touch screen allows you to interact with the phone using your fingertips. We will cover this in detail in the Software interface section.

Power This is used to wake up the screen or turn it off. Pressing and holding this button allows you to power off or restart the phone. On some phones, long pressing the power key also allows you to put your smartphone into Flight mode (more on this later in this chapter), take a screenshot, or to trigger the emergency button. The power button is found most often on the sides or top of the phone.

Volume Volume buttons are placed together and mostly found on the left or right edge of the phone. They let you control your phone's ringtone volume and the media volume. Sliding found on the left or right edge of the mobile phone and allows you to control the notification mode. It can be used to quickly put the phone on silent mode. Main A camera lens found on the back face of the phone, near the top. The main camera produces better photos compared to a front camera. We will learn more about your smartphone camera in Chapter 6:

Front A camera lens found on the front of the screen, above the screen. It's used to take your own photos (called Selfie) and for Video chats. Headphone Found on the top or bottom of your phone, and lets you connect headphones. Some devices don't have a headphone jack and the charging port allows compatible headphones to be plugged in. Phone Found on the front face of the phone above the screen, on the center. You may see many tiny holes there that are your phone earpiece.

Phone Found on the bottom of the phone. You may see a small hole that is your microphone. Phone Found either on the bottom edge of the phone or on the back face. It is used for talking on speakerphone or playing music on your phone. Charging This is used to charge the phone and is mostly located on the bottom edge of your phone. The same socket is also used for data transfer using a compatible cable. SIM A SIM tray is used to insert your SIM card which enables phone calls and SMS. On some phones, it is found on the left or right edge of the phone and has a tiny hole next to it. To open the tray, you push a thin pin into the hole which ejects the tray.

The thin pin usually comes with the phone. You can place your SIM card inside the tray with the SIM card cut correctly aligned and slide it back inside slowly until it sits flush. On some other phones, the SIM slot can be accessed after removing the back cover. If the battery is removable, the tray is often located under it. You may refer to the Quick Start guide that came with your mobile phone to find the location of the SIM tray/slot. Some phones also have the following hardware interfaces:

A fingerprint This allows you to use your fingerprint to unlock the phone. Found either on the back of the phone or on the home button. Some smartphones have the fingerprint scanner on the touch screen.

Navigation These are a set of three buttons on the front face of the phone, at the bottom of the screen as shown in figure Some phones also have dedicated hardware touch buttons for these. We will learn about their use in the Software interface section:

Figure 1.1: Navigation buttons Take a moment to locate the hardware buttons on your device and try them out.

Android software interface

Let us start by understanding some terms that we will be using quite often throughout this book.

Programs on your smartphone and tablet are called apps, which is short for applications. Apps enable the use of your smartphone for different functions. Home The screen that you see when you power up your phone is known as the Home screen. The home screen allows you to have shortcuts for frequently used apps and functions. It can also have widgets that may show useful information like weather, stock prices, etc. The home screen can have multiple panes.

Quick settings The quick settings bar allows you to control commonly used settings quickly from your home screen. It's on the top of your screen but hidden from view.

Notifications The notifications bar shows notifications from apps on your phone. It is located just below the quick settings bar. A notification usually has a header and a message and clicking it opens the app that generated the notification. Menu On the top left of any app, you will see three vertical lines. This is called as the menu button. It is also called the 3 Line

menus or a Hamburger menu sometimes. Clicking on it would show you the different options available in the app.

Your smartphone has a Settings app that lets you control the different configurations for your phone. We will discuss a lot of different settings in this chapter. The instructions provided are for Android 8 on a Motorola phone. The path for the same Android setting may not be the same on your phone; it may vary depending on the device manufacturer and the Android version. A quick way to find the setting being discussed is to open the Settings app and search for it by entering its name in the Search Settings bar on the top; you will be shown a shortcut to reach that setting directly.

Navigation These are the most used buttons on your mobile and have the following functions:

Home The Home button is either depicted by a circle, or a home figure, and is located at the bottom of the screen in the center (see figure Pressing this minimizes the app in view and brings you back to the Home screen. The app will continue to run in the background even after you minimize it. Back This is mostly on the left of the home button (see figure It is depicted by an arrow pointing toward the left and is used to go back to the previous page or screen. Overview On most phones, this is on the right of the home button (see figure It is depicted by a square or two overlapping

squares. It's used to view open apps and switch between them.

The three navigation buttons and the touchscreen allow you to perform all interactions on your device. Isn't that amazing? This is possible because your device understands not just the touch of your fingertip, but also some natural gestures. Let us now learn more about gestures.

What is a gesture?

A gesture generally consists of two steps, touching your device touchscreen at a particular position with your fingertip, and then performing a particular motion with your finger before you lift your fingertip off the screen. Think of how you turn a book's page using a flick of your finger that is similar to the Swipe Left gesture. Let us look at gestures in detail.

You may be wondering which finger would you use for gestures. When you hold the phone in your primary hand (If you are a right-handed person, then your right hand is your primary hand), you will use your thumb for gestures. And when you hold the phone in your other hand, you will use your primary hand's index finger. Here are some gestures that you can do with a single finger:

Touch the screen at a particular point and then lift your finger immediately, this is the main gesture inside any application. Taps are used to interact with the navigation buttons, type on the touchscreen keyboard, and click or select something on the screen. Double Tap the screen twice quickly at a particular point. This is often used to zoom in and out of images.

Touch the screen at a particular point and drag your finger left/right/down/up before lifting it up.

Swipe Left and right swipes are used to navigate between screens. The left swipe is also used to snooze a notification and the right swipe is used to dismiss the notification.

Swipe Swipe up/down can be used to scroll through a list. The down swipe is also used to bring the quick settings bar and notifications into view, and the up swipe are used to dock it back. The up swipe is also used to show the list of apps when you are on the home screen, and the down swipe is used to hide the list.

Long Touch the screen at a particular point and continue holding your finger down. If you long press on a word, it would get selected and brings up the list of things that you can do with the selection. For example, copy a word.

Long press on a particular icon and then drag your finger left/right/down/up before lifting it up. This is used to drag and drop an Icon to a different home screen, akin to picking up that icon and dropping it somewhere else. The icon is dropped when you lift your finger off the screen. Dragging an app icon in the list of apps can also be used to create a shortcut on the home screen. Dragging can also be used to select parts of a sentence.

You can also perform some gestures with two fingers if your device supports multi-touch:

Pinch Touch the screen with your thumb and index finger close together, and then drag them away from each other and then lift your thumb and finger off the screen. This is often used to zoom into (enlarge) an image.

Pinch Touch the screen with your thumb and index finger spaced out apart, drag them toward each other and then lift your thumb and finger off the screen. This simulates the motion our hand makes when we pinch something. This is often used to zoom out of a zoomed-in (enlarged) image. Take some time to try out some of the following exercises before you move forward. In case your device is not setup yet, you can come back and do this later.

Exercise: Tap an icon on your home screen to open the app

Tap the home button to minimize the app Tap another icon on your home screen to open another app Tap the overview button to view all open apps Swipe left and tap on the app from step 1 to re-activate it

Tap on the home button again to minimize the app

Swipe left and right to view various home screens Swipe down from the top of your screen to show the quick settings and notifications bar Swipe up from the bottom to hide the quick settings bar

Tap on the home button or swipe up when you are on the home screen to show the list of apps on your phone Scroll down the list to find the Photos app

Long press on the photos app icon, drag you finger slightly right, and lift it to create an icon for the Photos app on your home screen Tap the photos icon on your home screen to open the Photos app Open an image from the Photos app by tapping it

Double tap to zoom in Pinch in to zoom out again Pinch out to zoom in again

Double tap to zoom out Press the home button to minimize the Photos app and come back to the home screen

Setting up a new Android smartphone

In this section, we will discuss the basic steps to setup a new Android phone or tablet. If you already have a working Android phone, you may skip this section.

Setting up your phone is a simple process that you can do yourself. Before you do this, make sure that your phone is sufficiently charged. If you skip any of these optional steps, you can always configure it later via the Settings app. For this explanation, we will go through the full setup and assume that you are setting up your phone afresh. Depending on your phone brand and model, you may see some variations in these steps or may see some extra steps. If you are unsure about something and it's optional, there will a SKIP button which you may tap.

Insert the SIM card into the SIM tray/slot of your smartphone. You may skip this step if you are setting up a tablet.

Long press the power button to power on your phone. You may see an animation with the phone manufacturer's name or logo (called the splash Select the language and locale (see figure The installer and interface of your phone will be in this language. For the purposes of this explanation, we'll assume you have picked English

Select a Wi-Fi network to connect to as shown in figure We will discuss more about Wi-Fi in Chapter 4: For now, if you have the password for your Wi-Fi router, you may connect to it. Or else, you may click the SKIP button. If you click your mobile SIM card may be used for accessing the internet:

Figure 1.2: Language selection and Wi-Fi connection You will be asked if you want to copy data from somewhere, or are you setting up a new phone as shown in figure We are assuming you're setting up a device afresh, so you can tap on Set up as You will be asked to Sign in or Create a Google account (see figure If you have a Google account, sign in with your username and password. Though this is an optional step, it is highly

recommended to do this. If you skip this, you can go to Settings app later to do this:

Figure 1.3: Setup options Next, you will be asked to protect your phone, and shown several options (see figure We will discuss all these options later in this chapter. For now, let us select and confirm Confirm Secure Startup by hitting You will be asked to enter a PIN and re-enter it for confirmation. Pick a PIN that is easy for you to remember, but hard for someone else to guess. You should avoid choosing common PINs like 1234 or 0000 or your date of birth, as they can be easy to guess. If your device has a fingerprint scanner, you might also see an option to setup your fingerprint. You may skip it for now and do it later via the Settings app:

Figure 1.4: Security options

You will be asked to enable sharing of your location with apps and share usage data with Google (see figure these are optional and you may uncheck them. Scroll down to read and click the Accept button to Accept Google's Terms of

You may see the Anything else screen, you can click the button. You may also see additional screens depending on your phone's brand and model and most of them will be optional, so you click the SKIP button to proceed:

Figure 1.5: Final setup steps This completes the setup process and once you are done, you will see your phone's default home screen (see figure

Personalizing your device

Let us look at a few ways in which you can personalize your Android smartphone/tablet. But first, let us learn how to find and open apps since you will be required to do this often.

Finding an app

There are several ways to find an app on your device: On the home screen, you can swipe up to see an alphabetical list of all apps and scroll to find the app you are looking for.

A search bar appears above the list of apps. You can type its partial or full name in the search bar to search for it. If there is an app you use often, you may locate its icon in the apps list, and then drag its icon sideways to create a shortcut on your home screen.

You may also find an app via Play Store | My Apps and games | Installed tab.

Once you have found the app icon, tap on it to launch the app.

Choosing a background photo

The photo that appears on your device's home screen and lock screen is known as a background photo and it can add a touch of vibrancy to your phone. Since you would see these screens often, you may want to have an image of your choice. You can choose a background photo using the following steps:

In the last section, we learnt how to find and open apps on your smartphone/tablet. Let us begin by opening the Settings app. In tap on Display (see figure You may need to scroll down to find it:

Figure 1.6: Wallpaper type and categories

Under click on You will see the different kinds of wallpapers that you can set. You may choose one of your photos, Live wallpaper or wallpaper from the phone's collection. Live wallpaper is a photograph that has some motion or animation. Let's select Wallpapers here for the time being.

You may see a list of Wallpaper categories that you can select from. Scroll to see all the categories available. Choose a category by tapping on it, and you will see all the wallpapers in the selected category. On some phones, you may not see and wallpapers are shown directly. Select an image you like by tapping on it. The image will be shown in full screen with a button to set the wallpaper (see figure When you tap the Set as Wallpaper button, you will be asked if you want to set this wallpaper for your home screen, your lock screen, or both. You may set different wallpapers for your home, lock screen as per your preference:

Figure 1.7: Wallpaper selection

Once you make a selection, press the home button to see your new home wallpaper. To see the lock screen wallpaper, click on the power button to put the phone on standby. Then press the power button again to bring up the lock screen.

Exercise: Select different wallpaper for your home and lock the screen before you move forward.

In the future, we will use the shorthand notation Settings | Display | Wallpaper, which would mean open the Settings app, tap on and then tap on

Choosing a ringtone and volume

Your device uses sounds to alert you when it has any updates to show you. One of the important notifications is the ringtone that is played when you get a phone call. You can customize your ringtone by following these steps:

Open Settings | You'll see different sliders for Ringtone Media volume (media is any song or video that you can play through your phone's speakerphone) and Alarm volume (we will look at how to set alarms later in this chapter). On a tablet, you may not see the ringtone volume slider. To adjust the volume, drag the dot left or right on the slider. Try it out on your device. As you do this, you will hear a sound play with the volume/loudness level that you selected.

Tap on Ringtone volume to see the different ringtones available on your phone. On a tablet, you may not see the Ringtone option. You may scroll through the list and tap on the sounds to listen to them. While they are playing, you can increase or decrease the volume using your phone's hardware volume rocker. Once you find a sound that you like, click on OK to select it as your ringtone.

Similarly, you can select your default notification sound and alarm sounds by expanding Advanced and following the above steps.

Select a ringtone for your phone before you proceed ahead.

Choosing a screensaver

A screensaver is an animation that takes up the display when your phone is inactive. On older screens, these animations protected the phone's screen from getting spoilt due to displaying a fixed image for a long time (called burn which is how the name Screensaver was coined. Modern screens do not has the burn-in issue anymore.

You can select a screensaver by following these steps: Open Settings | Display | Advanced |

Click on the Current screensaver to select from the various options available: you can select from a clock, a colorful animation or a slide show of your photos. The gear icon helps you configure the option chosen. For example: if you select you can click the gear and select if you want to show a digital or analog clock.

Click the Back button to come back to the previous menu or the Home button to close the Settings app once you're done.

Customizing your screen lock

Your device is designed to go into a standby state when it's not used for some time. In the standby state, your device is on but the screen turns off. To activate it again, you have to press the power button and enter a secret (example: a PIN). This helps conserve the device's battery and is also a security feature that prevents against misuse if you leave it unattended. You can choose your lock mechanism and control the time after which the device goes into standby by following these steps. If you had not set a PIN while setting up your device, you add a PIN here or change your PIN:

Open Settings |

Click on Screen lock to choose a locking mechanism. If you already have a PIN set, you will be prompted to enter it before you can make any changes. Here are the different types of lock mechanisms:

A 4 digit number, some phones also allow for 6 digit numbers. It should be something that you can memorize but which is not easy for someone else to guess. Avoid using PINs like 0000, 1111, 1234, or your birthday as PIN, etc.

A password consisting of alphabets and numbers.

A continuous line pattern drawn between 9 dots.

None means no security, pressing the Power button shows the home screen directly.

Shows a lock screen, and you may swipe left/right to see your Home screen.

None and Swipe have no security and anyone who gets physical access to your phone may use it. Hence, these are not recommended for use.

Changing your To change your PIN, choose the Lock and enter your existing PIN. Then choose PIN as the security mechanism and enter your new PIN. You will be asked to enter the PIN twice for confirmation.

The Gear icon on the right allows you to configure your settings. To set the locking timeout, click on the Gear icon, tap Automatically and choose the desired timeout after which your device will get locked.

Adjusting your display size

You can enlarge or reduce the size of text used on your device to aid readability using the following steps:

Open Settings | Display | Advanced | Display

Drag the slider left to reduce the display size, or right to increase the display size see figure Tap the Back button when you are done with the desired adjustments:

Figure 1.8: Display size

Using phone features

This section is only relevant for smartphones and not for tablets. As we discussed earlier in this chapter, your smartphone is a mobile phone which has additional features. Let us look at how to use phone features on your smartphone.

Making a call

Here are the steps you can follow to make a phone call using your Smartphone:

Open the Phone app. The icon for the phone app looks like a phone receiver and is typically found on the bottom left of your home screen (see figure On the Phone app, you will also see a Dialer icon which typically has 10 dots on it. Click that icon and a numeric keypad opens up that lets you enter digits.

Enter the phone number and press the handset icon below the dialer to place the call. Your phone supports two different formats in which phone numbers may be entered, which are shown in table

Table 1.1: Phone number formats

The “(“and”)“ are not dialed. The “+” symbol is usually found below the 0 on the numpad; to select it, long press the “0” key. Region code is the STD code with leading zeroes removed. For

example, The STD code for Mumbai is 022 and the region code is 22.

Receiving a call

When you receive a phone call, you will hear the ringtone and see a notification on your screen showing the caller's phone number. If it is from your saved contact, then their name appears as well. Below the number you will see a floating phone receiver icon, typically it is green in color and tilted at an angle (see figure Hold and drag the icon upwards to pick up the call. Hold and drag the icon downwards to reject the call. On some phones, the green icon can only be dragged upwards and you see a separate red downward facing icon:

Figure 1.9: Call controls

Call controls

When your phone call is connected, either after you received a call or dialed a call, your screen changes to show call controls (see figure

You can click the crossed microphone icon to mute yourself. Tap it again to unmute yourself. Click on numpad icon if you need to enter any digits, this is useful when you call a business, for example, your bank, and hear a recorded voice that asks you to press a particular key

Click on the speaker icon to talk in hands-free mode. When you do this, the audio of the call switches from the earpiece to the speaker. This is useful when you want to keep the phone on a surface and have a conversation.

Click on the downward-facing red handset icon to end the call.

Sending and reading SMS

Open the Messages app. The messages icon is typically found at the bottom left of the home screen, next to the phone icon (see figure

When you open the app, you see the list of messages that you have received from a sender. Tap on a message to open and read it in conversation view. The conversation view shows all messages exchanged with a number ordered by time, the newest messages appearing at the bottom. You can scroll up to read older messages and will see a textbox at the bottom with a Send button (typically an arrowhead or paper plane facing right). You can reply by simply typing your message in the text box below and tapping the send icon.

To send an SMS to someone, come back to the message listing screen, you will see a square icon on the bottom right. Click on it to send a new SMS, enter the number, and the screen will change to conversation view.

Typical tasks on your device

Now that you have seen how to use your smartphone as a phone, let us look at how to do some other common tasks on your smartphone/tablet.

Adjust screen brightness

Having an adequately bright screen helps you read clearly, especially when you are outdoors. But if the screen is brighter than it should be, it causes glare while reading and also consumes more battery. Having the right level on brightness on your screen helps you attain a balance between readability and conservation of your device's battery. The thumb rule to doing this is to start increasing your brightness and stop as soon as you are able to read the screen clearly. To adjust the brightness, open Settings | Display | Brightness Level to open the brightness slider. You can also access the Screen Brightness slider by pulling down the quick settings bar by swiping down from the top and swipe down again to expose the quick settings bar fully.

Many phones have an automatic brightness setting that adjusts the brightness based on the ambient lighting of your environment. The phone detects the ambient lighting using a sensor. To enable it, you can click on the Sun icon with an A symbol which appears next to the brightness slider.

Auto rotate

Your phone has built-in sensors which detect if you are holding the device vertically or horizontally. It can use this to change the orientation of your screen accordingly, to portrait or landscape mode. This feature is called Auto

There may be cases where you do not want the phone to adjust its orientation automatically. This may be required when you're using the phone while lying down. To disable Auto you can pull down the quick settings bar fully by swiping down from the top twice so that the quick settings are fully visible. Find the Auto Rotate icon (circular arrow going clockwise) and click it to disable it. You may have to swipe right on the quick settings bar to find it. To turn it back on, tap the same icon again. You can also control Auto Rotate from Settings | Display |

A button that is used to turn a setting on or off is called a toggle button.

Managing contacts

Your smartphone has a phone book that can be used to store and find contacts. Let us look at how to add, modify and search a contact. We will also look at where contacts are stored.

Adding, modifying, and searching contacts

To save a number to your phone book, you can open the Contacts app. Alternatively; you can open the phone app and navigate to the Contacts tab. On that screen, click on either + or the Add New Contact button to open the contact details screen. Type in the contact name and their number. You can add multiple numbers for a contact, for example, home, mobile, and office numbers. You can also store other details like address, email address, etc. by clicking on Add more Once you have entered the information, click Save to store the contact.

To search a contact by name, you can again do this via the Contacts app or via the Contacts tab in the Phone app. You will either see a magnifying glass icon on the top right, or a search bar on top. Just enter the name to search and you will see matching contacts below. To open a contact, you can tap their name in the search results to view all their information.

To edit their information or to add more details, you can click on the Pencil icon found near the top right, which opens the contact card in Edit mode. Click Save when you are done making changes. To call a saved contact, press the Phone icon, and to send them an SMS, click on the Message icon (a square bubble with lines drawn on it).

Contacts storage

Older mobile phones are used to store contacts either on the SIM card or on the device storage. The SIM card had limited storage and could only store phone numbers. Device storage supported additional fields but it made it difficult to migrate contacts over when you switched your phone. Also, in case the phone was lost, all contacts saved on the SIM and the phone were gone too, which was an issue. Newer Android phones now support syncing contacts to your Google account. This ensures your contacts are safe and can be easily transferred when you buy a new phone. We will now look at how to enable this setting. This is an example of cloud storage and we will discuss more about this topic in later chapters on email and cloud storage.

On most phones, once you sign in with your Google account, the storage of contacts is setup automatically to sync to that email account. You can check if it's enabled using these steps. If it is not, these steps will also help you set it up:

Open Contacts app. Click on Settings under the left menu. You should see an option that says Default account for new Tap that and select your Google account to always save all your accounts to this Gmail account.

If you have multiple Gmail accounts configured on your phone, you may choose the account which is used to store contacts by default. When saving a contact card, you can change the account if you want to save it to a different one.

Connecting to Wi-Fi

Wi-Fi allows you to access the internet wirelessly, at home or when you are at a Café or a Hotel. This lets you conserve your mobile data, as mobile data often have lower quotas than home internet plans. You can follow these steps to connect to a Wi-Fi network:

Open Settings | Network and Enable your phone's Wi-Fi signal. It can be enabled by tapping the toggle button.

Click on Wi-Fi and it will show you the list of networks around you. You will see a list of network names with a lock icon next to some. A lock means that the Wi-Fi network is secured and requires a password to connect.

To connect to a network, click on its name and it will prompt you for a password. You can get this password from the person who owns this Wi-Fi. A password provides protection against unauthorized use, as anyone can see the list of networks around them but a password is needed to connect to Wi-Fi and use it. Enter the password and click OK to connect.

Once you have connected to a Wi-Fi network, your phone remembers its name and the password you entered. So you do

not have to enter the password the next time you connect to the same network. In fact, if your Wi-Fi is enabled and there is a known Wi-Fi network around, your phone will automatically connect to it using the saved password.

There could be situations where the password on the Wi-Fi device has been changed since the last time you connected, so you will not be able to connect using the saved password. To update the password, click on Saved Networks on the Wi-Fi screen, select the Wi-Fi name and click on This will clear the saved password. Now, when you try to connect to this network again, it will prompt you for the password again and you can enter the new password. You can also enable or disable your phone's Wi-Fi from the quick settings menu. Click on the symbol that looks like an open hand fan to toggle the Wi-Fi. If you long press that icon, it will open the Wi-Fi settings that we saw above.

Checking space usage

As we learnt in the section on device hardware, your devices have built-in storage that can be used to store software and files. Some phones also allow the storage to be extended by adding an external storage card. Here is how you can check the storage utilization on your device.

Open Settings | It also shows you which type of files are using how much storage. If you have an external storage card in your phone, you may select the card on the top of the Settings | Storage screen to check its usage.

Take a moment and check the storage utilization on your device.

Toggle flight mode

Flight Mode turns off all wireless connections on a device, thereby taking it offline. The device is still powered on and can be used for offline activities. The name comes from the practice of switching off electronic devices when you're on a flight, to avoid radio interference. When you enable flight mode, your mobile network, your Wi-Fi, and your Bluetooth are switched off instantly. If your phone is in flight mode, you will not be able to make and receive calls, nor will you be able to use the internet via Wi-Fi or the mobile network.

To toggle Flight click on the Airplane icon in the quick settings bar. You may have to scroll right to be able to see it. When your device is in active state, the Airplane icon appears grayed with a line crossing over it. Tap the button to enter flight mode, the line above it will disappear and the Airplane icon becomes active.

Take a moment to enable Flight Mode on your device. Wait a minute and turn off Flight

Capturing a screenshot

There may be times where you might want to take a picture of what you are seeing on your screen. A picture of a screen is called a On most Android phones, you can capture a screenshot by clicking the Volume Down button along with the Power button on your phone. To do this, you must press these buttons together. You will typically hear a shutter sound and the screenshot will be captured. You will be able to find your screenshot on your phone using the Photos app. Open the Photos app, click on Albums and you should see an album called screenshots. Tap on the album icon to view the screenshots.

Some common apps

Your device comes with some useful apps, let us look at a few of them.

Clock

The Clock app shows the time, allows you to start a timer, or a stopwatch, and also allows you to set an alarm. You can setup multiple alarms. Let us try to set an alarm that reminds you to call your friend Neha every Monday and Friday at 3 pm.

Open the Clock app. Click on

Click on the sign to set a new Alarm.

Choose the time at 3 pm by selecting the hours as 3, minutes as 00 and AM/PM as PM, then click

Click on Repeat and select days of the week on which this alarm should repeat. In our case, we want it for Monday and Friday, so click on M and F to select them and click on all other days to deselect them.

Click on the label and enter the reminder message. For example, you may enter Call up You can also select a special alarm sound (see figure

Click on the Back button:

Figure 1.10: A recurring alarm

That is it, your alarm is now set and you'll see it under the Clock app | Alarms tab. At 3 pm on Monday and Friday, your alarm will go off and remind you to call your friend. The reminder appears with a floating icon, which lets you either dismiss the alarm, or snooze it (if you want to be reminded again in a few minutes).

You can disable an Alarm by tapping the toggle button on the right of the time, or remove it by tapping on the Delete button. See figure Set a few other alarms that may be useful for you

Calendar

The Calendar app on your phone allows you to view the calendar and mark events and appointments on certain days.

When you open the Calendar app, it will show you the daily view and show all appointments for the current day. To see the calendar for the current week or month, click on the Menu on the top left and click on Week or Let us look at how to add an event or an appointment on your calendar. For this example, let us mark a friend's birthday on 22 June and create an appointment for the next Saturday, from 12 to 2 pm.

Open the Calendar app | Menu |

Tap on select Select the start date as next Saturday; you will notice that the end date also gets set to the same date. You can change the end date too if you are setting up a multi-day event. Set the start time as 12 pm and end time as 2 pm.

You can also enter a title. If you had like to be reminded about this event, scroll down to the section with the bell icon. Choose how many hours or days

before the event you had like to be reminded, and how (notification on phone or via email). You can add multiple reminders.

Click Done and your event is added. You will now be able to see it in the daily, weekly, and monthly view.

Now let us set up a birthday event for your friend:

In the Calendar app, click on + to add an event and select

Select the start date as 22 June and tap the Full day option.

Enter the event name, for example as Neha's Click on Does not and select Repeats every

Click on Add notification and enter 0 in days 9 am in the notification time. Tap Your Birthday event is set and you will get a reminder on their birthday at 9 am, so you can call them up to wish them. If you signed-in to your Google account while setting up your phone, any events or reminders that you create on your phone get synced to your Google account. We will look at how you can view these events in Chapter 5:

Calculator

The Calculator app does what its name suggests. Open the Calculator app and try doing some calculations.

Installing apps securely

The real power of your smartphone comes from the extensibility that it provides. You can add new software capabilities to your device by installing apps on it. These apps can make full use of the hardware capabilities of your device. Think back to the example of a microwave that we considered earlier in this chapter. Imagine if you could make use of the display and the built-in timer to use it as a kitchen timer by installing an app on it. How nifty would that be? Extensibility allows us to use a device for multiple purposes instead of getting a new device for every function.

In the previous section, you saw how your device can function like a clock, a calendar, and a calculator. Your device can also help you make a to-do list, browse the internet, watch videos, and do many other things. In this section, we'll explain how you can find and install apps that extend your device's functions.

Play Store

Play Store is a special App that comes pre-installed on most smartphones and it allows you to find and install more apps securely. Some phones ship with their own App Store pre-installed instead of Google Play In such cases, you may use their App Store, or alternatively, you may install Play Store. To install Play Store, open the App Store that came with your phone, search for Google and install it. This would install Google Play Store and all other necessary Google apps and services. Let us begin by discussing the importance of Security in the context of Apps.

Security and permissions

As we explained in previous sections, an app is a program that runs on your device and has access to its hardware. Your hardware includes your storage which holds all your files, including your photos. Hardware also includes your camera and microphone. If you install a rogue app on your device, it will also have access to this hardware. A rogue app may steal your data or perform other undesirable functions. Play Store provides you the first level of defense against this problem by screening all apps that are available on it. The team that runs Play Store checks all apps before they become available on the store, and ensures that the App does not do any undesirable activities. For this reason, installing apps from outside Play Store poses a big risk to you and should be avoided.

When you install any app, even from Play Store, it will show what permissions the app requires. For example, an app that allows you to click pictures and apply some special effects on them may require permission to use the camera and read and write to your storage. You can check the permission for any app by going to Settings > Apps and tapping on the app name, and then clicking You may explore this later for the apps on your device.

Searching and installing apps

Let us look at how to browse and install apps from Play Store. Open the Play Store app. To use Play Store, you will need a Google account. If you signed in to your Google account while setting up your phone, then it will already be configured to use that. When you open Play Store, you see many different apps listed under Top Editor's and by category. Tapping on an App name opens its details which show what the app does, its screenshots, and reviews from other users. You will also see a button to install the app. You can explore the different apps available on the Play Store. Play Store has both free and paid apps.

There is a search bar on the top of the Play Store app. You can use this to search for apps. For example: Try searching for Unit Converter and you will see many apps which allow you to convert between measurement units.

Updating and uninstalling apps

Click on the Play Store | Menu button | My Apps and This shows the list of apps installed on your phone. You can tap on the app name to show all its information. This screen has Uninstall and Open buttons on the top. If there is a new update for the app available on Play Store, you may see an Update button instead of the Open button. You can click on the Update or Uninstall button to upgrade the app or remove the app from your phone, respectively.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we learnt about your smartphone's history, and its hardware and software interfaces. We also learnt about tablets and saw how they compare to smartphones. We learnt how to personalize your device, and carry out some common tasks on it. We also learnt about apps, went through some basic apps and understood how you can extend your device's functionality by adding more apps. Congratulations on completing these first few steps in your learning. This was just the beginning, there is a lot more on your device beyond what we have covered. I would encourage you to continue exploring your device.

In the next chapter, we will learn about your computer, and its hardware and software interfaces. We will learn how to personalize your computer, and perform some common tasks. We will also learn how to install applications on it.

Key terms

Mobile phone Smartphone

Tablet

Android Landline

Wi-Fi

Hardware interface

Power button

Menu button

Navigation keys Touch gestures

Home screen

Quick launch bar

Quick settings

Flight mode

Auto rotate

Notifications Phone security

Wallpaper Screensaver

Apps App store Contacts

Alarms Events

CHAPTER 2 Your Computer/Laptop

What a computer is to me is the most remarkable tool that we have ever come up with. It's the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds.

- Steve Jobs, Business Magnate and Co-founder of Apple Inc.

I think it's fair to say that personal computers have become the most empowering tool we've ever created. They're tools of communication, they're tools of creativity, and they can be shaped by their user.

- Bill Gates, Business Magnate and Co-founder of Microsoft Corporation

In this chapter, we will begin by peeling the proverbial onion and understand what computers are and what they do. We will look at the different types of computers that are common today, including desktop computers and laptops. We will also learn about the hardware components of a computer, and understand their significance. We will then talk about some typical hardware peripherals, and cover basic usage of your keyboard and mouse. We will familiarize you with the Windows 10 interface, and look at how you can personalize your computer and perform some common tasks on it. In the latter part of this chapter, we will discuss computer security and show you how to manage programs on your computer. In this chapter, all the instructions

provided will be for Microsoft Windows 10 operating system ( OS ).

So, let us get started and unlock the second gateway that leads to the new world. You already have the key in your hand.

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Your computer

Computer hardware

Software interface Personalizing your computer

Common tasks on a computer

Computer security

Managing programs on your computer

Keyboard shortcuts

Objective

This chapter will introduce readers to a computer. They will become familiar with the hardware and software interfaces of their computer. Instructions will be provided for personalizing and carrying out common operations on a Windows 10 PC. The chapter will also create an awareness of computer security and recommend some best practices for staying secure.

Your computer

If you asked anyone to explain what a computer is, their answer may sound totally different depending on which year this question was asked, in the 1950s or in 2020. In the 1950s, they might have pointed to an electronic calculator, and today they may point to a small, portable, electronic device which is commonly referred to as a Yes, the scope of what a computer does has indeed expanded by leaps and bounds over the last seven decades. But on an essential level, a computer still IS a device that can store, retrieve and process data. The computers of today also allow you to use the internet to communicate in a natural, human way. The computer is truly a great innovation that started the technology revolution that we are in the midst of.

Just like mobile devices, computers are also another gateway to the digital world and the internet. So, it is important to become comfortable with them.

What is a computer?

Let us look at how The Merriam Webster dictionary defines a computer:

A "Computer" is that and is defined as programmable usually electronic device that can store, retrieve and process We see a new term here: "Data", let us understand it. "Data" is defined as in digital form which can be transmitted or If you're curious about the term "Digital", "Digital" is defined as of data in the form of especially Further, Binary is defined as number system based only on the numerals 0 and

Information is a word you may already be familiar with. In the real world, human beings gather information using their five senses: by seeing, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. Of these, humans can describe smell, taste and touch with words at best. Smell and taste do not have any direct digital counterparts. Touch is an area that has been evolving in the last two decades. Touchscreens allow humans to interact with computers via touch and gestures. But computers communicating with humans via touch are limited to vibration (called haptic that can be seen on game controllers, phones, and smart watches. Information, hence, is most commonly comprised of what we can see (text or a graphic), and what we can hear (sounds). It can also be different combinations of these. Sometimes, information is also intended for consumption by the computer itself, and so it is in a format that the computer can understand efficiently, for example, binary.

When information is converted into a digital format, it is known as Data can be text, a photo, a sound, or a binary file, or a combination of these. For example, a video can be considered as a combination of many photos and sounds. The following figure 2.1 depicts this visually:

Figure 2.1: Information and data

Now that we understand what data is, let us look at the three key terms from the definition of a computer which describes what a computer

It can store binary data, text, sounds, photos, videos, and other combinations of these in the form of files. We will discuss more about files later in this chapter.

It can fetch these files when the user wants to experience them again using their senses, or when a computer needs this data.

When a computer executes the steps defined in a computer program, it is known as it is also commonly referred to as a A computer program, called program for short, has a series of sequential instructions that can read, write and operate on data, to produce a useful result. Programs are created by humans to perform operations that are repeated often. For example, we do the multiplication operation often, so a programmer may create a program that accepts 2 numbers, multiplies those numbers and displays the result. A user of this program may run it, and enter any two numbers to multiply them quickly. Most human beings may take a few minutes to multiply two large numbers, but using this program, a computer can produce the same result accurately in a fraction of a second. Thus, it can be said that programs enable the use of computers to boost human productivity. Let us also look at terms that describe what a computer is: The term programmable means that computers allow users to run programs that have been created by themselves or others.

Usually There are some devices like Abacus which have sliding beads or stones and allow you to perform calculations quickly. Even though an Abacus is not electronic, it is considered to be an ancient computer. This emphasizes that most, but not all, computers are electronic.

You may notice that this definition of computer is quite broad. A calculator, the pre-programmed modes in our microwave and TV qualifies as computers too, albeit these serve only a fixed purpose. In fact, smartphones and tablets also fit this definition, but they are much smaller. There are also larger computers called supercomputers, which have immense processing power, are extremely expensive and take up a lot of space, hence are not practical for personal use. But our primary interest lies in the type of computers that we use for personal use. The computers that are used in homes and offices are general purpose computers that are viable for personal use, owing to their size and price. These are referred to as personal computers When we use the word computer in this book, we are referring to PCs and in this chapter, we will learn more about them.

Types of personal computers

PCs come in various sizes depending on their target usage, of which the two major classifications are:

Desktop a PC that is designed for use on a desk. It has a cabinet with internal components and connects to an external monitor and peripherals (keyboard, mouse, speakers, and camera). Desktop computers need a continuous and uninterrupted supply of power to work. Also called it's an integrated PC designed to be portable. It has a flap like a notebook and its light enough that you can keep it on your lap and uses it, which is how it gets its name. When it is not in use, the flap can be closed and the computer takes a flat shape, like a closed notebook which makes it easy to transport it in a briefcase or backpack. Laptops have a built-in display, keyboard, mouse track pad, and speakers. They also have an inbuilt battery and can be used without requiring a continuous supply of power.

Functionally, a desktop and a laptop are very similar. Here are some notable differences between them that you should be aware of:

The form Laptop components are often smaller and designed to fit inside a compact space.

Manufacturer Not all laptop hardware parts can fit all laptops; most have been designed for a particular manufacturer. Desktop parts, on the other hand, follow some set standards and are supported as long as they are compatible with the internal circuit board (also called motherboard).

Heat The parts of a laptop are designed to produce lesser heat than those intended for a desktop. Desktops often have more space in their cabinet, so can accommodate larger fans to dissipate heat. Mix and With a desktop, you have the flexibility to use hardware parts and peripherals of your choice. A laptop, on the other hand, has integrated peripherals. However, you may still plug-in your own peripherals externally on a laptop and use them instead of the ones built-in. For example, an external keyboard, mice, or speakers can be attached to a laptop. The usage of a desktop computer is exactly the same as that of a laptop. So, most of what we learn in this chapter will apply to both. Subsequently throughout this book, when we use the term computer or you may read it as laptop or desktop depending on which one you have access to.

Computer hardware

As we discussed in the first chapter, hardware refers to the physical parts of a Smartphone/tablet, some of which you can see from the outside, and some that you cannot. The parts of hardware that you can interact with comprise the hardware interface, and the internal components that enable their functioning. The same classification holds true for a computer as well. Hardware interfaces can be further classified as: Internal vs. Hardware interfaces can be inside a computer's body, or can be outside it. The ones that are outside can be seen and touched by users.

Hardware interfaces can be designed to interface with humans or they can be designed to interface with other devices.

Table 2.1 shows the classification of hardware interfaces:

interfaces: interfaces: interfaces: interfaces: interfaces: interfaces: interfaces: interfaces: interfaces: interfaces: interfaces: interfaces: interfaces:

Table 2.1: Types of interfaces

We will look at these in detail in the sections ahead. First, let's learn about the internal components of your computer.

Internal hardware

Computers have the following internal parts: Central Processing Unit (CPU) or a CPU/Processor is often called the Brain of the computer and performs processing of program instructions. More the number of instructions your processor can process every second (called its Clock Speed), the faster it is. The unit of clock speed is in Hertz. So, a processor of 1GHz (read as 1 Giga Hertz) means that the processor can perform 1 Billion (or 100 crore) instructions in a second. Isn't that fast?

In the last decade, CPUs have evolved to not become faster, but also to have more Cores inside them that can process instructions in parallel. Think of it as your CPU having multiple brains, so a multi-core processor can process multiple instructions in parallel. This capability is useful when you have many programs running on your computer.

Hard Disk Drive An HDD provides persistent storage in your computer. Think of it as your computer's long-term memory. It is used to store files which you create or save on your computer, and to retrieve them later. Photos, videos, documents are all stored as files. The larger the Hard disk capacity on a computer more is the size of files it may accommodate. Your computer's software and any program that you install on it also use storage.

Earlier in this chapter, we learnt that a computer stores information in binary (0 or 1) format. One such digit is called a Bit, and a collection of eight bits comprises 1 byte. Byte is the primary unit of storage. So, a file of 5MiB (read as 5 mebibytes) means that the file contains more than 5 million (or 50 lakh) bytes.

Random Access Memory RAM is your computer's short-term memory, also referred to as memory. This is used while it is running programs. Programs that are currently running keep their temporary data in the RAM. This data gets wiped as programs end and the space in RAM gets re-used. It is just like humans remember some temporary numbers for a short time, say when we are performing a calculation. Once the calculation is done, these temporary numbers have no further use so we do not memorize them. Greater the size of RAM on your machine, more programs you can run concurrently. Some programs use a lot of working memory and a large RAM helps these programs run smoothly. Reading and writing to RAM is much faster than a Hard disk drive. Once the RAM becomes full, your computer starts storing its temporary data on the HDD which is slower to access; this is called paging. RAM also contains data, so its size is also expressed in bytes. A 4GiB RAM can store approximately 4 billion bytes.

We do not use prefixes like Billion and Crore when we talk about processor speeds. We use a different set of prefixes like Kilo (3 zeroes), Mega (6 zeroes), Giga (9 zeroes), Tera (12 zeroes), Peta (15 zeroes), and so on. Also, please note that memory is represented with slightly different prefixes which don't end in all

zeroes (powers of 10). Memory size is in powers of 2 and the exact size is greater than the number produced with a power of 10. For example, Mebi (MiB for short) is used for RAM and HDD. 5MiB equals 5,242,880 bytes whereas 5 MB equals 5,000,000. But just to keep it simple, you may consider them to be approximately the same. Integrated circuits Your computer uses a lot of complex circuitry to inter-connect the processor, RAM, hard disk, and other components. It also supplies them power and keep them cool as they run. Some of these components have an internal circuitry as well. Since the size of a computer has to be able to fit in a small cabinet, some of these components are designed as miniature chips. These are made of silicon and have internal circuits. These are called for short. ICs have had a major role to play in the evolution of a computer in the last 5 decades. Before the invention of ICs, the circuitry required for a computer used to take a lot of space which took up one or more rooms. The invention and adoption of ICs has been instrumental in squeezing computers to a size that can fit on our desk, or in our backpack. The main circuit of the computer is called as a Mother board. It has different components like CPU, memory, and Chips mounted on it. It supplies them with power and provides inter-connectivity between them.

Sound A Sound card enables your computer to capture and produce sound. It has the electronic circuitry to handle sound formats and convert between them. A sound card has two key functions

Analog to Digital The sound card converts a sound signal (called Analog) into Digital format for storage or processing on your PC. A microphone can be connected to the sound card to capture sound and convert it to a sound signal.

Digital to Analog The sound card converts a digital sound into a sound signal (Analog). A Speaker can be connected to the sound card to produce sound from this analog signal.

Internal interfaces

As briefly discussed earlier in this chapter; an internal interface is a component that uses dedicated circuitry to provide an interface with external devices using standard protocols. The dictionary meaning of the word protocol is an established set of rules or procedures used to perform a certain operation. For example: When someone extends their right hand towards you, there is a protocol that you will also extend your right hand and grasp their hand briefly for a firm handshake before letting go. If you did not extend your hand in response, or did not let go after the handshake, it would breach the protocol and it may cause awkwardness. Computer protocols are also similar; they define an established and standard set of steps or messages that are exchanged for a particular type of communication. Internal interfaces do not require the user to make any external connections, because the connection is not over a physical medium at all, rather it is over the air. Users can control internal hardware interfaces using the software.

Your computer has internal hardware interfaces for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connections. We will learn about these in more detail in Chapter 4:

External interfaces

Let us now talk about external hardware interfaces, which can be in the form of hardware buttons or ports.

External hardware The first and most important interface on your computer is the power button which helps you start the computer. It is often represented with a circle with a line inside. Your computer may also have other hardware buttons for controlling volume and display brightness, etc. The external interfaces on your computer are called ports. Just like internal interfaces, ports on your computer also have some internal circuitry and use protocols. A Port provides a specific type of connector for a wired connection. They can be used to connect external devices like power supply, headphones, monitors, a network wire, etc. The following figure 2.2 shows some ports on the side of a laptop:

Figure 2.2: External interfaces

A lot of different devices may use a common type of connector that supports a standard protocol. For example, A Universal Serial Bus port can be used to connect external devices like keyboard, mouse, camera, external hard disk, and many other devices which support this standard. The presence of standard interfaces on your computer allows your computer's functionality to be extended without having to make changes to its circuitry, which is a very important capability as it makes it resilient to evolution. Devices intended for a computer can also continue to evolve while still continuing to support the standard interfaces. Exercise: Take a close look at your computer, and see if you can recognize all the ports.

Computer peripherals

A peripheral is any device that is used by the computer for input, output or both. Let us look at each of these:

Input An input device is a peripheral used by the computer to receive input from the user. Some examples: keyboard, mouse, microphone, scanners, and CD/DVD reader, which may be used to scan papers, bar codes, and fingerprints, or read CDs and DVDs. Output An output device is a peripheral used to generate any type of output by the computer. Some examples: display monitors, speakers, and printers.

Some devices can receive input from the user as well as produce output for the user. A touch screen display and DVD writer are some examples of devices that can handle both input and output.

Keyboard and mouse are two input peripherals that are commonly used on PCs. Let us now look at these in more detail.

Your computer's keyboard

Your keyboard allows you to enter text. You can enter text only in specific places on the screen, which are designed to accept text. You will see a blinking vertical bar on such locations, which is called a To move the cursor to another location on the screen, you can click at that location using your mouse. If that location can accept text, you will see a cursor there. When you type a character on the keyboard, that character appears to the left of the cursor and the cursor shifts to the right. The keyboard can also be used to generate key combinations. The key combinations are called shortcuts and have a special significance for the computer. When you enter these combinations, the computer performs a specific operation. Often, the same operations can also be performed by using a mouse, but it is much faster doing it via keyboard shortcuts which may improve your productivity. So, it is a good idea to memorize some commonly used Shortcuts. We will look at some shortcuts towards the end of this chapter.

A standard full-size keyboard has 104 keys and is divided into different sections. Laptops have a smaller keyboard, often laid out in a single section, and can have anywhere between 78 and 104 keys.

I would like you to take a moment and look closely at the keys on your keyboard. Did you notice that?

Some keys have two symbols on them, one above the other, while other keys, many of which are alphabet keys, only have a single character.

The alphabets are laid out in a different order which does not match the order of alphabets in the English alphabet. There are some keys that appear twice on your keyboard, on the left and the right side. A full-size keyboard has six sections, namely:

Main keyboard It has alphanumeric keys, punctuation keys, other special symbols, and a set of modifier keys.

Function keys This section appears on the top of the keyboard above the main keyboard section, and contains the ESC (called escape) key and 12 function keys, F1 through Function keys are mapped to do certain functions by your OS. The ESC key is often used to cancel or exit from a program state or mode. For example, exit from full screen mode. Special keys Appears to the right of the main keyboard towards the top, and has some keys which perform some special functions, like moving the cursor to the beginning of the line, or

to take a screenshot of the screen. Unlike the function keys, these keys perform fixed functions. Laptops may not have these keys. Cursor control Appears to the right of the main keyboard towards the bottom and contains four arrow keys in an inverted-T layout. These allow you to move the blinking cursor up, down, left, or right. On laptop, these arrow keys are merged with the main keyboard section.

Short for number pad, the numpad is present on the right side of a full-size keyboard and has numeric keys laid out in a fashion similar to a calculator or a phone. Aside from the numeric digits, the numpad also allows for mathematical symbols (+,-, /, &, *) and some cursor control buttons. The numpad also has a numpad lock button, typically on top left, which enables or disables the numpad section. A numpad is often efficient when doing calculations involving numbers. Light There are light indicators above the numpad for keys that have a toggle (on/off) action, also called lock Tapping them once turns the mode on and tapping them again turns it off. You will typically find light indicators for the caps lock and num lock key here. Please see the following figure

Figure 2.3: Sections of a full-size Keyboard

The main section of your keyboard has five rows. Let us explore the different types of keys on the main section:

Numeric There are 10 numeric keys laid out on the 1st row of the main section from left to right, starting with 0 and going up to 9. Each numeric key can also be used to produce a special character when used in combination with the Shift key (present on the 4th row). The symbol assigned to each of the number keys is written on it, above the numeral. The Shift key often has an upward arrow on it, which indicates that using it would produce uppercase characters or characters which are written on top of any key. Alphabet There are 26 keys corresponding to the 26 alphabets of the English language, which appear from the 2nd to the 4th row of the main keyboard section. The same key can produce capital alphabets by either using the Shift key in combination, or turning on caps lock (present on the 3rd row). The alphabetical keys are not laid out alphabetically. They are laid out in a specific

arrangement which is inherited from a manual typewriter. This layout is called which is named after the first 6 keys of the alphabet which appear on the second row. The qwerty layout has an interesting history, it avoided the lock-up of the manual strikers caused by fast typing on manual type writers and it has since become standard because people have now become comfortable with this layout. Some alphabets can also be used in combination with other modifier keys to produce shortcuts. We will look at some common shortcuts towards the end of this chapter.

Punctuation and special There are some keys on the right of the number keys and alphabet keys that produce punctuation symbols and special characters. Most of these keys have two characters each. The characters written on top are typed with the Shift key. Modifier and special The keys that are used to modify the operation of any other key are called modifier or special keys. Shift and caps lock are two modifier keys that we already looked at. Other special keys are Ctrl (read as Control), Alt and the Windows key. Special keys are present on both the left and right sides of the main keyboard section. This helps a user press them using either of their hands. Other important Some other important keys on the main section of your keyboard are: Enter or Return It produces a line break moving the cursor to the next line.

Tab It produces a tabbed indentation. Delete It is used to delete the characters immediately to the left of the cursor. There is also a DEL key present in the special keys section, which is used to delete the character to the right of the cursor. It is present on the last row of the keyboard and used to produce a white space. Let us now look at the other important peripheral that you'll be using very often, your mouse.

Your computer's mouse

Before we talk about mice, let us first understand their need. Traditional OSs had a text interface, so all user interactions had to be done via text commands. This meant that users had to memorize system commands which were not user friendly. Text interfaces also limited the computer's output to text only. Modern OSs designed for PCs have a graphical user interface A GUI allows you to interact with the interface not just using text input, but also using natural movements of the human hand. This makes the OS more users friendly and intuitive to use.

Imagine you are setting on a desk that has some items on it. You have a bunch of papers; a folder having several bunches of papers and a few other items. To explore any item, you may extend your hand to reach and touch it. You mostly use your primary hand to do this (your primary hand is right if you are right-handed). You may move an item to a different part of your desk by picking it up and dropping it there. You may also pick-up a bunch of papers and bring them to the center of the table, closer to you, to view them.

A GUI OS uses this analogy and presents you with a view of a desktop. A desktop has many different interface elements in different sections which you may interact with. A mouse pointer is the digital equivalent of your hand; it looks like an Arrow which points slightly to the left. The left slant of the mouse pointer mimics the index finger of right-handed humans. You move that

pointer around to reach GUI elements and interact with them. A mouse is a device that lets you move the mouse pointer on the screen and interact with user interface elements.

A mouse has four hardware interface elements that allow you to use it, which are:

Movement This part is present on the base of the mouse and tracks its movement. Earlier, a small rubber ball was used to track movement but these days, light is used for it. A mouse that uses light to track movement is called an optical mouse. You may see a red light under an optical mouse.

Left Pressing the left key once and lifting up the finger is called single clicking or left click and is used to select items and to move a cursor to a particular location. Doing this twice very quickly is called as double clicking and is used to open files and folders and launch programs. Right Pressing the right key once and lifting up the finger is called right clicking, and triggers a contextual menu. Very often, you would do this after selecting something, and what you select on the context menu would perform the operation on the selected item. For example: if you select some text and right click, you may see cut and copy options. If you select copy, it copies the selected text. Scroll The scroll wheel is present between the left and right mouse buttons. The wheel can be rotated towards you or away

from you. Scrolling the wheel towards you moves the page down, and scrolling the wheel away from you moves the page up. On some devices, the scroll wheel is clickable as well.

To use a mouse, place the palm of your primary hand over it expanding your fingers a bit, such that your index finger aligns with the left button and your middle finger aligns with the right button. Move your hand to move the mouse pointer, left clicking with your index finger and right clicking with your middle finger. To use the scroll wheel, you can lift your index finger off the left button and fold it slightly to place it over the scroll wheel. Move your index finger in a scraping motion to move the wheel towards you or away from you. Please see figure 2.4 for usage of a mouse:

Figure 2.4: Using a mouse If you are left-handed, you may configure the mouse for lefthanded operation. When you do this, the operations of the left and right buttons are interchanged. On some OSs, you can also get the mouse pointer to tilt slightly towards the right to mimic your left hand's index finger.

Laptop trackpad Your laptop has a trackpad instead of a mouse which is located between the keyboard and you and looks like a slightly recessed square area. The trackpad performs the same functions as a mouse, slightly differently. Let us look at how to do mouse functions using a track pad: Your track pad is sensitive to touch. You can place a single fingertip on it and move your fingertip to move the mouse pointer. Left Your track pad is clickable. You can press your index finger on it till you hear a click sound and lift it up. Some laptops also support taps, so you can tap anywhere on your keypad using our fingertip and it treats it as a click. Some laptops also have buttons just below the track pad; you can use the left one to click.

Double Click twice on the keypad. Or double tap if your keypad detects taps. If your keypad has buttons below it, click on the left one twice. Right Use your finger to click but pickup your finger after a slight delay. This is called long pressing and is the equivalent of a right click. If your keypad has buttons below it, you can also click on the right one.

Your touchpad detects the presence of multiple fingers on it. If the fingertips of your left and middle finger on the keypad together and drag them away from you, the screen scrolls down. If you drag them towards you, then the screen scrolls up. The combination is also called natural scrolling as it matches the motion on your screen. For example, when you drag your fingers away from you, you are doing an upwards drag which scrolls the page down. On some laptops, natural scrolling is not supported so the directions are reversed.

Software interface

Your OS is the primary software that runs on your computer and interacts with all hardware interfaces. The OS provides a standard interface, often a GUI, which allows you to use and configure your computer in an intuitive and user-friendly manner. Any program that you add on your computer also conforms to the OS's user interface standards, so you experience a consistent interface across different applications. There are many different types of OSs, which have different interfaces. Sometimes, different versions of the same OS also have different interfaces. In this section, we will look at Windows 10, which is an OS developed by Microsoft.

Starting a computer

Before you can see your OS, you must start up your computer. You can start your computer by pressing and holding the power button on your computer. The power button is generally located above the keyboard, near the left or right corner, and often has a line within an incomplete circle. When you do this, you would first see a splash screen with the manufacturer's name. Your computer would then load the OS installed on it. When this happens, you will see the splash screen change to the name or logo of the OS. After it has finished loading, you will either see a login screen or a welcome screen. Both of these usually show users configured on the computer, but the login screen will additionally ask you to enter the PIN or password for the user selected. This is a security feature that protects your computer against unauthorized use. You may get the username and password/PIN for your computer/laptop from the person who set it up.

Some user accounts are created as part of the OS installation, and more users can also be added after the OS has been installed. The installation and setup of an OS are outside the purview of this book since they are advanced topics.

Windows 10 interface

Once you are past the login/welcome screen, you would usually land on your computer's desktop screen. As explained in the previous section on the mouse, an OS's desktop screen draws inspiration from a real desktop which contains items and pull-out drawers underneath the desk. A Windows 10 desktop screen has different interface elements which you will use to interact with the computer. Please see figure We will now look at each of these elements in some more detail:

Figure 2.5: Windows 10 desktop interface

Start menu

On the bottom left of your desktop, you would see a symbol with four squares. This is called the Start button and clicking on it exposes the start menu. You can also press the Windows button on your keyboard to bring up the start menu. The start menu has a vertical line running on the left which lets you choose amongst the following categories:

The topmost section shows the list of programs installed on your computer, ordered alphabetically. You can scroll through the list and click on a program to launch it. On the right of this list, there is another area with icons you use often. You may add programs to this list by finding its icon in the list to the left, and dragging it to the section on the right. You can also expand this section by dragging its boundary. Please refer figure

Home Shortcuts to commonly used user folders like Documents and

Link to open Windows settings.

Has options to restart or shut down your PC:

Figure 2.6: Windows start menu

Window

Your OS allows you to run programs or applications on it. Most programs have a graphical interface that displays information from the program and also allows you to interact with an application. The graphical interface of a program is called a Window. The name of the Windows OSs comes from this term, and now has become common, so it is used to refer to a program's main interface in other OSes as well. A window is rectangular in shape and has three icons on the top right corner. Please refer figure

It looks like a horizontal line and allows you to hide the window from view and move it to the taskbar. The program still continues to run and can be brought back to the foreground by clicking on its icon in the taskbar.

It looks like a small rectangle. This can be used to expand the window to its maximum size and cover the entire usable display above the taskbar. When a window has been maximized, this icon changes slightly, and pressing it again brings the window back to its earlier size. It looks like an X sign and appears to the right. It can be used to terminate the application:

Figure 2.7: Window controls

Some programs allow you to run multiple copies and each copy creates a different window, while some other programs only allow a single window. Inside a window, a combination of different interface elements is used to create an interactive user interface. Think back to the analogy we discussed, about a desktop with items on it. Say, you had a several file folders on your desk. A window can be thought of as bringing one of those files folders to the center of your desk and opening it. Here are some commonly used interface elements:

A Pane is like a canvas that covers a part of the window. A pane can be used to display text, image or other interface elements. A program may have many panes which creates a layout for the program in which different kinds of information may be presented to the user. Typically, you would interact with the interface elements on the pane and never with the pane itself.

A tab is a pane that covers the entire window and allows you to work with multiple documents within the same program window. You can switch Tabs to select the document to work with. It can be thought of as a way to have work windows within the same window. A tab looks like the section separator notch in a physical file folder. These notches or tabs usually appear on the edges of

a window, most often on top or bottom. Pressing a tab brings it into view

Menu A menu bar runs across the top of your display. That area changes to show the different menu items for the window which is in the foreground. The menu items are used to take actions on the document that you're working on, in the current window or tab. You would interact with a menu by clicking on it. When you do this, the menu drops down to expose different options. Some options have several sub-options, which you can expose by moving your mouse pointer to that menu option. Doing this makes the sub-options of that option visible. A menu can have multiple such levels and can go very deep. To select a menu option, you can click on it. To hide a menu, click anywhere outside the menu. Menu options can also be selected using keyboard hotkeys.

A button is an interface element that has some text or an icon on it and it can be pressed to take some action. To press a button, you can just click on it. Text A text box is an interface element that is designed for text entry; it looks like a rectangular bar. When you click on any text box, it will show a blinking cursor inside it. You can then use your keyboard to type in it. A text box that allows you to enter multiple lines is called a text area it is taller than a textbox.

A drop down allows you to select from amongst a set of choices. It is rectangular like a bar but has a downward arrow on the

right edge. When you click on a drop down, it drops down to expose the different choices available. You can scroll through the list and click a choice to select it. If it has a lot of choices, you can also tap the first letter of the item you're looking for and it will scroll to it. For example: if a drop down has the 7 days of the week listed, you can click the menu and press S to select the first choice beginning with S, which is Saturday. A multi-selection allows you to choose more than one choice from a list of choices. It looks like a rectangle with the choices listed, one on each row. To select a choice, scroll it find it and then click on it. In order to select multiple choices, you have to hold down the CTRL key when selecting your choice.

Radio A radio button allows you to choose one option from amongst a set of options. It is shown with a circle next to a text. Clicking on it places a dot inside the circle. To select an option, you can click on it. If you click on a different choice, the choice selected previously is reset. It serves the same purpose as a dropdown but is typically preferred when there are only 2–3 choices. For example: for asking a user to answer a Yes/No question. A check box allows you to choose multiple options which are not mutually exclusive like in a radio button group. The above are the most common interface elements but there are many more. As you use different programs, I encourage you to notice the different interface elements and how they behave when you click on them.

Taskbar

The Taskbar is a horizontal bar that is present on the bottom edge of the desktop. Please see figure The task bar has several useful functions:

Running The task bar shows the icons of running programs and allows you to bring any of them to the foreground. Right clicking on a running program's icon also gives you options to close the program. Shortcuts to It also contains shortcuts to programs. You can click on a shortcut to launch the program and bring it to the foreground.

Search It contains a search bar to the left which allows you to quickly search for a text. Searching for a program allows you to find and launch it. Enter a website URL opens it in your default browser. We will talk in detail about websites in the next chapter. For now, you may understand that a website is a computer on the internet identified by a name.

Switching between The task bar also has a task switcher icon which shows all the programs running at a glance and allows you to select any one of them and get it to the foreground. Refer figure This is an alternate way of switching between programs.

Accessing task You can right click on the taskbar and click on task manager to show all the programs and services running on your computer, and show how much hardware resources each of them is using. A service is a program which runs in the background and does not have any visual representation like programs do. Hence, you would not see services in the taskbar or via the Task Switcher button. The task manager is often useful for quitting programs which may have become unresponsive.

Customizing the taskbar You can customize the taskbar by right clicking on it and selecting or de-selecting the different options shown. Try exploring some options and see how it changes your taskbar. You can also do some more customizations using the Start Menu | Settings | Customize and selecting taskbar on the left, see figure

You can add shortcuts for programs that you used often to your taskbar by either of these ways:

Drag and drop any shortcut to the taskbar. Open an app and while it is running, right click on its icon in the taskbar and select Pin to taskbar.

In the Start menu, on the list of programs, locate the program, right click on it and select Pin to

System tray

The system tray is present on the right of the taskbar; it's the area that shows the system clock. Please see figure The system tray often contains common utilities which help you control your computer's configuration and some programs that are designed to run in the background. Just click on an item in the system tray and it will bring up some actions you can take for that item. Once you select an action, it will typically bring up a window or dialog box which will allow you to make changes. Customizing the system tray

You can customize the system tray by right clicking on the Some of the options that you see in this menu apply to the system tray.

Desktop

As we discussed in the beginning of this section, an OS Desktop works on the analogy of a real desk. In the sections above, we explored some special areas of the desktop which appear on the top and bottom. The remaining desktop provides you with an area that you may customize to display an image of your choice. Please see figure You may create files, folders, and shortcuts to programs you use often. You can follow these steps to create a shortcut for a program, file, or folder on your desktop:

Locate the item in File

Right click and select Send to and then Desktop (create shortcut).

In the Start menu, on the list of programs, locate the program and then drag it to the desktop (visible on the right).

To minimize all programs and quickly access your desktop, you can click on the vertical line which is at the far right of your taskbar as shown in figure Alternatively, you may also use the Windows + D shortcut.

Files

As we learnt earlier in the computer hardware section, your computer has a HDD that is used to store files. We have also learnt that files are the digital representation of binary, text, and media data. Your OS is also a collection of files, which contain programs and resources that your OS uses.

The file system draws from the analogy of a cabinet with volumes, folders, and files. Your hard disk is divided into logical areas called volumes on which files and folders can be stored or accessed by your OS. Files are logically organized in a nested structured of folders that help in their management. Folders are also called Your HDDs have some folders in which the files used by the OS are stored. These are called system files and folders and should not be tampered with. Each user also has a folder created to store their own files and users cannot access each other's files. But there are some Administrative users on the computer who have access to all user and system files. Such users are often created when installing the OS.

All users have a home directory with these folders inside them: Files, folders, and shortcuts stored in this folder show up on the user's desktop as icons.

Default location for storage of documents created by the user.

Default location for storage of downloads from the internet.

Recycle Temporary storage for deleted files. We will learn more about the recycle bin later in this section.

Default storage for photographs and videos.

Although the OS creates these folders for you as per its convention, you may choose to create any type of files anywhere in your Home directory. For example, you may choose to store Photos in Documents folder.

Every file name is comprised of two parts, the file name and the file extension, separated by a period (dot). The file name can be an alphanumeric string and can contain spaces, underscores, and hyphens. The file extension is a standard string, usually 1–4 characters long, which corresponds to the type of data contained in the file. For example, exe is the file extension of executable files, so any file which runs a program on your computer will typically end with The purpose of the file extension string is to describe the type of file. The OS maintains a table of standard file extensions and the default program which is used to open each extension. This table is looked up when a user opens up a file by double clicking on it, and the OS launches that program and opens the file in it.

You can choose to open a file in a different program by right clicking on the file icon in File Explorer, and selecting Open If you

do not see the Open with option, try holding down the Shift key while right clicking the file icon. Let us now look at how you can browse the file system on your computer.

File explorer

File explorer is an application that is part of your OS programs and allows you to navigate your file system. To open File Explorer, click on its icon on the taskbar. Or you may enter the word explorer in the search bar and press

When you open the file explorer, you will see the following sections on the left pane: Quick Access, My PC, Network, etc. Clicking on them will show their contents on the right pane. You may open a folder on the right pane by double clicking on its icon. Double clicking on a file opens it.

To browse the file system outside of your home directory, click on This PC on the left pane and it will show the volumes on your hard disk on the right pane. You may see alphabets like etc. Double click on a volume/folder on the right pane to navigate deeper and the Back button on the menu bar to navigate backwards. If you do not have permissions to view a particular folder, you may get an Access Denied message when you attempt to open it.

You can add volumes/folders to quick access by dragging their icon to it. This makes it quicker to navigate to these folders whenever you open a file explorer or a file dialog. To remove an item, right click it in quick access and click Unpin from Quick

Recycle bin

A shortcut to the recycle bin can be found on your desktop. The recycle bin draws from the analogy of a waste bin in our room which we use to throw trash in. If you throw something in the bin accidentally, you can always pick it up. Of course, hoping it has not been soiled. You may clear your recycle bin periodically which is the equivalent of taking out the garbage.

Similarly, in Windows, if you delete any files using your OS, they are moved to the recycle bin and not deleted immediately. This gives you an opportunity to undelete the file in the recycle bin, in case you delete something accidentally. These files then get restored to the folder they were originally deleted from. You may empty your recycle bin periodically, doing this permanently deletes the files and they can no longer be restored.

You can empty the Recycle Bin by right clicking on its icon on your Desktop and clicking Empty Recycle

Action center

The action center displays notifications from the OS and programs on your computer. It also provides a quick actions dashboard using which you can quickly control some commonly used settings. The action center icon is present on the right on the system tray and is represented by a square with lines on it. If you have unread notifications, this icon will have a number on it, which represents the number of unread notifications. Pressing it would slide-in in the action center pane from the right and pressing it again hides the pane. Please see figure 2.5 for the action center button. The following figure 2.8 shows the action center pane:

Figure 2.8: The action center pane

Clipboard

Your OS has a clipboard that can temporarily hold items; this allows you to copy or move items from one place to another. You can place anything on your clipboard: text, images, or any types of files.

If you want to create a copy of an item, you would choose the Copy option. If you want to move the selected item from where it is, you would use the Cut option. To place the items from the clipboard to the destination location, you would choose the Paste option. Example: You may copy and paste files using the File Explorer and copy/cut and paste selected text using any text editor. Please see figure

Figure 2.9: Cut/Paste options in notepad

You find the and Paste options either by right clicking on the item, or by selecting the item and Clicking the Edit menu option.

You can also use the keyboard shortcuts mentioned at the end of this chapter.

Turning off your computer

As we discussed above, your OS is comprised of a collection of programs that run together to create a GUI. While your computer is running, it is reading and writing to files to your hard disk drive. At any given point, your OS may be writing into some files. Since your computer uses software, you should never turn it off by switching off the power like you do for many other hardware devices like a toaster. If you do this for a desktop PC, the system files that were in the process of being written to may have partial data written. This is known as file corruption. When you start your computer again, your OS may not be able to read corrupted files and that may cause it to malfunction. Hence, it's important to shut down the computer properly using the OS interface. This allows the OS to conclude all file writes properly and gracefully terminate the OS processes.

To shut down the computer:

Click on the Start button.

Click on the Power symbol on the bottom of the Start menu. Click on Shut

Wait for the OS to shut down and display to turn off before switching off the power.

Personalizing your computer

You can personalize some aspects of your computer like the desktop background and the screensaver. We learnt about mobile screensaver in the previous chapter. A computer lock screen also serves the same purpose. Let us look at how you can do this.

Setting a desktop background

You can set any image as your desktop background, also called You may follow these steps to do this.

Click the Start button

On the Start menu, find the Settings icon represented by a Gear icon and click on it. Click on You can also right click anywhere on the Desktop and click Customize to open this screen directly. The Customize screen lets you set a lot of different options, like your desktop background, lock screen, and a setup a matching theme for the desktop background, colors, and sounds. This screen also lets you configure the taskbar and start menu as per your preferences. See figure

Figure 2.10: The customize screen

Click on Background on the left pane. On the right pane, select any of the pictures to set it as your desktop background.

You can also set an image as your desktop background directly. To do this:

Open any image of your choice by double clicking on it. Right click on the image and select Set as Desktop

Setting a lock screen

A lock screen/screensaver plays an animation on your computer display when it is idle. This has a visual appeal but is also an important security feature that can prevent your computer from misuse when you are away from it. If your computer has a password, you can also set a timeout for the screen to get locked and a screensaver to begin. You may also choose to prompt for a password to unlock the computer. You can follow these steps to choose a screensaver and its preferences: Click the Start button.

On the Start menu, find the Settings icon represented by a Gear icon and click on it.

Click on You can also right click anywhere on the Desktop and click Customize to open this dialog directly (see figure

On the dialog that opens, click on Lock screen on the left pane.

On the right pane, choose from one of the backgrounds and select it. You may choose other preferences like using the same background for the Sign-in screen, and allowing some apps to show

notifications on the Do note that this may make some personal information visible on the lock screen, so you should choose allow apps accordingly.

Common tasks on a computer

Let us now look at some tasks that are commonly done on a PC.

Managing your files

In the previous section, we discussed about files and understood how file explorer can be used to browse through your computer's file structure. In this section, we will look at some common file tasks.

Create a Text file

A text file is useful for taking notes without any formatting. This is often handy to jot down details. To create a text file on the Desktop or in File right click and click on and then click Text Give the file a name and an empty text file will get created. Now you can open the file and edit it, double clicking it should open the Notepad program on your computer. Type in the text and click File menu and Save to save the file to your hard disk. You can create many other types of files as well using the above method.

Create a text file on desktop and another text file in the Documents folder in your home directory.

Create a shortcut to a program or a file

A Shortcut allows you to launch a program or open a file or folder quickly. You can create shortcuts for commonly used applications, files, and folder, and place these shortcuts on the in a folder, or the Windows Start menu.

You can create a shortcut using any of these methods: Right click on the file, folder, or program that you want to create the shortcut for, and select Create Shortcut (Send to

On the location you want to create the Shortcut in, right click and select New | then select the program or the file that you want to create the Shortcut for, and click

Once you have created a shortcut and want to add it to the toolbar or the start menu, drag and drop the shortcut on it.

Check space usage

You can check space usage of your HDD using file manager by following these steps:

Open File Manager

Click on This PC on the left pane and will show the logical volumes on your hard disk, and so on. Right click on a logical volume, say and click on Properties to view the total space and the space utilization. It also shows a Pie chart with a graphical representation of how much of the total space is used.

Your physical hard disk is usually the combination of all logical volumes so by checking all the volumes, you can know how much of your HDD has been used.

Taking a screenshot

As we learnt in Chapter 1: Your a screenshot is a picture of your screen. On the Windows 10 OS, you can take a screenshot of your full screen, or a part of it.

You can take a screenshot of the full screen by following these steps: Click the PRNT SCRN button in the special keys section of your keyboard. If you're on a laptop, your keyboard might not have this button. In that case, you may use the Windows + S shortcut.

The screenshot is saved to the Pictures folder in your home directory.

Taking a partial screenshot is a slightly longer process, and you may do it by following these steps:

Open the Action Center and in the Quick click on Screen

Use the mouse to select the rectangular section of the screen you want to capture. You can do this by.

Click down (but do not lift your finger up yet) on the top left corner of the rectangular area that you want to capture.

Drag the mouse to the diagonally opposite point, which is bottom right, of the rectangular region to be captured.

Lift your finger off the mouse.

As soon as you do this, the screenshot of the selected rectangular region will get captured and the image will be placed on the Clipboard. A dialog will appear confirming that the image is placed on the clipboard. In case you miss this dialog, you can find it in the Action Center under notifications.

Click on the text below the image to open the image. Click Save icon in the menu and choose a location to save the screenshot.

Connecting to Wi-Fi

We learnt about some typical tasks related to Wi-Fi in Chapter 1: Your like connecting and disconnecting from a Wi-Fi network, updating the saved password and toggling Wi-Fi and Flight Mode. The same actions are often required on your computer too and can be performed by clicking the Wi-Fi icon in your computer's system tray. The Wi-Fi icon looks like a hand fan, and is on the left of your system clock. See figure

Figure 2.11: Wi-Fi options

Changing settings

Your OS has a lot of settings and there may be situations where you are searching for a particular setting but do not know its path. There may also be situations where the path for a setting is different in a particular version of Windows. In such cases, you can open the Start Menu > Settings and search for the setting you are trying to find. It would display the path for that setting. Alternatively, you can just click on any of the results and it will open the dialog for that setting. This is a useful feature that makes it easy to find settings on your computer.

Computer security

In Chapter 1: Your we discussed about the security of your smartphone and tablet. Just like your devices, keeping your computer secure is also critically important. Any program that runs on your computer has access to your computer's hardware and files, both system files and your own. A malicious program may do undesirable activities and cause your system to malfunction. The activities are categorized as undesirable because they deviate from what you expect from a program, and the actions are also not authorized by you. Hence, it is very important to only install applications that you trust. But how do you know if the application that you are installing is trustworthy, and how do you keep yourself secure? We will cover these topics in this section and also talk about the types of malicious programs.

Types of malicious programs

Malicious programs perform unauthorized activities on your machine for some nefarious motive. They are often categorized based on the type of malicious activity and the motive for it. Here are some common categories of malicious apps:

The objective of worms is to replicate themselves to more and more computers. The motive is often to overload the network causing legitimate traffic to slow down. Worms also slow down your computer and network.

The objective of Adware is to install hidden programs that connect to servers and show you Ads and Popups. The motive is to defraud advertisers by displaying Ads on random computers. For you, Adware causes an annoyance and uses your internet connection to load obtrusive Ads.

Trojan A trojan horse is a dangerous malware that comes disguised as a safe program but it is used as a container for other malicious programs. If your computer gets infected with a Trojan horse, it will execute the malicious code that came with it. It may also connect to a remote server, download additional code and execute it which could lead to other types of malicious behavior from this list.

Spyware is malware that can be used to spy on you; it may track your activity, turn on your computer's microphone and camera, or steal sensitive files from your computer and send these to a remote server. This is done to access your private information, hack your accounts, or simply to sell this information in the black market. Spyware on your computer can lead to privacy breaches and data loss.

Ransomware is a type of malicious program which will lock you out of your files and demand a ransom from you to let you access your own files. It is done for monetary gain.

A virus is a broad category of malware that copies itself by attaching to other files. Viruses may be created with different motives, and they can destroy files, corrupt them, and even render your computer unusable.

Keyloggers are a type of malware that secretly record the keys that you type in your computer. Since you would also type passwords, the intention is to steal this sensitive data and use that for financial gain or to gain access to your accounts.

A bot is a malware that is designed to make your machine send a barrage of requests to some website or server. With an army of infected computers acting as Bots and sending unnecessary requests, the server gets overloaded and cannot handle legitimate requests. This is usually done to attack popular servers and websites.

Dealing with security

You might have gotten a bit worried reading about the different kinds of malware out there. In fact, this is surely a cause for worry, as newer malwares come out each day. But there are solutions out there to combat them. In this section, we will look at some ways to stay secure.

Prevention and cure

It is said that prevention is better than cure. This statement is especially true when it comes to your computer's security. There are many companies that develop Anti-virus programs which can detect most forms of malwares. These companies' research new malwares on a daily basis and look for tell-tale signs (called virus which can help them identify the malware. An anti-virus program checks files and programs on your computer and identifies any malwares on the basis of the known signatures. It is also capable of removing malware from your machine, and isolating files it cannot disinfect (called An anti-virus program, once installed on your machine, updates its signatures periodically.

Windows includes an anti-malware program called Windows Security (previously called Windows Defender) which protects your computer against malware. You can open Windows Security by finding its icon in the list of programs under the Start menu and clicking on it. On the Windows Security windows, click on Virus and threat protection to check for updates, scan your computer, or to view and modify its settings. While Windows Defender also scans automatically, there may be times where you may want to run a scan on-demand. There are multiple types of on-demand scans you may run: A Preventive scan for a file or removable media before you access any files. This can be done by right clicking on the file/folder/volume in File Explorer and clicking the Scan option. If

the preventive scan reports problems, you should always run a Quick scan next.

Quick Scan is quick, like the name indicates, but only scans the types of files and folders which are most vulnerable to infection. It usually takes about 5 min or less. You would typically run a quick scan if you suspect that your computer may have been infected. If quick scan does report problems, it is always a good idea to fix them and then run a full scan.

A Full Scan carries out a much more comprehensive check; it scans all files on your computer and hence takes a longer time. It can sometimes take several hours. You should run a full scan on your computer at least once a month.

You may choose to buy another third-party anti-virus program too if you so choose. You'll have to pay to buy most third-party antivirus programs, but there are some free ones out there as well. There are popular Anti-virus programs from companies like Avast, Avira, AVG, Kaspersky, Mcafee, and Norton. If you have installed an anti-virus program, you will see its name when you open Windows Security. It is important to note that you should never install more than one third-party Anti-virus on your machine as doing this could cause problems.

Most anti-virus programs detect all types of malware except Adware. There are separate programs available for detecting and removing Adware.

Security best practices

Very often, human greed is used to tempt people to take actions that can compromise their safety. Here are some tips you can follow to prevent yourself and your computer from malware. The key thing to remember is that if it sounds too good to be true, it often is:

Always install an anti-virus program on your machine before you connect it to the internet or use any external media on it (like a USB drive or DVD).

Keep your anti-virus program enabled at all times. Usually, an antivirus program runs in the background unless you explicitly disable or pause it.

Update your anti-virus definitions at least once every day. Most anti-virus programs would automatically check for updates once you allow them to.

Only download and install programs from reliable sources and websites. Only install programs from known and reputed companies, and licensed software from trusted sources. Don't use pirated software.

Do not open emails from unknown senders.

Do not download email attachments from unknown senders or if you get them with a suspicious email.

Be wary of clicking on links that promise you free things, or promise things that seem too good to be true.

Remember, a security-conscious mindset is your first defense against Malware.

Managing programs on your computer

In this section, we will look at how you can to install, view, and remove applications on your computer.

View list of programs installed

You can view programs installed on your computer using the following steps:

Click on Start button.

In the Start menu, click on Click on

This will bring up the Apps & features screen. You will see an alphabetical list of programs that are installed on your computer. Please see figure It shows how much space each program is taking, and when it was installed.

You can order this list by Size or Install Date by clicking on Sort by and choosing the desired choice. You can also Search this list by entering the name of the problem in the search bar on top:

Figure 2.12: Apps & features screen

Removing a program

To uninstall any program, follow these steps: First find the program in the app list on Windows Menu | Settings |

Click on it to select it. As soon as you select it, an Uninstall button will appear below its name. If the program is part of the OS, you cannot remove it. In such cases, the Uninstall button will appear grayed out.

Click on

A confirmation dialog will appear, click on Uninstall again in that

You may be prompted for the Administrator this is the same one that is used by the administrative user to login. You can choose the Administrator account by clicking on More choices and authentication type as Then enter the Password and click on

Once authentication is successful, the uninstall process will take a few minutes and once it completes, you will be brought back to the Apps installed screen.

Installing a program

You can install a program on Windows using a Windows installer using the following steps:

Windows installer files usually have the extension .exe or .msi at the end of their name. Find the installer file using File Explorer.

Scan the file for malware by right clicking on the file icon and selecting the Scan option. The actual name of this option may vary depending on which antivirus program you use.

The scan should begin and if the file is clean, it should report no issues found if any malware is found, then do not use the installer and delete the file. Also, empty your Recycle Bin after deleting it. And be sure to run a Quick Scan on your anti-virus.

If the scan comes clean, then double click on the installer file to launch it and follow the steps in the installer. You may have to confirm by entering your Windows password.

It may ask you to confirm the volume and path to install the program in. If your volume is then the path is usually a directory inside C:\Program You can mostly leave the default selection as-is, and proceed by clicking

You may be shown some default options and asked to confirm and click depending on the program you're installing.

Once the program in installed, it appears in the list of programs under the Start menu, and you can click on it to launch and use it.

Keyboard shortcuts

Please see Table 2.2 for some common shortcuts. Each program has its own shortcuts too and you can find them mentioned alongside the Menu options or under the Help menu. Many of these are standard and work the same across different programs and in other OS too. Others that are marked with an Asterix (*) only work on Windows 10 OS:

OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS:

OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS:

OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS: OS:

Table 2.2: Keyboard Shortcut for Programs and Windows

Conclusion

In this chapter, we learned about computers, PCs and the two common categories of PCs, namely desktops and laptops. We learnt about computer hardware, the key internal components and both internal and external interfaces. We also looked at basic usage of keyboards and mice. We explored the Windows 10 interface and discussed how to personalize the interface. We also learnt how to perform some routine tasks on a PC. We talked about computer security and malware, looked at the different types of malware and discussed some ways in which you can defend yourself from malware. Towards the end of this chapter, we talked about managing programs on your PC and covered some useful keyboard shortcuts.

In the next chapter, we will learn about the internet and understand how it works. We will also look at some of its uses. We will then familiarize you with a web browser and walk through its usage on a phone and PC.

Key terms

GUI QWERTY

Start Menu

Toolbar System Tray

Action Center

Malware

Viruses

Worms

Adware Trojan

Spyware

Ransomware

Keylogger

Bot

Anti-malware

Windows Security Quick Scan

Full Scan

CHAPTER 3 The Internet

We never, ever in the history of mankind have had access to so much information so quickly and so easily

- Vint Cerf, Internet Pioneer and considered as one of the “fathers of the Internet” There are two equalizers in life: the Internet and education

- John T. Chambers, Former CEO of Cisco Systems and Padma Bhushan awardee

The internet is the backbone of the whole new world that I have been alluding to, since the beginning of this book. While you do not need to know the workings of this backbone to take its benefits, developing a basic understanding about its working will definitely empower you. It will help you connect the dots and comprehend the many uses of the Internet with much greater ease. In this chapter, I hope to do just that, introduce you to some fundamental concepts about What the internet is, How it works, and Where all it is used. Learning about its usage will also substantiate Why you should spend time learning more about the internet.

In this chapter, we will learn about the internet by using an analogy and then establish some important concepts. We will then look at how the internet works using a simple example. We will understand what a web browser is, and walk you through web browsers on your PC and mobile device. We will also discuss about some other types of software programs which can use the internet. In doing this, we will also understand what internet security is. Once we have understood the What and we will talk about the types of internet content and understand who creates content. In the latter part of this chapter, we will go over some common uses of the internet in the world around you, which will set the context for later chapters in this book. Come on then, let us connect to the internet!

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: What is the internet?

The web browser

Beyond your web browser and PC/smartphone Internet security

Content on the internet

Uses of the internet

Objective

The chapter will introduce readers to the internet and explain how it works. They will become familiar with the web browser on their PC and smartphone and will be able to carry out common operations on it. They will develop a basic understanding of internet-enabled apps, types of content on the internet and broadly understand the uses of the internet. This chapter will also create an awareness of internet security.

What is the internet?

To put it very simply, the internet is a network of computers which allows us to accomplish some objective. The objective may be to access information, to communicate, to entertain ourselves, to connect with other humans, or perhaps to buy something. There can be numerous other objectives and motivations to use the internet. Let us start by understanding what a network is, and how it works.

A real-life analogy

A network is a group of people or things that are interconnected. Let us look at some attributes of a network:

The connection between the people/things can be direct. For example, I am connected to Shweta as we attended the same college. The inter-connection can also be indirect. For example, I may connect to Sunny as he is Shweta's neighbor.

There can be multiple layers too in an indirect inter-connection. For example, Abhishek is Sunny's school friend, and Pallavi is Abhishek's boss. So, I may connect to Pallavi via Shweta, Sunny, and Abhishek, in that order.

There can also be alternate paths to connect with people/things. For example, Pallavi also happens to be Shweta's mother. So, I may connect with her via Shweta too.

As you can see from the examples above, a network may be composed of several sub-networks. The network of my college friends, Shweta's neighborhood network, Sunny's school network, and Abhishek' work network got combined to create a larger network. A larger network got created because there were people

who were in multiple networks; they acted as the bridge between separate networks.

To actually connect with someone in real-life, I might call them or visit them, so I would need their address or phone number. But in this particular network, all communication happens only via messages, which is why finding the path to route your message is important. Also, a letter has a limit of 1 page, so longer messages must be sent as multiple letters by chunking them into pages. Now, you may be wondering how you may discover someone to connect to, on the network. Let us discuss and understand this in more detail.

Before I can connect with someone, they must first be open to connections and publicize what they have to offer. Often, I would connect with someone with a particular motivation; even if I do not have a specific objective in mind. For example, Sunny is interested in baking and has recipes to share with the community; he is especially passionate about baking muffins. Pallavi provides career counseling services that are most useful for high-school students. So, the real question here is if I am interested in baking, how do I find Sunny? And if I was looking for career counseling for my son, how would I discover Pallavi? In this network, there are Business Directories, like Yellow Pages, which list people who are open for connections, mentioning their areas of interest and what they have to offer, along with their address/phone number. So, Sunny would be listed under "Baking" and "Muffins", and Pallavi would be listed under "Counseling" and

"Career". I can discover people in the directory by using keywords for what I'm looking for; this represents my intent or objective. If I search for "Baking", I may find many Bakers, and one of them will be Sunny. But if I search for "Baking" and "Muffins", I would see a smaller list comprising of people who're interested in baking muffins, and I have a much higher chance of finding Sunny in this shorter list.

Once you have discovered Sunny, you may connect with him directly the next time, without having to use the directory again. To do this, you may note down their name and address, and use it to send them a letter the next time. But what if they shift or change their phone number? Your letter would not get delivered. In that case, you can look them up again using the directory. Once you have discovered someone, you must find the best way to connect with them using your extended network. Please see figure 3.1 for a visual depiction of this:

Figure 3.1: Part of a human network

Let us say you had to request some information from Sunny the Baker, you would write your message out; if the message was longer than a page, you would chunk it into pages. You can then put each of these pages in a different envelope, mention your address as the Sender, and Sunny the baker's address as the destination. You would also need to mention the page number so when Sunny receives these envelopes, he would be able to put them in the right sequence and re-construct the original message that you sent. The page number is also useful in case any of your pages gets lost in transit. In such a case, Sunny may request you to send that page again, instead of having to request the whole message again. Once they receive your message, they would respond in the same way, they would write out a response message, chunk that into pages, put each page in its envelope,

mention your address as the destination, their address as source, and also mark the page numbers. There could be a situation where someone may peek into an envelope while it is in transit and may read the page. To prevent this, you may agree to use a coded language the first time you communicate with someone, and then all subsequent pages use that secret code, and only the receiver may decode your pages and reconstruct the message.

We will look at how this analogy relates to the internet in the next section.

Internet concepts

The internet has a lot of things in common with the above example of a human network, and many differences too. Since this is an analogy, we will try to draw parallels between this human network and the internet, to understand some key concepts about the internet. Let us first look at some of the commonalities and differences:

The above network was comprised of humans, whereas the internet is comprised of computers and network equipment.

The computers that are open to receiving connections are called servers.

A server may serve files or data present on its Hard Disk Drive which are called resources. The server may also compute some resources on-the-fly based on your request.

The complete path which can be used to identify a resource on the server is called Universal Resource Locator It is also called an address sometimes. The word Universal means that it follows a universal standard, which we will discuss in the next section Anatomy of a

A Website can be thought of as a collection of resources on a server.

Like humans on the network had an address, computers on the network use an IP address for identification. An IP addresses can be in two different formats. It can either be comprised of 4 numbers, each from 0 to 255, separated by periods ("."), for example, 98.137.246.7. Or it can be an alphanumeric sequence separated by colons (":"), for example 2001:4998:44:41d:0:0:0:3. The first is called ipv4 format and the second ipv6 format. IP addresses can uniquely identify every computer on the internet. But they are difficult to remember. A server's IP address may change over time, just like humans change their address and phone numbers. Websites may reserve a unique domain name and map to their IP address. Domain names can be much easier to remember as they can be combinations of words. When someone reserves a domain name, they get ownership for the domain for the period that they have reserved it for, by paying a fee.

For domain names to work, a table of domain names along with their IP addresses has to be maintained on the internet, from where anyone can look-up the IP addresses for a domain name. Servers that maintain these tables are called Domain Name System servers. This table is very huge since it contains Domain names and IP addresses of all servers on the internet. So, for easier management, it is split up and maintained across multiple servers. A DNS server either returns you the IP address of a domain name if it has it, or redirects you to another DNS server that can provide you this information.

A URL refers to a server resource, so it must be able to identify the server first. Hence, it must have either the domain name, or the IP address of the server. It has some additional parts too. In the next section, we will look at the complete anatomy of a Similar to business directory (or yellow pages) in the human network, the internet has search engines. Search engines allow you to search the internet by keywords and find matching websites. A search engine combines you are searching for (your with the to show you the most relevant results. Content can be based on you are, you are searching, and many other factors. For example, If you search for Italian the search engine may show you an Italian restaurant in the city you are in instead of an Italian restaurant in a different city. You may also provide the context along with your search keywords. For example, if you are in Delhi, but are researching Italian restaurants for an upcoming trip to Rome, you could search for restaurants in Location is just one example of context; there are many other scenarios too.

The human network above had a constraint that any information or data that needed to be sent was first broken into letters; each letter then put in an envelope and annotated with source, destination, and letter number. While a human network does not exactly work like that, we added this constraint to put across how the Internet works. On the internet, these letters are called Breaking data into packets allows data to travel on the internet fast and reliably. Any packets which are lost can be re-transmitted instead of sending the complete data again. All this happens

under-the-hood, and we do not need to do anything to chunk or reassemble the data, it is handled by operating system (OS) software and libraries. This happens both on your computer and on the server that you are connecting to.

The exact details of how data is chunked into letters and what information is added to each envelope are governed by the protocol used. As we learned in the last chapter, a protocol defines the rules and conventions that all participants have to follow. The internet uses a combination of many different protocols. Think of it like placing your message in an envelope, and that envelope is put inside another envelope, and so on. On the receiver side too, the message is unpacked from these envelopes, layer by layer. The packer and the unpacker of each envelope/layer conform to the same protocol so they can understand the markings on the envelope. If you are wondering why such a layering is done, it is because each layer serves a specific function and such a design allows for modularity and mixand-match by having similar layers on both the sender and receiver. Each functionality on the internet is achieved by some combinations of the different layers and protocols. The figure 3.2 shows a pictorial representation on the internet and some of the elements that we discussed above:

Figure 3.2: The internet In this section, we talked about the significance of a URL and understood that it must contain either the Domain name or an IP address. Let's now look at other parts that a URL may contain.

Anatomy of a URL

A URL is used to uniquely identify a resource on a server and send a message to it. For example, The figure 3.3 shows the anatomy of a URL:

Figure 3.3: Anatomy of a URL

Here are the different parts of the URL that you can see in figure

The URL begins with a few letters which identify the protocol to be used to connect to the resource. Most often, you will see http:// or https:// in URLs that you use in your web browser. Recall our discussion on the human network where we coded the messages before putting them in the envelope so that they may not be read by someone while in transit. https does just that, it

uses a system that encrypts all messages that are exchanged between your computer and the server, so is considered to be more secure against eavesdropping. In contrast, passes messages in plain text. Hence, it is very important to ensure that any website where you enter sensitive information like your citizenship IDs and payment information must have a secure URL. This is really important. We will look at how you can check this when we discuss about Browsers, later in this chapter. You may also see www. in the URL sometimes, which stands for World Wide Web and it is another way of indicating that the server is a website and uses the http protocol. Both http/https and www are optional in the URL, a web browser will often assume and add http to the URL. Apart from http and there are other protocols too, but you may not see or use them very often, so we would not be discussing them. Server A URL must contain either a domain name or an IP address. We already looked at how an IP address looks. Let us now look at the domain name. A domain name is a text string that is often easier to remember than IP address and allows the website to be identified uniquely across the internet.

Here are the different parts of a server identifier: Domain names end with an extension which is usually 2–4 characters long, example: .com, .org, .co etc. This is called a Toplevel domain Sometimes, a TLD has a Second level domain or as well. For example, in ".co.uk", ".uk" is the TLD and ".co" is a 2LD under ".uk".

The word that appears just before the TLD is the domain If this word has a period in it, then the text that appears after the last period is considered to be the domain identifier. The remaining text is considered to be the Example: In "mail.google.com", the domain identifier is "google" in the TLD ".com", and "mail" is the

When reading subdomains, the parent-child relationship runs right to left, and although it is uncommon, there could be multiple levels in the Subdomain. For example, in the URL "test.mail.google.com", "mail" is a subdomain under "google.com", and "test" is a sub-domain under "mail.google.com".

Server This identifies the resource on the server you're sending the message to. Let us look at how to identify this:

The Server identifier is followed by a slash character ("/") when there is another text following it. When there's no text after the domain name, then you are sending the message to the default resource for the website, which is often a website's homepage. For example, http://msn.com would lead you to the MSN Homepage.

If there is some text after "/", it could comprise of multiple words separated by slashes ending with either a "/", or a word, or the question mark character ("?"). For example, https://msn.com/news/ or https://msn.com/news or https://msn.com/news?input=test The text that appears between the first slash and the last slash, or between the first slash and the question mark, or between the first slash and the end of the word identifies the server resource.

In all of the examples, the resource we're calling on the "msn.com" server is "/news". Resource If a "?" is present then, any text that follows it would be split and passed to the resource as input. For example, In the URL the parameters number1 and number2 with values 11 and 10 respectively are passed to the resource "/operation/multiply" on the domain name "maths.com" using the "http" protocol. As you may have guessed from this example, the Equals symbol (=) is used to separate the input names and their values, and the Ampersand symbol (&) is used to separate the different inputs Let us now look at a simplified view of how all these pieces connect together to orchestrate a request on the internet.

How the internet works?

One of the common ways to use the internet is by using a browser. A browser is a computer program or app that runs on your computer, smartphone or tablet and allows you to enter a URL and view the response sent by the server. We will look at browsers in detail in the next section.

Here are the steps that occur when you enter a URL in your browser's address bar: The browser extracts the server identifier from the It could be in the form of a domain name or an IP If it is an IP then it proceeds directly to Step 6.

If the server identifier is a domain the browser requests to the OS to find the IP address of the domain name.

The OS looks up the DNS servers configured with its internet connection. We will explore internet connections in detail in the next chapter. The OS then makes a request to one of these DNS servers using a protocol used by them.

Remember what we learned in the previous section, DNS data is huge and is split across multiple servers. The DNS server dissects

the TLD from the domain name, and routes the request to the DNS server that contains entries for that particular This is done recursively for till the IP address for the exact domain identifier is found and returned. If the domain name has a sub-domain or multi-level), then the IP address returned will be for that subdomain.

The OS returns the IP address of the domain to your browser.

Now, the browser uses another protocol to create a token Hello request and asks the OS to send this message to that IP The OS passes this token message through a layer of protocols, breaking it into packets and then those packets are routed to the destination server using your internet connection, going via your Internet service provider's servers and other servers on the internet, till it reaches the destination server.

The destination server unpacks the packets using the corresponding layers on its side and reassembles the message. It then acknowledges this token message with a token response. The token response is again broken into and these packets are sent back by the server via its internet connection. The packets are routed back to your machine (using your IP address) via the internet and your ISP's servers. Your OS receives these unpacks them, assembles them into the message and passes this message to the application that this message is for. In our example, that program is your Web browser. The web browser receives the response message, and inspects/parses it to understand the format it is in. The format is usually HTML.

The browser renders the message in the browser window. The message that your browser receives is enclosed within some special words called HTML tags. Usually, tags have a start and end, and the browser applies any instructions to the text enclosed within these tag boundaries. For example, any text that appears within and tag is rendered as Bold. There are hundreds of other tags which can be used by websites to present structured content and to style the elements. When you view the webpage, you may notice that there is often some blue text which appears underlined. You may also notice that when you place your mouse over this special text (called your mouse pointer will change to a hand with an index finger. These are called hyperlinks and you can click on them. A hyperlink can link to another resource on the same or a different website. When you click on a it is the same as entering that in your browser's address bar, and all these steps repeat all over again.

Let us now look at a Web browser since it is a program you will use often.

The web browser

As we discussed in the previous section, a web browser (Browser for short) is a program/app that allows you to enter a URL and view web pages. Browsers have the capability to render stylized text, images, videos and other common media using HTML. They can understand some other formats too. Some popular browsers are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Apple Safari. As you go through the webpages in your browser, you may click links of interest to you, and the browser will then change its display to render those pages. This is called web browsing and the browser gets its name from it. The name is a metaphor for how humans browse through articles in a store to find something which may be of interest to them. In case the browser is not equipped to understand and render a particular resource, it may prompt you to download that resource as a file on your computer.

Let us look at the parts of a web browser in more detail, shown visually in figures 3.4 and figure

Address The address bar allows you to enter a URL. It also works as a search bar. If the text you enter conforms to a valid URL structure, then the browser attempts to open it, otherwise the text is passed to a search engine.

Search You can configure the default search engine of your choice in your web browser. The default search engine is used when someone enters any text in the address bar which is not a valid URL.

Site This shows you information about your connection with the website, and shows if the connection uses HTTP or HTTPs (encryption).

Display This is the main area in the center of the browser where the webpages get rendered Home button and home A home page is the default page that opens when you launch your browser, or when you press the Home button. The Home button is present to the left of the address bar. You can set any webpage as your homepage. The Home button is often disabled by default in tabbed browsers, but you can enable it from Settings if you'd like to. Navigation Your browser has Back and Forward buttons which help in navigation. The Back button is used to go back to the previous page. When you open a webpage by entering its URL in the address bar, the back button will appear grayed out. It will become enabled as you navigate to another page in the same Tab/Window, ether by clicking a link or entering a different URL in the address bar. The Forward button brings you forward after you have clicked the Back button to go to the previous page.

Reload It is often represented by a circular clock-wise arrow and is used to request the page again from the server. This is done for pages where information might change, for example, a page that shows sports match scores. Some web pages are designed to update such data without having to reload the page.

We discussed about tabs in the last chapter. A web browser tab allows you to browse a webpage. You can open multiple tabs in your browser, and switch between them. You can choose to open a particular web page whenever you open up a new Tab, or alternatively, you can choose to have a Blank page.

3-dot Most browsers have menu items under an icon with three vertical dots on the right of the address bar. This menu is also called the Kebab menu. Title The title bar is the top boundary of a window that shows the title of the web page that you are viewing. On tabbed browsers, web pages appear inside tabs and the Tab notch serves a dual purpose: it's used to show the title of the web page and also used to switch to that tab

Status appears at the bottom of the window, below the content. It is only present on desktop browsers and is often hidden to utilize the display area fully. The status bar appears momentarily to display progress of the page as it is loading. It also shows the URL when you hover on a hyperlink.

Browser allow you to control preferences and other settings for your browser. Browser settings can be found under the three-dot menu.

Your browser allows you to save the addresses or links of web pages you visit often; these are called bookmarks or You can also create a folder structure in your browser to organize these links. You can bookmark a page by clicking on the Star icon in the address bar, or via the three-button menu.

Your browser maintains a history of all websites you visit. You can view this history by clicking on History in the three-dot menu. Your browser saves images and some other types of files in its temporary storage so it does not have to load them from the server again if you reload the page. This temporary storage is called Cache conserves your internet bandwidth and speeds up your web browsing. Cache also stores common information that you enter on webpages, like Name, Address, Phone number, and Email ID (called Form data). It can also save your login ID and passwords. You can clear your browsers cache on-demand, if you require to. Cloud Your browser allows you to sign-in to your web account, and sync bookmarks, history, form data and passwords to your online account. This makes them available on all your devices, which is convenient. For example, You may bookmark a website on your computer, and then access that bookmark on your mobile device if you enable Cloud Sync.

Let us now look at a browser apps on your Computer and Mobile device, and familiarize ourselves with where the above elements are there on their interface.

Browsing on your PC

For this section, we will be using the Chrome browser from Google. You can launch the Chrome browser by clicking on its icon in the list of programs under the Start menu. In case you do not have the Chrome browser on your computer, you may download and install it from the URL The following figure 3.4 shows many of the interface elements that we discussed in the previous section:

Figure 3.4: Google Chrome interface [Credit: Google Chrome browser https://google.com/chrome/]

Let us look at some typical activities on the Chrome browser:

Site The Site information appears as a lock on the left of the address bar. It will show a closed lock for secure websites. See figure

Figure 3.5: Site Information for a Website [Credit: Google Chrome browser https://google.com/chrome/] Home button and home You can enable the Home button on the Chrome browser by following these steps:

Click on Settings in the 3-dot menu On the left pane, click on You can also reach this screen by simply entering chrome://settings/appearance in the browser's address bar.

On the right plane, enable the toggle button next to Show Home then click on the second Radio button and enter the URL of the website that you wish to set as your Homepage.

The settings take effect as soon as you do this and you should now see a home icon (with a triangular top) near the Reload button

Default search You can configure the default Search Engine of your choice in Chrome browser by following these steps. Click on Settings in the 3-dot menu

On the left pane, click on Search You can also reach this screen by simply entering chrome://settings/search in the browser's address bar. On the right pane, you can select the Search engine of your choice from the dropdown that appears next to the Search engine used in the Search

Enable cloud Chrome syncs web history, bookmarks, and saved content between your phone and any other computers that you use Chrome on. You can enable Cloud Sync by following these steps: Click on Settings in the 3-dot menu. Under You and you will see an option to sign-in to Chrome using your Google account and enable Cloud Sync. This screen may also

be accessed by entering chrome://settings/people in the browser's address bar. View You can view your browser history by following these steps. Click on History in the 3-dot menu. Alternatively, you may also enter chrome://history in the browser's address bar.

On the right pane, it shows the browser history, categorized by You can click on any item to open that web page again. On the left pane, it gives you an option to view Tabs from other devices if you have turned on Cloud Sync. Clear browsing data and You can clear your Browser's history and Cache by following these steps: Click on History in the 3-dot menu or enter chrome://history in the browser's address bar.

On the left pane of History page, click on Clear Browsing Clicking this opens up a dialog box. You may also bring up this dialog box directly by entering chrome://settings/clearBrowserData in the browser's address bar.

Choose the duration. You may choose All time if you want to clear the entire history and saved data

Choose what all you wish to clear, and The page shows you the effect of clearing each of these items. Click the Clear data once you have made the desired selections. It could take a minute or so for this browser data to be cleared.

Figure 3.6: Clear Browsing Data on Chrome [Credit: Google Chrome browser https://google.com/chrome/] In this section, we have covered the activities which are used commonly on your browser. I would encourage you to explore your web browser's 3-dot menu and settings, and try other settings you see there.

Try out some of the browser features that you just learned. Try entering the latest news in your browser's address bar.

Check which search engine was opened Change the default search engine to something else, let us say Bing. Enter the latest news again in your browser's address bar and notice that search results shown were from a different website. Enter http://msn.com on your web browser

Bookmark the page. Try to click on some links on the MSN homepage.

Try the Back and Forward buttons.

Open History and check which pages you viewed. Clear history and cache for the last hour.

Your Windows 10 OS comes with an Edge web browser from Microsoft. Launch the Edge browser from the list of programs under the Start menu and locate the standard interface elements on it. Then try to find how to do the same operations that we covered above, on the Edge browser.

We will look at the web browser on your Smartphone/Tablet next.

Browsing on your smartphone/tablet

For this section, we will be using the Google Chrome browser app on your smartphone/tablet. You can launch the Chrome browser by clicking on its icon in the app drawer; you may recall from Chapter 1: Your Smartphone/Tablet that the app drawer can be exposed by swiping up from the home screen. We'll now look at the standard interface elements on the Chrome browser. The following figure 3.7 shows many of these elements:

Figure 3.7: Chrome Browser on a Mobile Device (left), with 3 dot Menu expanded (right) [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.android.chrome]

Address The address bar appears in the middle of the display pane when you first open the Chrome browser, or when you launch a new tab. You may see this in figure Once you have entered a URL or search keywords and the page loads, you will notice that the address bar appears on the top of the browser. Managing You can manage your browser tabs in the following ways: Opening a You can open a new tab by clicking on the Tab icon and then clicking on + icon on the top right. You can see the Tab icon in figure Alternatively, you can also click New Tab under the 3-dot menu. Viewing and switching between To view open tabs, click on the Tab icon and swipe upwards or downwards to scroll between tabs. To switch to a tab, just tap on its icon. Closing a In the View tabs screen, you can click on the cross on the right of the tab icon. Another simple way to close a tab is by holding its icon and dragging towards the left or right of the screen.

Site You can access site information from the top of the 3-dot menu, see figure Once you load a webpage, you will also see a lock icon on the left of the address bar. Site information can also be viewed by clicking on the lock icon and shows if the connection is secure. The following figure 3.8 shows this.

Figure 3.8: Site Information and Security on Chrome Mobile browser [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.android.chrome]

Making full use of your display When you open a website in your mobile browser, it may look different from how it appears on your PC browser; you may notice that some elements may be laid out differently. This happens because many websites are designed to adapt themselves and optimize the layout based on the screen dimensions. Such websites detect your display size and orientation and render the website accordingly, and are called responsive websites. Your mobile device allows browsing in both portrait and landscape mode, which is useful when using it for entertainment and browsing. Chrome browser allows you to browse in landscape mode which often comes in handy. To do this, you can just flip your device 90 degrees, and as soon as you do this, your mobile browser would switch its display to landscape. In case it does not, please ensure that the screen lock is not enabled on your phone. Just a refresher, we discussed about screen lock in Chapter 1: Your and it can be found in quick settings by swiping down from the top of the screen. You can also zoom in to the website to read text or images clearly. You can zoom in and out using the pinch-out/pinch-in gestures. Home button and home You can enable/disable the home button on Chrome and set a homepage from Settings | Homepage (under the Basic section). The option to set the homepage gets enabled once the home button has been enabled using the Toggle button.

Clearing browsing Unlike the Chrome browser on your computer, your Mobile Chrome browser does not have the option to clear

browsing data on the History page. You can clear your browsing data from Settings | Privacy | Clear Browsing Once you open this, the screen would have similar options as the PC browser which were shown in figure

Cloud To enable Cloud Sync on your Mobile Chrome browser, you must sign-in to Chrome using the same Google account that you used on your PC. You can follow these steps to enable Cloud Sync:

Tap On the top of the you will see the Account heading. Click under it to select an Account, you may have to add an account and sign-in if you do not see your Google account in the list. Once you have selected a Google account, click on Sync and Google services link under it. On the screen that appears, enable the toggle button next to Sync your Chrome

You can tap on Manage Sync and select the information to Sync, or just select Sync

Once Cloud sync is enabled, you can try bookmarking a web page on your mobile Chrome browser, wait a few minutes and then check the bookmarks manager in your PC Chrome browser. You should see a new folder called Mobile With mobile Sync, you can also see the Chrome tabs open on your mobile, under Menu | History | Tabs from other devices. Search You can configure the default Search Engine of your choice in your Mobile Chrome browser as well. The option can be found under Menu | Settings | Search Engine (under the Basics section). In this section, we looked at a web browser which is one way to browse the internet. Let us now look at some other ways of using the internet.

Beyond your web browser and PC/smartphone

In this section, we will look at other types of software and hardware that can be used to connect to the internet.

Programs and apps

As we learned in the previous chapters, any program or app that runs on a computer or mobile device has access to its hardware and OS. A web browser is one such app.

We also saw earlier in this chapter how the browser uses the device's internet connection via the operating system. An internet connection may be established using the computer's or devices internal or external interfaces, like Wi-Fi or a network wire (LAN). On mobile devices, we only have wireless interfaces: Wi-Fi and mobile connection (which uses a SIM card). These interfaces provide the hardware circuitry required to establish a data connection. System software in the OS (called device uses the interface hardware to establish and maintain a data connection by implementing the appropriate network protocol.

Like a browser makes use of an internet connection to transmit and receive data, other programs and apps may also do the same. Hence, any program or app on your computer may also use your internet connection to fetch data from a server or website on the internet. This is very useful as you may have specialized apps or programs which may use the internet in new and creative ways to provide you easy access to information without you having to visit a website. For example, look for the weather app on your mobile devices, it fetches the current weather and forecast from its server on the internet. Likewise, your computer also has programs that make use of the internet.

Other internet-enabled devices

Your PC and smartphone/tablet are the most common devices that are used to access the internet, but they are not the only ones. There are other devices that may make use of the internet too. Here are some common types of internet-enabled devices:

Digital media These are devices that can help you use the internet for entertainment on your TV. Such devices allow you to stream songs, watch movies and browse the internet on your TV. They also allow you to install apps just like a Smartphone/Tablet.

Smart Some TV have the hardware circuitry and software which allows them to stream content from the internet.

E-book Also called e-readers, these are devices specifically designed for downloading and reading electronic books using services on the internet. These often have a small browser or app which lets you browse, purchase and download books from the internet. They are designed to mimic a real book, they often use a special type of screen that uses minimal power and does not cause strain to eyes.

Gaming Allow you to play games. Some gaming consoles are like mobile devices and have a screen, others connect to your TV and use that as a display. Gaming consoles can connect to the

internet for posting your score, playing collaborative online games, and for updating their software. Many gaming consoles also allow apps to be downloaded and installed.

Smart home There are many home devices that connect to the internet to provide enhanced functionality and also be controlled from the internet. They come in the category of Internet of Things Smart watches and smart home devices like smart bulbs, smart temperature monitors are some examples of IoT.

Car Car trackers use the internet to track your car's health and movement.

We will learn about some of these devices in Chapter 18: Beyond Your PC and

Since we talked about security consciousness in the last chapter, let us now discuss about security on the internet.

Internet security

As we just discussed, any program/app installed on our computer and mobile device can use our internet connection to communicate with servers on the internet. It also has access to our file system and hardware. We learned about the different types of malware in the last chapter, many of them are also programs. If a malware is executing on your computer, then it could send our pictures, documents, and other files to remote servers. Spyware could use hardware like the camera or microphone to capture pictures and sound and also upload them to their server. Hence, different types of malwares may use the internet to spread, replicate themselves, and to leak data.

Earlier in this chapter, we learned that any computer that allows others to connect to it and access files is called as server. The other way in which a malware app or program may compromise your computer or phone is by acting like a server. This would allow anyone who knows your IP address to connect to the server created by this malware app. This can be used to pass it rogue commands or to request specific files from your computer or device.

As we learned in the last chapter, much of this can be prevented. If you have an anti-malware/anti-virus program on your computer or device, it uses some of the above activity to detect and remove malware. In addition, there is a category of anti-malware programs specifically designed to control network activity on your

computer and amongst these, the most important one is called as a

A Firewall creates a barrier between your computer and the outside network and it inspects all traffic that crosses this barrier in both directions. Firewalls used by enterprises may employ a combination of hardware and software. But the firewalls on most PCs do not use any specialized hardware and are programs. A firewall traces the program responsible for each piece of data that crosses the network barrier. It uses rules to allow or block incoming and outgoing connections from different programs. Computer administrators can control these rules and would typically setup a list of programs and activities, which is known as a Whitelist. Any program or activity which is not in the whitelist gets blacklisted, blocked and its activity is logged.

Your Windows 10 OS comes with Windows Defender Firewall installed. You can open Windows Security | Firewall and Network Protection to check its status and manage it. Configuring a Firewall is an advanced topic that is beyond the scope of this book. Internet-enabled hardware devices also make use of the internet and have the potential to be mis-used. Mis-use can be prevented if they have been configured securely so that they may be accessed only by legitimate users (you and your family).

Next, let us look at the core reason for learning about the internet, Content.

Content on the internet

Content is any type of information that may be of interest to someone. Like information, it can be a text, image, sound, or any combination of these. Humans crave information as it allows us to connect with our environment using our five senses. Our primary motivation to use the internet is to consume content. In this section, we will look at the different types of content and discuss who creates it. We'll also discuss briefly about the motivation people have for creating content. As we discuss these topics, we will also understand why it is important to not just consume content but also to create it.

Creation of content

Information on the internet is organized in the form of websites and servers. Websites provide you with a visual interface that can be explored using a web browser. We also consume content using apps/programs on our PC and mobile devices, and they may fetch content from servers on the internet. But who creates this content? Let us look at this in more detail:

Website's own The most common type of content is created by people and businesses who own and operate websites, and their employees and partners. The content could be a news article which informs you about an update, or it may be a photograph, or an audio or video. Content may contain factual data, or it could be an opinion. For example, news and articles on a news website. You can compare content created by website owners to a traditional newspaper or magazine. A large part of the content in a newspaper comes from the publisher's staff, and you have both facts (news) and opinions (editorial).

User Another type of content is one that is created by users of a website. It is worth noting that it is the website owners who create a structure in which users may contribute content on a website. User content again can be in the form of text, images, sound or any combinations of these. It can also be the users' activity on the website, we will discuss some uses of activity in

Derived content. For example, many news websites let users comment on news articles, these comments are one example of user-generated Drawing parallels to a traditional newspaper or magazine, those also contain some user content like Advertisements, letters to the editor, and picture/poetry contributions. The newspaper charges money to print some content like Ads, prints some others for Free, and may pay some high-profile authors for their content. Again, the publisher decides the structure and the places where user content will appear.

Derived Derived content has many different uses in the digital world. Popular Content can be any combination of Website content and user activity on the website. For example, news websites may use cumulative user activity data on their website, to tell other users which articles are most popular with their reader base. This helps other users discover popular articles quickly.

Websites may also recommend you content based on your past activity.

Average Another example could be user review and ratings for a new movie. Details about the movie, its cast and crew are factual, and you must rely on your own judgment to decide whether to watch that movie or not. When a user posts her review of the movie, it may give you one opinion. But when multiple people review a movie and their ratings are averaged, it gives you a popular opinion that offers additional insight about the movie, which may help in your decision-making. I must mention here

that opinions are subjective, both in the real world and on the internet, which is an important thing to keep in mind as you use the internet.

Search Search engines track how many times a website has been mentioned in other places on the internet, and use this to calculate the reputation of a website. These mentions are called Backlinks and are one of the factors used by Search engines to determine the ranking of websites in search results. As you can see, user content not only makes website content more engaging, but it is useful in its own right as well. User content allows for freedom of expression (within legal boundaries), and makes it possible for readers to get diverse, independent opinions using which they may create or tune their own opinion. However, one caveat is that opinions are subjective and just because an opinion is posted on the internet, it does not make the information a fact. Fake news and reviews also thrive on the internet because it is so easy to create content.

Free and paid content

In this section, we will discuss on the motivations for creating content. Content on the internet can be Free or Paid/Premium, it can also be a combination of these, popularly known as Freemium.

Paid A paid model is easily understood. You pay a monthly or an annual subscription to use a website or an app. The payments that are received allow the website operator, a business or individual, to meet the operational costs of running the website and also make a profit. This makes it like any other business. A lot of businesses, like banks, offer services online as a form of convenience to their existing customers because it has become the norm now. This also helps them use technology to automate some activities, which otherwise, would have required human effort.

Freemium and trial The objective of Freemium is to give you a feel of the website or app by offering some features for Free. Often, not all features are available for free and the full feature set is available only to premium users. Some other times, the full feature set may be offered for a limited time. This is called trial. For example, you may try out all features for a week, but after the trial period ends, only the free features can be used.

Free Content can also be Free. How is that possible? If websites offer content for free, what is their motivation to do it? Many a times, content is made free for users, but some value is derived out of the user base which can be used to generate revenue. For example, free websites run advertisements that users see and click, which helps generate revenue for the website operator. Another example could be a website that accepts voluntary donations to cover expenses, and donations from some users keep the website free for all users. There are many different revenue models apart from these. But some websites are really and truly free because the bills needed to run them are footed by individuals and companies. They may incur these to create an online presence and boost their personal branding which in turn helps them market themselves better. Some people and organizations also offer content free out of their love for a topic or cause.

Uses of the internet

Let us now look at some of the ways in which the internet touches our lives. You are probably familiar with many of these uses, you may have used some of these yourself, or you may have seen others use them. Here are some common uses of the internet:

The internet can be used for many different types of communication. The primary and oldest one of these is E-mail, it is akin to sending someone a letter in its simplest form, which lands in their inbox and they can check it when they want. There are other forms of communication like chat which are similar to emails, but it is not universal, the person has to be using the same website or app that you are using. You can also use the internet to communicate with someone in real-time, using audio and video. Both chat and audio/video chats can have multiple parties participating in the conversation. Using this is akin to having a phone conversation with someone, with the advantage that you can see them as well. The internet can also be used for live broadcasts, where people can watch and hear someone, but the presenter cannot see or hear the audience. This is similar to a TV broadcast, all viewers can watch the presenter, but it is a one-way communication. Communication can be one-to-one, oneto-many, or many-to-many.

News and The internet can be used for sharing news, weather updates, and forecasts. It can be used to share facts as well as opinions.

Your PC or mobile device can be used to watch movies, videos, or listen to songs. It is also not too difficult to record your own videos and songs and share them online.

Reading and The internet is a great resource for self-learning and you can learn not only by reading but also by watching videos. The internet also provides ways to consume books by listening to them, such books are called audio books. Reading or listening to a book on a screen cannot match the and smell of a physical book but it does offer a good proposition. You can have your entire book collection available at your fingertips without having to worry about the nuances of physical storage.

The internet can be used to view photos and organize your own photo collection as Albums. These albums do not gather dust and are always available, no matter where you are. Photos and albums can be shared easily with friends and family, you can express their emotions by commenting or liking these pictures. Websites allow you to edit images using software running on websites.

In the last decade, the internet has evolved to offer more and more capabilities that were earlier possible only by using a program on your PC. The web interface has also been evolving to support in this endeavor. You can find online applications to view and create different types of artifacts like documents, spreadsheets,

and presentations. These capabilities were earlier available only on PC programs. Social The internet allows you to stay connected and in-touch with your circle of family and friends, no matter where they are, by using social media. People can share big and small moments in their life with their social circle in the form of text, photos, and videos and this can be seen by your network whenever they logon to the social network. This stream of activity from your circle, called as your keeps you updated about your neighbor and your old childhood friend with the same ease.

Commerce refers to the practice of exchanging goods or services for money. When the goods and services are bought and sold on a website or an app, it is known as electronic commerce The goods and services may be virtual or physical; physical goods are delivered to your home. For example, you may purchase a Refrigerator online, or you may book language lessons. The language lessons could be conducted in person, or may be conducted online using communication software. E-commerce also allows you to do product research and narrow down the product to buy based on reviews of past customers. It also makes it easy to do a price research and find the best deal.

Banking and The internet enables online banking transactions which offers convenience for both you and your bank: you do not need to make a trip to the bank during business hours and your bank can carry out routine banking activities using computers and that helps them reduce repetitive human effort. The internet can also be used for making payments, which is a very important

factor for an e-commerce. Payments can be made by bank accounts and credit cards, or they may be made from digital wallets. Online digital maps allow you to find directions just like physical maps. But they can also tell you the best route and duration based on the traffic conditions along the way. If those change while you are en-route, digital maps can also suggest you to take a different route. Maps are also combined with local transit (bus, subway, train) schedules to suggest the best way to reach somewhere by public transit. Internet on other So far, we have understood that smartphones/tablets and PCs are two gateways for you to access and make use of the internet. But these are not the only devices on which you may use the internet. The power of the internet has transformed everyday gadgets and appliances and made them You can use the internet for entertainment on your smart TV, and make apps available on your wrist using Smart watches. The internet can also be used to control items around your home, like a light bulb.

There are numerous more applications of the internet beyond this list. As you can see, the internet has touched so many areas of our life and molded them into a new form and shape. We will discuss all of these topics in detail, in the remainder of this book.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we began with an analogy of the human network and used that to understand the internet. We also discussed some of its concepts like server, resources, IP address, domain name, URL, search engines and packets, and learned how these different entities work together. We also discussed the anatomy of a URL. We then learned about a web browser, its interface elements, and saw those interface elements on PC and mobile versions of the Google Chrome browser. We also discussed about internet security and how a firewall works. We looked at content on the internet, how it gets created and monetized. Finally, we looked at some uses of the internet. The internet has indeed created a new world, a global where both information and people are just a mouse click away.

In the next chapter, I will introduce you to connections and we will discuss the different types of connections that electronic devices use to communicate with each other. We will understand which of those connections can be used to connect devices to the internet, and where the other types of connections are used.

Key terms

IP Address Domain name

URL

DNS Packets

HTTP, HTTPS

Search Engine

TLD, 2LD

Domain identifier

Sub-domain Web browser

Bookmarks

Homepage

Firewall

Whitelisting

CHAPTER 4 Connections

The difference between being bound and being connected is perception.

- Olivia Barnes, Author

One of the best ways to realize the impact of Wi-Fi is to imagine life without it.

- Michael O'Rielly, Former Commissioner of the U.S. Federal Communications Commission

Connections are used to link things so that something may flow between them. This something can be physical, like water flowing from a faucet to a garden via a hose pipe. Or it can be intangible, like current flowing from the switchboard to a bulb via an electrical wire connection. In this chapter, our scope of something will be limited to information or data, and we will be looking at the common types of connections that are used to transfer data. In this chapter, we will begin by learning about connection mediums, media, and directionality. We will discuss some characteristics of analog and digital media. We will then understand the types of connections used for data, and the two

major classifications of those. We will look at some examples for both these classifications, and understand the key characteristics of each connection type. Towards the end of this chapter, we will discuss about connection speeds and look at the typical uses of each type of connection.

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Connection mediums and media

Connection directionality

Digital and analog media Classification of data connections

IP-based connections

Non-IP-based connections

Combinations of non-IP-based and IP-based connections

Understanding connection speed

Usage of different connections

Objective

This chapter will introduce readers to device connections. Readers will be able to understand the key attributes of connections like medium, media, directionality, type, and speed. They will also understand a broad classification of connections, as IP based and non-IP based. They will be introduced to common IP-based connections like Local Area Network (LAN), Wi-Fi, mobile internet, and fiber. They will also understand the interface and uses of common non-IP connections like Bluetooth, Universal Serial Bus Consumer Infrared and audio–video connections. They will also understand some examples of hybrid connections, including hotspot and tethering.

Connection mediums and media

In Chapter 2: Your we learned that information is anything that humans can sense using their five senses, of which seeing and hearing are the two that are most commonly used with computers.

When someone speaks across the room, the sound of their voice travels to our ear drums that cause them to vibrate. These vibrations are converted into a signal by other parts of our ear, and this signal is sent to our brain, which perceives this signal as sound. In the same way, when we look at words printed on a newspaper, light from the paper travels to our eye where the cornea and lens work together to focus it on our retina. The retina converts the light pattern to a signal and sends this signal to our brain which perceives this signal as an image of words on a page.

Our brain parses the voice and words and maps them to sounds and characters it already recognizes, in order to generate meaningful information out of these. It will be able to successfully parse these only if we understand the semantics of language these are in. If we hear someone talk in a language we do not understand or read words in a different language, our ears and eyes will still convert the sound and sight into signals, but our brain will not be able to derive any meaningful information from these signals.

In the above example, Connection Media refers to the physical carrier through which information travels from the source to our sense organs, the In both of the above examples, the media is air. Connection Medium refers to the carrier of information through the media. In the case of sound, the medium is a sound signal. In the case of words in a newspaper, the medium is light.

The actual information which is traveling over the medium is a picture and voice. As we saw in Chapter 2: Your computers store and process information in the form of digital data. Hence, our primary objective in this chapter is to understand the connection between media and mediums which are capable of carrying digital data.

As the medium travels through the communication it degrades in strength. This is why if someone talks with the same loudness in another room, we may struggle to hear them clearly. Or if someone held the newspaper 10 feet away, we may not be able to read the words in the newspaper very easily. As the source moves farther away, there comes a point where we can no longer hear their voice or perceive any words in the newspaper. This is a limitation that was bridged by the inventions of the loudspeaker and binoculars. Using these, we could hear and see farther away. But even these have a maximum range beyond which they cease to work. Beyond that point, other inventions like the telephone and camera become useful.

The telephone uses copper wire as a converts a sound to a signal using the telephone handset's microphone, and carries the sound signal over long distances. On the other end, the signal is converted back into a sound using a telephone handset's earpiece. To carry a sound signal over long distances, it is made to piggyback on a stronger signal (called carrier which is able to retain its strength over long distances. Likewise, a traditional camera uses paper to capture an image (photo), you can send that photo to someone via post, and they can look at the photo which recreates the image in their mind. It is also worth noting that all physical media (everything apart from air) typically comprises of the transmission like a cable for example, and a The connector is a standard interface that helps couple the transmission media with devices. Connectors can be male or female; a female connector provides a socket that allows a male connector of the same type to plug-in.

To summarize what we discussed in this section: Air and copper wire are two examples of communication media

Light and sound are two examples of communication mediums

Picture and voice are two examples of information carried using mediums, over the media Signals lose strength as they travel over long distances so we piggyback the original signals on top of carrier signals that can travel over longer distances without losing much strength

Media is comprised of transmission media and a standard connector. Connectors can be male or female We will look at some applications of these in the sections ahead. Next, let us look at the direction in which information flows.

Connection directionality

The directionality of a connection determines the direction of data/information flow allowed at any given instant. Consider the case of TV or radio, it allows the presenter to be seen or heard by many people, but the audience cannot communicate with the presenter. Hence, a TV or a radio provides one-way communication. This one-way communication is called simplex in communication parlance. There are some connections that allow communication in both directions, but communication may happen in only one direction at a time. A walkie talkie is an example of such a system, where one of the parties pushes a button to talk. When one party is talking, the other can hear but cannot talk. Both parties end their message with a code "over", which conveys to the other that they may now push the button to talk.

There are also systems that support data flow in both directions simultaneously. For example, a telephone where both parties may speak at the same time. This is called duplex This is made possible by using separate channels for both directions, so that there is no cross-talk.

If you have seen the inside of an electrical wire used at home, you may have noticed that it contains multiple cores or sub-wires,

typically 2 or 3, for live, neutral, and earth. These cores act as physical channels in a Wire, each having its own lane of flow. Communication media like copper can also have multiple channels, but the separation of these channels is not physical, so it cannot be seen by our eyes. But it can be detected by sophisticated communication equipment. A copper wire that runs between telephone exchanges can have hundreds of thousands of channels carrying voice or data.

Digital and analog media

The examples that we discussed above showed how a voice and picture gets perceived by humans, and how the strength of the signal degrades as it travels over distances. Human eyes and ears are high-precision organs that can pick-up fine variances in what we see and hear. As we saw above, we can pick-up finer details in sound or pictures when the source is closer to us. The original sounds that our ears hear and scenes that our eye sees are called and they have very good detail. To process and transfer pictures and sounds using computers, they must be converted to a digital format. When analog sounds or sights are converted into digital form, it is always done by compromising some level of detail. A higher-quality digital sound or picture may make fewer compromises than a low-quality sound or picture, but the former requires a larger data size.

To capture a scene using a digital camera, we typically choose the scene by getting it within the frame, focusing on a part of the frame, adjusting the amount of light coming in and then capturing the scene as the camera sees it with these settings. A sound has continuity to it; it is first recorded by using a microphone to capture the analog signal. Then time samples are taken from the analog signal and stitched together to create a digital sound. Both these are examples of the process of

Like analog signals, data that are in digital format also needs to piggyback on an analog carrier signal so it can travel over long distances over media like copper wires and air. The piggybacking is done while sending data and the reverse of piggybacking process is done on the receiving side. This needs some specialized circuitry, which is found in modems that we use in our homes and offices. Thus, modem is a device that allows digital devices to connect and communicate using analog media.

Let us now look at a way to classify data connections.

Classification of data connections

In the previous section, we learned about how our sense organs perceive analog media, and looked at some examples of analog media and mediums. We also saw how a naturally occurring analog signal can be converted into a digital format (data) by the process of We discussed the need of piggybacking digital data on an analog signal. In this section, we will explore the different types of connections used for data communication. But before we discuss the different types of connections, it would be useful to classify the connections into these broad categories:

IP-based The first category is connections that use an IP address; these are called IP-based connections. We saw in the last chapter that an IP address identifies a computer uniquely on a network. When this network is connected to other networks that comprise the internet, the IP address can help identify this computer uniquely across the internet. Using an IP address allows the computer or device to send and receive packets to the network/internet.

Non-IP-based The other category of connections is that which does not use an IP address to identify computers or devices. These can be used for direct inter-device communication

Combination of non-IP-based and IP-based Non-IP-based connections cannot be used to access the internet since the internet requires the device to have an IP address. But if a device on a non-IP connection needs to use the internet, it can do so via another IP-based device.

We will look at each of these in more detail over the next few sections, and also learn about some common connections in each category.

IP-based connections

We learned in Chapter 3: The Internet that networks allow for both direct and indirect connections. As we learn about IP-based connections, this is an important concept to keep in mind. When a device or computer makes a connection with a network device like a router using IP-based connections, it joins a network and can send messages to other computers which are connected to the same device/network. It may also use the connection to reach computers and devices on other networks that are accessible via connected links.

An IP-based connection always requires computers and devices to have an IP address. An IP-based network may or may not be connected to the internet but it can still be used for communication between the devices connected to the network.

For internal communication within the network, another machine identifier called Media Access Control (MAC) is used, you can think of it like a friendly name within a network.

Any IP-based connections have the following parameters: IP It is used to uniquely identify this computer or device on the network

Primary and secondary DNS These are the IP addresses of Domain Name System servers that are used to resolve domain names on this connection. We discussed about domain names and DNS servers in the last chapter.

Default This is the IP address of the computer or device which is used for routing packets with destinations outside of the internal network. For inter-network communication, the MAC that we mentioned above is used.

With this understanding, let us look at some common types of IP-based connections:

LAN connection

A LAN connection is a wired connection. It uses a special cable that consists of several pairs of thin copper cores (each pair of cores is called as a twisted enclosed in a plastic sheath. LAN cables can carry digital data on an analog carrier signal for distances up to 100 m. Their range makes them suitable for internal networks within a building or a campus. These cables use a special type of connector called RJ5. Using a LAN cable with your computer requires your motherboard to have an internal circuit called Network Interface Card that provides a female RJ5 connector as an external interface.

LAN connections use different protocols, the common ones being token ring and This connector is sometimes also called ethernet cable or simply network cable. LAN connections can be found on all modems, routers, and PCs; you’ll also find it on many printers, most laptops and on media players that connect to your TV.

Wi-Fi

Short for Wireless Fidelity, a Wi-Fi connection uses air as the media and radio waves as the medium. Wi-Fi has a range of up to 90 m outdoors. When used indoors, they have to pass through walls and doors which reduces their range to about half. This makes them suitable around the home, office floors, or restaurants.

Using Wi-Fi needs an internal interface on your device called Wi-Fi which is commonly found on all PCs, smartphones, and tablets. This gives your device the ability to view Wi-Fi networks around, and connect to them.

Wi-Fi uses a set of protocols called 802.11X where X denotes the generation or version of the protocol. The radio waves used by Wi-Fi connection depend on the protocol version, and can be either 2.4GHz (2.4 × or 5GHz frequency. Using Wi-Fi requires you to have an internet router with Wi-Fi support, called Wi-Fi Wi-Fi connections provide security using standards like and All three of these allow you to set a secret passphrase on your Wi-Fi which is required to connect to it. Since a Wi-Fi network can penetrate walls, it is accessible even outside your home, so it is important to secure it using a passphrase to prevent unauthorized use. Typically, all devices which are designed to be mobile and use the internet would support Sometimes, Wi-Fi networks can also be

used for configuring, updating, and controlling other devices, for example, devices may create their own Wi-Fi network using which you may connect to them and configure them.

Mobile data network

Mobile data networks also use air as the media and radio waves as the medium, but offer more range. We learned in Chapter 1: Your Smartphone/Tablet that mobile phones connect to mobile towers wirelessly using your Subscriber Identification Model card for identification. A mobile connection may be used not only for voice calls and Short Message Service messages, but also as a data connection. In this section, we will learn more about how this works. Your phone detects the various mobile networks in range and connects to the right one by registering using its SIM It can then communicate with the mobile tower for voice calls, and data. The range of the mobile connection depends primarily on the ability of your smartphone to detect a signal from your mobile service provider's tower. A mobile tower can cover a radius of a few kilometers. Mobile networks work on different standards and fixed frequencies (also called Different parts of the world use one or more of the standard bands. For your phone to use the network, it should support both the network's standard and frequency band used by that standard.

Since there are multiple standards, it would be useful to briefly discuss how they are different. Global System for Mobile communication is the older standard for voice calls, and it supported slower data speeds using a data standard called There were other standards like Code Division Multiple Access and Long

Term Evolution which also evolved in parallel and added support for faster data speeds. GSM was popular in some regions of the world, and CDMA in other regions.

It is important to note that CDMA standard does not use a SIM card at all; instead, it identifies the subscriber's phone number by mapping their device with their phone number. So, you cannot change your phone number that easily. CDMA is much less common than GSM these days.

GSM and CDMA are the two standards that are used for voice and data. And LTE is a standard that supports only data, but provides much faster speeds. 4G uses Hence, if you are using 4G on your phone, it may be using the GSM standard for voice calls and the LTE standard for the data connection. Currently providers around the world offer or or the newer 5G in some countries. The here stands for the higher generations providing higher speeds and more capability.

The exact frequency used depends on the technology standard, the band, the country, and the provider (providers have to get license from the government to use a band). In India, the GSM uses 900 MHz band, and 4G uses bands which are between 800 and 2500 MHz.

To use a network, for example, a 4G network, the prerequisites are:

Your phone should have support for

Your area should have a 4G network in range. You should be using a SIM card compatible with the technology standard, for example, a 4G SIM. The SIM card should be active and you should have subscribed to a plan which allows you to use the service.

Mobile data capability is often equated with support for a SIM card these days, even though it is not entirely accurate as you would now know that you have learned about CDMA connections. SIM card slots can be found on mobile phones, some tablets, internet dongles/routers, and on car tracking devices.

Fiber

Fiber connections use plastic fiber or glass as the media and light as the medium. Fiber-optic cables, or fiber cables, consist of multiple strands, each strand having a plastic fiber/glass core, covered in a

Fiber connections are very stable, fast, and have enough range to connect a city or different cities. The exact range depends on the quality of fiber material used. Fiber-optic cables are used as the backbone of large data networks, in combination with other mediums and media. More recently, fiber connections have started to get used for providing internet connectivity all the way to homes and offices.

Our PCs devices do not have an optical data connection, so any fiber-based internet internet connection devices to use that to piggyback digital

connection needs a router that provides an using fiber and provides Wi-Fi connectivity for connection. The device also includes circuitry data on a carrier light signal.

You may also find an optical connection on your set top box, some high-end CD players, and audio/video receivers. These devices use the optical connection to carry a multi-channel digital audio signal between these devices. Such cables are typically shorter, around 2–3 m, and this connection is called

Your internet connection

The internet connection at your home or office typically has two legs:

The first leg connects a network device in your home to your internet services provider's network. This may happen over media like copper wire, fiber optic, or over-the-Air (using SIM card on a device). The conversion between the media used and digital data is handled by a network circuitry or device called The second leg allows the computers and devices around your home to use your internet connection. This may happen using a LAN cable, or over Wi-Fi and requires a network device called

Very often, the network device provided by your ISP combines the circuitry of both a modem and and one device serves both purposes.

Table 4.1 shows the two legs for some common internet connections:

connections: connections: connections: connections: connections: connections: connections: connections:

connections: connections: connections:

connections:

Table 4.1: Connection legs for common internet connections

Next, let us look at the other category of connections that are not IP based.

Non-IP-based connections

The second category of connections is those that do not require an IP address. These are commonly used between devices to issue commands to each other or to transfer data or files.

Let us look at some common types of standard non-IP-based connections.

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a communication standard that uses air as the medium and radio waves as the media. Bluetooth usually has a range up to 50 m so is suitable for use around the house; the actual range is lesser as it is affected by walls. Bluetooth can be used to transfer files and stream data between connected devices.

Bluetooth connections use an internal interface on your PC/device, which is controlled using the software. The Bluetooth standard allows for devices from different manufacturers to work together. This has created a vibrant ecosystem of Bluetooth devices that work with PCs, Smartphones, and many other types of devices like your media player, car audio system, etc.

To start using you can use the OS software to choose a name to identify your device and toggle Bluetooth off or on. Once Bluetooth is enabled on your device, you can also view other devices around you and pair with them. Pairing creates a trusted duplex connection between the two devices and allows them to access each other's files and data. Once you have paired two devices, they connect automatically the next time they are in range. The Bluetooth standard has many different versions, newer versions providing better speeds and more features.

Bluetooth finds major uses in the fields of entertainment, wearable technology, and Internet of Things Bluetooth can be used to stream audio data to headphones or speakers and this has changed the landscape of personal entertainment in the last few years, eliminating wires. Bluetooth also helps connect devices like smart watches and activity bands to your smartphone, which allows them to go beyond their minute screens using partner apps that make use of the smartphone's larger screen to provide a richer user interface. This has much larger implications which we will discuss in the next section on Combination of IP-based and non-IP-based Bluetooth is also suitable for IoT, and it can be used to control smart devices around your home.

USB

USB connections have done for wired connections what Bluetooth has done for wireless connections. USB is a connection standard that uses cables to carry both digital data and DC power. It is intended to be used only for very short distances, up to 6 feet.

A USB cable is comprised of multiple cores, which can be used to transfer data and DC current through it. A USB cable can carry 5V power. This makes the USB cable really versatile as it can be used to transfer data between devices, as well as provide power to devices. Before USB became a standard for charging, each smartphone and device came with its own power adapter, which you had to carry along. Usage of USB as a power source has eliminated proprietary power adapters and standardized chargers to a great degree. Any USB charger with the matching port may now be used to charge devices or supply them with DC power. USB can also be used to connect many peripherals like keyboard, mouse, web camera, and printers. It is also used to connect external storage devices like pen drives and external Hard Disk Drives

The USB standard has two main versions: USB2.0 and The USB3.0 standard allows for much faster speeds and power so devices can charge faster.

USB has standardized the wire and the protocol used, but the USB ports themselves can be of many different types. Some of

the connectors have been phased out and you rarely see them on devices. The following figure 4.1 shows common USB connectors which you will still find on devices:

Figure 4.1: Common USB connector types

Let us learn about these connectors and where they are commonly used: Standard Type The standard full-size USB connector, known as a Type A connector is the one that you find most often on PCs, laptops, and chargers. It can be of USB2.0 or USB3.0 version. The USB3.0 female port is backward compatible, so can work with Standard Type A male connectors of both USB2.0 and Standard Type Type B connectors can be found on printers and some older external Hard disks, mostly those devices which have a separate power source.

Mini Type A Type B Mini connector is often found on smaller devices, like some external Hard disks, older feature phones, and digital cameras.

Micro Type A Type B micro connector has lesser height than a mini type B, and is commonly found on smaller and thinner devices like phones and tablets. This is the most common connector on phones. Type this is a newer connector that can be found on some phones these days. It is has a symmetric shape so you do not have to match the shape while plugging it in.

A USB cable always has the Type A connector on one of the sides. The other side can be of any of the above types. You can find a cable by checking the USB port on your device and then looking for a cable of that type. For example, if my phone has a micro Type B port on it, I would need a Type A to Micro Type B USB Due to widespread use of the USB connectors on so many devices and peripherals, PCs have multiple USB ports on them. Usually, one or two of these USB ports support is a high-powered USB2.0 or If you run out of USB ports on your PC, you can use a USB Hub that can be plugged into a USB port and can spawn more USB ports, just like a power Strip can be used to expand power sockets. The downside of a USB hub is that unless it has its own power, it will divide the current available on the USB port into multiple USB ports, lowering the current on each port. Some devices may need more current so may not function using the USB hub's ports. The list of USB devices is too long to list here comprehensively, but we have listed some common devices at the end of this

chapter. Do a web search in your web browser for each of the USB connectors and try to use the photos to visually identify the connector on your devices.

Consumer infrared

Infrared is a form of light that is not visible to the human eye. A subset of the IR spectrum called consumer infrared is used for data connections. IR is a form of light, so it requires a line of sight, and cannot penetrate walls. Also, it has a limited range, of about 10 m.

The most common use of CIR is in remote controls. Remote controls have an IR port that transmits signals and your household appliances like TV or AC have an IR sensor that can detect IR signals. They work on line of sight, so you would point the remote towards the TV and can press a button to change the channel. IR remotes use certain pre-decided codes piggybacked on a carrier signal. These pre-decided codes correspond to commands that the TV receives and processes. For example, when a TV detects the code corresponding to Channel Up, it will switch to the next higher TV channel.

CIR is also used for data transfer. Some mobile devices have an IR port that allows them to send and receive data from other devices. However, when transferring data, you have to keep the devices close, pointing towards each other. IR ports on mobile devices are becoming less and less common these days since there are other available alternatives that offer more convenience and ease.

Audio and video connections

There are many different types of audio and video connections that can be used for transferring digital and analog signals between devices. Some of these connections can only carry audio signals, some can only carry video signals, and some can carry both audio and video. Some connections are for analog signals, some connections for digital signals, and some connections support both analog and digital signals. Table 4.2 lists some common connectors under each of these categories:

categories: categories: categories: categories: categories: categories: categories: categories:

Table 4.2: Signals carried by some common connectors

Do a web search in your web browser for each of these connections and use the photos to identify if any of these connectors are there on your devices.

Combinations of IP-based and non-IP-based connections

IP-based connections can be combined with other IP-based and non-IP-based connections to create some very useful connections. Let us look at some of them.

Hotspots and tethering

A Hotspot is a temporary Wi-Fi network that can be created on a device to allow other devices to connect to it, to allow sharing of its internet connection. This is often useful to share your data connection with friends, or to connect your laptop to the internet using your phone's mobile connection. You can create a hotspot on your smartphone/tablet from the quick launch bar, or from Settings | Network & Internet | Hotspot & On your Windows PC, a hotspot may be created from the Action Center. While creating a you may choose a name of your choice and optionally set a password (highly recommended).

You can also make your phone's internet connection available for use via Bluetooth or the USB port. This is known as tethering and useful when the device that needs to use the internet does not have Wi-Fi capability, like in the case of older desktop PCs.

Create a hotspot on your smartphone/tablet and connect a PC, smartphone, or tablet to it. You may refer back to Chapter 1: Your Smartphone/Tablet and Chapter 2: Your Computer/Laptop to review how to connect a Smartphone and PC to a Wi-Fi network, a Hotspot is just like a Wi-Fi network.

Viewing data from smart devices online

We saw in the section on Bluetooth that devices like smart watches may be connected to your smartphone using a Bluetooth connection. This allows a partner app on your smartphone to be used for configuring the device and also enables sync from your smart watch to your phone. The app then uploads this activity data to its partner website which lets you view this data online from any device, and run reports and analytics on it. For example, you maybe view a trend of your daily step count for the last month using the partner website of a fitness tracker.

Understanding connection speed

At the beginning of this chapter, we had taken an example of a water pipe to explain about connections. That same example is appropriate for understanding connection speeds as well. Consider a small network of pipes that bring you water from a water pumping station all the way to the faucet in your bathroom. The path that the water flows through consists of pipes of different sizes. If you calculate the speed with which water can flow through your faucet, you will find that the speed is limited by the narrowest pipe in this path. Often, this happens to be the pipes in your home. Likewise, data speeds also depend upon the speed of the slowest connection in the path. And oftentimes (but not always), this is our internet connection.

The other thing worth noting is that while we measure data storage in bytes, the same unit is not used for measuring data speeds. Instead, bits are used as the basic unit of measurement. This may be considered akin to storing water in liters, but using drops or milliliter as a measure of flow. The reason for this is when data flows over a network; it does not need to be in round multiple of bytes. We had learned that the actual data that flows through a network is in the form of Packets, and data is only a part of it. A packet contains many other information which helps route the packet from a source to a destination. Example: A 100 Mbps connection speed means 10^6 bits can flow through the network in one second. Do note here that the "b" in Mbps is not capitalized, which represents bits, whereas uppercase "B"

represents Bytes. It is also worth mentioning here that the actual data speed on the internet is dependent on a lot of different things and rarely remains constant.

When you are browsing a particular website, the speed with which the pages load in your browser also depends on the time taken for a packet to traverse the path between the server and your PC/device. This is known as latency and is measured in milliseconds (one-thousandth of a second). The geographical location of the server relative to you also has a role to play in latency, since it often increases the number of hops the packets will have to do to reach you. For example, If you are located in India and browsing a site hosted on a server that is on the Western coast of the USA, you often find that its latency is much more than the latency of a server located in India or Singapore.

Now, in the example above, we have mainly been discussing data speeds for a network, but what about data speeds for other connection types like Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, or USB? These also use a bit as their unit of measurement, but the relative speeds are much faster, and the variance and latency also much lesser. This is because there are a fixed number of hops and latency is mostly caused only due to the protocol overhead.

Calculate the theoretical time taken to transfer a 50MB file over a 24Mbps connection. You may assume the packet data to be 0 to keep it simple. Hint: We learned in Chapter 2: Your Computer/Laptop that 1 Byte has 8 bits.

Usage of different connections

In this chapter, we have discussed many different connection types. The table 4.3 summarizes some of their typical uses:

uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses:

uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses:

uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses:

uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses:

uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses:

Table 4.3: Typical uses of some common connectors

Conclusion

At the beginning of this chapter, I introduced you to connections and we established some fundamental concepts like media, medium, and directionality. We then learned about a way to classify data connections into IP-based and non-IP-based categories. We then discussed common characteristics of IP-based connections and learned about LAN, Wi-Fi, fiber, and mobile internet. At the end of the section, we looked at some common types of internet connections. We then explored non-IP-based connections where we looked at CIR and discussed two very common and versatile connections, Bluetooth and USB. Towards the end of that section, we talked about the different types of audio and video connectors. We then looked at use cases where a combination of connection categories is employed. Towards the end of the chapter, we learned about connection speeds and closed the chapter by summarizing some typical uses of the connection discussed.

In the next chapter, we will begin our exploration of internet services. We will begin by delving into the first and very important service, e-mail. We will learn what e-mail is, how it works, and go over key terminology and concepts. I will then walk you through some common features of Gmail, which is a free email service from Google.

Key terms

Medium Media

Simplex, half-duplex, duplex

Analog and digital media Default gateway

LAN

Fiber-optic

Bluetooth

USB

CIR Hotspot

Tethering

Latency

CHAPTER 5 Email

Saving a letter from an old friend doesn't exist anymore. Everything is texted or emailed.

- James Caan, Actor

The from line is what recipients use to determine whether to delete an email. The subject line is what motivates people to actually open the email.

- Loren McDonald, Marketing Evangelist

Email is short for electronic mail and can also be written as email or email. In this chapter, we will discuss all about email. We will revisit our analogy from Chapter 3: The Internet and use it to understand what email is, and how it fits into the ecosystem of the internet. We will discuss what email addresses are, and understand their structure. We will then look at Gmail, an email service from Google. We will discuss some important concepts associated with email and some which are unique to Gmail. We will also look at email etiquette, some other Google partner apps and close this chapter by talking about the relevance of security for email. Throughout this chapter, as we discuss different features of email, we will be referring to the Gmail user interface. We will look at the interface of both the Gmail app on your smartphone,

and the Gmail website as seen on your PC browser. Let us begin now by first demystifying the "e" in email.

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: What is email?

Gmail

Email concepts Gmail features

Email etiquette

Other Google web apps

Email and security

Objective

The chapter will introduce readers to email and how it works on the internet. They will understand its key concepts, features and learn about the different ways in which they can use email. They will become familiar with Gmail, learn how to use it and will also understand some of its special features like conversation view, search, and filters. They will also develop an awareness of email etiquette, email security and will learn about common categories of spam including spoofing, phishing, hoaxes, and scams.

What is Email?

Email or electronic mail is the digital equivalent of sending someone a letter, using the Internet. To understand this more deeply, let's revisit the human network analogy that we discussed in Chapter 3: The

The human network analogy

Recall the human network analogy that we discussed in Chapter 3: The Internet and some of its salient points:

It had people connected via a network of networks and each person on the network had an address.

Messages were exchanged using network links between the sender and receiver.

Messages were broken into chunks and each chunk was sent after placing in a separate envelope.

These envelopes took different paths to reach the destination where they were reassembled to re-create the original message from the chunks.

The person who received a message responded to it using the same steps and the response was typically sent back immediately.

Some people on the network were open to receiving connections To understand how email fits into this analogy, consider it as a special type of message, having the following characteristics:

A person who is open to receiving connections on the network can additionally setup, at their address, several mailboxes, like the one you have outside your home. Note that they can choose to have mailboxes, but they don't always have to. In our network, let us assume Sunny and Pallavi have a bunch of mailboxes outside their homes.

Each mailbox located on an address has a name on it; let us call it the This alias is unique across the mailboxes present on that address. Let us assume that Sunny has mailbox with aliases "sunny" and "abhishek" at his address and Pallavi has ones with aliases "abhishek" and "careercounsellor" at hers. Note in this example that the alias "abhishek" is repeated, but this is okay since they are on not on the same address. An email address is a combination of the alias and the address. For example, "abhishek at Sunny" and "abhishek at Pallavi" are two separate email addresses. See figure

Figure 5.1: The human network with mailboxes An email message must have a sender and at least one recipient. Both the sender and recipient have to be email addresses. These email addresses can be on the same address, or on different addresses.

Email messages follow a different series of rules for delivery. First, a message is sent to the destination address to check if the alias exists on it and is ready to receive the message. Once it confirms back, the actual email message is broken into chunks and sent in multiple envelopes. Once an email message is received by the destination, it stores it in the mailbox with the alias to which it was addressed. The

person who owns the alias will see it when they come and check their mailbox. Unlike the usual request messages that we discussed in Chapter 3: The email messages do not get any immediate responses. The person the message is sent to may respond later after they have read the email. Let us now see how these characteristics map to e-mail and the internet.

Email and the internet

Let us now map each of the above concepts from our human network to the internet to understand how email works on the internet:

Servers can host email, or mailboxes, but not all servers have to do that. A server that provides an email service is called an Email Provider. When a user signs up on an email service, they are asked to choose an Alias and their Mailbox is created on that server.

The alias and the server's full domain name separated by the "@" sign (read as at-the-rate) forms the user's email address. For example, If I sign-up for an alias on the server "gmail.com," my email address would typically be Note that email addresses typically use domain names to identify the server and not IP addresses.

Some providers have multiple domain names for their email, and allow you to choose from one of those domains when creating an email address. For example, Yahoo! allows you to have a yahoo.com or a ymail.com email address.

Emails have a sender email address, and at least one recipient email ID. An email can also have multiple recipients. It is analogous to sending the copy of a letter to multiple people. Like you do on formal letters, you can indicate who the letter is addressed to, and who is being sent a copy. We will discuss this in detail when we discuss about email header under email concepts.

When an email is sent, it is first checked if the email address exists on the server and can receive the message. When an email intended for your alias is received by your server, it stores it in your mailbox. Email is also digital data so a mailbox provides storage for this data. A mailbox typically allocates a storage quota to each user, typically in Giga Bytes (10^9 Bytes). Your storage quota would depend on the plan you have with your email provider. If your mailbox quota becomes full, you will no longer be able to receive any more emails. So, any new emails addressed to you will be rejected by the server. Since emails do not get any immediate response, they are considered to be a means of asynchronous communication. Let us now discuss about the protocols used by email.

Email protocols

As I stated in Chapter 3: The each functionality on the internet is achieved by some combination of different layers and protocols. Email also relies on some specific protocols. For the most part, these work under-the-hood so you will not need to understand them in detail. However, you will often see these in email configuration, on some smartphone and PC apps. So, it is useful to understand some basics about these. An important point worth noting here is that creation of a mailbox is a pre-requisite to these protocols, so you must sign-up for an email service and have your email address and access credentials before these protocols come into play.

Here are some commonly used mail protocols:

Simple Mail Transfer Protocol The SMTP protocol is used for sending email, and also for transferring email between email servers. The server that hosts the recipient mailboxes has a program running on it that conforms to the SMTP protocol. This program is called the SMTP server and accepts requests on its URL, called the SMTP URL. The SMTP server also communicates with other mail servers using the SMTP protocol. SMTP URL is typically found in the configuration section of Email apps.

Post Office Protocol A real Post Office (PO) box provides a box to receive and hold your incoming email till you come to the post office and fetch it. Its purpose is not to organize emails that you have already read, so it provided limited storage and organizing capabilities. You may organize the mail in folders at your home or office, after you've fetched it. POP is based on the same principle and provides a protocol using which a program on your PC or smartphone communicates with your email server to "fetch mail." The digital equivalent of fetching mail is to download the email from your mailbox to your local storage and then delete it from the mailbox on the server. However, you can configure your program to not delete emails from the server when it fetches. In this case, it would just download emails, but the mails will continue to remain on the server too.

Internet Message Access Protocol IMAP works on a different philosophy than POP. In IMAP, there is no notion of fetch It allows you to access organize and work with the emails in your mailbox as if they were on your machine. So, you will check mail instead of fetching it and you will organize all your email on the mail server itself. IMAP typically needs more storage on the server as you are not removing email from your mailbox when you check and read your email; you are simply marking it as Read. This is immensely useful for mobility as you can access your mailbox's contents from anywhere. Some programs may additionally, download emails to your device, and keep these downloaded mails in sync with your mailbox. This allows you to still access these emails when you are not connected to the internet. Such programs internally use either IMAP or POP to achieve this sync functionality.

As you can see, each of these protocols performs a different purpose. And hence, these work in combinations instead of replacing each other. Let us now look at some typical combinations of these protocols.

Email program/apps

In the above section, we looked at some common email protocols. As you can see, SMTP is always required for sending emails. Additionally, for receiving and managing emails, either POP or IMAP is used. Here are the most common ways to access and use email:

Using the Most email providers have a website that allows you to sign-up for their email service, and also sign-in using your credentials. These websites can be viewed in a web browser and allow you to draft emails, send them, check emails, read and organize emails, and take other common actions. When you access email using a web browser, you do not need to worry about configuring any protocol. They are using these protocols behind-the-scenes but it's opaque to you. Example, You can use Yahoo mail from the web URL https://mail.yahoo.com

Using a mobile Many email providers typically provide applications for different platforms, like smartphones, tablets, and even PCs, that allow you to access and use their email services. To use a mobile app, you would sign-in using your credentials and be able to use email. You would not need any additional configuration. Moreover, some email providers have apps that not only work with their own email service, but can also be configured with other email providers. If you choose to do this, you would need

to configure your email account by choosing the relevant protocols and providing your username and password. For example, the Gmail app supports both Gmail and other providers.

Using OS email Many OSs, particularly those on mobile devices and tablets come with a default email app that allows you to configure and use any email account using it. For example, Android uses the Gmail app as the default email app.

Using third-party email There are many third-party programs that allow any email service to be configured and used with them. This is especially useful for email services that provide a very basic web interface. Thunderbird is an example of a very popular thirdparty email program.

Let us now look at a popular email service from the company Google.

Gmail

Gmail is an email service from the company Google. It offers both free and paid plans, and its free plan offers rich features and a generous amount of storage which serves the needs of most people. You can sign-up for a free Google account on Gmail IDs follow the format This Google account can be used not just for Gmail but all other Google web apps as well. In the first three chapters, we already looked at some uses of a Google account, in your phone, and on the Chrome web browser. We will be discussing some additional uses of the Google account in subsequent chapters as well.

Gmail web interface

Gmail has a web interface that can be used from any web browser. To use it on your PC, open Chrome and enter https://gmail.com in the address bar. Then sign-in using your Google username and password. You can load the Gmail web interface in a web browser on your smartphone or tablet too.

The Gmail web interface is responsive and adapts to the size of your screen. On smartphones or tablets, you can try holding the phone in landscape mode and notice how the display responds by filling up the screen.

Interestingly, the Gmail interface also adapts to your internet speed. If your connection is slow, the Gmail web interface would give you an option to load Basic HTML view that takes lesser bandwidth and loads quicker.

In the remainder of this chapter, we will focus on the regular web interface as seen on a PC browser and show you where the different features that we discussed are located on it. As an exercise, you may open Gmail in the Chrome browser on your smartphone/tablet and try to locate all the interface elements that we discuss.

Gmail mobile app

Gmail also has a mobile app that comes pre-installed on your mobile phone or tablet. The Google ID which you configure on your device gets automatically configured in the Gmail app too. Take a minute to find and open the Gmail app from the app drawer on your phone (swipe up from Home screen to expose the app drawer).

Throughout this chapter, as we discuss concepts related to e-mail, we will be using examples from Gmail.

Let us look at some common features of email.

Email concepts

In this section, we will begin by discussing the process of signingup for email, and then look at what constitutes an email, how emails are organized, and the different things you can do with emails. We will also look at some features and concepts which are unique to Gmail.

Signing up for email

Before you can start to use email, you will have to sign-up for it. If you are using a publicly available email service, most often you will be signing up for email yourself on the email provider's website. For example, you can sign-up for Gmail on gmail.com. Since Gmail uses the integrated Google ID, you can also sign-up for a Google account on any Google service or website, and then use that for signing into Gmail. In some cases, the email ID may be a private one and you may get it from your office or your internet service provider. In such cases, your account would typically be created by an Administrator and the steps that follow are not applicable to you.

When you sign up for email, you will be asked for your name, date of birth, password and you will be asked to choose your alias. You may additionally be asked for an alternate email id and a mobile number. This information is required if you happen to forget your password and need to regain access, known as Account This information is used by your email provider to identify you or send you codes that can help you set a new password.

The choice of an alias is quite important when you sign-up for email, since it is part of the email ID which you will be sharing with many people. It is quite likely that the aliases you prefer

have already picked by other users and you will be asked to pick an alternate alias. The best option is to pick your full name if it is available. But when it's not, you may want to try initials combined with your last name, or adding some numbers or using underscore (_). As you try different combinations, try to keep the alias as short as possible, as you will often have to read out your email address. Example, If your name is Sarah Jane Dias, you could try sarahjanedias or sarahjdias or sjdias or diassaraj or diassj or sarahjaned or sarah_j_dias or sjdias18. See figure

Figure 5.2: Gmail Sign-up screen [Credit:

Very often, people add their birthday to their alias which is not a good idea as it is treated as personal information by many service providers like mobile companies and banks, and it is a bad idea to expose it on your email address.

Gmail addresses have a special thing about them. You can add one or more dots anywhere in your alias, and mails sent to any of these addresses still land in your mailbox. For example, if you have the email address then emails sent to [email protected] and [email protected] would also land in your mailbox. This is useful as reserving an alias does not allow anyone else to reserve the dotted version of the same alias, which avoids email addressing mistakes.

Your mailbox

As soon as you sign-in using your email ID and password, you would see the default view of your mailbox. The figure 5.3 shows the default Gmail view on a PC browser. The following figure 5.4 shows the default view on the Gmail mobile app:

Figure 5.3: Gmail default view on a PC browser [Credit:

Figure 5.4: Gmail default view on a Mobile app [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.google.android.gm]

The default view has the following elements: For each email in the list, this listing would show the name of the sender, the subject, and the date and time. There are often additional icons indicating if the email has attachments. In this listing, emails that you have read appear in a different shade or background compared to the emails which are not yet read. You can click on the email row in order to open it and read it. You also see a tree of folders and labels, and you can click on a folder or label to view all emails associated with it. We will discuss about folders, and labels in detail in the next section. For now, consider the Inbox to be a place where all new emails land,

folders to be the same as directories on a PC, and labels to be some tags, like post-its, that you can attach to emails. You will see a number within brackets next to each folder and label name, these are the number of unread emails associated with that folder or label.

From your mailbox, you can also select multiple emails and take some actions for all of them (called bulk actions).

Organizing emails

Emails are organized using folders and labels. Folders are supported by all email providers, and labels are supported by some providers. Gmail handles folders and labels differently, which we will discuss in this section. Let us start by understanding what Folders are.

Folders

Similar to how files on an HDD are organized in a folder structure, emails can also be organized in folders. Every email can be in only one folder, and you move emails between folders. There are some pre-created system folders that are created and used by your email provider. Additionally, you may also create more folders. Here are some systems folders and the conventions that they follow: Inbox is the default folder where all new emails arrive. You may move emails from the Inbox to other folders.

The Sent folder contains all emails that you send

All emails that you are working on but haven't yet sent are saved to the Drafts folder. This includes any replies as well that you may be working on.

Outbox is used as the temporary storage for all emails that you've sent, which have not been processed by your email server yet. Once the email has been processed, it disappears from the outbox. All emails that you delete from any folder land-up in the Trash folder. Emails can be recovered while they are still in the trash. The system empties the Trash folder periodically, every few days.

You can also empty the trash on-demand, which would immediately delete all emails in the trash permanently.

Spam mails are those which your email server suspects as being unsolicited or dangerous. Such emails are not rejected right away; instead, they are delivered to your mailbox in this special folder, which gets purged weekly or monthly. The system does this classification on the basis of email headers or content, and uses advanced algorithms for this. There are cases where legitimate emails land up in and you may mark them as Not Spam to move them to the This also sends feedback to the algorithm, using which the system self-learns and most often, similar emails would not be tagged as Spam in the future. We will look at the different categories of Spam emails later in this chapter when we discuss about security.

Labels

Labels are user-defined words that can be tagged on emails, in order to categorize them. This makes it easier to find and view all emails with a common label. For example, you may create labels for work-related email, mails with personal documents, or any other categorization you want to maintain. The special thing about labels is that labels can be used to tag emails in different folders and an email can have multiple labels as well.

Folders and labels on Gmail

Gmail handles folders and labels differently from other email providers. Gmail does not have folders at all and uses labels to achieve the functionality of folders. This means that all your emails are in the same storage, and are classified using labels. Labels can be of two types:

System These are the ones created and used by the system and users cannot change or delete them. and Spam are all system labels.

User-defined Labels can also be added by users.

An email can have multiple labels. All the labels are shown on the left tree and work the same way as folders; clicking a label on the left would bring up the emails tagged with that label on the right. This allows you to search all your emails based on the label. The figures 5.5 and figure 5.6 show labels on the Gmail web interface and mobile app respectively.

To create a label on the Gmail web interface, scroll down on the tree on the left and click on Click new At the time of this writing, it is not possible to create new labels from the Gmail mobile app, but you can create it from the web interface and then use it in the mobile app.

Gmail mobile app allows you to have specific sync and notification rules for each label, but this is an advanced topic which we won't cover here. If you are interested in exploring it yourself, you may find these settings under Gmail | Choose email account | Notifications | Manage

Gmail categories

Gmail also has the concept of categories. The purpose of categories is to automatically classify messages in your Inbox based on their nature etc.), which allows you to work through your Inbox more efficiently. With categories enabled, you will see a tabbed view of your Inbox as shown in figure For example, you may like to check emails in the Primary and Updates category more frequently than emails in the Promotions category. In absence of categories, you would see all incoming emails together and you will have to scroll through a longer list of emails to find the emails that you are looking for.

Unlike labels, you cannot add your own categories and may only choose from one or more of the standard categories. If you enable a category, Gmail starts auto-categorizing incoming mails into that category (for example, Updates, etc.) based on its algorithms. You can un-categorize messages if something has been categorized incorrectly.

If you do not like the fragmented view of your you may turn-off one or all categories as follows. This will remove the extra tabs and you will see all incoming mails in a single From Gmail web Settings | Inbox | Categories and uncheck the categories that you do not need.

From Gmail mobile Settings | Select email account | Inbox | Inbox categories and uncheck the categories that you do not need.

Gmail inbox type

By default, emails in your Inbox are ordered by time, the most recent email appearing on top. This is known as the Default Inbox type. There are some other types of views too, you can choose to show important emails, or unread emails, or starred emails, or priority emails first. The categorization of emails into Priority and Important is done by Google based on its algorithms.

You can choose an Inbox type as follows: On the web via the quick settings panel. See figure

On the mobile Hamburger menu | Settings | Choose email account | Inbox | Inbox Type

Parts of an email

An email has three major parts; the header, content, and attachments. Let us look at each of these in detail:

Email The email header contains descriptive information about the email and is immensely useful for previewing, searching, and filtering email. You will often decide whether to open an email or not, depending on attributes in its header which your email program shows in the email listing. In fact, even your mail provider uses the fields in the header to categorize emails. We will discuss this more when we talk about organizing emails later in this chapter. Here are some common fields in an email header:

The email address and name of the sender

Recipient email Recipient email addresses are contained in 3 different fields, the "To," "Cc," and "Bcc" field.

The "To" field contains the email addresses of the people that the email is addressed to.

"Cc" is short for Carbon copy, and has the email addresses of people who are being copied. This is more of a convention coming from physical formal communication where a physical copy

created using an impression paper, or carbon paper, was sent to the people who were copied. Both the "To" and "Cc" fields are visible to all recipients.

The third field "Bcc" is short for Blind Carbon Copy, and is something unique with email. The special thing about Bcc is that addresses in Bcc receive a copy of the email, but the addresses are not visible to other recipients, which is why it is called a Blind copy.

The subject of the communication, this is, prominently displayed on all email clients, along with the sender name. Hence, it is extremely important. The date and time at which the email was sent.

There are many other headers apart from these, but most of those are used internally by email servers:

Email The actual content of the email can contain plain text, formatted text, and even images. We will look at some formatting options under the Composing an email topic under Email Email Emails can also contain file attachments.

From your mailbox, you can click on an email row to open it. Once you open the email, the view will change to show the contents on the email. On the top, you will see the different fields in the email header, followed by the content and the list of

file attachments as icons. You can click on an attachment icon to open it. If the attached file has an extension that the browser can display, it will open and show the attachment. For example, an image or a text files. If the browser cannot display that file type, the browser will attempt to download it.

The figure 5.5 shows the parts of an email as seen on the Gmail web interface. The following figure 5.6 shows the same email in the Gmail mobile app:

Figure 5.5: Parts of an email in Gmail web interface [Credit:

Figure 5.6: Parts of an email in Gmail Mobile app [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.google.android.gm] Now that we have looked at the different parts of an email, let's look at things you can do with email.

Email actions

Let us now look at some common things you can do with emails in your mailbox. These actions are not specific to any particular email provider and can be found on all email services. Apart from composing an email, all other actions are for an existing email, so these actions can be found under the 3-dot menu, on top right, in the email view, see figures 5.5 and figure

Composing an email

Composing an email is the act of creating a new email using an editor. It is also called drafting an email. The following figure 5.7 shows the email editor on Gmail web interface on a PC:

Figure 5.7: Compose editor on Gmail web interface [Credit:

The editor lets you specify the header fields, the recipients and subject, and add content and attach files. As you add text, you can format it as well. You do this by selecting the text you want to format and then either clicking on the relevant icons in the Compose toolbar to apply the style to the selected text. Here are some examples of the common formatting you can apply:

Make text bold, italicized, and underlined. You do this either by using the "B," "I," and "U" icons in the Compose toolbar, or by using the Ctrl + B. Ctrl - I and Ctrl - U keyboard shortcuts. Choose font face and font size.

Choose background and foreground colors from a palette. The selected text is written in the foreground color chosen, with shading behind the text in the chosen background color. This is often useful to visually highlight things in an email, like some specific questions or to a comment on the original email. Align text toward the left, center, or right side. Create a bulleted or numbered list. Each line of text selected becomes one item in the list. Indent lines.

In addition to the formatting, you may also insert additional items in the email, for example: These are small smiley faces and other icons. You can insert an emoticon by clicking on the emoticon icon on the toolbar and then selecting the emoticon of your choice, this places the emoticon at your current cursor position. You can insert images within the email content, by attaching any image file from your computer.

You can insert a hyperlink or the URL in the email content in two ways. The first way is to select a text, click on the insert hyperlink icon and specify the URL in the dialog box that appears. This makes the selected text a clickable URL, clicking it opens the URL in the web browser. An alternate way to add a hyperlink is to just click on the hyperlink icon in the toolbar and specify the display text and the URL in the dialog box that appears. Doing this inserts the hyperlinked text at your current cursor position.

The editor window on the Gmail mobile app is a cut-down version of the web version. The format toolbar appears by selecting text and long pressing. See figure

Figure 5.8: Compose editor on the Gmail mobile app [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.google.android.gm] You can also attach files with emails, which may be images, documents, or any types of files. Do note that attaching an image to an email is not quite the same as inserting an image in the email content. Inserting an image adds it as a specific position within the content of the email whereas attachments are outside the content. There is another difference too which we will discuss in the next section on replies.

Once you have composed the email, you can send it by clicking on the Send button. Or, if you are not ready to send it, you can save it to You can find the Save option within the 3-dot menu. Gmail automatically saves your email as you are typing it, so it is rarely required to explicitly save it.

Replying to an email

Replying to an email allows you to draft the response to any email. While composing the reply, you can do all of the things that you do when composing a new email. When you hit the sender's email ID is placed in the "To" field of your reply. Additionally, the content of the original email is also included at the bottom of your reply. The text is usually affixed to the original subject and the reply won't have the attachments which came in the original email. If you inserted an image in the content, it will still be retained in the reply as part of the original email. Whereas if you had added the image as an attachment, it will not be included in the reply. This is the other difference between inserting and attaching images which you should be aware of.

Remember that we discussed in the last section that an email may be sent to multiple recipients using the To, Cc, and Bcc fields. There are two ways to reply to emails with multiple recipients:

Reply sends a reply to only the sender of the email. It excludes all other email addresses which were in the recipient list. For example, If I sent an email to Sunny and added Pallavi in "Cc," and both of them replied using the Reply option, then I would get their replies but they don't get the reply that the other sent to me.

Reply Reply all sends a reply to the sender of the email and includes all recipients who were in the "To" and "Cc" fields. The recipients in the Bcc field are not included in the reply as the field is not visible to email recipients. Hence, Reply All is a mechanism to carry on a group conversation with all recipients.

Forwarding an email

Forwarding an email allows you to forward an email's content, including all attachments, to someone. When you hit the editor will open and all the recipient fields will initially be empty. The content of the original email is included below the text you add while forwarding. The text Fw: is usually affixed to the original subject. You can enter the email ID of the person you want to forward it to, add your message and hit Send to forward the email.

Printing an email

You can print the email by clicking on the Print option in the 3dot menu in the email view. This opens the email in a new browser tab without the left tree and other action menus and brings up the OS's Print dialog. You can use it to select your printer, specify print preferences and print the email.

Other email actions in Gmail

Here are some additional email actions. Some of these are supported by other email providers too, while the rest are exclusive to Gmail. You can take these actions from the 3-dot menu in the email view. Some of these have dedicated icon in the menu bar that appears above the email. Examples: Starred, mark as unread, delete, report as The figure 5.9 shows the expanded 3-dot menu and the menu bar above the email, in the email view on the Gmail web interface:

Figure 5.9: Email actions on Gmail web interface [Credit:

This menu bar also becomes visible in your Inbox if you select one or more messages, it allows you to take these actions for all

emails that have been selected:

Removes the email from and moves/marks it to Trash folder/label.

Mark as Reverts the email to unread, and it will appear as unread in your mail box.

Starring an Star is just a special label with an icon. You can click on the star icon on an email to label it, and it will appear in the starred email list. Move to/add Allows you to add a label to the email, assign it to category, or move it to Spam or You can assign labels and categories to even emails that you are drafting and haven't sent out yet. Schedule You can draft an email but instead of sending it immediately, you may choose a future date and time to send it. Gmail will send the email at the time chosen by you; you do not need to have the Gmail interface open. Block You can block a sender so any future emails from them will no longer appear in your Instead, their emails will be sent to the Spam folder/label. Report as This moves an email to Spam and also adjusts Gmail rules to classify similar emails as Spam in the future so they don't land in your

Report not This action appears only for emails in your Spam folder/label. This moves an email to Inbox and also adjusts Gmail rules to classify similar emails as regular emails in the future so they do not land in your

Translate This uses the Google Translate service to translate an email to a language you select. Google attempts to auto-detect the current language but you can also select it if it is not autodetected correctly. This translation is done by a computer so sometimes, the output is not precise grammatically, but it is accurate enough to help you understand the meaning.

Download This downloads the email in .eml file format, which is a standard email format supported by all third-party email programs. This allows you to choose a time and hide the message from the After the chosen time has elapsed, the email re-appears near the top of your This is useful when you want to take action on an email at a later time and don't want it to go down in order as more emails arrive on top of it.

Archiving an email removes the Inbox label from it, so it's no longer visible in your You can find archived emails by clicking on All Mail in the left tree. You can also find it using search, we will be discussing search in a later section in this chapter. In case you get a reply on an email that you've archived, the thread will re-appear in your You can archive an email by clicking on the

Archive icon in the menu bar above the message, the archive icon looks like a box with a downward-pointing arrow on it. To bring an item back from the archive, you can find and select it in All Email and then click on Move to Inbox in the menu bar. Doing this re-attaches the Inbox label on it, and it becomes visible in your Inbox again.

Muting is just like archiving, the only difference being that all future replies in the conversation are muted too and do not bring the messages back to your It uses a different label called Thus, it can be said that you can archive messages conversations till date, whereas you can mute entire conversations perpetually. The mute option can be found in the 3-dot menu of the menu bar that appears above the messages. You can find muted messages in All Mail too, and you can unmute them if you wish to. Add to This adds a pending task for the email in the Google Tasks partner app. You can set a due-date for the tasks and it appears in your list of tasks until you mark it as done. This is useful if you'd like to track an action item from an email. We will talk more about Tasks later in this chapter under Google web apps. Let us now look at some other special features of Gmail.

Gmail features

Gmail does some things differently from other email services which take a bit of initial understanding. But once you understand these and become accustomed to them, they make things quite efficient. Let us look at some of the special features of Gmail.

Conversation/threaded view

A conversation view shows an email and all its replies together, ordered by time. This allows you to read the entire conversation without having to find and open the email and each reply one-byone. This is one of the most unique features of Gmail. Opening an email in a conversation view shows all messages and replies together, whether they are in the Inbox or not. To find and group messages on a topic, Gmail uses the subject and a combination of some additional fields. Both replies and forwards are included in the conversation view.

Conversation view is a feature that is not present on other email services, and it initially takes some time in getting used to. Some people like it and some do not, based on their personal preferences. The conversation view can be disabled from Gmail settings in case you do not prefer to use it. You can turn it off from the quick settings bar. Alternatively, you can also toggle it from Settings | General on both the browser interface and on the mobile app.

As an example, assume that I replied to an email I received, and then received another follow-up reply which I have not yet read. The total number of emails in this thread would now be 3. The figure 5.10 shows how these messages would show in your Inbox in a conversation view and a non-conversation view:

Figure 5.10: Conversation and non-conversation view compared [Credit:

When you click on an email in conversation view, it will open all messages in that thread on the same page. Whereas if you open an email in the non-conversation view, it will only show that message. Exercise: Toggle the conversation view in the Gmail mobile app and notice how emails with replies are shown

Search

Gmail has a powerful search feature using which you can search your emails based on many different criteria. If you have conversation view enabled, then the thread to which the matching message belongs is shown.

Please look at Table 5.1 for some simple and advanced examples of Gmail searches. These search criteria can also be combined; we have shown a few combinations and would encourage you to try out more combinations:

combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations:

combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations:

combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations: combinations:

Table 5.1: Gmail search examples

Filters

The Filters feature combines search and actions. Filters allow you to search incoming emails based on a chosen criterion and actions allow you to define actions on emails that meet the search criteria. You can take actions like marking an email as read, categorizing an email, label it or even deleting it. Basically, most of the actions that we saw in the actions section can be automated using filters. This helps organize your email better using pre-defined rules. To create a filter, you can follow these steps:

Search for emails using your search criteria.

Click on the down arrow on the right edge on the search bar and a dialog box will appear.

Enter any additional conditions that you want in your search.

Click on Create Choose one or more actions from the list of actions.

Click on Create This filter will apply on any emails that you receive in the future.

To view, modify or delete filters, you can navigate to Settings | Filtered and Blocked Addresses and choose the appropriate option for the filter

As I mentioned, filters are applied to future messages. Many a times, you may want to take actions on existing messages in your mailbox too. To do that, you can use bulk actions. You can use it as follows:

Search the messages using the search criteria.

Select all messages using the Select All checkbox.

If the messages that meet the search criteria are beyond one page, Gmail would ask you whether you want to select all messages across all pages.

Confirm that and choose the appropriate action using the menu bar above the messages. Doing this would apply the action on all existing messages.

Gmail as an email tool

Gmail and its rich feature set can be extended beyond its own service. There are two ways to do this:

Using Gmail with other email As we briefly mentioned earlier in this chapter, the Gmail app can also be used as a mail client for other email providers on mobile devices. The Gmail web interface also provides a way to fetch email from other mail providers. To do this, you can navigate to Settings | Accounts and Import | Check mail from other accounts and follow the setup. Since this is an advanced topic, we are not covering it in detail here.

Using Gmail and other Google apps with custom Google allows you to use Gmail and other Google services for your own domains too using their G Suite product. This is a paid product and allows you to have email addresses like alias@yourdomain and use Gmail interfaces and storage. There are several G Suite plans with different storage quotas. You can read more about this on https://gsuite.google.com

Email etiquette

In real-life social interactions, like when we are talking to someone or sending them a letter, we follow some rules to make sure our interactions are cordial, pleasant, and conform with manners that are socially accepted. In the same way, email also has some etiquette associated with it. Here are some tips for following the same:

Choose your alias This is quite important and you will be sharing your email address with many different people and using it in many different contexts, for interacting with friends and family but also with your bank, a potential employer, and many other people. So, it is better to pick an alias that sounds neutral and is not overly personal or cute.

While sending an email, consider who should be on the recipient list and under To, Cc, or Bcc. Here are some tips:

To list should have the list of people who need to take some action, and Cc list should be people who are just being provided information If you are forwarding an email to lots of friends and they don't know each other, you should always put their IDs in the Bcc field. That way, they can reply to you but cannot view each other's email ID or accidentally end up Replying to All.

Meaningful subject Choose a meaningful subject line that reflects the subject of the message, but keep it within 50 characters. You can use "-" or "|" to separate different parts of the subject. For example, if you are writing to discuss the itinerary for someone's upcoming trip to Agra, an apt subject could be "Itinerary for your Agra trip" or "Itinerary - Agra Trip (10-11 Nov)"

Stick to (some) letter writing While an email is not written exactly the same way like a formal letter, it is a good idea to follow the basic structure of a letter: start with a salutation, break the information into paragraphs, and then end the email with a closing and your name and contact information. Unlike a formal letter, the subject and the date are not included in the content as they are already part of the email header. Set the It is a good idea to use the first paragraph to set the context for the email, like the reason for sending the email, or if it is a follow-up to an earlier discussion

Use emoticons While email editors come with a lot of creative and attractive emoticons, they should not be used for most conversations and used sparingly for some personal conversations

Your email editor provides a full-color palette for use as a foreground or background color. It is generally a good idea to use the default email color as either black or navy blue. Additionally, foreground colors can be used to make headings stand-out, call-

out actionable comments, or to distinguish your comments from someone's content. Background colors have a limited utility and can be used to highlight some phrases which need action. Overuse of colors makes the email garish and should be avoided. Optimum use of Reply All and There are cases where you start an email with several people in "To" and "Cc" fields, but as the discussion progresses, you may realize that it's only useful to some of the people and not everyone else. In this situation, you should move some email addresses from the To/Cc field to Bcc field while Replying All and add a line on email indicating you have moved them, this will remove them from the email thread when someone replies next.

Do not Can you shout in email? Actually, you can. Typing in all Capital letters in email communication is considered as shouting. So, unless you intend to shout, avoid typing in all capitals. This is more of a norm rather than etiquette. It is expected to reply to an email within a day or two of receiving the email. If you are going to take longer, it is often a good idea to send a quick reply and state by when you will be able to reply in detail. If you respond quickly, it is good but not expected as email is considered to be an asynchronous form of communication. Likewise, when you send an email to someone, you shouldn't expect an immediate reply.

Other Google web apps

Google has a suite of web applications that you can use with your Google account. These can help you work with photos, videos, documents, spreadsheets, storage, maps, etc. We have been referring to these as partner apps. We will look at many of these in subsequent chapters too. There are many third-party apps as well which are designed to work with Gmail and other Google services. Google has a marketplace where you can find and enable such apps. They need access to your Google account to work, which you will have to authorize when you are setting up the app. This is again an advanced topic which new users will use rarely, so we are not going into this in detail.

But there are some apps that integrate very closely with Gmail, which are worth mentioning here:

Google Google Calendar is a service that can be used to create appointments, events, and reminders. In Chapter 1: Your we had looked at some examples of the Calendar app on your smartphone. Anything that you create on that Calendar app gets stored on your Google account. You can view it in a browser by visiting https://calendar.google.com and signing in with your Google ID. Any event that you create using the web interface would also become visible on your phone's Calendar app. Calendar integrates seamlessly with Gmail. So, when creating an event, you

can click on the invite and add someone's email ID. Once you save the invite, an email will get sent to them notifying them about the event. Likewise, when you receive an email with an event, it gets added to your calendar. You can RSVP your attendance by clicking on the or Maybe buttons in the email, and this notifies them.

Google In Chapter 1: Your we looked at how you can configure your Smartphone contacts to be stored on your Google account. Google Contacts integrates with Gmail, and all your contacts who have an email address will show up on both the Gmail web and app interface. You can place your cursor in the "To" field when composing an email, type a few words from the contact name, and you will see the list of contacts that match. You can view contacts by navigating to the Google Contacts website https://contacts.google.com on a web browser, and signing-in to your Google account. If you click on a contact, an information box will come up showing their contact information and a list of all interactions you've had with them on Gmail. You can simply click one of the emails to open it.

Google Google tasks allow you to track your To Do items and set a due date on them. You can also add reminders, and have a hierarchy of tasks and sub-tasks. In the section on email tasks, we saw how you can create a task from the email view. To access Google Tasks on the web interface, click on the Google tasks icon on the right bar. You can also create tasks from here. Google Tasks has a separate mobile app that you can install on your smartphone/tablet to manage tasks on your devices.

Google Google Keep allows you to takes notes. These notes can be a combination of text and pictures. You can also create To-Do lists using these notes, add reminders for notes, and organize notes using labels or archive notes, just like email. To access Google Keep from the browser, you can click on Keep icon on the right bar in Gmail. Alternatively, you can also navigate to https://keep.google.com and sign-in with your Google account to view its full interface. To access Google Keep on your smartphone/tablet, you can install the Google Keep app from Play Store. Notes created on your phone are accessible via the web browser, and vice versa, so this is a great way to share notes between your smartphone/tablet and your PC.

There may seem to be an overlap between Google Tasks and Keep, both allow you to create lists and mark items done. Keep is primarily a note-taking app, and lists are one of its sub-features. Lists in Google Keep are intended for simple To-Do lists, whereas Tasks is a full-fledged task management app that offers many advanced features too. Here are some other differences between Google Tasks and Google Keep: You can have sub-tasks in Tasks but not in Keep lists

You can directly create tasks from email, but the same cannot be done for Keep

In Google Tasks, you can add a reminder for each item of a list, but in Keep, reminders are for the entire list or note.

You can share notes created in Google Keep with other users, whereas Tasks are intended for your own self and cannot be shared. Let us now look at some security-related aspects of email.

Email and security

When someone sends you an email, they are knocking on your door. And when you open the attachment, without looking through the peephole to see who it is, you just opened the door and let a stranger into your life, where everything you care about is.

- James Comey, Former Director of the FBI The above quote perfectly captures the essence and risks of email security. Emails can pose a security risk in two primary ways:

Via The content of the email can entice you to take actions that you would not normally take, which can end up endangering the security of your PC, devices, and online accounts. These actions can be to open an attachment, click on a link, reply to the email, or to take some drastic actions like transferring money to someone you do not know. The key things to note here are those we mentioned in Chapter 2: Your which are worth repeating here again: If it seems too good to be true, it usually is, and that Greed is commonly used as the carrot that entices people to take unsafe actions. The solution is to not believe everything you read in your and check both the source and the content.

Via As we learnt in Chapter 2: Your there are many types of malware that spread via files; and attachments are files. When you

open an attachment from an untrusted source and without scanning it for malware, you risk opening an infected file. When an infected file is opened, the code in the file attachment executes and infects your device or PC or device with it. Many email services come with a file scanner and scan attachments, but you should not depend on them entirely.

Generally, undesirable emails spread via Spam mails. Spam refers to unsolicited an email that is used to send the same email to a large number of users with the hope that some of the users may click on it. Gmail and other email providers detect Spam and route them to your Spam folder. You should never open any email in the Spam folder unless you were specifically expecting that email. Here are some common categories of Spam email:

Dangerous/malware These are emails that contain malware and the objective is to spread malware.

Spoofed These emails pretend to originate from a certain website but may not be; these are used to establish false trust so you believe the contents of the email and are prompted to take some actions. Phishing Phishing emails impersonate a certain sender, mostly social or financial websites where you may have an account. Links on such emails lead to sites that are designed to look identical to the original website. The objective is to get you to login to the fake website using your real login details, so the websites can

collect your login information and use that to take-over or hack your real account.

Chain These emails prompt you to forward the email to more and more people and there is no clear objective. These letters share incorrect information like stories, or urban legends, and ask you to take some actions. The objective is to spread misinformation and can be done to tarnish a known brand, or for other motives.

Money These emails promise you large financial gains and convince you to transfer an amount to some account to initiate the process. Marketing Many spam emails are just unsolicited and excessive marketing emails. Gmail doesn't treat all marketing emails as spam, only certain types. Gmail categorizes most of the non-spam marketing emails under the Promotions category. It also allows you to unsubscribe from some of them quickly. You will see an Unsubscribe link next to the sender name at the top of the email. When you click the Unsubscribe link, Gmail sends out an email to unsubscribe you from the mailing list. You may see this mail in your Sent folder and it's perfectly normal.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we extended the human network example from Chapter 3: The with mailboxes, and used that to understand about how email fits into the ecosystem of the internet and then established some basic concepts related to email. We discussed email protocols and looked at some common mechanisms by which you may access and use email. We then introduced Gmail and looked at two of its commonly used interfaces. We looked at some concepts related to email like parts of an email, organizing emails using folders and labels, and some email actions. We also discussed some concepts specific to Gmail like usage of Labels as Folders, Categories, Gmail actions, Conversation view, search, and Filters. We also discussed about email etiquette and looked at some partner apps from Google which integrate with Gmail. We ended the chapter by discussing about email security.

In the next chapter, we will talk about photos. We will look at the attributes of analog and digital pictures. We will also learn about capturing, organizing, editing, and sharing pictures, using your PC, smartphone/tablet, and the internet.

Key terms

Mailbox SMTP

POP

IMAP Alias

Labels

Spam

Drafts

Inbox

Categories Starring

Scheduling an Email

Snooze

Archive

Mute

Filters

Google Calendar Google Contacts

Google Tasks Google Keep

Spoofing Phishing Chain mails

Hoax Money scams

CHAPTER 6 Photos

It's always the small pieces that make the big picture

- Anonymous

The camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera. - Dorothea Lange, Documentary Photographer and Photojournalist

In this chapter, we will learn about digital photos, which are also called images or pictures. We will start off by discussing the different nuances of scenes that we view with our eyes. We will then learn about digital photos and understand some important attributes that influence their quality. We will discuss the ways in which you may acquire a digital picture, manage pictures, and some typical image modifications. We will look at the different ways in which you may share photos, and introduce you to additional services and apps for enthusiasts. Towards the end of this chapter, we will discuss some important considerations like picture usage and privacy. Let us begin by looking into what we see when we look.

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Introduction

Basics of digital photos

Acquiring photos Managing photos

Modifying photos

Sharing photos

Other photo services

Using photos

Picture privacy

Objective

The chapter will introduce readers to digital photos. Readers will understand image attributes, see how they influence picture quality and learn about different image formats. Readers will be familiarized with the Camera app on their smartphone and its settings. They will also learn how to manage, modify and share photos using Google Photos. They will develop an awareness of licensing, copyrights, and privacy and learn some privacy best practices.

Introduction

In Chapter 4: we had briefly discussed how our sense of vision is able to interpret a scene that our eyes look at. Let us continue that conversation and try to understand some of its deeper nuances. Consider any scene that your eyes can see, what all do you notice?

Detail/Focus (or When we look at a particular part of the picture, our eyes focus on that point and we are able to see that area with sharpness and the rest of the picture appears slightly blurred out. Focusing allows us to see a small part in great detail. Our ability to narrowly focus on a part of an image depends on how far the picture is from us. We may focus on any word in a newspaper when it is in our hands. But if someone held the same newspaper 20 feet away, we can only focus on the headlines. Try this now, look at a large object a few feet away and focus on a small area in that. Did you notice that the area outside your point of focus became blurred? Now focus on a different part of the same object. Did you notice that the earlier point of focus got blurred out?

Brightness is a measure of how well-lit the object is. Remember, our ability to see depends on the light traveling from the object to our eyes. That is why you can see clearly across a brightly lit room but can barely see your own hand in a dark room.

Contrast is a measure of how an object appears relative to its background. A Black text on a white background appears clearer than a silver text on a white background.

There are a basic set of colors that our mind recognizes by name. These basic colors can be combined to create hundreds of thousands of new colors.

When we look at any object, what we see is usually determined by a combination of the above four attributes. Any still object or scene that you see with your eyes may be considered to be an Analog picture. With this understanding, let us explore digital pictures.

Basics of digital photos

Our environment consists of moving objects all around us. The parts of our environment that we can see at any point, without moving our neck form our field of Our eyes continuously adapt to focus on points in our field of vision. This allows us to see things with sharpness, or even read by moving our eyeballs. A digital picture is nothing but the digital representation of what we are seeing at any given instant of time. A digital picture is a file that contains data that represents and can recreate what we see. In order to represent a scene as digital data, it is broken up into smaller parts, or dots. These are called Each dot has a particular color and shade. When these dots are viewed together from a distance, it creates a view of a picture.

To understand this, take a square piece of paper, measuring 2 inches by 2 inches, and draw a 5×5 grid on it. The horizontal and vertical lines will cross each other and create 25 small squares. Now, shade the squares along the diagonals. Place this paper around 40 feet away. Does it appear like the letter As you move closer to it, you will notice that now, you are able to see the individual squares and the X formed is not smooth. This is called Now, take another paper of the same size and draw a 15×15 grid on it, it will create 225 small squares. Shade the diagonal squares the same way to create an X. When you view this second paper from the same distance, it produces a smoother X compared to the earlier paper. Thus, you can say that the greater the number

of pixels on the same area, the smoother will be the picture. This is the basic principle on which digital pictures work. The figure 6.1 shows this:

Figure 6.1: Effect of number of Pixels on Pixelation Let us now see how the attributes of a digital picture represent this concept.

Attributes of a digital photo

Digital pictures consist of a single snapshot of a scene, focused at a particular point. Additionally, like analog photos, digital photos also have brightness, contrast, and color. A digital picture can be thought-of as a collection of pixels, so an image file has data that specifies the color of each pixel, an image that is represented as a collection of pixels is said to be in Raster format. There are some digital images that do not represent data as a collection of pixels, these are called Vector formats. Vector formats are used for advanced applications mostly by professionals, so we were not covering them here.

The number of bits used to describe the color of each pixel is called the bit

To consider how colors are described using digital data, let us consider the simplest case where we have one bit to describe the color of a pixel. A bit is binary and can have only two values, either 0 or 1, so we can assign 0 to Black and 1 to White. Hence a single bit can describe two colors. Now, let us say we had 2 bits to specify the color, there are now 4 different combinations possible, namely, 00, 01, 10, and 11, and hence we may describe different 4 colors using these two bits. Likewise, if we had 8 bits, then we may use it to describe 256 different colors. And if we have 16 bits, then it can be used to describe around 65 thousand different colors. As the number of bits is increased, we can describe the color shade more accurately, but it

needs more space to store the data of all the pixels in a picture, and the file size increases.

As we saw in the previous section, the number of pixels is another attribute of a digital image. More the number of pixels, better the quality, but more will be the size of the file. The number of pixels in an image is called the image resolution and it is often expressed in megapixels, or 10^6 pixels.

The combination of resolution and the bit depth produces raw image data which often consumes a lot of storage space. There are many compression algorithms that use techniques to compress this data, to be able to express it in fewer number of bytes. There are some compression techniques that re-create the same raw data as the original image, and these are called lossless There are some other techniques that achieve a much greater compression, but lose some information from the original image, and these are called lossy

Picture quality

Bit depth, resolution, and compression each allow for some compromise between the image quality and image size. Generally, digital images use a combination of bit and compression to make a compromise that is acceptable for the usage of that image. For example, if the intention is to print an image on a large billboard, then it must have the highest resolution, maximum bit depth and lossless compression, and file size may not be of much concern. If the intention is to print an image on a postcard, then the resolution, bit depth may be reduced and some compression can also be employed. But if the intention is to use an image on a website, then the file size is of extreme importance, so it often becomes necessary to make some compromises using these attributes.

When printing an image on physical media, there's often an additional attribute called pixels per inch which can be specified to make sure that the image has sufficient pixels for every square inch to be able to display it without pixelating it.

Let us now look at some common file formats for images and how they use these attributes.

File formats

There are several image formats that have different suitability for different applications. Some of them have special features which are not available in other formats. Table 6.1 lists some common image formats, their characteristics and uses:

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Table 6.1: Common image formats

Acquiring photos

As we learned earlier in this chapter, a digital image is a file that contains image data in one of the standard formats. You can acquire a digital image on your PC or smartphone in many different ways, some common ways being:

Clicking a You can use a digital camera to click a picture. Devices like smartphones, tablets, and some laptops also have cameras. When you click a picture, the device or the app creates a file with the image data.

Transferring a Photos can be transferred between digital cameras and devices like your PC or Smartphone. This transfer can be done in many different ways. USB cable, removable media like Storage cards/pen drives, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth are some popular ways to transfer photos. In the first two mechanisms, the attached camera or media appears as a volume in the file browser, and you can browse it to copy image files. Your OS also has software that allows images to be imported from attached cameras.

Saving a picture from the Pictures that you see on websites can be saved to your PC or device by right clicking on the image in the browser and selecting Save or We will be discussing about the allowed usage of these pictures later in this chapter.

Scanning a picture/document using a A flat-bed Scanner is a specialized hardware device that has a glass tray on which you place your photo or a document, face-down. You can use the software that came with the scanner to scan the photo or document, it typically lets you specify the file format and other attributes. When you scan, the device uses a light beam and a scan head to detect the photo/document and generate a picture file on your computer.

Capturing a screenshot of your As we saw in the first two chapters, you can capture screenshots on your PC and device and that generates image files too. Let us now look at how to capture pictures using your smartphone camera.

Clicking a picture

Your smartphone/tablet has a camera that can be used to capture images, just like a regular digital camera. Most devices have two cameras, a primary camera on the back, and a secondary camera on the front. To capture a picture, you can use the Camera app which is pre-installed on your phone. Camera apps provide different settings for the picture files they generate. The following figure 6.2 shows some of these settings on the Android Camera app:

Figure 6.2: Camera App interface

Let us discuss some common settings in the Camera app:

Camera to Your app allows you to choose between the main and the front cameras. The scene you see is shown accordingly.

Resolution refers to the total number of pixels in the photographs you click using the cameras on your device and is expressed in Megapixels. The primary camera has a higher maximum resolution than the front camera. You can adjust the resolution from Camera Settings. Higher the resolution, better the picture quality, and the larger the size of the file it will generate. You can choose a point of focus on the framed scene before you click a picture. By default, the focus is on the center of the screen, and the point is marked by a floating square or a circle. The camera auto-focuses based on what it detects if you do not set a point of focus manually. You can focus on any part of the frame by just tapping on it and you will see the square/circle move to that point.

You can choose to click a picture with a flash, without a flash, or with the Auto flash setting. With the auto flash setting, the camera detects whether the scene is well-lit or not. If it is not, it will trigger the flash. When clicking pictures in low light without the flash, make sure to hold the camera steady.

Your smartphone/tablet comes with a digital zoom capability using which you can make a certain part of a picture appear closer,

while cutting off the remaining areas. To zoom in, simply use the pinch-out gesture on the part of the scene where you want to zoom. To zoom out, you can pinch-in. Usually; digital cameras have an optical zoom which is achieved by using a moving array of lenses. But smartphones/tablets/laptops do not have this and simulate the zoom digitally. A digital zoom is not as clear as optical zoom so when clicking a zoomed picture, you should hold the phone very steady as even a minor shake can lead to a blurry picture. Better still; stabilize your phone by taking support of a solid surface while you click the picture. Face Most phone apps come with face detection and automatically set the focus point for the picture to the faces detected.

Preset Most camera apps come with some preset modes which have settings for that condition preset. Example, Macro mode, Indoor mode. Some camera apps also have filters that apply a color style and tone to the picture.

Advanced Most camera apps also have an advanced mode where you can set the mode, focus, aperture, shutter speed, and other settings manually before clicking a picture. This is intended for users who are proficient in digital photography.

Managing photos

Photos are organized in albums. This is a metaphor from the real-world where we organize physical photos in photo albums. On your PC and devices, most apps will consider the folders that contain pictures as albums. In web apps, albums may not always be actual folders, but are logical collection of pictures. You can create an album and add pictures to it. Let us look at Google Photos which is a service that allows you to manage pictures and has additional features as well.

Google Photos

Google Photos is a photos solution that works both on your smartphone/tablet and as a web app in your web browser. Some features of Google Photos function only if you have signed-in using your Google Account. The following figure 6.3 shows the interface of Google Photos mobile app:

Figure 6.3: Google Photos app interface [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.google.android.apps.photos]

The following figure 6.4 shows the interface of Google Photos web app:

Figure 6.4: Google Photos web interface [Credit: https://photos.google.com/] Let us look at the key features of Google Photos:

Support for It supports both photos and videos. Google Photos allows you to organize photos and videos in albums. The same item can be added to multiple albums as well. This is similar to the concept of tags in emails that we discussed in the last chapter, where we saw that an email can have multiple tags. The following figure 6.5 shows the process of adding pictures to an album:

Figure 6.5: Adding pictures to Albums on the Photos mobile app

[Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.google.android.apps.photos]

The solutions allow for some basic modifications for both photos and videos. We will look at some typical image modifications in the following section. Web storage and Google Photos backs up the photos on your phone to your web account if you login to the same Google account on both. It also allows you to create albums in the web app and upload pictures to them. You can specify the quality of

images to images in optimized bandwidth

upload to your web app; you may choose to upload their original quality or use a reduced quality that is for viewing on the web. The latter conserves both and storage.

Face Google photos can detect and recognize faces in the photos you upload. This is a very handy feature that can help you quickly find all pictures of the same person in your photo collection. You can add a name for each face it detects, which can help you search pictures by name.

Picture files not only contain data about the picture and the format, but some additional meta data as well. This is used by some devices to store the name of the device, the date, and also the location where the picture was clicked. If your photo has a location embedded, Google Photos will allow you to search such pictures in your collection on the basis of dates or locations. We will look at some considerations of embedding location later in this chapter, in the section on Picture

Album Google Photos allows you to share albums and pictures with people. We will discuss this feature in detail, later in this chapter. Combining Google Photos lets you select multiple pictures and create an animated image, video, or collage from them. The figure 6.5 shows these options on the mobile app interface.

Let us now look at some common ways of making changes to photos.

Modifying photos

You can modify many image attributes after a picture has been clicked. This is generally called editing a picture. There are many different image editing programs that enable you to modify pictures in hundreds of different ways. Image editing is an advanced skillset and covering all of these operations would need a dedicated book for the topic. However, we must learn some operations which you may commonly need to do.

Basic image modifications

In this section, we look at some common image modifications which you may have to do routinely, and which do not require advanced image editing programs. Many of these are supported by the image browsing programs which are pre-installed on your Windows PC, your smartphone/tablet, and web-based image apps. The figure 6.6 shows some of these controls on the Photos app for Android. Exactly the same operations can be done using the Photos web app:

Figure 6.6: Editing capabilities on the Google Photos mobile app [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.google.android.apps.photos]

Here are some common image attributes that you can modify:

The resolution of an image is the total number of pixels in it and is often expressed with pixels in width and height. For example, 1920px × 1080px. The actual number of pixels is a product of width and height (in pixels) and is expressed in mega (10^6) pixels. For example, an image with 1920px × 1080px has 2073600 px, also called 2 megapixels, or 2MP for short. Higher the resolution better will be the detailing of the image. Cropping is the process of selecting a specific part of an image, and removing all other parts that are outside the selected area. The crop area selected has to be rectangular. The ratio of width and height of the selection (or any image) is called as its aspect ratio. To crop an image, you would select the crop icon from the toolbar of your program and then select the area that you want to include in the image. You can additionally choose to crop in a fixed aspect ratio or select both width and height manually. To select on a PC, you would click down to select one corner of your selection, and then keeping the mouse button pressed, drag your mouse to the diagonally opposite corner and then release the mouse button. This would select the crop area. To select the area on a mobile device, you would move the corners of a selection to compress or extend it and drag the selection itself to place it on the desired part of the image. Pressing the action button would remove the parts of your image that are outside the selected area, thereby cropping it. Cropping is useful when you want to remove some extra portions of the photo from the sides.

You may sometimes need to turn an image sideways, or flip it upside down. This can be done using the Rotate function, and using this you can turn your image anti-clockwise, by 90 degrees,

or in multiples of it. To flip the image to its right, you can rotate it anti-clockwise three times. When we look at someone who is facing us, our directions are opposite to each other. Our right is their left, and our left is their right. When you point the camera lens towards someone and click their picture, the lens mimics what you see. Mobile phones also have a camera on the front that is used for clicking a self-picture, called Selfie for short. The view with the front camera mimics a mirror; you will see your left hand on the left and right hand on the right. This is useful as we can pose much more easily when clicking a selfie, as it works just like a mirror. But when you click a picture with the same setting, it is problematic sometimes if we have a book or any other written text in the picture. The picture would capture a mirror image of the text, which makes it harder to read. This can be fixed either by disabling the mirror setting in the Camera app (from or alternatively, by modifying the image using the mirror operation.

As we saw in Chapter 4: an image is created by light. A camera clicks a picture by allowing the incoming light from an object to fall on a light-sensitive element, for a very small instant. It has a Shutter which opens and closes quickly in order to do this. You can control the amount of light in the capture, which is called Exposure. If you allow too much light, you will get a washed-out whitish picture and if you allow too little light, you will get a dark picture. The ideal exposure settings would depend on how well-lit the scene is and whether the object is in motion. A camera allows you to control how wide the shutter opens (called and how long the shutter stays open There are often cases where you

might want to make a picture brighter after you have clicked it. This can be done in various ways, and each of these ways impacts the light in a picture in a slightly different way. Of these, the two most common operations are brightness and contrast. Brightness control can help increase or decrease the amount of light in a picture, making it brighter or duller. Contrast effects the relative brightness of elements; increasing it would make the elements clearer relative to each other, but it makes the picture grainy. There are other editing controls too which affect the light in a picture like exposure, white level, black level, highlights, and shadows which you may try yourself and observe how it affects the picture.

You can control the hue, saturation, and lightness of colors in your picture. Hue is the color itself, saturation defines the purity of the color, and lightness refers to the addition of white and black to the color. Combinations of saturation and lightness produce many different paler/darker shades of the color. For example, The color red has many different shades; think of the color variations you see on the different varieties of apples. Temperature is another color control that makes a color appears warmer or cooler. You would very rarely need to adjust color in your images. For cases where you do, you can use the preview and make adjustments based on visual inspection of the effects. Drawing and Sometimes, you may need to draw or add text to an image. This is often useful for highlighting something on a screenshot, or for adding a short caption. The text that you see in the figures throughout this book is also an example of this. Some programs allow you to do this and provide various controls like

Pen, line, spray paint, or text. You can also adjust the thickness of the control when you do this. Many image editing apps come with filters which you can apply to your photos to give them a specific kind of color tone.

Sharing photos

In the real world, showing someone your photo albums and photos is an interactive and fun activity where you bond with them and also reminisce memories. As you look at pictures together in a physical album, you tell them stories about each picture and enjoy their reactions. Alternatively, you could also send them a copy of a picture by post, which then becomes their copy.

With digital photos as well, sending and sharing are the two ways in which you may show someone your photos. Let us look at each of these in a little more detail.

Sending an image

A digital picture is a file and as we saw in the last chapter on email, you can add it to an email, within the content, or as an attachment. You may also send it using communication software like WhatsApp. There are many other ways of sharing picture files by putting them on Removable media like storage cards, pen drives, or on CDs. When you send someone a file, you cannot get it back or revoke their access to it. They can also share or send the pictures with other people. Sending a file requires the entire file to be transmitted, so sharing an album with many pictures may take considerable space. If you send these files over email, you may not be able to attach all the images in one email and may have to send them using multiple emails. If you are sending an image file to someone, it may be a good idea to reduce the resolution (number of pixels) of that image so it takes lesser space and can be transmitted faster.

Sharing an image

An alternate way to share an album or a set of digital pictures with someone is to upload them on a web server and give them the URL for it. This does not transmit the actual pictures to the person, but they can browse these pictures using their internet connection. When you are sharing pictures in this manner, you can share them with specific people, or you can make them accessible to the entire world. You can give each of your pictures a caption that is akin to describing it. The people you share it with can add comments on the picture or the album, which can be seen by other viewers too.

Google Photos provides the following ways to share pictures:

You may choose specific people to share pictures with, by providing their Gmail account. Only those people can access the pictures after logging in to their Google account.

You may generate a secret link that can be shared with a group of people and they may use it to access the photos that you have shared. Note that they can also share the link further and anyone else with the link will also be able to view the pictures. The figure 6.7 shows these options on the Google Photos web app. The same options can be found on the mobile app too:

Figure 6.7: Sharing options on the Google Photos web app [Credit: https://photos.google.com/]

In addition to this, you may also control what viewers may do with pictures that are shared with them: You can allow them to add their pictures to the same album, which is often useful if you are collecting pictures that everyone clicked during an event. On Google Photos, this is called making someone a Collaborator. You can allow or prevent viewers from liking and commenting on pictures. Google Photos allows viewers to download any photograph that you have shared with them. At the time of this writing, there is

no way to restrict this.

Sharing online for a limited time/views

There are some social websites and apps which let you share pictures with a group of people, or publicly, for a limited period, for example, for 24 h. Other sites allow shared pictures to be viewed only once. After this time elapses or people have viewed them, the pictures disappear and they can no longer see them. Social networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat support such features. We will learn more about social networks in a later chapter in this book.

Other photo services

There are many websites and apps which are specifically designed for searching, viewing, and sharing pictures with your network of friends. We will discuss on how you can do this on Social networks in a later chapter in this book. Here are some other websites on which you can view and search pictures:

Visual search (by All popular search engines let you search the internet for images by using keywords that describe the image. You can then click an image in the search results and see other images similar to it. You can also navigate to the webpage where the image appears. This offers an interesting and lateral way to find something on the Internet. For example, you can try searching for Pink rose or Drink with cherry and you'll find images that have this content. Here are some visual search engines that you can try:

Google Images Search https://images.google.com

Bing Visual Search https://bing.com/images

Yahoo Image Search https://images.search.yahoo.com

Image sharing There are many websites where photography enthusiasts can post their best pictures, and other enthusiasts can search, view, like, or comments on them. Many such sites use hashtags to tag and find images. Hashtags are a word sequence without any spaces, which begin with the Pound symbol. For example, #pinkrose or Users who post their pictures can tag those using hashtags and other users can search for photos using hashtags. Here are some popular sites in this category:

500px https://500px.com Flickr https://flickr.com

Instagram https://instagram.com Object search (searching by There are some apps that allow you to click a picture of any product, object, or monument and use that image to find more information about that entity on the internet. You can also search by product barcodes. This offers a novel way to explore the world around you. This can be very useful in identifying the model of an electronics device and finding where it is available for sale. Google Lens is a popular app you can install on your smartphone/tablet, which provides these features.

Using photos

In this chapter, we have seen a lot of ways in which you may browse images on the Internet and also learned how you can download images. But it is critically important to understand how you may use any images you have downloaded. Photographs come under the umbrella of intellectual property so it is illegal to use or distribute images without the written permission of the person who clicked or created that picture. Not just the images themselves, but the idea or concept in creating a picture is also covered under copyright laws.

Images that are posted on the internet are often under a license that specifies the ways in which you are allowed to use that image without infringing on the owners' rights. Creative common is a non-profit body that establishes and provides for some common licensing types under which images may be classified for reuse with or without modifications, for commercial or other purposes. Any images for which the creative commons licensing has not been specified should be considered as copyrighted, and should not be used without specific, written permission from the owner of that image. Using an image in violation of copyright laws amounts to illegal copyright infringement and you may be liable to pay legal and other damages to the copyright owner. However, there are websites on the Internet that provide copyrightfree images which may be used freely and legally. There are also websites where you may purchase an image legally and use it, or

pay royalties to the owner and use it. Any image which you distribute or use should always be sourced from such legitimate sources.

Picture privacy

Photographs carry information about people, places, events, and relationships. A digital photograph provides a convenient way to click pictures with the same information and make it accessible to people with whom you may wish to share that photograph. But there are also risks associated with this convenience. When you share a photograph as a file, it is irreversible. You cannot revoke it and you neither have control nor the visibility, on whether the photograph was shared with other people. Moreover, a digital photograph can have additional information which may make the information in the photograph even more precise. For example, you can have the exact location where the picture was clicked embedded in a picture. If you clicked this picture at your home, this location can pinpoint your home location very precisely. If someone has access to the photograph, they can find your home location even if you did not intend to share it with them. This information could endanger your privacy, and be misused for fraudulent and illegal activities, both on the internet and in the real world. Here are some best practices you should follow when it comes to photographs:

Be very careful with the privacy of your photos. Do not post images that can be viewed publicly on the Internet. Instead, share only with known and trusted friends.

Keep your circle of contacts limited to people you know in the real world.

Avoid sending personal pictures by email and WhatsApp. Instead, create an album and provide access to specific people. If possible, disable the option to download, if the app allows you to.

Do not keep albums and photos shared perpetually? Once people have viewed the pictures, you should remove the sharing permissions.

Turn off embedding of location in pictures on your smartphone and tablet. You can find an option to disable location under the Settings of your Camera app. Be especially careful in sharing pictures that may show location details of minors, either directly or indirectly, for example, sharing pictures where their school name is visible.

Do not let strangers click pictures of you or your children. Do not click or share intimate pictures via any medium. Do not view, save, click, share or publish pornographic pictures. These activities are partially or fully banned in many countries, and violations may be punishable by imprisonment and fines.

When changing your phone, make sure you thoroughly delete the contents of your old phone, and any removable media like SD cards.

Dispose-off digital media or devices properly, ensuring that data cannot be extracted from it easily.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we discussed the attributes of analog and digital pictures, and looked at some key attributes which influence image quality and size. We also learned about some common image formats and discussed their characteristics and special features. We then talked about the different ways in which you can acquire pictures and explored the Camera app on your smartphone. We looked at some common features of picture management and introduced Google Photos, a popular image management service. We went on to discuss about picture modification and sharing using Google Photos. Towards the end of this chapter, we discussed about copyright considerations of images and picture privacy.

In the next chapter, we will discuss all about audio and videos. We will look at the constituents of a video, common file types, and basic video operations supported by Google photos. We will also learn about online entertainment and look at YouTube and YouTube Music which are two free and popular websites that let you listen to songs and watch videos. We will also discuss about piracy and privacy.

Key terms

Focus Brightness

Contrast

Resolution Pixelation

Bit Depth

Raster and Vector formats

Lossless and Lossy compression

Shutter

Exposure Aperture

Shutter Speed

Hue

Saturation

Copyright

CHAPTER 7 Music and Videos

Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything

- Plato, Philosopher

Images are not only visual. They're also auditory; they involve sensuous impressions, bundles of information that come to us through our senses, and mainly through seeing and hearing: the audio-visual field.

- W. J. T. Mitchell, Academic and Art Historian

In this chapter, we will learn about music and videos. We begin this chapter by understanding the attributes of analog video and sound. We will then explore digital sound and videos, understand their attributes and look at the various factors which influence their quality. We will look at the different ways in which you may acquire, modify and manage digital audio/video on your smartphone. We will then explore the online aspects of audio/video and discuss about online music and video services. We will also discuss about the legal usage of songs and videos, and end this chapter by talking about some privacy considerations of videos. So, let us hit play to begin our foray into the audiovisual experience.

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Introduction

Basics of sound

Basics of videos Acquiring audio/videos

Managing media

Modifying songs and videos

Sharing songs and videos

Music streaming services

Video streaming services Shooting and using photos

Video privacy

Objective

This chapter will discuss aspects related to music and videos. Readers will learn about audio and video attributes, understand how they influence the sound and video quality, and learn about some common audio and video formats. Readers will learn how to shoot video using their smartphone's Camera app and understand its settings. They will also learn about audio and video streaming services and learn about common operations on YouTube and YouTube Music. This chapter will also discuss about piracy and the privacy aspects of songs and videos.

Introduction

As we discussed in Chapter 4: we perceive the world around us using our five senses, of which our vision and hearing are utilized the most for communication. Sound is an auditory signal that our ears receive and Visuals are a combination of pictures and motion. The natural sounds we hear and the visuals we see can be thought of as analog audio and video.

In the next two sections, we will look at sound and visuals/video in detail. When we discuss about digital audio, please keep in mind that it may exist as a standalone sound file, or it may be part of a video. Let us begin by delving into sound first.

Basics of sound

An analog sound is a continuously changing signal that is detected by our ears and converted into an electric signal that our brain detects as sound. We describe sound using many different adjectives, for example, a loud sound, a shrill sound, a humming. Here are some attributes of sound that create these and other perceptions:

A sound may vary ever so slightly in pitch, creating a denser sound like a hum, or a sharper sound like that of a female voice. Consider any stringed instrument like a guitar, when you strike a string, it vibrates to produce sound. A thicker string vibrates lesser than a thinner string and produces a thicker sound, or lower pitch. Pitch or frequency is represented as the number of times the sound repeats every second and is measured in Hertz The human ear can only detect frequencies between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz

Tone represents the quality of sound, which helps you distinguish one instrument from another, say a guitar from a sitar. In a human voice, the tone conveys mood. The amplitude of a sound wave is a measure of its loudness. It is expressed in decibels Sounds lower than 85 dB are considered comfortable for long periods, and sounds higher than 120 dB can cause ear injury.

Let us now look at how analog sounds are converted into digital sounds.

Attributes of a digital audio

Analog audio is sampled at regular time intervals to create a digital sound signal. When we do sampling, we lose the signal information between the two instants in which the sound is captured. The number of times a sample is captured every second is called as the sample It is expressed in hertz The circuitry that does this is called as an Analog to Digital Converter Circuitry which does the reverse conversion, from digital to analog, is called as a Digital to Analog Converter Both these circuits are commonly found on PC and smartphones.

The other important parameter in sound sampling is bit the number of bits used to describe each sample.

An analog wave is continuous and may have an infinite number of amplitude levels. When we sample this wave to digital, the converter has to convert it to one of the pre-decided levels. More the number of bits, the greater number of pre-defined levels of amplitude you can have. You may understand this easily by drawing a parallel with decimal numbers, a number between 1 and 100 may have an infinite amount of distinct values as the number of decimal places is not fixed. If we decide to fix the decimal places at 2, then there can have 10,000 distinct values, running from 0.00, 0.01 through 99.99, 100.00. To describe 10,000 different numbers in binary, we will need at least 14 bits. As you may have observed, this sampling is strikingly similar to image

sampling, which had number of pixels and the bit rate as the parameters, and the bits were describing the color of each pixel.

Let us now discuss how these parameters impact audio quality.

Audio quality

In the last section, we saw two important parameters that affect how you sample an analog sound. A combination of these parameters affects the quality of digital sound.

Higher the sample the more accurately the sound represents the original sound. And it also affects how accurately high frequencies are captured. But higher sample rate will lead to more samples, which increases the file size. Higher the bit the more accurately we can capture different levels of sound And it affects the size of each sample, and in turn the file size.

Additionally, a sound file may have multiple For example, a stereo sound has two channels, left and right. Sampling bit and number of channels can be multiplied to produce a parameter called Bitrate represents how many bits will be required to represent each second of the sound.

For example, an audio CD has a sampling rate of 44100 Hz, a bit depth of 16 bits, and a bit rate of 1411 kbit/s.

File formats

Before we discuss about file formats, let us recall our discussion of lossy and lossless compression from Chapter 6: Digital audio is data too and similar to images, it may be stored in an uncompressed format, or it may use a lossless or lossy compression. Each of these formats supports different bitrates within a bounded range.

Table 7.1 lists some common audio formats, and their uses:

uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses:

uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses: uses:

Table 7.1: Common audio formats

Basics of videos

A visual is what we see and can be thought of as a series of pictures that captures motion in the real world and recreates it in our brain. To demonstrate this, let us try a small exercise. Look at a moving object like a ceiling fan, and blink your eyes slowly and then faster. Although you see blacks when your eyes are closed, the visuals in between still allow you to detect motion, albeit, in jerks. The faster you blink, the smoother the motion will appear. Another example of this is a flipbook that contains a series of pictures, each very slightly different from the last. When we flip the pages in the book, the pictures create an illusion of motion. This is the same principle using which our eyes see visuals and videos.

In combination, sound and visuals provide us with an integrated experience. For example, we see someone's lips moving and exactly at the same time, we hear their voice. Thus, a video is a combination of pictures that create motion and the sound that goes along with them. This is called audio-visual

Hence, all the attributes that apply to pictures and and audio and are relevant to audio-visuals too.

Attributes of a digital video

The digital counterpart of pictures in motion is called a and it often includes sound as well to provide an integrated experience that re-creates the combination of sound and visuals from the real world.

Since a video is essentially a combination of multiple pictures and sound, all of the parameters that we discussed for digital pictures depth and and digital sounds rate, bit depth, number of channels, bit are also relevant for videos. Additionally, another field called frame rate is also of relevance for videos. The frame here refers to each still picture that forms the video, similar to each page in a flipbook. Frame rate refers to the number of pictures in 1 s of video, called fps for short. More the fps, the smoother the motion in the video appears.

Let us look at how these parameters affect video quality.

Video quality

A video is comprised of audio and moving pictures. The audio quality in a video is directly affected by the audio parameters, so all the audio parameters are also relevant for videos. Moreover, some videos can have more than 2 channels of sound. Example, A 5.1 channel sound has 6 channels: left, right, center, surround left, surround right, and bass.

Video quality depends on multiple parameters, let us look at them.

We saw number number ratio of

in the last chapter that image resolution is the total of pixels in an image, which is the product of the total of horizontal and vertical pixels in an image. And the image width or height is called aspect The number of

horizontal pixels in an image can be imagined as a horizontal line, and the number of vertical pixels is then the number of lines. The number of lines in each frame is one of the parameters that are used to describe video quality. This, along with the aspect can be used to derive the number of lines and the resolution of each image (in See figure

Figure 7.1: Video parameters

Since a video is made up of images, these images must be changed quickly to create the illusion of motion. Remember that images are made up of pixels and each image/frame in a video has the same resolution. So, to change the image, the color of each pixel in the image simply has to be changed to the color of the corresponding pixel in the next image. This can either be done by changing all pixels at every instant or by changing pixels in alternate lines at every instant. The former is called progressive scan and the latter is called interlaced The difference between interlaced and progressive scans is more visible in scenes that have a lot of fast motion. The difference also becomes noticeable as the display size increases. See figure

Figure 7.2: Progressive and Interlaced scan

Video quality is expressed as a combination of the following: Number of horizontal lines

Type of for progressive and for interlaced Frame 24fps, 30fps, and 60fps are the popular ones

Aspect 4:3 (Standard) and 16:9 (widescreen) are the most popular ones For example, a 720p video on a screen with 16:9 screen with 60fps means the screen has 720 lines and uses a progressive scan. The ratio of width to height is 16:9, so there would be 1280 pixels in each horizontal line, and the resolution of each image would be 1280×720 = 0.92 Megapixels.

Some other examples of resolutions are and 720p is also known as and 1080p is known as Full It is also important to understand that pixels are part of your display (monitor of laptop display or TV). What you see on your screen, both static content and motion, is a result of those pixels. Even your OS uses this concept for rendering the OS interface. Thus, your TV and your laptop's specifications are also described using the same four parameters. To play a video in its full quality, your display must have the number of pixels that the video is in. If your display has fewer pixels than the video, the video is downconverted into the maximum resolution that your display supports. Let us now look at some common file formats for videos.

File formats

Similar to images and audio, video can also have compression and is quite important considering that video files are much larger than image and audio files. Hence, all formats support it.

Some popular video formats and extensions are *.flv and the newest .webm extension which is optimized for video on the web. The differences between these formats are an advanced topic that is out of the scope of this book. Suffice to say, most video player programs support all of these common formats.

Acquiring audio/videos

An audio or video can be recorded on any device which has a microphone and camera. This could be done with a dedicated digital camera, camcorder, laptop, or a smartphone/tablet. When you record on a digital device, it creates a video file in one of the common video formats. This file can then be transferred to other devices using a USB cable or removable media. We discussed this in the last chapter. You may also send or receive audio/video files over the Internet using one or more apps.

Aside from any audio or video that you record yourself, you will mostly use audio files for songs and video files for movies, scenes, or clips. Subsequently in this chapter, we use the term audio and songs, and videos and movies, interchangeably. Collectively, audio and movie are called as media.

In addition to media data, media files also support common An audio file may contain information about the song, like song, album, artist name, and the album photo. Likewise, a video file may have a title and description. These metadata fields are displayed when playing the media. We'll discuss other uses of these fields in the Managing media section later in this chapter.

Let us now look at how to record an audio or video on your smartphone.

Recording an audio

An audio that you record on your device is called as a voice note or voice This is an alternative to text and you may use this to record something in your own voice, for your own use, or to send to someone else. You can record and save voice notes using a Recorder app. Some Chat apps also support recording voice notes. We will look at this feature in Chapter 12:

Many Android smartphones/tablets come with a recorded app preinstalled. To find it, open the app drawer on your device and search for Alternatively, you may also download a third-party recorder app from the Play Store.

To record a voice note in a Recorder app, you can tap on the record button (often a circular red-colored button, located at the bottom of the screen). The same button is often used to pause and continue recording. To save the recording, you can press the stop button that looks like a black square. Once the recording is saved as a file, you may play it or transfer it, or send it to someone using email or other chat apps.

Find or install the Recorder app on your phone and try to record a voice message using the app.

Shooting a video

Recording a video is also called shooting a video. You can record a video using the same camera app on your phone that you used to click pictures. We already looked at the basic interface of the camera app in the last chapter, refer to figure To switch the Camera app to video mode, swipe right to left within the camera app and the icon at the bottom will change to the video camera icon. The video mode allows for the following settings, most of which are very similar to camera settings in the picture mode:

You can choose between the front and rear camera to record from

Video This setting can be changed from Settings | Video Size for the front and rear camera. You can choose between Full HD or Full HD with 60fps (useful for capturing fast motion).

Record This is often a circular red button in the middle of the screen.

Similar to flash for pictures, you can turn the Torch mode on to illuminate the scene if it is dark.

Image In this mode, the camera cancels minor shakes caused by hand trembling or walking while shooting the video.

Just like in the Camera mode, you can tap on an object in the frame to move the focus ring on it in the video mode as well. The camera also auto-focuses if you do not do this.

Let us now look at some ways of managing songs and videos.

Managing media

The following terminology is used for managing audio and video files:

Media library or This typically lists all the songs and movies on your device, and allows you to find songs and video using embedded metadata like artist name, album name, or song name. A playlist is a logical list of songs or videos in a pre-defined order. This allows you to play songs or videos in your chosen sequence. Playlists are useful to group together songs and video belonging to a particular theme or mood. They are also useful when a certain content is to be played in a particular sequence, like a song album, or when watching instructional videos in a particular sequence.

In addition to the above, all media player apps, like AIMP, VLC Player, and others also support the following action buttons. We will also see these in the section on YouTube Music later in this chapter.

Player Shows the songs enqueued in the player. The player queue may have one or more songs or playlists.

This allows you to temporarily stop the media at a particular point and continue playing it from the same point.

Next and This allows you to go to the previous or next media file in the player queue.

Shuffle This allows you to play from a group of songs, either in a playlist or in a queue, in random order.

Loop This allows you to play either a song or a playlist over and over again

Base and Base and treble allow you to control the lower and higher frequency ranges, respectively, in an easy way. If you need finer control on each range, you can also use an audio An audio may contain a mix of sounds in different frequency ranges of the audible frequency spectrum of 20 Hz to 20 kHz. An also called Audio allows you to finely control the level of each frequency range in the audible frequency range. This is used to tune the sound as per liking. For example, you may boost the high-frequency range to make the sound brighter. Seeking allows you to jump to a particular time in a song or video. To do this, you can drag the moving dot to the desired point in the song’s progress Alternatively, you can also click on a point on the progress bar to bring in the dot to that position.

Modifying songs and videos

Modifying audio and video files is an advanced topic that needs specialized software and skills to carry out. It also needs higher processing power. You typically would not need to modify audio files in your day-to-day usage.

For videos, the following modifications can be done using Google Photos: You can select a specific part of a video and remove the parts before and after that selected part. This is called trimming and you can do it by sliding the start and end marker on the progress bar.

Similar to rotating images.

Remove This removes the sound from the video.

Sharing audio/videos

Both digital audio and video are files, just like images are, and you can share them in similar ways. Both digital audio and video files can be sent to someone as an email attachment or using a chat app (like WhatsApp). Media files are typically large and often, email or chat apps have restrictions on the maximum file size or duration of the audio/video that can be sent. Additionally, videos can be shared on Google Photos or shared on some apps for a limited time/views; you may refer to the last chapter for details on these.

There are websites and apps that are specifically intended for sharing videos on the Internet. These let you post videos publicly on the Internet, or share them with specific friends. You can also find and watch videos on these websites. YouTube is the most popular video-sharing service, and we will go over it in detail later in this chapter.

The most popular use of audio is for songs. There are many websites and apps on which you may find and listen to songs. We will look at one such app in the next section. There are also some apps that let you sing and record songs to music, in karaoke and then share the songs. Smule and StarMaker are two popular apps in this category. Since karaoke is a niche interest, we will not be covering it in this book. But if you like to sing, I would encourage you to explore these apps yourself.

Both audio and video files tend to be large so it can take a long time to download all the data. Online music and video services are designed to allow playing the track or scene before it has been downloaded completely by the browser/app. This is called online As you listen/watch, the song/video data continues to get downloaded progressively in the background. The app downloads data for a few minutes ahead of what you are watching or listening to provide you with an uninterrupted experience, this is called Let us now look at how you can listen to music on the Internet.

Music streaming services

There are lots of websites and apps that let you stream music on the Internet. You can use these services to listen to music legally. Most such apps have a website as well as an app for smartphones/tablets. Most of these sites offer a freemium model where you can use some features for free but have to subscribe to use all features. Table 7.2 lists some common differences between free and paid plans that are commonly seen on popular music services. Some of these services have non-music audio content as well, like talk shows and podcasts, and also provide you recommendations based on the music you have listened to in the past:

past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past: past:

Table 7.2: Typical differences between free and premium plans on Music streaming services

There are some websites that allow you to legally buy digital music files that can be downloaded on your devices and played in a standard music player. These are music purchase services and different from music streaming services. Also, some of these services are available in multiple countries around the world and others can only be used in certain countries. YouTube Music, Spotify, Amazon Music, Apple Music are some global music services, whereas Gaana, Wynk Music, and Saavn are some services available only in India. Let us now explore a popular music service from Google.

YouTube music

YouTube music is a music service offered by Google. It can be accessed via its website https://music.youtube.com or via one of the dedicated apps for Android and other platforms. You can search and listen to music without signing in, but must sign-in with your Google account in order to use all its features.

YouTube has both songs and music videos, and the app can even play downloaded content on your device. You can create public and private playlists and add songs of your choice to them. It also supports a special type of playlist called Unlisted that means that the playlist cannot be found by other users via search. But you can send the link to anyone you want to share it with.

The most special feature of YouTube Music is that it integrates seamlessly with YouTube, which is a video streaming service from Google. All your YouTube video playlists that have songs are visible in YouTube Music, with all non-music elements excluded. Also, YouTube recommendations seem to be based on both the songs you watch or listen to on any of these services. Another unique feature of YouTube Music is Using this, you can play an automatically generated list of songs that are similar to the song being played. The Radio feature is available both for a song and for an artist.

YouTube Music offers both free and premium plans. The premium plan provides ad-free content, allows downloading of songs in the app, and supports background play on mobile devices.

The first time you open YouTube Music, you will be prompted to choose one or more languages in which you'd like to listen to music, and five or more artists whose music you like. The service uses these selections to show you initial song recommendations.

See figure 7.3 for the YouTube Music app interface. The web interface of YouTube app has exactly the same interface elements that work exactly the same as the mobile app:

Figure 7.3: YouTube Music App interface [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.google.android.apps.youtube.music&hl=en_IN]

The interface has three main tabs:

Home is where you will see many types of recommendations that can help you discover more songs and artists. YouTube Music would recommend you artists and songs based on the language and artists selection you made when you started using the app. If you have enabled Location access on your phone, you would also get recommendations based on your country and city. As you use the service, subscribe to more artists, and listen to songs, the app updates its recommendations accordingly. You'll find many types of recommendations under the Home tab:

Other artists similar to artists that you follow. You can listen to their music or you can subscribe to them. Subscribing adds them to the list of artists that you are interested in. Playlist, music, and music video recommendations.

A personalized playlist of songs is automatically created based on your listening activity.

Music charts (Top 100 songs) in your country and globally.

You will be able to browse new music and music videos under the Explore tab. You will also be able to browse playlists by genre or mood. Library is where all your own stuff goes; you will find the following things here:

Your You can view all your playlists or create a new one. All playlists that you have created on YouTube are also shown, with all non-music items filtered out. Your You can save songs, playlists, and albums to your library both on YouTube and on YouTube Music. Saving a song adds a link to the song to your so you can find it easily later. You can browse your library by Artist, Album, or view all songs in the library.

Your Lists all the artists that you follow. Device Shows the music files that are on your device. You may be prompted to allow File access permissions to the app the first time you access this option. You can browse your Device files by Artist, Album, or view all songs files.

If you are a premium member, you will be able to download songs for offline listening. This is where you will find all the songs that you have downloaded You can also search for songs by entering the song, artist, and album name. You can tap a song to open the player and start playing it. You can also take some actions for a song. The list of actions you can take is visible from the three-dot menu under the song being played in the player. You can also take actions without playing the song. To do this, you can press and hold a song in

the app to see the list of actions. The figure 7.4 shows the player interface in the YouTube music app:

Figure 7.4: Player interface on YouTube Music app [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.google.android.apps.youtube.music&hl=en_IN] Here are the different actions you can take for any song: Add to a Add to the Player at the end.

Add to the Player as the next Download the song.

View the Artist from where you can listen to other songs by that artist. Play an automatically generated playlist of songs that are similar to this song. Let us now look at Video services on the Internet.

Video streaming services

There are lots of websites and apps which let you stream video content on the Internet. Most such apps have a website as well as an app for smartphones/tablets. These can also be viewed on smart TVs and digital media players, and we'll discuss more on this in Chapter 18: Beyond your PC and

Video websites can belong to one or more of these categories: Video-sharing These are video services that allow users to upload video content that can be watched by other users. These websites have the largest user base and are free to use but run video ads to generate revenue. Most such sites do offer premium plans that allow ad-free viewing and other additional features, like downloading videos for offline viewing, etc. YouTube and Vimeo are two such popular platforms.

Online Video-on-Demand (VOD) These video services provide access to original movies, documentaries, and TV shows. You can browse through the collection and a video of your choice. Some VOD services charge you per-movie, while most of them charge a monthly subscription fee and provide access to their entire collection. Some VOD services also let you watch non-VOD content like broadcast streams, just like a TV, but using the Internet. Amazon Prime, Netflix are two such popular international

platforms. Disney Hotstar, Sony Liv, Voot, etc. are specifically for India.

Let us now explore YouTube, which is the most popular videosharing platform.

YouTube

YouTube is a video-sharing platform owned by the company Google. It allows you to post videos, and watch videos posted by other users. YouTube also allows you to rent and buy original videos like movies. YouTube is available in most of the countries in the world and is not just a form of entertainment, but an excellent resource for self-learning as well. It has a free plan which is ad-supported and a premium plan which is ad-free and also has additional features like background play on smartphones/tablets. YouTube integrates seamlessly with YouTube Music, as we saw in the last sections.

YouTube is a video-sharing platform, so each and every video is posted by a user, and every user has a page that lists videos they have posted and their playlists if they have chosen to show them. This page is called as the user You can follow a user's content by clicking the Subscribe button either on their channel page or below any of their videos. The Subscribe button also appears under each video posted by that user.

The figure 7.5 shows YouTube on a PC browser:

Figure 7.5: YouTube interface on a PC browser [Credit: The figure 7.6 shows the YouTube mobile app:

Figure 7.6: YouTube app interface [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.google.android.youtube&hl=en_IN]

You may have noticed that the tabs in YouTube are the same as YouTube music, with an additional tab called Here are the items you can find in each tab:

Home works the same way as does in YouTube Music, has recommendations based on the users' activity and subscriptions.

Discover new videos and find videos by category. This is where you can find all the songs and playlists you have created or saved. You can also find all videos you have viewed and liked under this tab. We will learn about likes in a bit.

Subscriptions can be found under the Library tab in YouTube Music. But on YouTube app, there is a dedicated tab for it. On the PC interface, the left pane has a separate section that lists all channels that you're subscribed to. Let us explore some features and interface elements related to YouTube: You can use some features of YouTube without signing in. All features that use personalization become available after you sign-in with your Google account. As discussed in the last chapter, if you use the same Google account on YouTube Music, you will get an integrated experience with your playlists and songs accessible on it.

You can search for videos by using keywords in the search bar. The search can be customized by using the Refine button, which allows you to select the items you are searching for (videos, playlists, etc.) and the Sort order (by views, rating, and recency). See figure

Figure 7.7: Search Refine options

The Refine button is present to the right of the search bar on the mobile app and its icon looks like a set of sliders. On the browser interface, the icon is below the Search bar and has Filter written next to it Video Every video on YouTube has the following information, namely: Title and The title is what shows up in different parts of the website and app, wherever you see the video listed. The video thumbnail is a small picture that shows up along with the title in different parts of YouTube, wherever the video is listed. It can be a frame from the video or it can be an image specifically designed to use as a Views and The popularity of a video is gauged by how many unique viewers have watched it. The number of likes indicates how any of those viewers liked the content. We'll discuss likes under the Video controls later in this section.

Viewers can leave comments for videos they watch on YouTube and many times, the collection of user comments adds an additional insight on the topic. Additionally, comments can also be liked/unliked and this causes useful comments to show up at the

top of the list. Video authors can optionally disable comments, so you may not see comments on all videos. We learned about hashtags in the last chapter. You can provide hashtags while posting a video. These hashtags can be used to search for the video. Player Player controls allow you to control and customize the video and audio for the video that is playing. These are present at different places in the app and the PC browser.

Here are some actions which control the player: The Play/Pause button allows you to play the video, and to pause and resume it. Time The time slider below the video pane allows you to see the duration of the video and allows you to jump to any time in the video, forwards or backwards. You can also move forwards or backwards by 5 s by using the Right or Left arrow keys on your keyboard. These buttons are often present next to the play button. The Next button plays the next video in the queue, and the Previous button goes back to the video which was playing previously. If you are playing a then the next button plays the next video in the playlist. Otherwise, the Next button skips to the next video in an autogenerated list. This list is visible on the right pane on the YouTube browser interface.

Auto If the Auto Play setting is on, the next video gets played automatically after the current video ends.

Volume control allows you to control the playback volume. You can choose from one of the available qualities to play the video in. The higher the video quality, the more data it would use to stream the video. By default, YouTube selects the quality which is best suited to your internet speed. Playback This allows you to play a video at a faster or slower speed. Both the audio and video get adjusted according to the speed selected. For example, 1.25X plays the video 25% faster and 0.75X plays it 25% slower. This is often useful for instructional videos which may have a pace that is too fast or too slow. Screen By default, the video plays in a small part of the screen. You can view it in full screen by clicking the Full screen button. On a mobile device, this can be done simply by turning the phone sideways. There are some additional buttons that also allow you to play the video on Smart TVs on the same WiFi network.

Annotations show subtitles for the video. These are sometimes provided along with the video. YouTube also auto-generates subtitles by analyzing the audio stream. Here are some actions you can take for the video:

Video actions:

You can like/dislike a video to provide feedback about the video to the creator and to YouTube. YouTube uses this information to grade the quality of content. If a video is popular and has more likes, it has a higher probability of being included in Recommendations by YouTube.

The Save button allows you to add a video to a playlist. You Tube has a pre-created playlist called Watch Additionally, you can create a new playlist under a Library tab, which will then start showing under the Save button.

You can share any video on YouTube using the Share link. This provides you with the URL to the video and you can share it using any app or program. Additionally, while sharing you can specify a start time, and the video would start playing from that time onwards.

The figure 7.8 shows player controls and video actions on a PC browser:

Figure 7.8: YouTube Player controls and Video actions on Browser https://youtube.com and

The figure 7.9 shows player controls and video actions on the mobile app:

Figure 7.9: Player controls and Video actions on YouTube app https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.google.android.youtube&hl=en_IN and

Post YouTube is a video-sharing platform and you can share your videos on it as well. To share a video, you can click on the + or Create button which is shown as a video camera icon with a + sign on it. You may upload a video that is on your device, record a new video, or go live. After the video, YouTube will prompt you to enter the video title, description, category, and tags. You can also choose whether the video is or Public videos can be discovered by other users using search. Private videos are only

visible to you. Unlisted videos are available to everyone but cannot be discovered using search, but you can share the link with anyone and they can use the link to view the video.

YouTube The Live feature allows you to broadcast a live stream that can be watched by viewers in real-time. Viewers can also chat with you and each other in real-time. After the live stream ends, you can make the recording available as a video.

Shooting and using videos

Videos let you capture moments so that you may experience them later. It is a great way to create memories of people, places, scenes, and sounds. The presence of cameras on PCs and handheld devices like smartphones and tablets has made it convenient to have a camera with you whenever you go. This poses some problems as well, as the video file you create may be shared or used in ways that causes some sort of a loss to someone. This loss can be both tangible and intangible.

One example of a tangible loss is when someone shoots a video of a performance or exhibit that they may have paid to experience. There is a risk that they could share that recording with others or make it available to the public. This can cause a direct loss to the performer or the seller, who is deprived of their due earnings in the form of sales, commissions, and royalties. When such content is received or downloaded, someone is using it without paying for it, which is considered as stealing or This is not just a matter of etiquette but enforced by law. Just like images, audio/songs and videos/movies are covered under the copyright law and acquiring and sharing a video without permission is considered to be illegal. There are also original audio/videos like songs and movies which are sold, rented, and exhibited for a price. Replicating and sharing these also amounts to Piracy. It is also considered illegal to use a copyrighted audio or video without the explicit permission of the owner. It may be worth mentioning

that when you watch videos or listen to music online, it's legal as long as the platform itself is legal and you are a valid subscriber of that platform. However, you are not allowed to download the media outside of that platform unless the platform explicitly allows you to.

The thumb rule to remember is that any audio/video or performance that you have paid for is intended for your own use, and you should not try to record, distribute or share it. And also, to abstain from consuming copyrighted videos you haven't paid for, or are not permitted to use. Aside from the legal aspects, downloading a pirated audio/video is laden with risk as it is coming from an illegitimate source and may be prone to containing malware. Let us now discuss another form of loss, an intangible one that videos pose.

Video privacy

When we capture a video, it can be shared. And anyone who sees that video can see the people in that video. This poses a privacy issue if the video has been shot without the permission of the people who are on the video. Thus, you must avoid recording video which has strangers. For the people you do know, it is best to ask for permission before you record a video, especially if it has minors as they may be more vulnerable. All of the points that we discussed under picture etiquette in the last chapter apply to videos as well.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we learned about analog and digital versions of both audio and video. We looked at some attributes of digital audio and video, their impact on quality and learned about some common file types for both. We then discussed ways in which you may acquire audio and video, and looked at how you may use the Camera app to shoot video. We also learned the different ways in which you may manage, modify and share an audio or video. We also discussed about audio and video streaming services and explored YouTube and YouTube Music. Toward the end of this chapter, we discussed about piracy and privacy.

In the next chapter, we will discuss about some common types of documents that can be used to boost your productivity and share information. We will learn about documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and PDFs, and look at their uses. We will also explore creating these documents using freely available web applications.

Key terms

Pitch Tone

Amplitude

Sample rate Bit depth

Bitrate

Framerate

Progressive

Interlaced

Playlist Piracy

CHAPTER 8 Productivity Apps

Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.

- Franz Kaf ka, Author

Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.

- Peter Drucker, Author, Educator and influential thinker on Management

In this chapter, we will learn about productivity applications, which are also commonly known as office applications. We will start off by introducing the common types of office file formats and the type of applications that can be used to create them. We will dive into each of these file types and look at some common operations you can perform on them, showing demonstrations from the Google Docs/Drive suite. Each of these formats and applications provides a plethora of features that have complete books dedicated to their practice and mastery. Our objective in this chapter is to get you started, so we will be focusing only on the basic operations and features. Toward the end of this chapter, we will also discuss about sharing, privacy, and some security considerations. Let us learn how to get productive!

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Introduction to productivity apps

Types of productivity apps

Documents Presentations

Spreadsheets

PDF

Sharing documents

File security and privacy

Objective

The chapter will introduce readers to Productivity or office applications. They will learn about the most common office file formats, namely, documents, presentations, spreadsheets and PDFs. They will understand the kind of applications that can be used to create, modify and view such files. They will also learn the usage and features of the Google Docs/Drive suite comprising of Docs, Slides, and Sheets. Readers will also develop an understanding of how security and privacy are relevant to productivity files and learn some best practices.

Introduction to productivity apps

In Chapter 2: Your Computer/Laptop and Chapter 4: we had discussed that humans gather information through their five senses, and most often, text, visuals, and sound are the mechanisms used by computers to convey information to users. We looked at Audio and Video in the last chapter and saw how a combination of pictures and sound is used to convey information. We will be looking at some other ways of structuring information in this chapter. In absence of these formats and apps, a human could convey this information to another human by meeting, talking and emoting and would have to rely solely on their memory. This would be an involved process that would repeatedly require their time and effort, whenever they wished to explain something to another human. By using structured formats, humans can store and communicate information to other humans with lesser repetition of effort. Thus, such applications are aptly named Productivity applications since they make humans more efficient and productive in and disseminating information. In the offline world, a simple piece of paper may be considered to be a productivity tool as it helps capture information, store and share it with another human, in the form of a letter, or with lots of people in the form of a published book like this.

In the digital world, any file containing information that is created by a user using a program, and intended for consumption by another user, may technically be classified as a Productivity file or

app. We have already seen some formats in which information may be captured and shared, namely, notes, email, images, and videos. But in common parlance, the terms productivity application commonly refers to those apps and files which are used to get work done.

We will be using the Google online app suite for the purposes of demonstration in this chapter. This is also known as the Google Drive or Google Docs suite. There are many other apps and programs available which provide similar functionality with a different but similar user interface; you may choose to use those as well. The concepts that we will discuss are not specific to a particular tool. For this chapter, our focus will be on the creation of office files on a PC browser as that is the more common usage pattern with the Google Drive/Docs suite.

Types of productivity apps

The three most common types of productivity files are documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. There is a fourth format called Portable Document Format that is also used commonly. We will also explore it later in this chapter. Let us look at the different ways in which applications for each of these files may be classified.

Editor vs. viewer apps

Applications that allow you to create and modify these file types are known as editor applications. Such applications are usually rich in features and options, which are accessible via tool bars, menu items/sub-items and keyboard shortcuts. These applications are rich in features and it takes some practice to gain a mastery of their full feature-set. The other types of applications are called viewer applications. These only allow viewing of files and don't allow modifications. These are quite light-weight and often useful for devices with smaller screens.

Offline vs. online apps

Offline applications are designed to work without an internet connection and store files on your device. Online apps work inside your web browser and store files on internet servers (also called cloud so they require an internet connection to work. Despite this classification, some offline apps do allow you to sync local files to cloud servers, and all online apps allow you to download cloud files on your device.

Native vs. web apps

Native apps have to be installed on a PC or mobile device, whereas Web apps work inside a web browser. Not all productivity suites offer native apps for all operating systems.

Free vs. licensed apps

Some applications are free to whereas some others require a license to be bought. Additionally, some paid applications may be free during a limited trial period, or may have a Freemium model where a subset of the features is free, but the full feature-set requires a Paid license.

Significance of the categorization

The categorization discussed is important to understand since you’ll commonly see combinations of these categories in productivity apps. Due to their extensive features, editor apps are more convenient to use on larger screens, hence you will commonly see full-feature editor apps on PCs and having a limited feature-set for mobiles. Viewer apps are mostly free, and editor apps can either be free or paid (freemium or trial) and may be available as offline or online (cloud) apps. Let us now look at some popular apps in these categories.

Some common apps

Here are some popular productivity app suites which are available for Windows, Android, or as web apps:

Microsoft Office and Microsoft is a pioneer in productivity apps and offers the Microsoft Office and 365 suites having the Excel apps, and some others apps like Outlook for email and OneNote for notes. The popularity of these apps is evident from the fact that the word Office is used to commonly refer to productivity apps these days. Microsoft offers paid Office apps and freemium 365 web apps. Viewer apps for Office are also provided for mobile devices.

Google Drive/Docs Google offers free editor and viewer apps as part of its suite, Google and Sheets with a limited storage quota (15GB at this time). Web-based apps are supported for browsers on both PC and Mobile, and mobiles also have native apps which can be downloaded from the Play Store. These apps can be accessed directly or via Google Drive web app at https://drive.google.com or via its mobile app

Apache OpenOffice The OpenOffice suite is an open-source solution that has offline native apps comprising of and Impress it is free to use.

LibreOffice from The Document Foundation originated from the OpenOffice suite and then evolved independently. It is also a free and open-source solution and has its own versions of offline native apps and

In this chapter, we will be using the Google Drive/Docs suite of web apps for demonstration.

Several editor and viewer apps are available for PDF files as well. The oldest and most popular suite for PDF files is Adobe Acrobat suite, which has editor apps that are Free/Freemium and support Cloud storage as well. The viewer app is free to use. In fact, the PDF format was created by Adobe itself and they later made it open source. Now, there are several viewer apps available for viewing PDF files on different OSs, and the format is considered universally acceptable. The Google suite also supports converting documents, presentations, and spreadsheets into the PDF format.

Documents

As the name itself suggests, document apps are used to work on documents that are intended to be printed on paper or read on a screen. This book was also written on a document app.

We will be using Google Docs for demonstration in this section, which may be accessed in a browser at the URL You may also access Docs via Google Drive (accessible at https://drive.google.com or via the Google Drive app). A document organizes information in the form of pages that can contain a combination of the following:

Formatted and stylized text.

Additional other elements like tables, pictures, table of contents, header, footer, etc.

Page Margin, tabs, and layout for the document.

We will look at each of these features in more detail later in this section. Let us first look at how documents are created.

Creating/opening/exporting a document

To work with documents, you can either create a new document or open an existing document file. This can be done via Docs or via Drive. See Figure

Figure 8.1: Google Docs Home [Credit: https://docs.google.com]

When you create a new document, you can choose from one of the available document templates, or choose to start with a blank

document. Templates provide pre-formatted document formats for specific uses, for example, for a resume, formal letter, report, etc.

Editable Document files have one of these extensions: and whereas .pdf is useful when the document is to be viewed but not modified. To open a file on your computer using Google Docs, you can upload the document file to Google Drive or Docs by dragging the file icon from your File Explorer to the Google Drive/Docs browser interface. Once the document is in Drive, you can simply double click to open it. You can also export any document in Google Docs to one of these common formats by choosing from the supported file types while exporting. Example: documents can be exported to PDF format using File | Download as | PDF so they can only be viewed and not edited.

As an exercise, let us create a blank document. To do this, simple click on + on Google Docs web interface. See figure Alternatively, you can click on + (Create) | Google Docs on the Google Drive interface. Let us look at some common text formatting features of document editors.

Text formatting

Document editors allow you to type-in text as paragraphs, and format and style them in many different ways. You have already seen some of these formatting options in the section on composing emails in Chapter 6: Figure 8.2 shows some commonly used text formatting options on the toolbar:

Figure 8.2: Google Docs Edit view [Credit: https://docs.google.com] These formatting options can also be found under the Format menu. Here are some text formatting elements:

Individual words can be formatted and styled using these.

Paragraphs can be styled as regular text or as headings and subheadings of different levels.

Alignment and This allows you to align text paragraphs to the relative to the page, which is useful for aligning text elements on the page, for example, to align the date on the right, or the subject in the middle. Line allows you to adjust the vertical space between lines and paragraphs. this allows you to create columnar sections in a page, which is especially handy for brochures and newsletters. You can structure lines as a bulleted list (like this one), or as a numbered list. Let us now look at some other elements that Google Docs can have.

Additional content

Documents can also have additional elements as well which helps add structure and richness to documents. You can add elements like pictures and tables which can make the information richer. You can also add page elements like a header at the top of the pages, footer at the bottom of the pages, and page Horizontal lines and page breaks can also be used to structure and logically break-down content. All of these elements can be added from the Insert menu and can be configured from the corresponding submenus under the Format menu.

Page layout features

These features help control the page layout and the space around the page elements, which is especially useful when printing the document on different page sizes. Here are some important page layout controls:

You can see and control the blank space on the top, bottom, left, and right of the page using This can be done in actual units like centimeter for the exact size of paper you choose. This makes it easy to layout the content ahead of printing the content. You can see the margins on the top and left of the page in Google Docs. You will see a marked ruler on the edge of the pane. See figure In case you do not see it, you may need to enable it from the View menu | Show The margins are shown in gray on the rulers and you can adjust them by hovering on the edge of the margin till you see an inward-facing arrow. See figure You can drag that arrow inwards or outwards to adjust the margin. As you do this, you will see the margin chosen get displayed, in centimeters:

Figure 8.3: Margins and indents in Google Docs [Credit: https://docs.google.com]

Left and right Left indents allow you to define the position at which the first line and the subsequent lines of the paragraph start. The right indents control where each line of the paragraph ends. Left and right indents can be adjusted using the ruler on the top of the page. To adjust the intent for the first line in the paragraph, look for a flat slider on the scale and drag it to the desired position. For the other line indents, on both left and right, look for a downward-facing slider just below the first line indent and drag it to the desired position. See figure You can have different indent settings for each paragraph.

Orientation and paper Orientation determines how the content is printed on the page, in portrait or in landscape mode. Portrait mode is where the height of the page is longer than its width, and Landscape mode is sideways of Portrait. You can also choose the page size that to print the document on. Doing this sets the exact size for the page in the ruler and allows you to choose

margins and indents accurately. You can choose the orientation of a page and the page type from the File menu | Page Let's now look at some other features which do not impact the document styling but are useful when creating document content.

Other useful features

Here are some other useful tools and features of Google suite: Spelling, grammar, and The spelling and grammar tools inspect your document content for spelling mistakes and grammatical errors and also suggest corrections. This tool is called spell check in some other editors. The dictionary tool allows you to search the dictionary for word meanings. Options for these can be found under the Tools menu. Word shows the character and word count in the document, which is useful when creating content with a word limit restrictions. It can be accessed from under the Tools menu.

Customizing the You can customize your view of Google Word by selecting the toolbars and elements to be shown and hiding all the rest from the View menu.

There are many other features in Google Docs and yet more in other offline document editors. We have covered the features that are used most-often. I would encourage you to explore the editor app that you use to try-out these features, and also explore additional features to learn how they work.

Presentations

Presentations allow a presenter to structure their ideas in a certain format and sequence. They also allow a presenter to uncover content in a gradual, incremental manner as they are presenting. Presentations are comprised of Slides that can be made visible one-at-a-time, and each slide has some content on it. This process of presenting slides one-by-one is called running a The word slide comes from times when content was printed on a transparent sheet and projected on a screen using an overhead projector. Presentation files are also called slide decks or a name derived from ppt which is a common file extension for presentations. Presentations are usually designed to be used as a visual aid as the presenter is explaining the topic verbally. It keeps the audience focused on the item being discussed and displays key ideas on the screen. So, it aligns well with how we explain something to someone in real life. We talk about each aspect of the topic one at a time, introducing the key ideas incrementallys as we do this, we move forward through the slides in the presentation.

Let us begin by discussing how slideshows are created on Google Slides.

Creating/opening a slideshow

Similar to documents (refer figure presentations can be either created afresh using one of the templates or by starting with a blank template; this can be done from the Google Drive interface or Google Slides Alternatively, you can upload and open existing presentation files similar to how we did for documents.

Presentation files commonly use the following file extensions for editable presentations: and For read-only presentations, you may also save to the PDF format from the File menu, similar to how we did for documents.

Let us begin by discussing some features of presentations.

Presentation features

Most of what we see in a presentation comes from slides, but there are some important presentation settings that are important to learn. Let us begin by exploring them:

Themes provide you with colors and styles for your presentation so that all your slides can follow a common consistent pre-set design. You can choose from one of the preexisting themes by clicking on Slide menu | Change Theme and choosing a theme on the pane that shows up on the right. You can also use an external theme by uploading a presentation that uses it:

Figure 8.4: Google slides edit view [Credit: https://slides.google.com]

Edit When you open a presentation, you are placed in Edit mode. You will see the name of the presentation on the top left and you can double click to modify it. The list of slides is shown on the left as thumbnails. You can select a slide on the left pane to open it and edit it in the main pane. You will see the toolbar and menu bar above the slide which helps you in editing and formatting the slides; the toolbar changes to show relevant options based on the element selected. Below the slide, you will see a text box where you can type in speaker notes. These are notes that you can refer to while presenting in presenter view which we’ll learn about. See figure

Presentation and presenter You can click on the Present button on the top right to start the See figure When you do this, you enter the presentation view and the current slide takes up the entire screen; you can navigate backwards or forwards using the arrow keys on the keyboard, or by clicking the mouse button. The Present button also has an additional option called Presenter view which can be accessed by clicking the downward-facing arrow to the right of the Present button. The Presenter view allows you (the presenter) to see a different view from the audience. The presenter view opens in a popup window, and the audience can see the presentation view that is shown in the main window. The presenter view shows the current slide; slide notes and runs a timer which indicates the time spent on that slide. The presentater view is really useful when using a secondary monitor or display for projecting the To return from the presentation view back to Edit mode, you can press the Esc key on the keyboard,

press the Exit button on the presentation control bar, or right click on any slide and select Slide A presentation has slides in a particular order. You can modify the order by dragging the slide thumbnails up or down on the left pane where the list of slides is shown. You can also copy and paste slides by right-clicking on the slides pane and choosing the appropriate menu option.

Let us now delve into slides, which contain the presentation content.

Slide content

Every slide has a layout that provides a convenient structure for the content that it can hold. Think of a slide layout as a template for a slide. You can choose from one of the slide layouts from the Slide menu | Apply You can also see the Apply Layout option if you right click on a slide in the left pane. You will see layouts listed for title slides, section headers, and many different styles of content slides. See figure

Figure 8.5: Slide layout in Google Slides [Credit: https://slides.google.com]

Please note that a slide template provides you a convenient template to start with, but does not restrict you from changing the layout or adding/removing some elements from it. A slide can also contain text elements that can be formatted. Most of the formatting options that we saw in documents are

supported here as well. These formatting options can be used from the tool bar or from the Format menu. The slide layout you choose will have some text elements already, and you can doubleclick them to add in text. You can also add a new text element from the tool bar, or from the Insert menu | You may remove text elements you do not need by selecting them and pressing the Delete key on the keyboard.

In addition to text, you may also add tables, images, and charts to your slides. You can also embed audio and video files to slides. You can add these elements using the Insert menu and control them using the Format menu after they have been inserted. Using Format menu | Format you can control how the playback of the audio or video gets triggered. Clicking Format Options brings up a pane on the right with the supported options. When this format pane is enabled and you select an element on the main pane like a slide or a textbox on a slide, all supported format options for that element will show up on it. For Example: if you insert an Audio file to a slide and then click on Format you may use the format pane to choose if that Audio clip should auto-play when the slide comes up, or play on mouse-click.

You can use a combination of text, tables, pictures, charts, and audio/video to convey rich information on your slides. Let us now look at some ways in which you may make your slides more interactive.

Slide animations and transitions

Using the elements discussed in the previous section, you can create rich slides which show information using a combination of formatted text, tables, pictures and audio/video. A slide can contain multiple pieces of information, which are all shown when the slide is displayed. When a slide is being displayed, it will reveal not just the point you are talking about but all the points you're doing to cover in the next few minutes. This is sometimes distracting for the audience as they may tend to jump ahead of what you are talking about; it also takes away the element of surprise from the presentation. Animations allow you to reveal the items on a slide gradually and in an interactive manner as you talk about them. Additionally, transitions allow you to use some special effects between slides. Animations and transitions can help you add an interactive element to your presentation. This is a novel feature which wasn’t supported with printed slides which were projected using an overhead projector in earlier days.

The figure 8.6 shows the Motion pane which can help you add these effects:

Figure 8.6: Motion pane in Google Slide [Credit: https://slides.google.com] You can apply slide transition by following these steps:

Select a Slide on the left pane. Click on the Format menu | Transitions to bring up the Motion pane on the right. The Transition dropdown shows the different effects. Choose any of those. You can also control the speed of the transition using the time slider.

To test the animation, click the Present button to enter presentation mode and move to the next slide using the arrow keys. You should see this transition effect when the slides change.

Press Esc to come back to the Edit mode. You can choose to apply the same animation to all slides in the presentation by clicking the Apply to all slides button below the speed slider. Animations can be added to any element on a slide, like a text box, an image, etc. See Figure You can apply an animation using the following steps:

Select a Slide on the left pane. Click on the Format menu | Transitions to bring up the motion pane on the right. Click on an element, textbox or image, etc. on the middle pane, you should see it is outline selected.

On the right pane, click on Add animation under Object Choose an animation to use for the selected object and select how the animation should be triggered. Animations can be added for multiple objects on the slide in this manner. You can choose to have each object animation separately triggered, or group objects by selecting with the previous object so that a single click triggers animation for multiple elements.

If element you have chosen is a text element/box containing multiple paragraphs or even bullets, you can choose to reveal the paragraphs/bullets one at a time by selecting the By paragraph checkbox.

To test animations on a slide, you can click the Play button at the bottom of the right pane and click on the slide to preview the animations. Presentations provide a structured way to present key information by breaking it down step-by-step into slides and slide elements, and are useful as instructional aids for teaching, sharing, and learning. Presentations complement documents that are also structured but are more detailed since they do not rely on someone presenting the information.

Let us now look at a productivity app that deals with numbers and calculations.

Spreadsheets

A spreadsheet is a file that contains multiple each worksheet being a two-dimensional grid/table of Spreadsheets may contain a single worksheet too and in such cases, the terms spreadsheet and worksheet are sometimes used interchangeably.

Spreadsheets allow you to take a series of numbers and perform a series of calculations using them. The calculations that were typically done on paper or using a calculator can be done automatically using spreadsheets. The advantage this offers compared to doing calculations on paper and pen is that you do not have to repeat these calculations manually for every set of inputs. You can define formulas in spreadsheets, and the calculations get done automatically as soon as a new set of numbers are entered in the relevant cells. The advantage of this over using a calculator is that the sequence of calculations can be defined in a spreadsheet. Calculations using a spreadsheet are also less error-prone and faster since they are automatic.

Some calculations use a series of numbers as inputs and perform an operation on them. For example: calculating total marks for a student, or calculating their average/mean marks. Such calculations may need to be done for all students in a class. Additionally, you may also need to find the average marks scored by students in a certain subject. Spreadsheets allow you to do such types of repeated calculations easily, and much more.

Besides calculations, spreadsheets can also be used to organize other types of data in a tabular format. Spreadsheets also allow you to selectively show the table rows based on the contents of the row’s cell in a particular column, called data or simply For example, to display only students who have scored passing marks. Filtering is useful for and dicing data. This comes handy in day-today business and personal activities such as tracking inventory, sales, and maintaining To-Do lists. A spreadsheet can also be used as a simple database. Let us explore more about using spreadsheets.

Creating/opening a spreadsheet

Similar to documents and presentations, you can create a spreadsheet from Google Drive or from the Google Sheets web app When creating a spreadsheet, you can choose to start with a blank spreadsheet or choose a template if you find one matching the purpose of your spreadsheet. You can also upload and open spreadsheet files in the same way as you did for documents and presentations. Some common editable spreadsheet file types are and The latter two files contain only data without any formatting. Read-only spreadsheets can also be saved as .pdf files.

The scope of what you can do with spreadsheets is a vast subject that has complete books dedicated to it. We will only attempt to introduce you to some commonly used features which will help you get started with usage of spreadsheets. Earlier in this section, we learned that a spreadsheet is a collection of worksheets. Let us begin by understanding what a worksheet looks like.

Worksheet layout and cell operations

A worksheet is structured like a grid or table with rows and See Figure

Figure 8.7: A Spreadsheet in Google Sheets [Credit: https://sheets.google.com]

Rows have numbers and columns have alphabets assigned which show in the header, which is shown along the top or the left of the table. A cell is identified by the row and column that it falls in. For example, the 6th row and 3rd column in the worksheet is identified by This identification is important when writing formulas, which we’ll learn about shortly. It is assumed here that the cells are from the same worksheet where it is being referenced. To reference a cell in another worksheet, you may use the cell's fully qualified identifier, which mentions the sheet name, row number, and column number. For Example: Cell C6 in Sheet2 may be referenced by For the purposes of our discussion, we will only be

working with cells in the same worksheet, so we will use the shorthand form of the cell identifier, C6 in the above example.

You can adjust the width and height of a cell by dragging the header boundaries of its column and row respectively. In case the value in a cell in longer than its size, it will spill to the cell on its right. To avoid this, you can enable Wrapping for the cell(s) by selecting Format menu | Text Wrapping |

You can move cells right or down by inserting cells on its left or You can insert one or more cells or a complete row/column by either selecting some cells or a row/column, and then choosing from one of the insert options in the Insert menu. Similarly, cells can be selected and deleted; this moves cells on its toward the

Cells in a worksheet can be formatted according to their contents and formatted appropriately. For example: If you specify the format of a cell as its value is multiplied by 100 and % is automatically added as a suffix. You can select the cell(s) and choose a format from Format menu | Number to do this. See Figure

Figure 8.8: Cell formats in Google Sheets [Credit: https://sheets.google.com] By default, contents of a cell are treated as Text. Google Sheets also detects the contents of a cell and tries to automatically apply the matching number formatting. For example: If you enter 25-Feb2020 in a cell, it will be automatically formatted as a To check, double click again on that and you will notice that the value is in a different date format.

Adjacent cells can also be combined together to create one larger cell which spans across multiple rows or columns, called To do this, select the cells to be combined and then choose one of the options from Format menu | Merge The same menu also has an option to split a previously merged cell.

Formulas and functions

We saw in the last section that cells can contain different types of values. Alternatively, cells can also have values that are derived from other cells. Any cell which contains a derived value must begin with the = sign. This signifies to the app (Google Sheets in our examples) that the value is a formula that has to be calculated. There are two ways to specify how to derive a value:

Specify the formula yourself. Use a built-in function provided for standard operations.

A cell that has a formula will display the output of that formula. If you want to see the formula instead, you can select that cell and the formula will appear in the formula See figure To change the formula, you can either change it directly in the formula bar, or you can double click on the cell to show the formula and modify it. Once you’re done, just hit the Enter key on the keyboard to apply the formula. Let us look at an example of this: Assume that the cells and E1 in a worksheet contain marks that a student has scored in different subjects. If you wanted to calculate the total marks in cell you can write a formula yourself in cell F1, Alternatively, since you're doing a standard ADD operation, you could also use the SUM function and write the following value in F1: When you have continuous cells like these in a formula, these

are called as a and the formula can also be written using the first and last cell with a : in between. For example,

Table 8.1 shows some sample formula and functions in use:

use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use: use:

Table 8.1: Sample Spreadsheet formula

These are just some examples of formulas and functions, there are numerous other built-in functions, and I would encourage you to explore them on your own. You can browse the list of supported functions from the Insert | Function menu. Hovering over each function name displays what that function does. Let us now explore the PDF format and its uses.

Portable Document Format (PDF)

PDF is a popular file format that was developed by the company Adobe and later open-sourced. There are many compelling reasons for using PDF files to exchange information, some of which are:

You do not require a different reader app for each file type like documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. PDF viewers are supported natively in most OSes.

Most browsers have the capability to display PDF files.

PDF files have predictable layouts, and get shown exactly the same way on screen and when printed.

PDFs can be made read-only to protect against unintentional or intentional modification so are perfect for sharing documents that the readers don't need to, or shouldn't modify.

PDF files can be digitally signed. PDF files can be secured with a password.

PDF files are often smaller in size compared to the native files.

PDF files offer a convenient way to share a set of images in one file.

There are some cases where a PDF might not be the appropriate format for information exchange, some of which are:

The artifact is not complete yet and the person you're sending it to needs to collaborate and modify the file

The complete content of the file, including non-visible elements need to be shared with someone. Example: formula in a spreadsheet The artifact is not intended to be final. For example, A spreadsheet containing formulas where someone needs to enter data and the values on the sheet are calculated based on the input data. The files make use of some specialized features of the native app. For example: if the presentation contains embedded audio or video which needs to play when the slide shows.

Converting to PDF

The native way to create PDF files is by using PDF writer software. This allows you to create PDFs, and optionally sign them digitally, and add encryption. Many of the PDF writer apps are paid and different apps have a different interface. As such, PDF creation using PDF writers is something you will rarely need to do as a basic user, so we are not covering it here.

Most times, you will need to convert your documents, presentations, and spreadsheets into PDF. See Figure

Figure 8.9: PDF download in Google Sheets [Credit: https://sheets.google.com]

You may follow these steps to convert any of these files to PDF format on the Google suite apps: Open the file in the web app, Google Docs, Google Slides, or Google Sheets

In the File menu, click on Download as and choose Doing this will download the PDF file on your device. See figure Now that we have talked about the four popular file formats, let's discuss some ways in which you can share these artifacts with other people.

Sharing documents

Just like images, productivity app files may be shared as files or they can be shared by providing access to the artifact online. Let us discuss a few considerations of these methods:

Sharing as Sharing using files is useful for most scenarios when you are sending a file to someone using a standard file format and they have their own app for viewing and editing it. This is most convenient due to its flexibility. But the moment you send a file to someone, you lose control of it and can no longer control what they do with it, or who they share it with. This often becomes an important consideration when the artifact you are sharing has either some sensitive information or some proprietary information that can cause a loss to you if copied. The other disadvantage of sending someone files is the file size consumes bandwidth to send and will also need storage on the receiving end. We will discuss another repercussion of sharing files in the section on Privacy and later in this chapter.

Sharing The other alternative is to share the artifact online, which is possible with web-based apps. To share a document, spreadsheet, or presentation on Google apps, you can click on the Share button on the top right to bring up the Sharing options. See figure

Figure 8.10: People and link sharing on Google App suite [Credit: https://sheets.google.com]

There are two ways to share online: By specifying the recipient's email When you share with individuals, you can also specify if they are allowed to view the document and comment on it, or also edit it. This is extremely useful for collaboration, for group edits, or for peer review within a team or a group.

With an anonymous private With an anonymous link as well, you can specify similar privileges, namely, and but the same privileges would apply to everyone with the link since the sharing is anonymous. Anonymous link with View/Comment is useful for sharing non-sensitive information with a large number of people where re-sharing is acceptable to you and you don't have everyone's email ID with you.

In addition to these, you can control what or Viewers may do with the file. By default, Editors can add more people to share the file with, and all viewers can download, print and copy any file that is

visible to them. You can restrict these actions from the Sharing settings as shown in figure Let us now look at some privacy and security aspects of productivity files.

File privacy and security

Documents and spreadsheets are intended to store information and data which may contain confidential, personal, or sensitive information at times. These files should be treated the same way we treat physical documents, as someone with unauthorized access to these files may misuse them the same way both in the online or offline world.

Moreover, productivity files are often plagued by viruses and other malware. There is also a special type of malware called Macro that affects productivity files. Legitimate macros are useful programs that users may write to execute inside productivity apps. Macros can be misused for mala fide intents and may be used to infect your computer with malware. So, we should be especially careful with files we receive from other people.

Here are some best practices that can help safeguard you from some common risks associated with productivity apps:

Avoid storing sensitive account and financial information like account numbers and passwords in documents, or sharing them over email. There are some special types of apps called vault apps that can be used to safely store sensitive documents online.

Never open documents that you receive from unknown sources.

Always scan documents you receive from anyone using Antimalware apps before opening them.

Never enable macros in productivity apps unless you're absolutely certain that the document is from a trusted source. Macros are commonly used in files that are provided by the government for tax filing, and you may need to enable macros for such scenarios. Access to Google Drive and app suite is via your Google account password, so you should use a strong password and change it at regular intervals.

Avoid sharing documents which have any personal information using anonymous sharing.

Disable download for viewers and re-sharing for editors unless you have a specific need for these features.

Disable sharing once people have viewed your file.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we learned about productivity apps and looked at the various categorizations of productivity apps. We then looked at documents, presentations, and spreadsheets and explored some of their common features using Google's suite of apps. We also looked at PDF files and some of their advantages. We then explored the different ways in which you may share documents, presentations, and spreadsheets. Toward the end of the chapter, we looked at some privacy and security considerations when using productivity apps and files.

In the next chapter, we will learn about maps and their uses in the online world. We will explore Google Maps and look at the different things that you can do with it.

Key terms

Productivity apps Presentation

Spreadsheet

Margin Indent

Slideshow

Transition

Animations

Formula

Functions Macros

CHAPTER 9 Maps

I've always been fascinated by maps and cartography. A map tells you where you've been, where you are, and where you're going – in a sense its three tenses in one.

- Peter Greenaway, Film Director and Screenwriter A map says to you. Read me carefully, follow me closely, and doubt me not… I am the earth in the palm of your hand.

- Beryl Markham, Author, Aviatrix, and the first person to fly solo across the Atlantic

In this chapter, we will learn about digital maps. We'll start off our discussion with traditional paper maps and look at the information they convey. We'll then see how digital maps provide the same information and explore some of their additional features. We'll then walkthrough some common features of the Google Maps app. So, let's begin this journey and see where the map leads us.

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Introduction to Maps

Paper Maps

Digital Maps Google Maps

Conclusion

Objective

This chapter discusses digital maps and their uses. Readers will understand the key concepts used by paper maps and the novel features that digital maps offer in comparison. It also introduces Google Maps and walks readers through some of its typical operations.

Introduction to Maps

Maps allow us to visualize the earth and the places on it. You may have noticed that a globe does the same. However, a key difference between the two is that a globe visualizes the earth as it is, as a three-dimensional sphere, nearly round and spinning on its axis. A map, on the other hand, provides a flat twodimensional visualization, as seen from a top-view. The purpose of maps is to help you visualize and navigate the earth, and to help you get from one point to another. Maps may be of different types, and the two most basic ones are:

A physical map provides a visualization of the terrain, and is a good way to understand which parts have water bodies, mountains, dense forests, and uncovered land.

A political map provides a visualization of political boundaries and represents how the land has been divided into countries, states, and cities.

These are useful individually when studying or focusing on a particular aspect like terrain or countries, states and cities. However, for practical navigational purposes, a combination of these proves to be more useful.

Maps were traditionally printed on paper. Therefore, let's start by looking at how paper maps are structured.

Paper maps

Physical maps can either be printed on a large foldable paper, or in the form of a book consisting of different parts of a larger map. World maps are printed in a book format, called Atlas, which has a lot of information about countries, capitals, population density, etc. Here are some key concepts related to physical maps:

When we create maps, we represent large areas of land on a much smaller area of paper. The ratio of the actual distance on land to the actual size on paper is called as a map scale and is indicated by an actual scale often drawn on the corner of the map. It indicates the actual distance that each centimeter of the map represents. For example: 1000 kms may be represented by 1 cm on a World map printed on a B4 size paper, and the scale in this case would be 1:100000000. When the same size of paper is used to represent a smaller land area, like that of a country, the scale will change and more details can be seen. For example, 1.5 kms may be represented by 1 cm for a map of New Delhi printed on a B4 paper, and the scale of such a map may be 1:150000. The higher the ratio in the scale, the more detail the map will show. A detailed roadmap may have a typical scale of 1:10000. Paper maps are often printed with North aligned with the top of the page. Wherever this is not the case, there is a compass shown with a North pointer on the map.

Grids and Paper maps typically divide the map into a grid consisting of alphabets and numbers similar to what we discussed for spreadsheets in the last chapter. Each grid in a high-scale map may have a detailed map, which is produced when you use the entire paper to show the contents of that cell. Further, each location in a paper map is mapped to a page number and cell, which can be found in the index. This technique is useful for browsing a printed map in one of two ways:

Begin from a city, locate cell for an area and find detailed map for that area and keep repeating until you find the place you're looking for in that area. This assumes you know the approximate location of the place.

Begin from an alphabetical index; find the location you're looking for and the page and grid that it appears on. You can then move to the higher-level map to see where the area is located. This approach doesn't require you to know which area a place is located in. Colors and symbols are used to indicate hospitals, school, major roads in a map, places of worship and bus stops among other things. You can interpret these symbols using a legend key.

As you may imagine, it would take a lot of paper to show street maps of an entire city. For example, a street map book of the city of New Delhi printed in the year 2010 had 300 pages. You can

imagine how many books it would take to have street maps of all cities in the world. It is also worth noting that it takes time and effort to find places on a map. And figuring out the route from one place to another takes even more time as you have to locate both places, the areas they are in and trace the roadway through the grid cells that lie between the two places. Now that we've discussed the storage, time, and effort constraints of paper maps, let us look at how digital maps work.

Digital maps

Digital maps allow you to store map data digitally and navigate it using a screen. They also allow you to search map data for places and find routes between places. Digital maps are available on dedicated devices, which have map data stored on them, and also as apps on your smartphone/tablet/PC, which provide Map features using the internet and your device's hardware sensors.

In this chapter, when we discuss digital maps, we'll focus on online map apps on a smartphone/tablet. Maps may be used in a web browser too using similar steps, but some features like navigation are not available on the browser interface. Some of the concepts that we discussed for paper maps such as scale and direction apply to online maps as well. You change the scale by zooming in and out using pinch in/out gesture on your device, and the direction can be made to orient with your device, or to the north. You can also set the orientation manually. Digital maps provide all the features present in paper maps, and also some additional features. Let's now look at some of the extra features.

Place

Any place on earth can be located up to 10-meter accuracy, using the coordinate system that uses latitude and longitude.

Longitude is an imaginary line running along the surface of the earth, from the North Pole to the South Pole. There can be many such lines so each line is described by its angle with the reference Longitude line, which runs through the Greenwich Observatory in London, and is called the Prime The angle can be towards east or west.

Latitude is a line that runs around the earth parallel to the equator. There can be many such lines above and below the equator and any of these lines can be described by the angle formed between the latitude line, the equator line, and the center of the earth. Lines above the equator line are indicated with North, and lines below the equator with South.

Latitude and longitude may be described in degrees, minutes and seconds, or they may be expressed in decimal degrees. Any place on earth has one latitude line and one longitude line passing through it, and so every place can be described using a combination of the coordinates of these two lines. For example, the coordinates of the war monument "India Gate" in New Delhi can be expressed as 28° 36' 46.71'' N 77° 13' 46.2792'' E or as "28.612926, 77.229511". You may recall that we had discussed

embedded location in pictures in Chapter 6: Your location is stored in digital photos using its latitude and longitude. Maps also use the same coordinate system to describe locations and places.

Digital Maps also have places added on different locations. A place has several properties like name, the physical address, and other contact details. If the place is a business, it may contain reviews from customers too. We'll discuss reviews in a later chapter in this book. You can search for a place on the map either with its name, or with the latitude and longitude of its location.

Source, destination, and distance

To find routes or directions using a digital map, you would first have to search for a destination place/location, and then seek directions to it from a source place/location. The Google Maps mobile app can also detect your location and use it as the source location. Your smartphone has a GPS sensor that uses GPS satellite signals to precisely detect your latitude and longitude. Your PC browser can also detect your location if you provide the website permission to do this, but this is approximate since it's done on the basis of your internet connection/service provider.

Digital maps also show the distance from the source to the destination location. The distance is shown via the travel path for your mode of travel. Let's now look at how route and travel time are calculated.

Route, time, and mode

In the real world, route and travel time depend on the mode of travel. Traveling from one place to another could be fastest if you drive. However, if you used public transit, for example, a combination of the metro and the bus system, you may have to interchange between them and your travel time would depend on not just the distance but the metro/bus schedules too. If you decided to walk, you would not be limited to roads and could walk through parks and pedestrian pathways. In fact, sometimes, it may be faster to walk some distances on foot in a busy metropolitan than to drive. Road travel may also be affected by the traffic on the road, and it may take longer to travel the same distance during rush hour compared to rest of the day. Road closures may also affect your travel time as you may have to take a longer alternate route.

Online maps have a clear strength in this area as they take all these factors into consideration while suggesting you travel directions:

Historical travel Just like you, many other users also use the same online maps service on their phone, while they're in transit. Map services use this crowd data to determine the average travel time on a road, during different times of the day. When seeking directions, you can select a later date and time in case you're doing travel planning for a later time. In such cases, the map would show the time based on historical data.

Traffic patterns and disruptions Map services also use near realtime data from other mobile devices and by using this, it can come to know of a bottleneck or a road closure or a vehicle breakdown, and show it on the online map within a matter of a few minutes. It also uses this information to adjust the estimated travel time, and sometimes suggest you an alternate faster route.

Mode of Online map services also allow you to specify your intended mode of travel. You may choose to drive, ride a bike, take the public transit or walk. The route and travel time would be shown based on the mode you choose. Map services also use public transit schedules and the route shown will consider the walking time between bus stops and the time you'll have to wait for the next bus to arrive. The public transit option is only available for some cities in the world.

Let us now look at Google Maps, which is a popular online maps service.

Google Maps

Google Maps is the most popular maps service in the world. It's compatible with all mobile devices and is free to use. You may use Google Maps using its web interface https://maps.google.com or its mobile app that comes pre-installed on most smartphones. In case your mobile device doesn't have the app, you may install it from the Play Store at

Google Maps supports different views, like a satellite terrain or the default You can also customize the view, and choose between 3D or street traffic or public transit These options can be controlled from the stack icon shown on the map. The maps interface also has a round crosshair icon, and clicking it changes the map view to show your current location, as the maps service auto-detects it. We encourage you to explore these options and observe how it changes the map view.

Let's look at some typical functions on Google Maps.

Planning a trip

You can plan a trip from one location to another using Google Maps using the following steps:

Open the Maps app.

In the search bar on the top, enter the destination that you'd like to travel to. It could be a business name, a place, or location coordinates. As you enter, you'll see multiple places options which match your search criteria. There could be places with matching names from multiple countries and cities. The address is also shown below the place name and the distance (from your detected location) is shown on the left.

Choose the place from the options by tapping on it. In case multiple suggestions are shown, you can often narrow down the correct location based on its address or the distance from you. Matches from other cities will have a much farther distance shown.

The map view changes to show the location on the map and on the lower end, you'll see the name of the place, its address and various action buttons. You can swipe left/right to see all the actions. There are action buttons for and

Click on the Directions button to show driving directions from your current location to the destination.

The map view will change to show the following:

Source Shown on top and has Your location set as default; this detects your location using the phone's location sensor. You can change the source to a different location if the trip you're planning begins from somewhere else, using steps 2 and 3 above. Shows the location that you selected in Step 3.

Icons and travel times are shown for different modes of travel below the source and destination. You may select from car, bike, or walking. Some cities will also show a subway if subway/metro and bus routes are available for the city. A ride option may also be shown for some cities, which allows you to book popular cab services in that city from within the map. Select a mode from this list. Once you select a the map changes to show the map view of the directions from the source to the destination in a zoomed-out view. This doesn't show street level maps as the zoom level is showing an overview. But you can explore it by zooming in and out. The view may also show multiple routes if available. The recommended route is shown in blue, and alternate routes are shown in gray. You can click on a gray route to select that instead of the recommended one.

Start The Start button can be used to start the trip; clicking it changes the map to Navigation mode. We'll discuss the Navigation mode in the next section.

Steps and This button changes the view from the Map mode to Text mode that shows the different travel segments in the route.

Departure Time: You may select a departure time if you want to take the trip at a later time. You can also enter the arrival time if you need to reach somewhere at a particular time and want maps to recommend the Start time accordingly. This can be done by clicking on the 3-dot menu next to Source Location and selecting Set depart or arrive

You can optionally add a Stopover/Stop along your route and the routing shown would get modified accordingly. To add a click on Add Stop in the 3-dot menu next to the Source location. This would add a new text box for Stop below the source and the destination. You can select a location/place for the Stop the same way you selected it for the source and destination. You'll also notice that each of the location text boxes has two parallel lines on the right. You can use these lines to drag-and-drop the stops up and down to set the order of locations along the route. Click on the Finished button once you're done with adding and ordering stops. This will bring you back to the Map view and the route and travel time will get updated to show the stop that you added. Each location (the Destination and Stop) is indicated by an alphabet, which is also shown on the map.

Let's now look at the navigation features of Google Maps.

Navigation

As we discussed in the previous section, clicking on the Start button in Map view switches the app to Navigation This view allows you to use your phone for navigation as you're traveling. If you're driving, you must dock your phone on your car's dashboard using a stand or have a co-passenger hold it, so that you can focus on the road. The same goes for walking as well, you must be aware of your surroundings as you walk and watch the phone screen. In the Navigation mode, the app provides you voice directions. The maps app switches to Street indicating the route by a blue line. Your location is shown by a moving white dot on the route. The map orientation, view and zoom level adjusts automatically as you travel and shows your current location on the route. The current direction is shown above the map, and the upcoming/next direction is shown below it in a smaller size. The bottom portion of the screen also shows the estimated trip time remaining, the distance left to cover and the estimated time of arrival.

You can pinch out to zoom, or drag to pan the map manually in this mode. To come back to the current location, you can click on the Recenter button shown on the map. The map exits from the navigation view once it detects that you have arrived at your location. You may also exit from the navigation view by clicking on the cross button on the bottom bar.

Google Map also has options to turn off sound notifications from other apps on your phone, to avoid distractions while navigating. You can also report traffic disruptions such as congestion and road closure along your route by clicking on the + icon. These user reports are used by maps while suggesting directions for other users, as discussed earlier in this chapter.

Let's now look at the kinds of information you can share from Maps.

Sharing

You can share places and routes using the maps app in the following way:

Sharing a In Step #4 of Planning a trip section, we saw that action buttons appear once you've selected a place. The Share button on this screen can be used to share the location. Clicking the Share button will bring up the sharing options on your smartphone/tablet and you can choose an app to share the location on. For example: you can choose Gmail app, and a new e-mail with the map directions link will come up. You can enter a contact's e-mail address and send the e-mail to share the directions with them.

Sharing a In Step #6 of Planning a trip section, directions were shown. In the Directions view, you can click on the 3-dot menu and select Share directions to share the route with a contact. Doing this will bring up the sharing options on your smartphone and you can choose an app to share on, similar to how you did it in the last point.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we learnt about the characteristics and usage of paper maps. We then learnt about digital maps and discussed some of their novel features. We introduced Google Maps and explored some common workflows such as finding directions, navigation and sharing, places and routes.

Earlier in this book, we discussed about e-mail, which is one of the ways to communicate with people. In the next chapter, we will begin our foray into some more ways in which you can communicate with people using the internet. The next chapter will cover social media. We'll look at what social media is, and discuss some concepts and terminology related to it. We'll also explore some popular social media services, go over their commonly used features, and discuss some best practices for using these services.

Key terms

Map scale Legend

Latitude

Longitude Map directions

Map navigation

CHAPTER 10 Social Media

It seems perverse that we can be more social than anyone would have thought possible when we are at our most anti-social, locked away from the world and silently staring at a computer screen, but that, as psychologists will tell you is the way we operate. When we are at the maximum of our disconnect, we also are ready to connect and feel the need for interaction. - David Amerland, Author and Speaker

If you are on social media, and you are not learning, not laughing, not being inspired or not networking, then you are using it wrong.

- Germany Kent, Journalist and Author

In this chapter, we will learn about social media. We'll begin by discussing the concept of social networking which is the practice of using social media apps and websites. We'll also explore the different types of social media websites and understand the terminology associated with them. We'll then deep dive into some popular social media websites and discuss how these concepts are applied on them. We'll discuss some privacy considerations and recommendations for privacy settings on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Towards the end of this chapter, we'll also talk about social media etiquette.

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Introduction to social networking

Types of social networks

Social media terminology Instagram

Twitter

Privacy on social media

Social media etiquette

Objective

This chapter focuses on social networking. Readers will become familiar with the different types of social networks, their concepts and terminology. Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are introduced and their common operations and features are demonstrated. The chapter will also create an awareness of privacy and discuss the privacy controls provided by these social networks. The chapter also discusses social media etiquette.

Introduction to social networking

In the words of Aristotle, Man is a social As we go through life meeting people, we create circles or networks. For example, we have circles of people from our school, our college, our neighborhood, our family, and so on. Basically, a circle is a group of people who have something in common. We saw this in figure 3.1 in Chapter 3: The Internet where we explored an example of a human network. On the Internet, we can connect with people either actively or Active communication is communicating with someone specifically. Let's explore how this maps to the real world. In real life, we actively connect with people by meeting them or talking to them on the phone. We meet people in groups too, and more often than not, the group belongs to a single circle. For example, your neighborhood friends' group or a circle of your school friends. To actively connect with someone, certain practical consideration comes into play; you'll both have to agree on a mutually convenient time to connect or talk and be available. Passive communication is communicating with a large group together, with no one in particular. There's no notion of passively connecting with your circle in the real world; there's no simple and natural way to let everyone in your circle know what's happening in your life and get to know about theirs. This is one of the key gaps that social media attempts to fill.

Social media is any website or app which allows you to share information with your Imagine having an ability to share an

update with everyone you know without having to send them that update specifically. It's like having a large notice board for your life which is visible to everyone you know. This network is like a circle of trust which is controlled by you. It can be comprised of people from different circles in your life. Many social media websites have mutual or bi-directional networks; when you choose to add someone to your network; you're added to their network as well. Social media also allows you to react to the information shared by people in your

On the Internet, you may connect with people either actively or When you connect with someone you'll typically reach out to them specifically to share something. An example of this could be sending an email to a person, or even to a group of your college friends. They could Reply all to the email, and you could have a group conversation of sorts over email. There's also passive communication which is made possible via social media, where you can share some information with everyone in your circle, without sharing it with anyone in particular. For example, you can share a picture of your birthday with your network of and your friends from different circles in your life can react to it. Moreover, everyone can see everyone else's reaction. The term Friend is used a bit loosely here and is used to represent a trusted contact who's part of your network.

This passive way of communication using social networks allows you to stay in touch with your friends more easily. It allows you to share information and view information they're sharing without having to actively connect with them. Most social networks also provide features for active communication, so you could also send

someone in your network a private message, or share something specifically with a small group of people in your network. We'll see each of these features as we discuss about social media terminology later in this chapter. In addition to interpersonal networking, social media is also used by companies to share updates with their customers. Companies and brands use social media to share about their product lines, sales promotions, accomplishments, and even for sharing informative articles about their industry. Customers can react to these, which creates a bi-directional communication channel between companies and their customers, which didn't exist before we had social media. We'll discuss the semantics of this communication in the social media terminology section layer in this chapter.

So, let's get started and learn how to be social on the Internet.

Types of social networks

Social networks may be classified by nature of networking that they are designed for. For example, LinkedIn is a social network intended for professional networking, and Facebook is a network intended for personal networking. Social networks may also be classified based on the primary type of content that they were designed for; though they may support additional types of content too. For example, Instagram and Flickr are popular among photography enthusiasts, and StarMaker and Smule are popular among those who like to sing and share karaoke songs.

It's important to note that many of these categorizations are just norms and may not be enforced as such. So, no one can stop you if you used LinkedIn to share a personal update, but it will seem out-of-place. This is something we'll touch upon again in the section on social media etiquette towards the end of this chapter.

So, let's get started by discussing some terminology related to social networking.

Social media terminology

A social network is a collection of people and the interconnections between them. It is also a collection of content generated by these users which has been organized in a certain structure. The operators of social media websites themselves don't create any content; it is the users of a social network who create content, also called posting The websites use algorithms to decide how and where to surface this content to other users, along with sponsored content and ads. These user postings, called posts for short, are the basic building blocks of content on any social network. The other important building block in a social networking site is the network itself, which is comprised of people and connections between them.

In this section, we'll talk about all the basic building blocks, terminology, and features related to social media and make an attempt to create a structure using which you may be able to understand most social media websites. We'll be using Facebook as an example throughout this section. By the end of this section, you will become familiar with the basic concepts of both social media and Facebook.

Since we're going to be using Facebook, let's first start by introducing it.

Facebook

Facebook can easily be called the most popular social networking site in the world. It's extremely rich in features. Most of the features that we'll learn about in this chapter are available on Facebook, and in fact, many of these were pioneered by Facebook.

Facebook can be used using its web interface https://facebook.com or its App. In case the App is not installed on your device, you can install it from the Play Store In this chapter, our demonstrations will use the web interface. The basic interface elements are similar in a mobile app, but the layout and settings may vary.

You will have to sign up for an account on Facebook before you can use it. To sign up for an account, you can go to https://facebook.com and click on Create new You'll be asked to enter your name, your email address or your mobile number, your date of birth, gender, and choose a password. See figure

Figure 10.1: Facebook Sign-up [Credit: Once you have created an account, you will receive a code on the email address or mobile number that you have chosen. This is done to verify your contact details. You'll have to enter that code on Facebook. Once this is done, you can sign-in and start using Facebook. Once you log in, you'll see your Facebook home page, which is also called the feed

To use Facebook effectively, you have to build your network by adding people to it. Let's understand more about people on a social network.

People profiles

As we learnt, every social network is a collection of Every person who registers on a social network has a profile also called profile for short. A profile helps people find you on the learn more about you, connect with you, view your and communicate with you. Facebook has something called a which shows the list of your life events and posts in a reverse chronological order on your

A profile can have the following information: This is the name which shows up on the top of your profile, and people can search for you using your name.

Profile A profile picture is a picture which appears on your profile and also appears with your name at different places on the website. It's also called profile pic, or display picture It's often square and appears in a circular shape in different parts of the website.

Cover This picture appears as a banner on the top of your profile page, like a masthead on a newspaper. Your These are the different pieces of information about you which may help other users find you and allow your social network to know about you. These could be details about your educational

qualifications, schools you attended, places where you worked, your hobbies, and interests.

Your These are the list of people you're connected to. On Facebook, your network is called your friends list. We'll look at it in detail in the subsequent section.

Your All the content you create can also be found on your profile and can be seen by a person if they have access. We'll learn more about this when we discuss about visibility under the anatomy of a post. Content where I'm Users on the social network can tag you in their content. All content where your name is tagged is shown on your profile too. Tagging a user is also called as a

As a user, you can control who has access to your profile. Controlling visibility to these can help you maintain your privacy on a social network. Different social networks give you different capabilities to do this which we'll discuss in this chapter. On Facebook, you can access your profile by clicking on the DP icon on the top-most bar, which has your name next to it. Once you are on your profile page, you can follow the prompts from Facebook to complete your profile by adding information about yourself. You can also find people by their name or email address in the search Clicking on their profile picture in the search results will bring up their profile page. See Figure

Figure 10.2: Facebook profile page [Credit: Earlier in this chapter, we learned that businesses also use social media. Let's now look at how this works.

Businesses on social media

Social media is also used by businesses to create their brand presence and interact with their customers. This provides a bidirectional channel of communication where brands can not only share updates with users, but users can also interact and communicate with brands. This provides a unique and instant channel of communication which didn't exist outside the Internet. Social media is also used by businesses to advertise. Businesses can place ads which are shown to users on a social network. These ads can be shown to a targeted set of users based on their age, location, and other demographics that they provide on their profile. When a user clicks on an interesting ad, they may be taken to the advertiser's Facebook profile, or to their website outside Facebook. Businesses pay to advertise to users, which generates revenue for social media websites, and helps keep these social networks free for users. Hence, in a way, users may be considered as products and assets for social networks, which inturn attracts advertisers and gets in ad revenue for the social network.

Different websites offer business profiles in different ways. Let us discuss how Facebook does it. Facebook allows you to create a page for a business, which is similar to a profile file for regular users. A page allows a business to mention its information, showcase its products via and also sell products. You may discover business pages on Facebook using the search feature. We'll see how people interact with pages in the next sections.

Let's now look at how people and businesses are connected in a social network.

Network connections

Any social networking site is a collection of people and the interconnections between them. When you register on a social networking site, you create a profile which would have information and content about you and your network. A network can be defined as the set of people who may view each other's content and interact.

Networks can be of one of the following types: Bi-directional (mutual In some social networks, this network relationship is mutual. For example, if you add someone to your network, you are in turn added to their network too, and you can see each other's information, posts and interact with each other. In such networks, people in your network are called contacts or You can usually add someone to your network by an action which is worded as Add Add Contact or Since this action sets up a relationship of mutual trust, it has to be done with mutual consent. Hence, when you add someone, they will get a request which they may approve or You're added to each other's network only if the request is approved by the person. Facebook and LinkedIn have a mutual network model.

Uni-directional There are some other websites where this network relationship is not mutual. In such networks, you build your

network with people whose content you're interested in. These are people you're following, or Following for short. In such networks, the action is usually worded as Follow or Likewise, others interested in your content may follow you. These are your followers. Following someone is not a mutual action, as it doesn't make them follow you. Hence, you'll have 2 networks in a unidirectional model: Following (people you are following) and Followers (people who follow you). Twitter and Instagram follow this uni-directional network model. In the followers network model, the default setting is for content to be public and to allow anyone to follow without approval. But you may choose to make your content visible only to your followers by making your account private; and in such cases, people can follow you only after you approve their follow request.

Some websites, like LinkedIn and Facebook, support both of these network models. You can follow someone to just access their posts, or you may add them as a friend/contact so both of you can access each other's posts, information, and communicate. In such cases, you would typically follow someone if you don’t know them personally but you’re interested in their posts, like in the case of celebrities or known personalities. In the previous section, we also learned that businesses can also use Facebook and they have a page instead of a Facebook pages follow a uni-directional mode. You can Follow Facebook pages in order to see their updates in your feed. You can also Like a page; doing this shows the page on your profile which indicates the businesses you are interested in.

Now that we've understood some nuances of networks, let's talk about some indirect ways in which people may have connections.

Indirect networks

In the beginning of this chapter, we had defined a circle as people who have something in common. But there could be cases where you have something in common with someone, but you don't know that person personally. For example, someone who attended the same course as you, but in a different batch.

Some social networks provide a feature called which is a way to build networks of users who may not know each other. Groups are useful when people have some common interests and want to share content related to the common area of interest.

Groups can be created by users and other users may join groups in one of these ways:

The group them.

The group owner shares an invite with them to join the group.

Users discover the group and request to join it and the group the request. Facebook also has and Facebook groups can be or

Open groups are like public groups where only group members may post, but posts can be seen by anyone.

Closed groups are like private groups where only group members can post and view content. Users may search for a group and request to join it

Secret groups are like closed groups with an additional restriction that they cannot be searched for. Users are added to the group by invitation only.

Now that we've understood people and let's look at the last building block of a social network, a

Anatomy of a post

Content is primarily added to a social network in the form of A post typically can have the following parts. However, all social networks don't support all of these, and even when they do, users don't have to fill all of these for all their posts.

Who This refers to the person who posted the content. Their name and profile picture is shown along with the post. What (text You can add text content with every post, which could be some text, a caption, or a

Media (photos and You can optionally add photographs or videos along with every post

Where You can optionally indicate a place along with every post. Places can be searched by their name. Someone viewing the post can click on the place/location to view it on the map.

With When you post, you can mention other users by their profile name; this is called tagging or When you do this, they get notified and the post is visible to their friends too. However, on some social networks, users may restrict who can see the posts that they are tagged in. We’ll learn more about this in the section on

Topic Along with the text content, you may also include We had learned about Hashtags in an earlier chapter. Hashtags offer an alternate way for people to search and view posts related to a particular topic.

Posts have a visibility setting which controls who can see the post. Posts can be made visible to or your or to one level beyond your network. On some websites, post visibility is inherited from the profile and you can't control it individually.

Activity or You can also choose an activity you're doing or how you're feeling. Some activities allow you to enter further details as well. For example, if you choose you'll be shown a list of holidays and occasions that you can choose from.

These are the basic parts of a post which are supported by popular social media websites. These are often used in combination. For example, on Facebook, if you indicate activity as Having tag a friend add a location at a restaurant then the post will appear as YourName is having dinner with ABC at In addition to this, some websites may have special types of posts which are known by different names. Some of these are as follows: Also known as status or moments on some social networks. These are posts which are available for a limited duration. Any

responses on these types of posts are sent to the poster as a private message. Check-ins are posts which are intended to indicate your presence at a particular location. For example, you can check-in at a movie theatre and indicate which movie you're watching.

A recommendation is a post asking for suggestions from your network. A live post allows you to start a video broadcast which can be seen by your network in Realtime. After the broadcast ends, the recording of the broadcast session is converted to a video post on your timeline. Watch A watch party is a post which allows you to invite people to watch videos with you. Different types of content appears in different sections of a social media website, and you may interact with it in many different ways. To create a post on Facebook, you can click on the section on the top which says What's on your The 10.3 shows the different Post options. Once you've selected all the options you want to, you can click on the Post button to make the content available with the intended audience that you selected:

Figure 10.3: Drafting a Facebook post [Credit:

Alternatively, you can click on the + sign on top-right corner to create different types of content explained above. The figure 10.2 shows this. Your recommendation live and watch parties show up in your friends' news Stories show up above the feed and they scroll left to right. Let's now learn more about what a news feed is.

Feed

Most social networks have an area that you can see as soon as you open the app or website, which shows posts from people you're friends with or people you follow. This is known as the news or feed for short. See figure

Figure 10.4: Facebook Feed [Credit:

The feed also contains some additional public posts which the website recommends to you based on some advanced algorithms. The feed loads more and more content as you scroll down. Ads and sponsored posts may also appear in the Every social network strives to make your feed relevant and engaging.

You may not have explicit control on what appears in your feed. However, some networks allow you to specify preferences for it. You can choose to see less or more posts from a person or page. This sets their posts to a higher or lower priority in your feed.

Now that we've seen where your friends view your content, let's look at how they may interact with it.

Content interactions

As seen earlier, users can create content on social media websites in the form of a or a specialized Each of these may contain text and additional media like photos and videos. The figure 10.5 shows how our Facebook post from the previous section appears to users in their feed after it has been posted:

Figure 10.5: A Facebook post in the feed [Credit:

Users may interact with content in one or more of these ways:

They can add a comment on your Some websites also allow you to add images and GIFs in comments.

They can reply to one of the existing comments; this enables each comment to transform into a discussion.

Users may like the post by using the thumbs up button, or choose from one of the user reactions which appear when you hover on the Thumbs up icon. Facebook has reactions such as and The Like button also appears on comments, and users can react to replies in the same way.

Viewers can choose to re-share your post on their timeline. It's important to understand that the repost links to your original post which retains all of its properties, including the visibility. On resharing, the visibility of the post cannot be made broader than you had specified for your post. For example: If you shared a post with visibility set to your network, and someone re-shared it, their post will be visible to only those people who are both in your network and theirs. The figure 10.6 shows the different sharing options which show on Facebook when you click on the Share button under a post.

Figure 10.6: Facebook sharing options Share on This option is specific to Facebook and it posts the message on a specific user's timeline where it can be seen by their network too. However, users can restrict who can see posts on their timeline. We’ll learn more about this in the section on Share You can also share a post in a private message with someone. The same rules as re-sharing apply to the attributes and the visibility. In the preceding example, if your friend shared your post with a person in their network but not in yours, your post will not be visible to them.

Private messaging

Most social networks also allow you to exchange private messages with those in your network. In case of networks which have a unidirectional network and you follow someone instead; they may have to approve or allow you before you can send them messages. On these private conversations, you can not only exchange text messages, but also share media files, posts, and other hyperlinks.

Private messaging on Facebook is available via the Messenger link on the top menu bar. See figure Facebook Messenger support 1-to1 and group messaging. If you receive a message from someone who's not in your network, you'll see it in message requests and you'll have to approve the message requests to allow communication. Facebook has a dedicated communication app for these messages too, also called This is available both as a standalone web app at https://facebook.com/messages and as a mobile app which may be downloaded from the Play Store We'll learn more about messaging apps in the next chapter.

In this section, we covered the basic terminology and concepts related to social media, and saw how they apply to Facebook. We'll discuss privacy considerations later in this chapter and share some best practices for Facebook. Let's now explore Instagram, which is a popular social network for sharing photos.

Instagram

Instagram is a social network which allows you to capture photos and videos on your phone and share with your followers. It originally became popular for allowing only square photographs to be shared and provided a set of filters you could apply to those photographs to stylize them. Over the years, it has massively evolved and now supports much more content than just square photographs. Instagram started off as an independent mobile app and was later acquired by Facebook. It now integrates seamlessly with Facebook and allows you to share the same post on both networks. As we learn about Instagram in this section, we'll use its mobile app interface as an example, as that's how it's intended to be used. However, it does have a web interface which allows you to browse through content and interact with it, but it does not allow posting of content.

When you sign-up for Instagram, you'll be asked to enter your name, choose a username/ID, your age, an email address, or a phone number. Your ID is important here since this is how people will find your profile or mention you. The email ID/phone number that you enter will be verified before your account is created. You'll be also asked to choose your preferred language and shown recommendations of people you can follow. You can skip this if you want and come back to it later.

We'll use the understanding we developed about social media terminology to understand how Instagram works. In fact, you can

use these questions to quickly understand the key features of any social network:

Type of Network: A social network for sharing photos and videos captured using a mobile phone.

Type of content supported: Photos and videos with captions.

People profiles: When signing up on Instagram, you can choose a username and enter some basic information like your name, biography and a URL for your website. Your username is unique on Instagram. Your Bio is a short introduction about yourself. You can also choose a square profile picture which is shown in a circular icon on your profile and throughout the app wherever you comment. Your profile can be found using your name or People can also tag you on posts using your The figure 10.7 shows an Instagram profile:

Figure 10.7: Instagram Profile and Timeline [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.instagram.android]

Profile Instagram allows you to make your profile and posts either or If your profile is then anyone may view your posts and follow you. If your profile is then your posts are visible only to your followers and you have an option to follow requests.

Business Instagram allows you to create a business profile which looks similar to a user profile but has additional capabilities.

Instagram doesn't have separate profiles for businesses but any profile can be marked as a business This would give you access to advanced features like advertising and analytics. Advertising allows you to promote your posts to a target audience by running a paid advertising campaign. Analytics allows you to view statistics about your audience and followers. Network Instagram has a uni-directional network. That means, you can follow someone if you want to view their posts in your These are shown under Following on your profile page. Users can choose to follow you as well, if they want, but they don't have to. The list of people who follow you are shown under Followers on your profile page. When you post something, your followers may be able to see it on their

Your feed displays posts from people you follow. Instagram has algorithms that determine what you see in your feed and in what order. Users whose posts you interact with have a higher likelihood of showing higher on your feed. Occasionally, you may also see promoted posts from people you don't follow, on topics you've shown interest on. Instagram finds what you're interested in based on your activity on their network. Indirect Instagram doesn't have the notion of groups. However, people who follow a common profile can be thought of as being interested in the topic that that profile pertains to. This is not usable directly, but it may be used by Instagram to suggest you profiles to follow or show you additional

Hashtags are very popular on Instagram. Like other social networks, you can add hashtags to your posts to indicate the topic that the post pertains too. People can search for hashtags and see all posts tagged with that hashtag. The unique feature of Instagram is that you can follow This makes selected posts with that hashtag appear in your feed. An Instagram post can be of 2 types: This is a regular post that your followers see in their feed. You can create a post by clicking on the + button in the Instagram app. Instagram also has some additional types of posts which we’ll learn about in the specialized posts section. The figure 10.8 shows the process of creating an Instagram post:

Figure 10.8: Creating an Instagram post

[Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.instagram.android] A post can have the following:

Instagram posts can have multiple photos or videos. Posts with multiple media are called a To post multiple pictures from your phone, you can click on the Select Multiple button and then select the pictures and videos from the media gallery in the order you want them to appear in your post. Alternatively, you can tap on the photo and video tabs to click a picture or shoot a video to share.

Filters and Once you've selected the pictures, you can choose a filter effect to apply to each of the pictures or videos. You can also adjust the and other settings in the pictures. You can also trim videos. We discussed most of these adjustments in Chapter 6:

A post can have a description which can be a caption or a longer description. It can also contain A hashtag begins with the # character and has a series of characters following it. It's used to indicate the subject or topic of the post. Tagging The description can also be used to tag other users. To tag someone, you can click on Tag people or use the @ character followed by their username.

You can also add a location by clicking on the Add location button.

A story is content that is visible to your followers for a limited period of 24 hours. Stories appear in a different section above the You can share photos, videos, or other people's posts in your stories and add your caption while sharing it. When viewers click on the post in the story, they will be taken to that user's To include media from the gallery in your post, you can swipe up to show the gallery. You may also click images or shoot videos from within the story screen. Instagram supports live filters for story videos where the scene gets modified to add some special effects while you're shooting it. To use a live you can swipe left on the camera shutter button and choose a The unique thing about stories is that you can see who has viewed a story during the time that it was active. To see you can open your story and swipe up on it.

Content Users who can see your posts can like them, comment on them, share them, or save them. Tapping on a video once toggles its sound. The figure 10.9 shows an Instagram post as it appears in the

Figure 10.9: An Instagram Post in the Feed and Profile [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.instagram.android]

To like a post, you can either tap on the heart icon below it, or double tap on the picture. Every post shows the number of people who have liked it.

Comments on a post may be viewed by other users who can see the post, and people may like others' comments as well.

Sharing allows you to share someone's post in a private message with someone or to share it in your story.

Saving a post bookmarks it so you can find it again easily; you can find saved posts in the 3-line menu on the top-right corner of your profile. Your saved posts are only visible to you. You can also organize your saved posts into collections based on the

Story People can also comment on stories and these comments are sent as private messages to you. Unlike posts, users can’t view each other's comments.

Post Posts on Instagram always inherit the privacy of your profile. Additionally, for stories, you can further control if resharing of your story is allowed or not. You can also choose to disallow replies on stories, or restrict it to people that you follow. All these controls are available from the Story settings on the top-left corner of the screen. By default, all of your followers can view and respond to your stories.

Specialized Apart from regular posts and stories, Instagram also supports the following types of content:

Story As we learned, stories are only visible to your followers for 24 hours. You still have access to your story archives and may choose to make some of them available perpetually on your profile. As an analogy, you can think of a story as a moment and some special and memorable moments can be highlighted on your profile.

Instagram TV allows you to post longer videos in the portrait/vertical mode. The first few seconds of an IGTV video appears in the feed, and you need to click on the Watch IGTV Video button to continue watching it in the full-screen mode. You can spot an IGTV video with a wave sign on the top-right corner of the video thumbnail. IGTV videos can have likes and comments just like usual posts. Once you're in the IGTV mode and the video ends, more videos from the person will play, just like on TV.

Live allows you to have a video broadcast which viewers can join to watch and comment on. Once the Live stream ends, it can be converted to an IGTV video.

Reels are short videos limited to 15 seconds. Like posts, reels also inherit the privacy of the profile, appear in the and can be liked or commented on. You can identify reel videos by the icon which has hashed line running across the top, resembling a director’s can be discovered from the Explore Reels tab in Instagram. Reels replay by default. You can swipe up while in the Discover Reels tab to view the next Partner Instagram has the following partner apps whose limited features are available under Instagram:

Separate app for IGTV videos.

Short videos, of around 5 seconds, that repeat in a loop. These don't have sound.

An app that allows you to combine multiple pictures into a collage and post it on Instagram.

Private messaging Instagram allows private messaging between users, and the section in which all private messages appear is called You can get into Direct by swiping left, or clicking on the slanting paper plane icon present on the top-right corner of the app. If you follow someone, you can send them a private message from If you send a message to someone that you don't follow, they will have to approve your message request before you can communicate with them via You can send text messages, images, videos, voice messages, or share posts on You can also shoot a video with similar to posts.

Let's now learn about another social network that's popular for short text updates.

Twitter

Twitter is a social network which initially became popular for short text updates with a 140-character limit. Due to this, it's also called a micro-blogging platform. Twitter is not only popular for sharing your updates, but also for discovering and discussing news, events and happenings in your country and around the world.

When you sign-up for Twitter, you'll be asked to provide your name, choose a specify your age and provide either an email address or a phone number. Your handle is important since this is your username and is used to find your profile and tag/mention you. The email ID/phone number that you provide will be verified before your account gets created. You'll also be asked to choose your preferred language and shown a recommendation of people to follow. You can skip this if you want to do this later.

Let's learn more about Twitter using our social media terminology/structure:

Type of A micro-blogging social network for sharing text updates with a limit of 280 characters. You may include URLs, photos, and videos as well. A Twitter post is called a

Type of content Tweets can contain text, links, photos, and videos.

People While signing up on Twitter, you can choose a username and enter some basic information like your name, biography, and either an email address or a phone number. Your username is unique on Twitter and is also called your Your biography is a short introduction about yourself and your interests. You also choose a square profile picture which is shown in a circular icon on your profile and throughout the app wherever you comment. Your profile can be searched using your name or People can also tag you or reply to your tweets using your handle.

Profile Twitter allows you to make your profile and posts either or but the utility of twitter is mainly with a public profile. If your profile is then anyone may follow you and view your If your profile is then your tweets are visible only to your followers, and you have an option to approve/reject follow requests.

Business Twitter doesn't have separate profiles for businesses but while signing up for an account, you may use your business's name, logo, and its bio. Twitter is a popular platform where customers often connect with businesses to provide feedback To do this, they would mention your business's Twitter Other users can also view who's tagging the businesses and view the Hence, it's very transparent and open.

Network connections and indirect Twitter has a uni-directional network just like Instagram, with the same concept of followers. It doesn't have groups.

Hashtags are very popular on Twitter. Like other social networks, you can add hashtags to your tweets to indicate the topic that the tweet pertains to. People can see which hashtags are popular in a country or globally called trending People can search for hashtags and see all tweets tagged with that hashtag and view recent and You can also follow the topics that you're interested in and you'll see the from that category in your

You can create a tweet by clicking the + button in the Twitter app. See Figure

Figure 10.10: Composing and viewing a Tweet [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.twitter.android]

A tweet can have the following: Limited to 140 characters and can also contain hashtags and tags.

A hashtag begins with the # character and has a series of characters following it. It's used to indicate the subject or topic of the post.

Tagging Also called the tweet can tag other users. To tag someone, you can click on Tag people or use the @ character followed by their username. Your tweet can contain photos and videos. Videos are limited to 45 seconds.

Filters and Adjustments: can be applied to selected media. You can also add a location by clicking on the Pin icon. Fleet is short for fleeting thought and is a post that remains visible for 24 hours. It can have an image, a video or a caption, or any combination of these. You may also click images or shoot videos while you're composing a Fleets don't appear in users' they appear in a different section above the You can see who viewed your

On Twitter, the default feed/timeline is the home view which shows the from accounts that you follow along with your own One notable difference in terminology is that the Twitter feed is called whereas in earlier social networks we discussed, feed and timeline provided different views. The Twitter timeline also contains promoted tweets and Ads. You can opt to see the instead by

clicking on the icon on top-right corner, which allows you to view tweets in the reverse chronological order of the time they were tweeted. See figure

Figure 10.11: Twitter User interface elements [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.twitter.android]

Content Users who can see your tweets can like them, reply to them, or re-tweet them. Every tweet shows the number of people who have commented on it which indicates the popularity of that To like a tweet, you can click on the Heart icon below it. Replying is similar to commenting, except that a reply is a separate tweet that refers to the original tweet. Sharing allows you to share a link to the tweet using an app of your choice. Retweet re-posts the tweet as a tweet from your so your followers can see it in their Your tweet is marked as a re-tweet and shows the original tweet within it. Responses to fleets work a little differently and appear as private messages.

Tweet Tweets always inherit the privacy of your But you can control who can reply to a tweet: only people who are only your or Other types of In addition to standard Twitter also supports the following types of content: As we learned earlier in this section, each tweet is limited to 140 characters. However, at times, you need to share a longer message. Threads allow you to do that. A thread is a way to indicate that multiple tweets are part of a single message. To create a you can simply reply to your own tweet and you'll see an option to continue the message. When a tweet is part of a you'll see a Show Thread option next to it. Moments are collections of tweets which may be showcased together to capture a series of events or reactions over time. They can also be used to logically group tweets belonging to a common theme. There is a separate pane which shows Moments shared by accounts you a link to which appears in the menu. See figure Partner Twitter has the following partner apps whose limited features are available under it:

It allows users to broadcast live video streams for a A lot of users use it to share or view the coverage from an event which

may be happening anywhere in the world. The Periscope service is scheduled to shut down in March 2021.

Private Twitter allows private messaging between users, which is called Direct Messaging You can access your private messages by clicking on the Messages tab. If you follow someone, they can send you a private message. Additionally, you may choose to receive message requests from anyone on Twitter, or restrict it to your Irrespective of this setting, people you have messaged previously can always reply back. You can send text messages, images, and videos on So far in this chapter, we've learned a lot about sharing information on social media. Now, let's discuss an important consideration that comes with information sharing, which is Privacy.

Privacy on social media

Put very simply, privacy deals with Who can see What about you. In Chapter 6: Photos and Chapter 7: Music and we had discussed some aspects of privacy which come into the picture as a result of sharing these assets. Social media takes those considerations to a heightened level since unauthorized people have the ability to find you on social media by your name, so they already know where to look for information that may be misused. Let's first discuss about the

Who

Let us first discuss the different ways in which you may define Who has access to different pieces of your information. Not all of these privacy levels are supported by all social media sites:

This is the broadest level of access and means that anyone who uses the network has access. This is the next tighter level of access and means that only people you add to your network of friends have access. Since you need to explicitly approve each person you add to your network, membership to your network is protected.

In uni-directional networks, if you choose to have a private profile, then followers access will only allow people who follow you to view the information. An important point to note here is that if you have a public profile, anyone may follow you. In such cases, choosing followers access is as good as public since anyone may follow you without your approval and will immediately have access to the information.

Specific This option is also known as a You can choose to show the information to a specific set of people. For convenience, many websites/apps also allow you to create lists of people and give access to that list instead. For example, you may create a list of your school friends and give access to a post only to them.

To Followers/Public except some Specific This option is called a blacklist and can be used to remove access for certain people.

Only This basically means that the information is visible only to you, so is

Let's now discuss some common pieces of information that you can restrict access to, on most social media websites: the For each of these, we'll also discuss the different privacy levels you may choose. And as we discuss these, I'll also share the recommended settings for the three social networks that we've introduced in this chapter. Please note that these recommendations are my opinions, which are based on my own usage of these social networks. We've categorized these pieces of information under four broad categories: You and your Your Apps, and Privacy from Specific Let's look at each of these in more detail.

You and your information

In this section, we'll talk about the different privacy settings that apply to your identity, your profile, your information, your network, and your timeline:

Finding This aspect deals with how people may find you on the social network. On most networks, by default, people may find you by name, email address, or phone number. Some social networks allow you to control which of this information can be used to discover your profile on the network. Since this affects people who're not in your friends yet, you can either set it to Public or Only

Facebook allows you to control how people can find you, and it's recommended that you allow both the phone number and email address so that people who have your contact details can find you easily. Since you will be approving each request, you will have control on who you add to your network. See figure You can reach this screen from My Account | Settings and Privacy | Settings and then selecting Privacy on the left menu. Facebook also provides a quick direct access to common settings from My Account | Settings and Privacy | Privacy Checkup where you will see an option called How people can find you on

Figure 10.12: Facebook privacy settings for your Identity, Profile and Network On Instagram, you can find people by their username or phone number, but not the email address. It's recommended that you remove the phone number from your Instagram profile so that your profile cannot be discovered using your phone number. This can avoid casual acquaintances from discovering your profile. Twitter has these settings and it's recommended that you turn on discoverability by the phone number or email address if you'll use Twitter to post public content. See figure

Figure 10.13: Twitter privacy settings for your Identity

[Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.twitter.android]

Connecting with This deals with who can send you a friend request and can be set to either Public or Only If you set it to Only no one can send you a friend request and only you can send them a friend request. Facebook allows this and the recommended setting is for Everyone to find you. Networks with uni-directional networks allow you to choose a public or private profile. If your profile is anyone may see your profile and posts. And if it's set to you must approve follow requests and posts are visible only to your follower list. Here are the recommended settings: For Facebook, allow everyone to send you a friend request. See figure

For Instagram, you should set your profile visibility based on your usage; if you're planning to share personal pictures, then it's recommended to set it to Private from Settings | Privacy | Account For Twitter, it's better to keep your profile Public and use it to only tweet about non-personal subjects.

Your profile As you fill out the profile information, you can control who can see this information. One thing to remember as you set this is that there are many people with a common name, and some of this information may be useful for someone to identify you. You can set the access to any of the levels that we've discussed above. Not all networks may have these controls. Here are the recommendations:

Facebook provides these controls for each piece of information that you add on your profile. It's recommended that you also decide the visibility on the basis of the information. If it can be useful for others to find you, make it public. If not, make it visible to Friends only. If there's something you'd rather not make visible to all your friends, it would be recommended that you do not add that information at all. The other exceptional feature that Facebook has is that it allows you to view your profile's public so you check what information is seen by public, and then restrict the information that you don't want visible. See figure For Instagram and Twitter, you only enter basic information like name, bio, and profile picture and it's visible to public by default, even if your account is So, you should enter only the information that you want to make publicly visible.

Figure 10.14: Facebook visibility for profile information

Your This setting controls who can see your list of friends, followers, or people that you follow. Facebook allows you to control this and it's recommended that you set it to Only See figure Instagram and Twitter hides your followers from Public view if your profile is It's visible to your followers though. If your account is then anyone may see your followers and following lists. Posts on your Some networks have the concept of a timeline where all your life events and posts appear on a vertical axis on your profile page. These networks also allow your friends to post on your and all your friends can see it. You can restrict this by limiting visibility of these posts to Only

Posts where you're People on a social network can tag you in pictures and posts. This serves two purposes; one is to notify you and draw your attention to it. The other is to tag your presence on the post, and this makes it visible on your and to your At times, this behavior may be undesirable as someone can tag you on irrelevant posts, and you may not want your network to see them. Some social networks allow you to approve a tag before it becomes visible on your and also control who can view posts in which you've been tagged. You can set the latter to Only Me to hide tagged posts from your network.

Facebook allows you to control most of these settings. It's recommended that you allow Friends to post on your but hide timeline posts from your Network by setting it to Only For tagging, it's recommended that you approve tags before they become visible. Enabling this setting will notify you whenever someone tags you, and you have the option to add it to your timeline or to hide it. See figure

Figure 10.15: Facebook profile and tagging settings

Instagram allows control on these setting and also allows you to hide your activity. See figure 10.16 for the recommended settings:

Figure 10.16: Instagram tagging and mention settings [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.instagram.android]

Twitter doesn't allow you to disable mentions. However, you can turn off Photo Tagging from Settings and privacy | Privacy and

Your content

Your This setting controls who can see a post. Most unidirectional networks inherit the profile visibility for posts as well. For example, if your profile is set to then all your posts are visible only to your contacts. If your profile is set to then all your posts will be public too. Some networks like Facebook provide a default visibility setting for all your posts, and further allow you to set the visibility for each post. Refer figure Resharing your This allows you to control who can re-share your public stories. Resharing always links to your original post. Some networks allow you to selectively allow resharing by only those people who have been mentioned in your story

Facebook provides story settings under Settings |

Instagram provides these settings under Settings | Privacy |

We would encourage you to explore these if you use the stories feature.

Apps

Many email accounts and social networks provide a common login service which is used by many other websites and apps. This is called social This makes it easy for you to sign-up on different websites without having to remember a different set of credentials. It's worth noting that doing this doesn't share your password with the third-party website that's using the login. But this website can use the login information to request some information from the social network like your name, email ID, date of birth, and other information like your friends list. Some can also post to the social network on your behalf. This is a mix of Privacy and

Apps with Access to your You can control which websites have access to what kind of information and what actions they can take on your account. You can also remove the apps if you give them access inadvertently or if you're no longer using that website/app:

On Facebook, you can view apps/websites with access at Settings | Apps and

On Instagram, you can view apps/websites with access at Settings | Security | Apps and On Twitter, you can view apps/websites with access as Settings | Account | Apps and Sessions | Connected

Privacy from specific people

Aside from the preceding privacy setting, all social networks give you the ability to block people. Blocking someone basically makes you invisible to them on the network. They cannot view your profile, posts or contact you. It is a useful feature for certain cases. In addition to blocking someone, you may also report them to the social media website if they have done something that falls under the category of Every social media website has its own categorization of abuse and when you block someone, the website will often ask you some questions to check whether the behavior comes under that criteria. The Block and Report buttons are mostly found on every social media network on the profile page.

Now that we've learnt about social media and explored the three most popular social media services in detail, let's discuss social media etiquette.

Social media etiquette

Just like human interactions in the real world, social interactions on the Internet also follow a set of rules. These are not enforced as rules per say, but rather a set of norms of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Let's look a few of these:

Using each network for its intended As discussed, some networks are intended for personal use and some for professional use, and posts should conform to the purpose for which the network is intended.

Overuse of Emoticons should be sparingly used in posts on professional networks.

Posting the same content Reposting the same content and comments again and again is known as spamming and should be avoided.

Discussing religion or You should avoid discussing religion and politics as people may have differing beliefs and affiliations and such discussions can often lead to hate speech and unpleasant conversations. Sharing of personal contact Contact details like email addresses and phone numbers should be shared on private messages and

not on posts which are visible to a large number of users, even if the post is visible to someone's closed network.

Copying and posting content that someone You should not copy and paste content posted by someone else, as doing this makes it appear as if it came from you. If someone posts content that you would like to share with your friends, you can use the Share option. In case their post restricts the privacy of the message to their network, you can either request them to make the post public or, avoid sharing it. In the same topic, you should avoid taking a screenshot of someone's restricted content and sharing it outside. Some of these are more than norms; they are rules protected by copyright law.

Tagging When you tag someone in your pictures, the pictures become visible to all their friends and some people may not be comfortable with that. Instead of tagging them, it's recommended that you share the link to the post and ask them to tag themselves. Posting other people's You should avoid posting pictures of other people, even group pictures, with a public visibility, either on your timeline or in a group with an open visibility. Excessive Don't use too many hashtags as it dilutes the topic of the post and also hampers readability.

Being prudent about adding people to your friends One key point to note here is that when you add someone to your network, they can view not only your posts but also view interactions that other people in your network do with your content. This can be compared to inviting someone to a party that you're having with friends. They can not only interact with you, but also with your other friends to an extent. Anyone in your friends' network has some level of access to other friends in your network too, so it's prudent to add only people you know to your friends' network. Requesting for You should avoid requesting people to like your posts. People who find your posts engaging will like anyways. Do Engagement on a network depends on everyone sharing and interacting. When you like and comment on posts you like, it serves as encouragement for people who’ve shared them. It's also a good idea to participate in the network by sharing. The other reason to do this is most social networks recommend content to you based on the type of content you have liked and interacted with in the past. The more you interact with content of your interest, the more relevant will be the content that you see in your feed.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we learned about social media, its uses, and some common categorizations of social media websites. We then introduced you to the different building blocks of social media, namely, people, connections, and content. We then delved deep into each of these and explored how these are used on Facebook, a popular and rich social media service. Then we used our understanding of these building blocks to learn how people, connections, and content are used on two other popular social media services: Instagram and Twitter. We learned about the privacy aspects of social media and reviewed some recommended privacy settings for Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. We closed this chapter by discussing about social media etiquette.

In the next chapter, we will learn about communicating online in real time. We'll learn how real-time communication on the Internet differs from the other forms of online communication that we've learned about so far in this book. We'll also explore some popular tools used for online communication.

Key terms

Feed Timeline

Post

Story/Moment/Fleet Handle

Mention

Like

Topic

Trending

DP Bio

Visibility

CHAPTER 11 Online Communication

The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.

- George Bernard Shaw, Playright, Critic and Political Activist

When we change the way we communicate, we change society. - Clay Shirky, Writer

In this chapter, we will learn about online communication. We'll start off by discussing how online communication capabilities are different from the other types of communication mechanisms that we've seen earlier in this book. We'll also draw some parallels with communication in the real world. Once we've established the context for online communication, we'll learn some key concepts related to online communication and some standard user interface elements that you may see on communication tools and apps. We'll then look at a popular communication tool and close this chapter by briefly discussing some aspects related to privacy. Let's begin the communication session.

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Introduction to online communication

Communicating online versus online communication

Features and interface elements Google Hangouts

Privacy in online communication

Objective

This chapter is about online communication. Readers will be able to understand where online communications fits in the internet ecosystem and how it compares to other communication mechanisms that we've learnt. Common features and interface elements of online communication tools will be discussed. The chapter will introduce Google Hangouts, a popular online communication tool that integrates with Gmail and demonstrate its usage. It will also create an awareness of the privacy aspects related to online communication.

Introduction to online communication

The Merriam Webster Dictionary defines communication as the act or process of using words, sounds, signs, or behaviors to express or exchange information or to express your ideas, thoughts, feelings, etc., to someone else. Based on this definition, a letter, a phone call or a face-to-face chat with someone, or even watching news on TV are all communication mechanisms. And on the receiving end, we take in information through our five senses. In a world unaided by technology, the numbers of senses you make use of are dependent on your proximity from the person you're communicating with. If you're sitting next to someone and talking to them, you can see their facial expressions, their body movements, and hear the tone of their voice and the words they're speaking. You can see them, hear them, interpret their words and even smell their perfume. Even touch provides a sense signal, like a mother caressing their child's head. As you move a little farther, the sense of touch is lost. Move a little farther and the sense of smell also stops playing a role. Move to another room and you'll be relying only on the information conveyed through their voice. Move to another city and you'll have to rely on written communication via letters.

Technology allows us to circumvent the effect of distances on communication styles. The telephone made it possible to hear

someone's voice hundreds of kilometers away. The internet added many more additional capabilities and above all, speed. E-mails provide the same capability that letters did, but cut down the transit time from days or weeks to a few seconds. In this chapter, we'll learn some additional ways in which you can have instant communication using a combination of sight, audio and written text. The sense of smell and touch remain largely untapped, at least as of now. You might be wondering how text communication provided by email and social media is different from the style of communication we will learn about now. Let's try to ascertain that in the next section.

Communicating online versus online communication

Earlier in this book, in Chapter 5: we learnt about email, which is a popular mechanism of communication on the internet. In the last chapter, we discussed social media, which also allows you to communicate with your network online. These are some of the ways in which you may use text and symbols (likes, emoticons) to communicate with other human beings. All of these mechanisms are designed for a style of communication that doesn't require the other person to be available when you're sending them a message. When they check their email or log in to Facebook account later, they'll see your message and can reply to it. This form of communication style is called asynchronous

There is another type of communication method as well, called synchronous It relies on the internet to provide a method of communication with anyone who's available to communicate right at that moment. Online communication strives to provide an experience that comes close to meeting someone face-to-face, while they may actually be thousands of kilometers away. Audiovideo conferencing and chat are some examples of this which we'll learn about in this chapter. Tools that provide synchronous communication capabilities also provide limited capabilities for asynchronous communication, which makes the communication channel more complete.

Even though the terms communicating online and online communication both contain the word its meaning is different. In the former, online refers to the internet being the backbone which is used for communication. Whereas in the latter, the term online refers to the fact that the other party is online. That is, they are available to communicate at that very moment synchronously. The opposite of online is All online communication is communicating but not vice versa.

Now that we've understood how online communication fits into the ecosystem of the internet, let's dive into some concepts, features and interface elements related to this form of communication.

Features and interface elements

Online communication typically consists of a few simple steps: choosing a communication tool/platform, finding people on the platform, choosing a communication mode (text/audio video) and finally the communication itself. If the person is logged in and available, all these communication modes are available. And if they are not, you can send them a message, which will be saved and shown to them when they log in. Let's discuss each of these steps, and then look at some common interface elements available on most tools:

Communication In order to communicate, more often than not, all parties need to use the same tool. Often, the choice of tool is based upon availability of other parties on it. In most cases, they would need to register to use the tool. But there are some tools that also allow guests (non-registered guests) to join the conversation too. Google Hangouts/Chat, Google Meet, Skype, Facebook Messenger, GoToMeeting, Blue Jeans, Zoom.us, WhatsApp are some popular tools for personal and business communication. A communication session is known by different names, most often a meeting or a Often, the word call is used for impromptu communication, and meeting is used for scheduled sessions. The person who sets up the meeting is called the Some of these tools provide a telephone number as well so participants may dial-in from a phone to join the communication session.

Finding someone using the If you need to communicate with a registered user on a communication platform, you'll first need to locate them on it. Different tools use different identifiers to locate people. For example, on Google Hangouts/Chat, you can find someone using their Google ID. On Skype, you'll locate them using their username, also called Skype ID, or their Microsoft ID. And on WhatsApp, you may locate someone using their mobile number. For scheduled meetings, you can schedule a meeting and invite users. Some tools allow you to create a meeting and share an invite with anyone you wish to invite. This doesn't require you to know their email ID too and anyone with that invite link can join. Moreover, if the platform allows guest to join, they can join using the invite link without having to register.

Individual and group Most communication tools allow for both one to one and group communication. In a group communication session, all parties can view and respond to each other and everyone in the group can see everyone's response.

Mode of Most communication tools support both text and audio/video communication. Text communication is called chat and the audio/video communication is called a video Some tools also allow you to call phone numbers, but this is often a paid service for most countries. Some tools also allow you to share your computer screen, which is useful if you want to show other attendees a presentation or something else on your computer. When you share your screen, you can choose whether to share the entire screen, only a particular window or a tab within a window. Additionally, most tools allow you to send photos, GIFs, videos, documents, and other types of files as well. Tools that are

designed for mobile devices often allow you to share map locations and contact cards as well. Synchronous and asynchronous Aside from Audio/Video communication, all other features support asynchronous mode as well. So, if you send someone a chat message or a photo when they are offline, it will be available to them when they come online. Most tools store such in-transit messages for some limited duration after they have been sent. Now that we've explored the different features that online communication tools provide, let's look at some common interface elements on such tools.

Common interface elements

Some common interface elements are present on many online communication tools. Many of these are used for multiple purposes, and their function depends on the context in which they appear. See figure

Figure 11.1: Common interface elements on online communication tools

Let's discuss the use of each of these icons:

This is either shown as a book with tabs, or a multiple shadows of people. This often lists the contacts that you have in your contact list.

Person icon with a plus This typically appears for a contact in the contacts list, and is used to add a person to a group. When this

appears in a call, this can be used to invite someone to an ongoing call.

Also called the chat bubble, this looks like a square with a protruding edge. It has three uses, based on where it appears:

Chat When the chat bubble appears in the main area of a tool, it usually helps you access the history of past conversations or chats.

Start When this icon appears under a contact, then it's used to show the chat box that allows you to send a text message to the person. Doing this also brings up the chat history with previous messages exchanged with that person. Bring up the chat When you're in a audio/video call, this icon allows you to send a text message to everyone in the call Upwards slanting phone This has multiple uses:

Call When it appears in the main interface of the tool, it allows you to access call history to mobile numbers. In some cases, this also brings up the phone dialer and allows you to place a call to that number (if you have paid credits available). Place voice Some tools allow audio-only calls to other users who use the same tool. In such tools, the handset icon when appearing on a contact card allows you to place a voice-only call to the contact.

Video This has multiple uses:

Placing an audio video When it appears in the main interface of the tool, it allows you start an audio video conversation channel, and then invite people to that conversation/call.

Call When it appears within a contact card or a contact chat, it is used to start an audio video call with that contact.

Video When you're in an audio or video call with someone, the video camera icon is used to turn off your video. If it appears crossed, your camera is off and you may tap on it to turn your camera on.

Microphone The microphone icon appears when you're in an audio-video or audio call with someone. The microphone icon is used to mute yourself. If it appears crossed, you're muted and can tap on it to unmute yourself.

Downward facing phone This often appears when you're in a conversation/call and can be used to exit from the call. Bell It is used for notifications from the tool. If it appears highlighted with a number next to it, it means it has those many new notifications that you've no longer read.

Icons for emoticons, images, videos, files, location, and These usually appear to the text and right of the chat textbox and allow you to send additional attachments in chat.

Record Some communication tools also allow you to record an audio video conversation. The Red Dot icon allows you to start call recording. If you're in a call that is being recorded, you'll see the red dot in one of the corners of the screen, very often on the top right. This is just informational and you cannot take any action using it. Let's now explore Google Hangouts, which is a popular online communication tool.

Google Hangouts

Google Hangouts is an online communication tool that integrates with Gmail and is a popular platform on both web and mobile devices. Like other Google apps, Hangouts also works with your Google ID. In Chapter 5: you would have seen a chat widget in the Gmail interface. That widget is for Google Hangouts. Google Hangouts has a full web interface as well, which may be accessed from and also an app for mobile devices. At the time of this writing in 2020, Google has announced that they will be migrating chat capabilities from Hangouts to another tool called Google Chat over the next year. Google Chat will have all of the capabilities of Hangouts and some additional collaboration features as well. The audio/video calling features of Hangouts will be replaced by a product called Google Meet. Since this migration has still not completed, we'll be referring to Hangouts screens in this section. The basic interface elements that we learnt about in the last section will be seen in Chat and Meet, but the screens may differ from Hangouts. You can explore the Google Chat interface at https://chat.google.com and the Google Meet interface at https://meet.google.com.

The figure 11.2 shows the web interface of Google Hangouts:

Figure 11.2: Google Hangouts web interface [Credit: https://hangouts.google.com]

Let's explore a few features of Google Hangouts. Invite a contact to Before you can communicate with anyone, you must add them on Hangouts. You can follow these steps to add someone:

Click on New Enter their Google/Gmail email ID, you'll see their name in the results Hover over their names, and click on the chat bubble on the contact card. Note that you may also see an Add to Contacts button on the contact card. This just adds their email ID to your Google Address Book; it doesn't actually send them an invite.

On the chat window that opens, enter an invite message and click on the Send Invite button. You may introduce yourself in the message.

They will get a request on their Hangouts, and once they approve your invite, you can chat with each other. They will also appear in your contacts list. This is a bi-directional network action, about which we learnt in the last chapter on social media. You'll be added to each other's contacts. Likewise, if someone sends you a request, it will appear in the messages pane as well as the invites screen, which is accessible from the Hamburger menu on the top left.

Figure 11.3: Conversation window [Credit: https://hangouts.google.com] Communicate with a contact in your Contacts Your contacts list shows the list of contacts in your address book. Some of these may not be in your authorized network. You can refer to the

previous point on how to add someone to your network. Once you've added them, you can hover on their name to show their contact card. See figure Click on the chat bubble to send them a text message or a media. This also shows past messages exchanged with them. See figure You may hide old messages by clicking on Archive or delete old messages by clicking on Delete Conversation under the Gear icon. The archived conversations can be found in a separate screen under the Hamburger menu. You can also start an audio-video call with them by clicking on the Video Camera icon. The Video Camera icon appears both on the contact card and the chat window. Call controls in a Hangouts When you a place a video call to someone, a new window will open for the call. Once you are in the audio video call with someone, you can both see and talk to each other. The following controls are available to you in a call: Mute/unmute yourself using the Microphone icon.

Turn your video on/off using the Video camera icon. View chat or send a message using the Chat bubble icon.

Add more people to the call using the Contact with a + icon. Exit from the call using the Downward Facing Handset icon. Start an audio video call and invite Google Hangouts also allows you to start an empty audio-video call and then invite people to

it. You can do this as follows: Click on the Video camera icon on Hangouts main screen and a new call will begin with only you in it.

You can then invite them to the call. If you want to invite someone but do not know their email ID, you can click on Copy Link to This copies a link to the call on the clipboard and you can send it to the invitees by pasting in and sending it as a message/email.

In this section, we learnt about the key features of Google Hangouts. Online communication tools have some common features, which we have covered in this chapter. However, there are a lot of different communication tools out there, each having some differences and their own novel features as well. And these are something you'll have to learn about as you explore each tool.

Next, let's look at some aspects related to privacy.

Privacy in online communication

Every tool you use for connecting with people has some privacy considerations, and so do online communication tools. There are three broad categories under which privacy features fall. Not all tools have all three.

Who can communicate with Some tools, like Google Hangouts and Facebook Messenger, have a network model where you must approve a person's request before they can communicate with you. These let you control who can communicate with you. Some other tools like WhatsApp don't have an explicit approval model.

What can people who communicate with you These are controls that let you define what your authorized contacts can or cannot see about you? For example: When you're online, the last time when you were last active. Some tools provide advanced controls in this area and also let you define sets of people who can see certain information and others that cannot.

Preventing specific people from contacting This is one feature all online communication tools have. Using this, you may block a particular contact that prevents them from communicating with you.

Let's review the privacy features Google Hangouts provides.

As you already saw, Hangouts follows an approval model that provides you explicit control on the people who may communicate with you. You can relax this to allow people with your email address or phone number to contact you directly. This can be done from Settings | Customizing

Hangouts let you control if others can see when you were last active, and the type of device you're logged in from. These can be controlled from

Hangouts lets you block and report contacts. This setting is available under the Gear icon on the chat window.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we learnt about online communication tools. We started off by discussing where these tools fit in the online ecosystem. We then looked at some common features and typical interface elements of such tools. We then explored the features of Google Hangouts, which is a popular online communication tool. We closed the chapter by discussing the privacy aspects of online communication tools in general, and looked at the privacy features of Hangouts. In the next chapter, we will delve deep into WhatsApp. WhatsApp is a popular online communication tool for mobile devices and people who use it spend a lot of time on it. Its popularity and appeal warrants dedicating a full chapter to it. We'll learn about the different features on WhatsApp, which will enable you to use it efficiently.

Key terms

Chat Call

Meeting

Mute/unmute Invite

CHAPTER 12 WhatsApp

In some countries, WhatsApp is like oxygen.

- Jan Koum, Co-founder of WhatsApp

If you get a WhatsApp message, you're probably going to open it. That's the interesting thing. - Harper Reed, Entrepreneur

In this chapter, we will learn about WhatsApp, a popular online communication tool for mobile devices. We'll start by discussing the basic building blocks of WhatsApp, namely, people and communication. We'll also discuss how you can manage your profile, data, notifications, and privacy on WhatsApp and also explore some additional features of utility. Towards the end of this chapter, we'll touch upon some elements of etiquette and responsibility that come with using tools like WhatsApp. Come on now, let's WhatsApp!

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Introduction to WhatsApp

People

Your profile Communication

Managing data

Notifications

Utility features

Managing your privacy

Etiquette and responsibility Conclusion

Objective

This chapter is about WhatsApp and will help readers use its features. It discusses people, profiles, and the different communication modes supported by WhatsApp. Readers will understand basic operations related to both individual and group conversations. They will also learn how to effectively manage notifications, data preferences, phone storage, and set up a cloud backup. The chapter also explains the privacy features of WhatsApp, and discusses WhatsApp etiquette and responsible usage.

Introduction to WhatsApp

WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, Inc. and is one of the most popular online communication apps for mobile phones. It is also used by businesses to communicate with customers. It provides apps for most modern smartphone platforms. You can download the Android app from WhatsApp works using the internet, so you would require mobile data or Wi-Fi on your mobile phone to send or receive messages using it. WhatsApp is free-to-use and helps you save on SMS and calling costs. WhatsApp is especially popular in Asia, South America, Africa, and the Middle East and in many countries, it has now become an essential part of peoples' lives. Hence, becoming more efficient on WhatsApp will clearly be beneficial for you if you already use it. If you're new to it, WhatsApp can simplify a lot of your communication and also help you save on communication costs, so I would encourage you to try it out. In this chapter, we'll cover not only the basic usage aspects of WhatsApp but also how to manage it with more control. We'll be focusing only on the personal use of WhatsApp and will not be covering exclusive features which are available only for Business accounts. The figure 12.1 shows the WhatsApp main interface:

Figure 12.1: WhatsApp main interface [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp] Communication has three key building blocks: the communication and the The format of the message is often dependent on the medium. Example: We speak when we're talking on the phone, and we write when sending someone a letter. Let's start by discussing the first building block,

People

WhatsApp uses mobile numbers to identify people. The additional attributes that are associated with that number, like a profile and all provide additional information about that number. Users can sign-up with a mobile number and use WhatsApp even if they haven’t provided any additional information. WhatsApp also supports business accounts and these may have more information and additional features as well. WhatsApp has the concept of contacts but it doesn't follow an approval model for controlling your network. Any contact which is saved with a mobile number in your phone's address book is considered to be part of your network (called My and you can message them on WhatsApp if they use it. Likewise, anyone who has your mobile number saved in their address book can message you on WhatsApp. If someone whose mobile number isn't in your address book messages you, you can choose to save their number to your address and doing this makes them part of your But you can also reply to them without saving their number in your address book. As you can see, this is a very flexible model and very open, anyone can message anyone.

We'll discuss some approaches to manage your privacy with this inherently open model in the WhatsApp Privacy section, later in this chapter. Let's now explore what people see about you on WhatsApp when you're in their contacts list.

Your profile

WhatsApp allows you to provide information about yourself and choose who can see it. Personal WhatsApp accounts are allowed to have a a square profile and a Business accounts may have additional information like email website business hours and some more fields as well.

When you sign-up for WhatsApp, you are asked to enter your name and mobile You can later update your profile information by opening Settings on the 3-dot menu on the right and tapping on your The figure 12.2 shows the WhatsApp profile information screens:

Figure 12.2: WhatsApp Profile Information [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp]

Click on the Pencil icon next to Name and About to edit it. Clicking on the profile picture shows its enlarged view. You can then click on the Pencil icon, choose a picture from your picture gallery, and choose a square area in the picture to set it as your profile The name that you enter on your profile is only visible when you send someone a message and your mobile number isn't saved in their address book. This is intended to help them identify you. If your mobile number is saved in their address then they will see the name that the number is saved with. We'll explore how you can control who sees your profile information in the WhatsApp Privacy section, later in this chapter. Now that we understand about people and their profiles, let's look at how they can communicate using WhatsApp.

Communication

In this section, we'll learn the different types of messages and other communication that can happen between people on WhatsApp. We'll also learn about communicating with We'll also explore the different things you can do with messages that you've sent or received. We'll be exploring each of these elements in detail. Let's start by delving deeper into the types of communication mechanisms supported by WhatsApp.

Types of communication

WhatsApp provides rich communication features suited to most situations and circumstances. We learned synchronous and asynchronous communication in the last chapter, WhatsApp supports both these modes. You can communicate using messages, which provide an asynchronous communication mechanism. There is also support for audio and video calls which is suited for synchronous communication. You can also record and send voice notes which is not only more convenient at times, but also adds a more personal touch. WhatsApp also supports sending files like photos, audio, videos, and documents. In addition to these, WhatsApp also supports sending a contact from your address a map location, and even making a payment to a contact via You will learn more about UPI in Chapter 13: Money and The figure 12.3 shows the WhatsApp conversation pane with options for different types of communication and content.

Figure 12.3: Different types of WhatsApp communication and content

[Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp] Except for Audio and Video calls, other types of content are wrapped inside a These messages can be sent by users to other users using the sender's internet connection. Messages are stored by WhatsApp temporarily until it can deliver the message to the recipients, over their internet connection. Once the message is delivered to your phone and the media has been downloaded, the media is stored locally on your phone and you may access it anytime, without requiring an internet connection.

Let's learn about each of the communication mechanisms and message types in detail.

Chat

Text messages or chat are the simplest communication mechanism supported by WhatsApp. A text message can be in any language and may contain emotions and URLs as well. To send a text message to a you can click on the bubble on the bottom right of the WhatsApp screen, type a few letters of their name to find the contact in your address and then tap on their This opens up the conversation pane with them. If you've previously communicated with them, the conversation pane also shows the past messages exchanged with them in chronological order. You can type in a message in the text box at the bottom and tap the Arrow button to send the message.

WhatsApp also provides a Search feature using which you can search for text If you use the Search feature from WhatsApp's main screen, all past chats are searched. You can tap on a message in the search results to open the conversation where the message is present, the conversation scrolls to show the message that was shown in the search results. You can also use the search feature inside the conversation pane with a This is available under the 3-dot menu in the conversation. Doing this would search only the messages exchanged with that The conversation scrolls to show the most recent message that matches your search. You can click on the up/down buttons next to the search bar to view other matching messages.

Now that we've explored the different communication mechanisms, let's discuss audio and video calls.

Audio and video call

Unlike many other online communication tools, WhatsApp provides separate interface elements for audio and video Having a separate audio call option is often more intuitive as it provides an alternative to calling someone on their mobile phone using the mobile network. In order to call someone on WhatsApp, the person you're calling has to be a WhatsApp user. WhatsApp calls, both audio and video, use the internet connection on your phone, so it doesn't incur call costs. The savings can be considerable when compared to international calling. However, there could be internet data usage and costs involved which depend on the internet plan you have on your phone. The data usage would be higher on a video WhatsApp supports both 1-to-1 and conferences on both audio and video We'll be touching upon the call conference part in the section on group

You can place a WhatsApp call to someone using one of these two ways:

Open the chat conversation pane with them and click on the Handset icon for audio call, and Video camera icon for video call; these icons are visible on the top-right corner. From WhatsApp main interface, swipe left to get to the calling pane on the right. This shows the call history/logs for WhatsApp audio and video Click on the Handset icon on the bottom right,

and choose a contact to call them. Alternatively, if you've called them before, you can also click on their name in the call

When you call someone, they will get a call notification in WhatsApp and can choose to accept or reject the call. If they accept the call, they'll be placed in the call and you can communicate just like you do in a regular phone call. The screen will switch to show call controls which will allow you to switch to show the conversation and hang

If you initially placed an audio call, you can also switch the call mode from audio to video by clicking on the crossed-out Video camera icon. This prompts the other party to switch to a video and they can accept or decline to switch. If they both yours and their camera is turned on and the call is switched to audio-video mode. When you're in a video call, you may switch off your video by clicking on the Video camera icon. This just turns off your camera and doesn't switch the call back to

File attachments

WhatsApp allows you to send several different kinds of attachments, like photos, audio files, videos, and documents. You can also capture photos and videos from within the WhatsApp app and send them. You can also send location and contacts. To send a file attachment, you can click on the paper clip icon next to the chat textbox to show the supported options. Once you select the relevant icon, WhatsApp would allow you to pick an item of those types and make some modifications before you send it. Table 12.1 lists the uses of the different icons and mentions the different modifications you can make for each of them:

them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them:

them: them: them: them: them:

them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them: them:

Table 12.1: Icons and attachments on WhatsApp

Now that we've explored the different communication mechanisms, let's discuss group communication.

Group communication

With WhatsApp, you may communicate with individual contacts, or together with a group of contacts. There are two ways to communicate with a group on WhatsApp: one is called a broadcast and the other, a regular Let's understand each briefly:

When you create a broadcast group, the people who are part of it are not aware who else is in it Any message you sent to a broadcast group is sent to each member of that group And when they reply, their reply comes only to you. Thus, a broadcast group is a convenient way to send a common message to many people, which is often useful for businesses for sharing updates. You can create a broadcast group by clicking on the 3-dot menu in WhatsApp main interface and tapping on New Broadcast

WhatsApp A WhatsApp group is a shared user area where all members who're part of the group may see the list of members of the group, and communicate with the group by sending a message to it. Creating a group creates a shared conversation area where messages from all members are shown. All messages sent to the group are delivered to all participants. You can create a group by clicking on the 3-dot menu in the WhatsApp main interface and tapping on New When we mention the word Group henceforth in this chapter, we're referring to a WhatsApp group and not to a broadcast group.

The figure 12.4 shows WhatsApp group conversation and its details.

Figure 12.4: WhatsApp Group conversation and details [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp] Let's understand some more features of WhatsApp groups:

Anyone can create a group and add contacts to it. You need to choose at least 2 people to create a group.

The person who creates the group is considered to be the group admin for that group.

Any contact who has been added to a group is free to leave/exit the group anytime.

Chat messages and media that were downloaded to members' phones when they were part of the group are on their phones.

They can choose to retain or delete the conversation pane and group media when they leave/exit the group. A group owner has privileges to manage the group: adding and removing members and setting the group

Group mode allows group owners/admins to disallow non-admin group members from sending messages to the group. This is useful for moderating the discussion in the group, either for a limited duration or perpetually.

Any admin may also escalate other members as or demote owners to regular members.

If an admin leaves the group in which they are an the first person who was added to the group gets promoted to

When someone who is not in your contacts list adds you to a group, WhatsApp will ask you if that group is spam and if you would like to report the group. During this time, it will not download any attachments sent to the group on your phone. You can choose to download each attachment by clicking on it. Once you confirm that the group is not spam, subsequent attachments sent to the group will get downloaded automatically. In addition to chat and attachments, groups also support group audio and video calls. These act like audio and video conferences where participants may see and hear everyone else. Group admins

may choose people from the group and start a Video call, a maximum of four people are supported in a video call. WhatsApp allows you to invite multiple people to a group without having to add them one by one. To do this, you can send them an invite link for the group, using which they can join the group.

Now that we’ve understood how you may leverage groups for communication on WhatsApp, let's understand the different actions you can take on the messages that you send or receive.

Message actions

Each of these elements that you send or receive on WhatsApp is wrapped in a Every message that you send has tick signs next to it, which mean the following:

Single tick sign indicates that the message has been sent from your phone to WhatsApp server Double tick sign indicates that the message has been delivered from the WhatsApp server to the recipient's phone.

Double blue ticks indicate that the message has been read by the participant.

You may also take certain actions on messages that you've sent or received either in a 1-to-1 conversion or in a group. To take action of any message, you have to long-press on it to select it, and then choose from one of the actions in the toolbar. Let us look at some common actions that you may take for both sent and received messages

Common actions

Here are some actions which can be taken for both sent and received messages:

Copy a message to the You can then paste the message in the WhatsApp message box, or other places outside WhatsApp.

Star a we'll see the use of this under utility features. Forward the message to other WhatsApp contacts.

Delete a this deletes it from your phone only.

Actions on Sent Messages

View information about the In a 1:1 conversation, it shows when the message was delivered and by the recipient. In a Group, it shows the list of people that the messages have been delivered to, and read by. The latter is shown only if read receipts is enabled in privacy settings

Deleting a sent You can delete a message that you sent from recipients' phones, for a limited time after it has been sent. During this time, you'll see an additional button called Delete for Everyone when you attempt to delete a message that was sent by you. At the time of this writing, the time duration is around 1 hour.

Actions on received messages

Reply to a this links your reply to the message which makes it easier to track the conversation

Reply You can also reply privately to group messages; doing this sends the reply to the sender only instead of sending it in the group chat. In this section, we looked at the different elements of communication on WhatsApp. All this communication is persistent and messages you receive are downloaded and stored on your mobile device and utilize storage space. Let us now understand some ways to manage the space on your device.

Managing data

Every message that you either send or receive using WhatsApp takes up space on your phone and uses your internet. Much of this data may be useful as you may need to refer back to some of these messages at a later date. WhatsApp provides some features to let you manage the data and storage space on your phone and in this section, we'll explore those features.

Download preferences

WhatsApp provides the following settings to let you optimize the bandwidth and space on your phone:

What to download on different types of WhatsApp lets you specify which type of media (photos, audio, videos, and documents) you want to auto-download over each connection type (Wi-Fi, mobile data, and roaming). This allows you to conserve mobile data on both your home network and on roaming. You can still download any of these media files on-demand by clicking on it even if you disable its These settings are available under Settings | Data and storage usage | Media See figure

Media in the By default, your phone gallery shows media files on your phone. These would include media downloaded from WhatsApp. You can choose not to show WhatsApp media in the gallery, by toggling the setting available under Settings | Chats | Media visibility to

WhatsApp allows you to periodically backup chats and media on Google Drive. This is useful if you lose or replace your phone, and this online backup can help you restore your WhatsApp messages and media. You can choose a Google account, and setup a backup You can set up these options from Settings | Chats | Chat See figure

Figure 12.5: WhatsApp Chat Backup options [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp]

Since videos take up the most space amongst all media types, you can optionally choose to restrict the backup of videos from this screen.

Managing space on your phone

You can view the total size of stored data that WhatsApp is taking up on your phone. You can also see the total network usage by WhatsApp. These statistics can be seen via Settings | Storage and and you can click each of these to see a detailed break-up. See figure

Figure 12.6: WhatsApp Auto-Download settings and Space usage [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp]

Clicking on Network usage shows the usage for each WhatsApp feature, including WhatsApp calls.

Clicking on Manage Storage shows the data used by each and includes both people and This list is ordered by decreasing data usage. You can further click on each conversation to view the media data storage for it. You will see the size listed with each media file and can order the list by recency or From this screen, you can either select individual media files or select all files to delete them and free up space. This is a handy feature that lets you selectively delete media and create space on your phone.

Let's now delve into another important area of WhatsApp, the notifications that it generates.

Notifications

By default, each WhatsApp message call generates a This may be distracting for some people as not all messages have the same level of urgency. WhatsApp provides you control over the notifications it generates.

Customize default Each notification generates a causes and shows a preview in the notification area of your phone. WhatsApp lets you customize the sounds and toggle vibration for group individual and Some phones also have a visual LED indicator that lights up for notifications. You can choose whether to allow this for WhatsApp notifications or not. All these controls are available under Settings |

Customize notifications for specific WhatsApp also lets you customize notifications for specific groups and To do this, you can click the contact/group name in the conversation pane and then click on Custom You'll see settings similar to the default notifications, but these are for the specific group you're in. In addition, you may temporarily or perpetually disable audio notifications for a person/group by clicking on Mute Notifications in the contact card. When you do this, WhatsApp gives you some pre-selected durations to mute notifications for, or to do it perpetually. It also lets you specify whether only audio notifications should be disabled, or the visual notifications should be disabled as well.

Using a combination of the above settings, you may fine-tune the notifications for your contacts and groups as per your preferences. In the next section, we'll look at a special feature of WhatsApp which gives it the flavor of a social network.

Status updates

In Chapter 10: Social we learned that most social networks have a feature, known by different names, which lets you post a temporary update that is visible to your network for a limited duration of 24 hours. WhatsApp also has this feature and it's called status It lets you post text, photos, and videos in your status update. You can post multiple status updates as well. Like on social media websites, WhatsApp's status update also works on the basis of a network; all the people who are in your contact list can see your status updates by default, but only if they have saved your number to their contacts list as well. This makes it like a bi-directional You can also see who viewed your status updates. The figure 12.7 shows the interface elements for the status update feature.

Figure 12.7: Status updates interface elements

[Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp]

Let's learn how to use this feature:

Status updates To post a status update or to view status updates from your you can swipe left to display the Status tab of WhatsApp.

Post text To post text in a status update, you can click on the Pencil icon and type in the text. You can choose from one of the fonts and background colors. And you can also insert emoticons. If the text you're entering has a URL, then a preview is shown when viewers click on the link.

Post image/video To post an image/video as a status update, you can click on your profile picture that appears with a + sign on the Status Updates tab. You can then either capture a video or swipe up to select a photo or video from your You can add emoticons, text, and scribble on the photo/video that you're sharing, and can also add a Images can also be rotated and cropped and videos can be WhatsApp has a limit on the length of a video you can have in a status update, which varies by country and can be anywhere between 15 and 60 seconds.

See To see who viewed your status update, click on your status update and swipe up to see the list of contacts who viewed the update. The time at which they viewed your update is also shown. For this feature to work, you must have enabled Read we'll

discuss this in the section on Swipe down to hide the list. The update auto-closes after a few seconds.

View a status Your status update tab shows a list of your contacts who have posted status updates. To view a status update, you can click on their picture. This shows all their status updates one by one, and each status update is shown for a few seconds. You can tap the screen to move to the next status update. You can press and hold on the status while it's open to stop the countdown and view it for longer. When you lift your finger off the screen, the countdown will start again. You can swipe up on the status update to reply to a status update and the reply is sent to the contact as a message. If the status update has a video, you can press any button on your phone's volume rocker to enable volume. Once all status updates from that contact have been shown, it'll move to show the status updates from the contact who's next on the list. To stop, you can click on the Back button. Delete an To delete a status update before it has expired, you can open it, swipe up, and click on the Bin icon on the top right. Mute status You can long-press on a contact's status update and select mute if you don't want to see status updates from that particular contact. Status updates from muted contacts appear at the bottom of the status updates tab under muted You can expand muted updates and then long-press on the contact's status to unmute that contact; doing this would also move that contact's status update back to the main area where you can view it.

Let's now look at some handy features of WhatsApp which can help you do things faster.

Utility features

Let's look at useful features which can make you more efficient. Finding resources from a You can quickly browse through the media, documents, and URLs from any individual or group conversation by opening the conversation clicking on the 3-dot menu, and clicking Media, links, and See figure This shows you a tabbed view categorized by content in which you can find these resources much more easily, compared to scrolling through the chat Further, you can open any media and click on Show in chat in the 3-dot menu to scroll the chat to that message directly. This is often handy to find the conversation exchange that may have happened when that media was sent.

Starred In the section on message actions, we saw that you can star any message. Starring a message is like bookmarking it. You can list all starred messages by clicking on Show Starred Messages in the 3-dot menu on WhatsApp main screen. See figure

WhatsApp on your You can view your WhatsApp conversations from a browser or app on your PC as well. This makes it faster to type and also to download media from conversations to your computer. The WhatsApp app supports audio and video calls as well. To enable WhatsApp Web, you can open https://web.whatsapp.com on your PC. Alternatively, you can

download and install the WhatsApp app from Both the web and app interface will show a QR code when opened for the first time. Then open WhatsApp on your phone, and click on WhatsApp Web under the 3-dot menu on the main screen. See figure This will open up the camera on your phone. Point the camera on the QR code shown on your PC browser/app, and once it detects it, you should see the WhatsApp interface on your PC screen. You can use it to browse and reply to chat or to download media to your PC. This feature requires your phone to be connected to the internet while you use WhatsApp You can also see the list of active sessions under the WhatsApp Web option on your phone app and can tap a session to terminate it or click on Log out from all devices to terminate all sessions. Archived You can long-press on a conversation and click on the Archive icon (box with a Downward arrow) in the top menu to hide it from the list of conversations. If a new message appears in a conversation that you've archived, it will automatically become visible in the list of conversations. Else you can find the Archived link at the bottom of the list of conversations and click on it to view archived chats. See figure This feature is useful for clearing old conversations from your view without deleting them.

Pin WhatsApp always shows the list of conversations in reverse chronological order, so the conversation with the most recent message will appear at the top. At times, there may be some conversations that you may need to access quickly. You can tap and hold such conversations and click on the Pin icon on the menu bar on the top. This will make that conversation always appear at the top of the conversation list, whether it has a recent

message or not. You may pin multiple conversations in the same way, and you can un-pin conversations that you no longer need on top.

QR Typically, you would need to share your number with people to allow them to message you on WhatsApp, and they would add you as a This process of exchanging numbers can be made more efficient using the QR code feature. To view your QR you can click on Settings and click on the QR code on the right of your name. See figure This shows your QR code which you can show to someone to scan, or share using an app. The same screen has a Scan Code tab which allows you to scan someone's QR code using the camera or from an image in your to add them to your

Notes to This is not a WhatsApp feature but something you can do with one of its features. Oftentimes, you may need to bookmark some messages for easier access which can be done using the Star Message feature. But at times, you may want to save notes or links. But sending a message to yourself is not supported in WhatsApp. A workaround to this is to create a group with the minimum number of people and then remove the extra people from the so it would be just you in the You can then pin this group's conversation and send messages to it whenever you need to.

Managing your privacy

With the understanding of privacy we developed in Chapter 10: Social you may be wondering how you may control your network on WhatsApp. You can do this by using a combination of two ways:

By controlling contacts you save in your address If someone's mobile number is not saved in your address they are not part of your WhatsApp But your address book is also used to contact people outside of WhatsApp and you may want to save their number for that. That's where the next approach can be used

By adding people to your blocked Anyone who is part of your blocked list cannot communicate with you on WhatsApp. This option can be used to exclude people whose number you've saved in your address book, but don't want to make part of your WhatsApp contacts.

WhatsApp classifies numbers/contacts in three levels with this model. These levels may be used in your privacy settings, which we'll see in action in this section. Contacts in the blocked list are always excluded, no matter which level you choose: This corresponds to public.

My These are numbers saved in your address book.

Only This corresponds to private.

The figure 12.8 shows WhatsApp Privacy settings:

Figure 12.8: WhatsApp Privacy Settings [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.whatsapp]

Let's explore the key settings.

Profile info privacy

You can choose the visibility of your profile picture and about from Settings | Account | Privacy and choose the Visibility level for each of these. See figure You can choose from My or

WhatsApp lets people see when someone was last active on WhatsApp. You can control the visibility of your Last Seen information from Settings | Accounts | Privacy | Last Seen and choose who can see the time that you were last active on WhatsApp. See figure If you choose not to share your Last then you cannot see when others were active too.

Message privacy

When someone who is not in your contacts list sends you a message for the first time, WhatsApp will show up options in the conversation pane that allow you to add them to your contacts, or block and report them as When someone who is not in your contacts list sends you an attachment, WhatsApp will not download that attachment unless you tap to download it explicitly. Once you save their number to your address any subsequent attachments will be automatically downloaded. WhatsApp shows 2 blue ticks to the sender to depict that the message has been read by the recipient. This is an optional feature that may be disabled from See figure If you turn it off, your receipts will not be shown to people who message you, and you won't be able to see read receipts for messages that you send. If read receipts is disabled, then you won't be able to view the list of people who saw your status update as well; and likewise, your name will also not be shown to them when you view their status

Group privacy

WhatsApp lets you control if you want to allow anyone to add you to a or only allow people in your contacts to add you. This setting is available under Settings | Accounts | Privacy | This setting can also be used to restrict only certain people from adding you to See figure

Status update privacy

By default, your mutual contacts can see your status updates. You can choose to make your status updates visible only to specific people You can also hide your status updates from specific people in your network To control this setting, you can open the Status Updates pane, and click on Status Privacy under the 3-dot menu. Any changes that you make to this setting do not change the audience of any status updates that you've already posted; it applies only to future status Let's now look at some elements of etiquette and responsibility that are relevant for WhatsApp.

Etiquette and responsibility

Like all other platforms on which users interact, WhatsApp also has some etiquette for respectful use. Additionally, WhatsApp has some elements of responsibility as well. We'll cover both of these in this section.

WhatsApp etiquette

Most of the rules covered in Chapter 10: Social Media also apply to WhatsApp; we would encourage you to go back and review those. Additionally, here are some additional things to keep in mind:

Avoid adding people to groups without seeking their permission. Adding someone to a group exposes their number to other people in the group who they might not know, so it can cause privacy issues.

Each emoticon has a particular meaning and appropriateness. Use of the wrong emoticon can convey an unintended message. It's prudent to understand the meaning of emoticons so that you can use them appropriately.

Use the reply feature to respond to specific messages, especially in a so there's no ambiguity on the context of the reply. And if the conversation isn't relevant for others in the group, move to discuss that 1-on-1 with the specific person instead of spamming everyone in the group. Limit your status updates to a few a day.

Let's now learn about responsible use of WhatsApp.

Responsibility

While WhatsApp is a handy tool to share information, it can also be used to spread misinformation just as easily. Misinformation may be in the form of news links, text messages, photos, and videos, and maybe inflammatory in nature. These messages will come from one of your trusted contacts so you may trust the messages.

Factually incorrect and inflammatory information not only causes you to form incorrect opinions about situations, people, and brands but may also influence your behavior as well. When people believe and forward fake information, they not only get affected by it themselves but also serve as a carrier of fake news and rumors. This can lead to spam messages and cause mass panic amongst the population. Fake information is a big problem and all social media websites have systems to detect this using user feedback. Your critical thinking and personal responsibility can easily check this. Here are some ways in which you can be a responsible user of WhatsApp. These ideas not only apply to WhatsApp but to other social networks and online communication tools as well:

Don't trust forwarded messages WhatsApp detects when a message is forwarded and shows the word Forwarded on the top of the message. When you get a forwarded message from a trusted contact, you should not treat the message with the same level of trust you have in that person. To keep the number of

forwarded messages in check, WhatsApp only lets you forward a message to 5 recipients in one go.

Frequently forwarded WhatsApp also shows when a message is highly by a double forwarded sign on top of the message. To check the spread of such messages, WhatsApp restricts forwarding to only 1 person at a time.

Check before you If it seems to be too good or too bad or too bizarre to be true, it often is. You should always check the information contained in the message before believing it especially if it appears to be Forwarded. You can check by searching for a few words from the message on a search engine like Google. Fact-checking websites like https://snopes.com are also useful for checking if a message is a hoax or a chain message. Educate about fake If you discover that a message you've received has misinformation, do inform the sender of the message about it. This gives them a chance to delete the message or share an update with any people and groups that they've sent the message to. Double check before you As a responsible user, you should always double-check any information you forward and never forward a message you're doubtful about.

Things not to Don't send or forward abusive, inflammatory, objectionable, hateful, and obscene messages. This is also prohibited by laws in most countries.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we learned about the features of WhatsApp. We started off by discussing the building blocks of WhatsApp. We learned about people and contacts. We then learned about the different types of communication and media that you may send on WhatsApp. We also discussed group communications and the actions that you can take on messages. We then explored some ways in which you can manage WhatsApp data, notifications, and the storage space on your phone. We also looked at status updates, a social sharing feature of WhatsApp. We then learned the different ways in which you may control your privacy on WhatsApp. Towards the end of the chapter, we looked at some recommendations on etiquette and responsible usage of WhatsApp

In the next chapter, we will talk about handling money and payments on the internet. We'll explore some common ways of transferring money, and also learn about digital wallets. We'll also discuss handling money and payments securely.

Key terms

My contacts Broadcast

Read receipt

Starred messages Status update

Last seen

CHAPTER 13 Money and Payments

The use of money is all the advantage there is in having money.

- Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States

If all of us start transacting through online and mobile banking, it will be our great con-tribution towards eradicating corruption and black money from our country.

- Narendra Modi, Honorable Prime Minister of India

In this chapter, we will learn about handling money and payments on the Internet. We'll start by comparing online and offline sources of money and use that as a foundation to develop an understanding of payment sources and methods. We'll then discuss three popular payment sources: bank accounts, credit cards, and digital wallets, and look at some of the common uses of these. While discussing these, we'll focus on the payment sources and methods available in India. Some of the payment methods we discuss may not be available outside India. Towards the end of this chapter, we'll review some of the best practices that can help keep your money and payment transactions secure on the Internet. So, let's get started and talk about Money!

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Introduction to money and payments

Payment methods in India

Transacting securely

Objective

This chapter will introduce readers to online payments. Readers will learn about money sources and payment methods. They will understand the commonly used payment methods associated with money sources like bank accounts, credit cards, digital wallets, and cash, and understand the concepts related to each of the payment methods. Inter-source transactions will be discussed as well. The chapter will talk about some business models which require a combination of online and offline actions. The chapter will also create an awareness of transaction security and recommend some best practices for it.

Introduction to money and payments

The ability to manage money and make payments on the Internet has the obvious advantage of convenience as it provides you the ability to carry out transactions from the comfort of your home instead of having to visit a bank. However, this is far from being the only benefit. It also enables you to shop online which brings the world closer as you're no longer limited by geographical distance when finding the best deal and making a purchase. We'll explore this more in Chapter 16: You also get access to newer forms of money sources like digital wallets which we'll learn about in the next section. Online sources also provide instant access to transaction history at the click of a button. Over the next few sections, we'll learn about the different capabilities that you get when using online forms of payment.

But dealing with money online also has inherent risks. Like everything else in life, we must manage the risk by developing an awareness about it and following some best practices to keep our transactions secure. Towards the end of this chapter, we'll discuss some aspects of payment/transaction security.

Let's get started by learning about money sources and payment methods.

Introduction to money sources

Our discussion of money sources begins in the real world. Physical money consists of currency bills and coins, which we can carry in our wallet, purse, or pocket. We also deposit our money in banks so we don't have to deal with the hassle of storing currency with us physically, and we earn interest on the amount that we maintain in our bank account. Money could also be in the form of credit from a financial institution, which is a credit card. Cash, bank accounts, and credit cards are the three major sources of money in the real world.

You may use these three sources of money to pay for goods and services on the Internet. There are additional sources of money as well, which are unique to the Internet, like digital wallets and cryptocurrencies. A digital wallet gets its name from a real-world wallet that can hold some amount of cash. We'll learn more about this as we move forward in this chapter. Cryptocurrencies are beyond the scope of this book and we would not be discussing them in this chapter.

Introduction to payment methods

In the last section, we learned about money sources in the real world and on the Internet. When you use a money source to pay for something, money is deducted from the source. Likewise, if someone else pays to your money source, money is added to your source. Each such event is called as The different ways in which you may use a money source to send or receive payment are called payment Let's review some payment methods that you may already be familiar with, from the real world: To pay someone, you pull out your wallet and pay them with currency equaling an amount greater than or equal to what you owe them. And if you paid them more than what you owe them, they can return you the balance amount in smaller denominations of currency. If someone pays you in cash, you receive the currency and keep it in your wallet, purse, or pocket.

Bank You can withdraw money to pay someone, or write them a cheque, or swipe your debit card at a shop, or transfer money to their bank account by giving physical instructions to your bank. Likewise, someone can pay you in cash, or write you a cheque which you can deposit in your account, or transfer money from their bank account to yours.

Credit You can use your credit card to pay for goods and services, and your credit card issuer will pay the merchant. Every month, your credit card issuer sends you a bill for the amount you owe them, and you pay them back the outstanding amount. Sometimes, a merchant may issue you a refund for a purchase, and that adds money to your credit card account.

On the Internet, digital wallets provide you much of the capability that a real wallet provides in the real world. You can pay someone from your wallet, receive payments into your wallet, and add money to your wallet. A digital wallet doesn't depend on real currency denominations so gives you the ability to pay someone an exact amount, which makes them convenient to use. Digital wallets also let you quickly view past wallet transactions, similar to a bank

Let's look at some typical use cases of transactions based on money sources and payment In this chapter, we'll be focusing only on the payment methods that are available in India.

Money transactions on the Internet

You can use the Internet to transact money in the following ways: Real-life source for a real-life transaction, initiated Using money sources from the real world to carry out a routine real-life transaction from the convenience of your home. For example: Transfer some money from your bank account to your friend's bank account online, without having to provide written instructions to your bank. Or, to pay your electricity bill online using a credit card. These types of transactions benefit the banks and other institutions too as they save on human effort which is otherwise required to service your transaction.

Real-life sources for online Using money source from the real world to carry out an online transaction. For example: Buy a pair of shoes on an e-commerce website and pay using your credit card.

Digital source for an online Provides you access to newer forms of money sources like digital wallets when transacting on the Internet. Digital source for a real-life Use digital sources of money to pay for transactions in the real world. For example, you may visit a real shop and pay them for goods using money from your digital wallet. This offers a major convenience as you can pay an exact

amount and do not have to worry about collecting back the balance amount or deal with jingling coins in your pocket.

Let us now discuss each of the payment methods in more detail.

Payment methods in India

In this section, we'll look at the different payment methods which are popular in India for online transactions. Let's begin by discussing some payment methods that work with bank accounts.

NEFT, IMPS, and RTGS

NEFT, IMPS, and RTGS are all payment methods used when the money source is an Indian bank account. Here are some aspects that they have in common.

All of these are initiated from a bank account, so to do a transaction online, you'll need to use Net Banking user credentials on your bank's website. Before you can do this, your Net Banking service should be pre-activated. Additionally, banks may ask you to authenticate a transaction using a One Time Password sent on your mobile number/email ID or some information printed on the back of your debit card like a secret number grid, or both.

All of these are used to transfer funds from one bank account to another. The other bank account may be in any Indian bank that supports these services.

You'll have to add a payee using your Net Banking before you can transfer funds to them. Adding a payee is an operation which will typically have to be authenticated using an OTP and/or card number grid. Also, you may not be able to transfer funds to a newly added payee immediately after adding them and may have to wait for 30-45 minutes. This is a security feature that gives you time to contact the bank in case of fraudulent activity. The

following information is required to add a Payee/Beneficiary and transfer funds to them:

IFSC This is an alphanumeric code comprising of 10 or 11 characters that identifies the bank and branch where the payee account is located. The first 3 or 4 characters identify the bank, the 5th is 0 and the remaining 6 characters identify the bank's branch. You can find this on the cheque book; it typically appears along with the bank branch's address. You can look it up online on the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) website at https://www.rbi.org.in/Scripts/IFSCMICRDetails.aspx

Account This identifies the payee account number in their bank. Account This is the account holder's name for the payee bank account. Type of Either Savings or Current.

the amount to be transferred in INR. A short description that is noted on the transaction, and is visible to the payee/recipient.

Let's understand some differences between NEFT, IMPS and RTGS as well, so you may understand their usage better:

NEFT and RTGS are available both offline (via your bank) and online, whereas IMPS is exclusively available online. RTGS is only allowed for a minimum amount of INR 2 lakhs, IMPS allows a maximum amount of Rs. 2 Lakh, NEFT doesn't have any amount restrictions.

NEFT transactions are settled in batches so there may be a delay of 30-60 minutes between your bank account getting debited and the recipient's account getting credited. RTGS and IMPS are settled in real-time so sender and recipient accounts reflect the transfer within a few seconds.

Some of these transfer mechanisms may incur additional transaction fees. The exact charges vary, so I'm not mentioning those here. At the time of this writing, both NEFT and RTGS are free.

NEFT and RTGS systems are run by the Reserve Bank of India and IMPS is run by National Payment Corporation of India

Unified Payments Interface (UPI)

Unified Payments Interface is a payment system developed for the instant transfer of money between Indian bank accounts. It is maintained and regulated by the National Payments Corporation of India and is designed for use on mobile devices.

In order to use UPI, you need an app that works with the UPI system. Many banks have their own apps, and there are some third-party apps like Bharat Interface for Money maintained by NPCI itself, GPay operated by Google, Paytm, etc. Even some online communication apps like WhatsApp support UPI payments. Each of these apps has a handle that identifies the bank or app uniquely. In order to use a Bank account with UPI, you have to first register it on the UPI app, choose a UPI username and a Mobile PIN Once your account has been added/linked, the app will let you both send and receive money using the UPI system into your linked bank account. The mPIN will be used for security only when sending money using a UPI app. Some UPI apps let you set up an additional PIN for their app as well, to prevent against misuse.

To receive money using UPI, you may share any one of the supported information to identify your account within that app or bank. This is a key factor that differentiates UPI from other payment mechanisms. Because of the simplicity of information shared, it becomes easy for someone to send you money, without

having to share your real account number with them. UPI transactions can be done using any of this information /identifiers:

Mobile number: You can link a 10-digit mobile number to your account and use that as an identifier to receive payments. The mobile number is used along with the bank identifier, for example: 1234567891@okicici is an ID where 1234567891 is a mobile number and okicici identifies the bank/app as ICICI Bank

UPI ID/VPA A VPA/UPI ID identifies your account within a bank; it is unique for each bank or app and is used in combination with the bank/app identifier (also called bank like UniqueUsername@bankhandle Example: Aadhar UIDAI or Aadhar number can also be mapped to a bank account and used to accept payments. However, this is not the most preferred information as there are much simpler methods available. QR We saw one use of QR code when we learned about WhatsApp Web in Chapter 12: UPI apps can also generate a QR code to identify your account. This code can be scanned using an in-app camera by anyone who wants to transfer money to you. This is very useful for offline scenarios, for example, where a shopkeeper may display a printed QR code that can be used by customers to scan and pay them using UPI. When a customer does this, money is transferred from the customer’s bank account to the shopkeeper’s bank account with a minimal human exchange of information. This is also less error-prone since the identifier doesn’t need to be typed in.

ISFC Code, Account Number, and Account holder UPI also supports money transfer to accounts for which you have the usual account details that we discussed in the NEFT, IMPS and RTGS section.

Credit card

You must be already familiar with credit cards. In the real world, we use a credit card by physically it on a card machine at a physical store. This is known as Point of Sale usage. In India, POS transactions above a certain amount require authentication using a secret PIN to prevent misuse.

Credit cards can also be used for online purchases and you would need to provide the following information to pay online: Card the person that the card is issued to

Complete Billing Some parts of it like Pincode and City may be verified

Card Often 15 or 16 digit long, a card number uniquely identifies the type of card (Visa/MasterCard/Rupay, etc.), the issuing bank, and the card itself.

Expiry This is usually the month and year of card expiry Card Verification Value This is a 3-digit secret code printed on the back of the card, towards the right. Some card companies like American Express have a 4-digit secret code and it is printed on the front of the card above the card number.

Additionally, RBI 3D Secure rules mandate the use of either an OTP or a password when using the card online. Since the card number, expiry and CVV are all printed on the card, 3DS prevents some level of misuse in case your card is stolen or lost. Please note that the card may still be used without an OTP on websites outside India.

Out of the above information, the CVV and the OTP/Password are considered to be top secret and should never be shared with anyone, not even with bank officials. The preferred way to share these with a bank or financial institution is by entering these details via your phone’s numpad on their Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system.

To make a credit card payment, you only need the card holder’s name and the card number and payments can be made online via Net Banking, NEFT, UPI, or the card issuing bank’s website. You should never make a credit card payment online via unknown websites.

Digital wallets

Digital wallets allow you to store money You can add money to your digital use the money in your wallet for payments, and also receive a payment from someone into your wallet. Unlike bank accounts, you do not earn any interest on the money stored in your wallet. Wallets can be classified in three categories. RBI has different rules for each type of wallet that the company operating the wallet services has to follow: Some wallets are offered by service providers and only allow the balance to be used for purchases on the service provider's own website; such wallets are called closed

Some wallets allow you to not only add money but also transfer the money to your bank account; these are known as open

Other wallets which don't provide transfer-out facility but allow usage across different websites are called semi-closed

Digital wallets often use the subscriber’s mobile number to identify the wallet account. To receive a payment in your wallet, you need to provide either your mobile number or a QR code to the sender. You can also add money in your wallet using Net Banking, UPI, or a credit card.

Since wallets are purely digital instruments, the institutions offering wallets are required to comply with RBI regulations before they allow the customers to transact more than a certain amount. This process is called Know Your Customer and requires you to submit your identity proof and some other documents to the financial institution. In fact, all banks and financial institutions that offer credit cards also comply with these regulations. Some wallet features are available only after you've completed the KYC process for your digital wallet account.

To send money using a wallet, you'll need to log in to your wallet service or app using your mobile number and either a password or an OTP. Many wallet apps can detect OTPs received on SMS on your mobile phone which makes the login process convenient.

Inter-source transactions

In the above sections, we looked at different sources of money and the payment methods associated with each Some of these payment methods can not only be used to transfer money between sources of the same type, but also across sources. We cited some examples of this in preceding sections, like adding money to a wallet from your bank account using Figure 13.1 shows the different payment methods that are supported for transfer between sources, at the time of this writing:

Figure 13.1: Payment methods used for transfer between money sources

Cash

Before we conclude this section, it's worth mentioning that some websites and apps allow you to purchase goods and services and choose to pay for the item or service at the time of delivery, using cash. This payment method is called cash on We'll see uses of this in Chapter 16: E-commerce later in this book.

Transacting securely

Transacting online has some risks which can be mitigated by having an accurate understanding of the payment methods and following some best practices. The other thing to consider is that on the Internet, everything is data, even the information that you used to authorize payments. Just like your house is as safe as your household keys, your money is also as safe as the safety of the sensitive information required to access it. Thus, we must protect this sensitive information both while storage and during transit. Here are some best practices you should follow to transact securely on the Internet, which address the most common risks:

Secure You must never log in, make a purchase, or undertake any transaction on any website which is not secure. You can see whether a website is secure by looking at the lock icon that appears to the left of the address bar in a web browser. We had discussed this in Chapter 3: Internet as well, and figure 3.8 shows this. If the lock icon doesn't appear closed or some warning appears, the website is considered insecure and you should not transact on it.

Secure Unlike websites, mobile apps are not as easy to check for security. The best way to protect yourself is to only install apps from the Play Store and never install apps using links sent by people. You should only transact on known and popular apps; you can check the number of downloads, the ratings, and reviews for

the app on the Play Store to determine if it is a trusted/reputed one.

Safe storage of login and sensitive Your login information and the sensitive information about your money sources are akin to the keys of your house, and should be stored safely. You should memorize the information and also write and store it in a safe location at home. You should never store this information on your computer and in your email account, or exchange it with anyone over chat tools. This ensures that in a situation where your computer or email account has got compromised, it doesn't lead to your bank accounts or credit cards getting compromised as well. There are some apps like LastPass, KeepPass, etc. which let you store all your login IDs and passwords securely; these apps store your passwords in an encrypted form and automatically enter these details on websites which is often convenient. Some smartphones also have mobile apps pre-installed which do this and additionally secure saved passwords using biometrics like fingerprints. If you decide to use an app like this, it is critically important to protect the login credentials of that app since it's akin to the key of a vault where you're storing all your keys.

Strong passwords and You should choose passwords and PINs which are not easy to guess. It's recommended to use a combination of upper-case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and symbols in your passwords. Also, you should avoid reusing the same passwords across websites and change your passwords periodically. A combination of these practices will keep your PIN and passwords secure.

Saved credit Many e-Commerce websites/apps let you store your credit card information so that you don’t have to enter the details for every purchase. However, to prevent payment fraud, they would prompt you to re-enter your CVV and authorize the payment using an OTP when you choose to pay with a saved card. You should save your credit card details only on reputed websites/apps that you use frequently, and remove the saved cards from websites/apps that you no longer use very often. Enable OTP-based authentication may be optional on some websites. You should enable it for all websites where you have critical information and for websites that you use for financial transactions.

Block lost, stolen and compromised cards Remember that while card transactions require an OTP/PIN in India, the card can still be used online on international websites without requiring these. In case your credit or debit card is lost, stolen or compromised, contact your card issuer immediately to get your card blocked. Enable fingerprint-based authentication on Some banking and UPI apps may also offer a fingerprint-based authentication which combats against situations where someone gets physical access to your mobile phone and knows your PIN.

Understand the information required to receive As you may have observed earlier in this chapter, the information required to receive money using a payment method is limited compared to the

information needed to send someone money. Understanding these differences for each payment method is critical to your security. Lack of clarity and understanding on these differences is often misused by fraudsters who may try to manipulate you using social interactions to give up sensitive For example: If a stranger wants to send you money via UPI and asks for your UPI mPIN, you should understand that an mPIN is sensitive information and you shouldn't share it with anyone; even UPI apps won’t ask for the mPIN for receiving payments. Also remember that with QR Codes, the sender is the one who needs to scan the recipient’s QR code, and not the other way round. So, you should never scan a QR code someone sends to you claiming it’s needed so that they can make a payment to you. Since this is so important, I'm summarizing the information needed to receive a payment for the common payment methods again in table

Table 13.1: Information needed to receive a payment using common payment methods Prevention against money Don't make a smaller payment to anyone with the lure or promise of receiving a bigger payout. These are scams that use human greed as a motivator to

convince thousands of people to make a small payment to a scamster. These small payments from thousands of people earn these scamsters a fortune. Prevention against friends in This is another variation of a scam where hackers take over someone's account and use social media and online communication tools to contact their network, posing as them. A communication of this sort may indicate that your friend is in distress in a foreign land and is in urgent need of money. Scammers who do this are specialized in the art of persuasion. They create a false sense of urgency and try to overwhelm you with a barrage of chat messages. The easiest way to check this may be to ask them a challenging question which only your contact will know, like details of something you have in common or something about the first time you met. You should always insist you talk to them on the phone before taking any steps to help them.

Prevention against money There are cases where someone may offer to send you money and ask you to forward that money to someone in exchange for a fee. This is often done with the intent of laundering black money for illegal uses by creating an intricate chain of money transfers. This is illegal and you should never agree as you will be legally liable if you help someone in laundering money. Awareness and extreme caution are your best lines of defense for dealing with money and payments securely on the Internet.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we learned about money sources in the real world, namely cash, bank accounts, and credit cards, and how they are used online. We also learned about digital wallets. We also looked at some commonly used money sources and payment methods and understood the information required to send and receive money using these methods. We also reviewed how these payment methods may be used to transfer money between sources of the same and different types. Towards the end of this chapter, we looked at some best practices that can help you keep your money and payments secure.

In the next chapter, we will discuss privacy on the Internet. We'll discuss the differences between security and privacy and also review what we've learned about privacy in this book so far.

Key terms

Digital wallets NEFT

RTGS

IMPS UPI

CVV

RBI

NPCI

VPI

CHAPTER 14 Managing your Privacy

Privacy is not an option, and it shouldn't be the price we expect for just getting on the Internet

- Gary Kovacs, Technologist and Former CEO of Mozilla Corporation If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.

- Kahlil Gibran, Artist, Poet and Writer

In this chapter, we will discuss about privacy on the Internet and tie together whatever we have learned about privacy earlier in this book. We will also explore a way to classify information and discuss the differences between security and privacy. Later in this chapter, we will learn about social engineering. Let us dive into privacy.

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Introduction to information privacy

Classification of information

Security versus privacy Social engineering

Objective

The chapter is about privacy and will help readers connect the dots between what the applications of privacy that they have learned about, earlier in the book. Readers will understand how privacy applies to companies and see a high-level approach for classifying information. Readers will also learn about authentication, authorization, and the differences between security and privacy. The chapter also creates an awareness of social engineering and recommends some ways to protect yourself from such attempts.

Introduction to information privacy

Privacy and information always go hand in hand. With any form of information, there is always a consideration about who should have access to that information. For example, the sounds and sights in your house are a form of information. Anyone who lives with you has access to this information. However, you might not be comfortable if a stranger could hear and see these sounds and sights. Further, you could be comfortable with some people in your close friends' circle seeing and hearing these, but not with others. Some types of information are inherently designed to be accessible to a wider audience in a certain way. For example, if you have a door plate with your name outside your home, any stranger walking past can see the names of the people who live in the house. On the other hand, if you meet a stranger in a coffee shop, you may not be comfortable with them knowing your full address. As you can see, the association of same pieces of information, and are acceptable in one context but not in another.

Whenever we talk of privacy, in most cases, there are other people in the picture. You can see this in the examples that I have cited above. You may also have noticed that earlier in this book, whenever we discussed topics that involved connecting and sharing with people via a website or app, the topic of privacy always came up. We talked about privacy when we discussed about photo and video sharing, social media, and online communication. In the context of the Internet, there is another

aspect of privacy that does not involve people, but has to do with online services and companies instead. Often times, in order to use a service provided by a website or app, you have to provide some personal information on it. You usually provide this information while registering on a website/app or while carrying out a transaction on it.

Privacy also deals with what a website/app does with the information that it collects from you. Often, websites/apps use technology systems from other companies (third-parties) that may require them to share user information with that third-party. Every website/app is required to inform you about what information they collect about you and what information they share with thirdparties. You may find this on the privacy policy page which is present on most websites. If you are not comfortable with the usage of your information, you may choose not to use the website.

Let us now learn about the standard classification of information that websites/apps collect from you.

Classification of information

Information may be classified in three main categories: Information that can identify you as an individual is known as Personally Identifiable Information PII is considered as Some examples of this are your full email phone passport etc.

This is information about your money and payments sources and is called Payment Card Information PCI is considered as sensitive We had discussed examples of this in Chapter 13: Money and

Other Any information that is not PII and PCI generally falls in this category. Some information is not PII but is for example, passwords. Other information is not. For example, the information that a certain user viewed a particular product on a website. This information can be used by websites in several ways, to generate a Most viewed products list which can help other users in discovering interesting products, and also for recommending products to users.

The above classification is a very high-level one that I am sharing for your awareness. Practically, there are many other classifications of data (Personal Health Information, etc.) and there are many other finer nuances that are beyond the scope of this book.

There are organizations and country regulations which define standards for how PCI and PII data should be handled correctly. Websites and apps are required to comply with these standards.

Privacy versus security

In the preceding sections, we learned that privacy applies to information that a website/app collects from you and your usage patterns on the website/app. Additionally, some privacy controls determine how other users of the website may view your Note that privacy controls apply to other valid users of the website. We looked at many of these controls in earlier chapters. For example: in Chapter 10: Social we learned about privacy levels: Only and all of whom apply to valid users of the social media website. Security on the other hand pertains to your usage of a website or app. It helps the website know that it is indeed you who is logging into your account and to secure the data exchanged between the website and you. The process of verifying that you are who you claim to be is called authentication, and the process of checking if an authenticated user should have access to certain information is called authorization.

Security on the Internet and in the real world is controlled by the following three elements, in decreasing order of their common usage. Combinations of these are often used to bolster authentication. What you know (a This is usually a secret that you set-up when you register on a website or app. For example: a password or a

secret code. In the real world, an ATM Card's PIN is an example of this.

What you have (something This is followed extensively in the real world. For example, your key lets you unlock your home's door and enter your home. On the Internet, this is usually either your mobile phone or your email access, and the website/app may send you an OTP when doing a transaction. This is often used in combination with the Secret. For example: When making a payment, many websites will require you to enter a secret password as well as an OTP sent on your mobile number as SMS. What you are This applies to usage of something that uniquely identifies you, as a means of security. For example, your signature on a cheque, a fingerprint, or a retinal scan of your eye. This is the most secure method but is the hardest to implement on websites and apps since it requires dedicated hardware capability on user devices. Since the last few years, many mobile phones are starting to add a fingerprint sensor and the face recognition feature. Fingerprints provide an ability to unlock the phone and can also be used by apps to authenticate users quickly and securely. This provides an ability to secure information even if someone obtains physical access to your mobile device and even finds out your secret PIN. At the time of this writing, the face recognition feature on mobile devices has not been adopted widely by apps for authentication and its usage is only limited to unlocking the device.

Privacy and security are often closely related as a privacy issue can leak critical information which can potentially be used to compromise your account security. Let us now learn about social engineering that is a sophisticated attack, which poses a risk to both security and privacy.

Social engineering

Social Engineering is the process of carrying out engineered social interactions to convince people to divulge private or secret information about themselves or someone they know. This is often done with the intent of circumventing security processes. Social engineering attacks are seen both online and offline. Let us understand some common elements involved in the modusoperandi of a social engineering attack. Social engineering may be done posing as someone you trust. The trust can be one of the factors which may convince you to share information. For example, an attacker may pose as a contact of yours, or as a company you do business with.

Cloaked communication The mode of communication used is often one that does not let you ascertain easily if the person contacting you is indeed who they claim to be. For example, an email or social media message claiming to be from your friend, or a phone call claiming to be from your bank, etc.

Social engineering MO often leverages strong human emotions such as greed, fear, and curiosity. These attacks often create a sense of urgency which does not give the targeted person a chance to think clearly and logically.

Sometimes, social engineering attacks are very personalized and may address you or your friends by name.

Information being The information sought may be confidential like your phone number, or sensitive information like your card details. Sometimes, the information being sought seems to be innocuous, like a date of birth, but it may be used in-turn as a means to recover or reset some secure information like a password. When we fail to protect important information on our social media profiles, we make it simple for attackers to obtain this information without even needing to carry out a social engineering

We have seen some examples of social engineering attacks in earlier chapters which you may be able to relate to, now. For example, the Friends in distress example that we shared in Chapter 13: Money and Payments is an example of social A fake email impersonating your bank which is intended to convince you to login on a fake banking website is an example of phishing. An attacker may pose as a bank employee and call, asking you to login on such a website, thereby using social engineering for the purpose of phishing Large organizations have established processes that help protect against information leakage and social engineering attacks. For individuals, here are some ways to combat social engineering attempts:

Detect Do you see an anomaly with an event? For example, a friend you have not spoken to for a long time suddenly contacts you on social media asking for monetary help. Do multiple things seem out of place? For example, You get an email from your bank telling you that your account may be blocked if you do not take immediate action. There is a link in the email to an unknown website, an inherent tone of urgency and you also notice there are a lot of spelling mistakes in the email. These can act as warning signs for phishing and social engineering attacks. Sometimes the indications above can help you confirm if the communication is fake, for example, in the case of an email, when you notice that the link is pointing to an unknown website. In other cases, you can challenge the person contacting you by asking for some information that may be known only to the real person. This can help confirm if your contact is being impersonated.

If you detected that an email communication or social media message was a social engineering attempt, it is a good idea to report the email or message by marking it as This can help the email provider or social media website take action against the sender account and prevent similar attacks in the future. You can also inform the contact who was being impersonated, via an alternate communication medium, that their account may have been compromised. This can help them regain access to their account at the earliest and inform other contacts of theirs who might have got similar messages from the attacker.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we connected the dots between what we learned about privacy earlier in the book and also introduced the notion of privacy between individuals and companies. We reviewed a common information classification which helps operators of websites and app handle information in a compliant manner. We explored the differences between privacy and security, and learned about authentication and authorization. We also looked at some common patterns of authentication. Towards the end of this chapter, we learned about Social engineering and how it may be used to circumvent both security and privacy.

In the next chapter, we will start our foray into e-commerce by learning about reviews and also share some popular websites where you may find reviews from other customers. We will explore how reviews can help you decide what to buy. We'll also explore some ways in which you may derive insights from reviews and find the best product to buy.

Key terms

Privacy policy PII

PCI

Authentication Authorization

Social engineering

MO

CHAPTER 15 Reviews

The rise of the citizen review site is a sobering development. No longer are you on top of the mountain, blasting your marketing message down to the masses through your megaphone. All of a sudden, the masses are conversing with one another. If your service or product isn't any good, they'll out you.

- David Pogue, Technology and Science Writer, TV Presenter A one or five-star rating is usually an exaggeration

- Mokokoma Mokhonoana, Writer

In this chapter, we will learn about reviews and discuss how reviews can help you take decisions both online and in the real world. We’ll focus on end-customer reviews and not web or video reviews posted by professionals. We'll look at the different parts of an online review and list some popular websites you may look up for reviews. We'll also discuss how you can compare product prices on the Internet, and go through some additional ways in which you may derive insights from reviews. So, let's begin our review.

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Introduction to reviews

Anatomy of a review

Popular review sources Price comparison

Deriving insights from reviews

Objectives

This chapter is about online reviews. It draws parallels between offline and online reviews and explains some uses of online reviews. Readers will understand the anatomy of a review, the significance of each of its constituents, and they will be able to derive insights from them. The key classification of websites where reviews are found is discussed as well, and some popular websites are listed. This chapter also covers price comparison.

Introduction to reviews

The word review means to reflect on something again critically, after you've experienced it. The critique serves as a mechanism to draw out the key positive and negative aspects of the thing being reviewed, which is intended to be useful for someone who hasn't yet experienced that thing. In the real world, when we share our likes and dislikes of a book, a movie, a shop or even a person, we're reviewing. And we communicate this to people in our circle, often by On the Internet as well, you can share your review of a product, service, or business, and others can use your review to make decisions. Reviews can consist of text, emoticons, images, videos, and some other elements. We'll look at this later in this chapter. The real power of online reviews comes from the fact that you're not limited to your circle, reviews are public and can be read by anyone on the Internet.

Reviews are primarily found on websites where the products and services are sold. Additionally, some websites collate reviews from many such websites and these are called Aggregator websites. Review aggregators can only collate reviews for things which are standard products which can be identified with a name or a model number. For example, a hotel or business identified by its name, or a watch identified by its model number. Additionally, there are some specialized websites which are dedicated just for

reviews and often link to other websites where you can procure the product.

Some aggregators also serve another purpose and that is to list the price of standard products on different websites. You can compare the price and decide where to buy the product from. In some cases, it's prudent to buy a product from a website even though the price may be slightly higher on it. You may take such a decision based on considerations like positive reputation of the website, the geographic area that they ship products to, their shipping costs, or how fast they can deliver the product to you.

It's very simple to post a review on the Internet and anyone may do this. As you can imagine, this poses a problem as some entities may try to post fake reviews to influence prospective buyers positively or negatively for their vested interests. Websites circumvent this in many different ways, some of which are as follows:

Some websites may decide to check and approve a review before making it available to readers. Some websites only allow users who have purchased a product on their website to post their review. Some other websites allow any registered users to post a review, but they mark reviews from people who've bought that product on the website as Trusted or Verified or

Community Many websites allow registered users to vote if a review is useful or not and show the most trusted reviews first. This is called crowdsourcing. Over time, this causes the most informative reviews to bubble-up to the top. Many large websites also use computers to detect fake reviews based on some patterns observed in the past.

Reviews can help you decide what to buy where to buy it from and whom to buy it from Some important points to note here is not everyone who buys a product shares the review. And people are less motivated to share reviews when the product works as expected. There could be situations where good products have some negative reviews. Hence, reviews should be looked at as a sample set, to gather insights and ultimately reduce the risk of your decision. For newly launched products, there may not be many customer reviews and you can also search for professional reviews on Google or YouTube. Let us now explore the different parts of an online review. For the next few sections, we'll use user interface elements from Flipkart, a popular online shopping website.

Anatomy of a review

As we briefly mentioned in the previous section, a review may contain a combination of text and media. Here are some typical parts of a review:

Reviewer By default, this is the name you provided when you registered on the website. Some websites also allow you to post reviews anonymously. This serves as a short one-line summary of the review.

This is where the detailed review can be mentioned.

Star This is the score on a 5-point scale. 5 stars indicate that you're fully satisfied with the product. The rating gives a quantitative attribute to the review and is extremely useful. It allows you to derive the overall rating of the product based on all reviews. On many websites, you can rate a product without providing its review as well.

Reviews can also contain product pictures and short videos about the product. Products with pictures are more trusted by default as they offer additional insights and less likely to be fake.

The figure 15.1 shows a review as viewed on Flipkart:

Figure 15.1: A review with Media on Flipkart [Credit:

Some websites allow you to rate other aspects of the purchase like shipping, delivery, communication, etc. Some websites have multiple sellers selling products too, and you can rate sellers on some of these aspects. The average of these ratings is shown and it provides insights to help you choose a seller. Now that we've seen what constitutes a review, let's learn about the ways in which you may navigate reviews.

Navigating reviews

On most shopping websites, the reviews preview section is found on the product details page near the bottom. A reviews/rating summary link is often present near the product title at the top of the page, which lists the number of reviews and average rating of the product. The review/rating summary is also shown for each product in product listings. The following figure 15.2 shows the review/rating summary in the product listing and product details page on Flipkart:

Figure 15.2: Review/rating summary in a product listing and detail view [Credit:

You can click on the review summary to jump to the reviews preview on the product page. The figure 15.3 shows the reviews preview section on the product page on Flipkart:

Figure 15.3: Review/Rating Preview section on Product page [Credit:

There's often a View All reviews link under the Previews section, which opens up a Review page which provides access to navigation controls for sorting, etc. The figure 15.4 shows the Review page for a product on Flipkart:

Figure 15.4: Review/Rating page for a product [Credit: In the Product Reviews section, you can choose to view reviews sorted by recency or usefulness. Some websites also allow you to sort review listings by rating. Additionally, the product review section provides a count of the reviews with each rating range (01, 1-2 and so on). You can click on the range to list only the reviews with that rating, which is often useful for deriving insights about a product. See figure Many websites also allow you to navigate the photos and videos posted by other users and view the review associated with each picture. This provides a visual navigation of reviews which is very useful for judging the actual color, shade, and look of the actual product. The exact presentation of reviews may vary slightly across different websites but the preceding information is typically present. Though we've used the term Product above, a similar presentation is followed for reviews about services and businesses too. Let's now explore some popular websites for finding reviews.

Popular review websites

As we learned earlier in this chapter, you may find reviews mainly on three types of websites: shopping websites (also called ecommerce websites), review aggregator websites, and specialized review websites. We also learned about price comparison websites. Table 15.1 lists some popular websites for products, services, and businesses under these categories:

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categories: categories: categories:

Table 15.1: Popular review websites for some popular categories Let us now look at some additional ways in which you may derive insights from reviews.

Deriving insights from reviews

Earlier in this chapter, we learned about the constituents of a review and explored some ways in which you can navigate reviews by using sorting, rating bands, and image navigation. Let's now explore how you can use these to derive insights about products/services:

Both the number of reviews and the average rating go hand-inhand and should always be used in combination. A product that has very few reviews and an average rating of 5 can't be relied upon too much as the sample set is small. On the other hand, a product which has thousands of reviews but an average rating of 3.5 stars is much more reliable and realistic as it indicates that the product is popular, but everyone may not be satisfied with all its aspects.

The most useful way to navigate reviews is sorting them by Usefulness. This allows you to view reviews that other customers have read and found to be useful. In the same spirit, you should also upvote useful reviews and downvote reviews that don't add much value. If everyone does this, useful reviews can surface. Some websites also allow you to filter reviews based on some criteria like showing only reviews with photos and videos and showing only reviews from users who have bought the product

from the website. This allows you to see only high quality and trusted reviews.

You can use negative reviews to discover limitations of the product that you may not be aware of. You can do this by clicking on lower ratings like 0-1, 1-2 and 2-3 stars to explore reviews with that rating.

For popular products which have a large number of reviews, you may also see some common phrases above the reviews. These are terms that are repeated in many reviews and indicate a general sentiment about the product. Many websites will also allow you to click on these phrases and view all reviews that mention that phrase. This is useful for drilling down into an aspect which is crucial to your purchase decision. For example, the battery life of a cell phone. Some websites also allow you to search reviews for keywords of your choice. If a product has a handful of negative reviews, you can read the negative reviews to isolate if the rating is low due to the product itself or some other aspects like delivery experience, etc.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we learned about online reviews, their usage, and the types of websites you can find reviews on. We looked at the parts of a typical review and also explored some ways in which you can navigate reviews. We also reviewed some popular review websites of different types for key categories. Towards the end of this chapter, we shared some tips to derive useful insights from reviews to help in your decision making. In the next chapter, we will learn about e-commerce. We'll understand the typical workflow that you may find in an ecommerce website and explore each step of the workflow in detail. We'll also look at some examples where the purchase process involves online and offline steps. We'll look at both product purchase and event booking examples. We'll also discuss some post-purchase actions that you may take on e-commerce websites.

Key terms

Rating Aggregator

Crowd-sourcing

CHAPTER 16 E-commerce

Men go shopping just as men go out fishing or hunting, to see how large a fish may be caught with the smallest hook.

- Henry Ward Beecher, Clergyman and Social Reformer

And I hope 15 years later people forget about e commerce because they think it's like electricity. Nobody thinks it's a high tech today.

- Jack Ma, Business Magnate, Investor, Philanthropist, and Cofounder of Alibaba Group

Trade isn't about goods. Trade is about information. Goods sit in the warehouse until information moves them.

- C. J. Cherryh, Science Fiction and Fantasy Author

In this chapter, we will learn about shopping on the Internet which is called electronic commerce or e-commerce. We'll begin by drawing some parallels between real-life and online purchase processes, and then learn about e-commerce terminology and the typical process of ordering a product on an e-commerce website. We'll also look at some alternate ways in which you can discover

products to buy. We'll explore some popular models in which ecommerce websites operate and also learn about actions which you may take after you've placed an order online. We will also discuss shipment tracking, learn how it works, and look at alerts. We'll look at tracking shipments for an e-commerce order, a courier service, and on India Post. The tracking examples shared will be for India; the transit and tracking process is mostly the same across countries but the process of booking a package may vary by country. Towards the end of this chapter, we'll learn about movie/event booking on the Internet. So, grab your bags and let's go shopping!

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Introduction to e-commerce

Ordering workflow

Online and offline commerce models Post-ordering actions

Tracking

Movie/event booking

Objectives

This chapter focuses on e-commerce. It introduces e-commerce terminology by drawing parallels between online and offline shopping. It explores some common web pages seen on ecommerce websites and walks readers through the typical ordering process, explaining the significance of each step. Readers will also learn some alternate ways to discover products on e-commerce websites, post-ordering actions, and some e-commerce models which use a combination of online and offline actions. This chapter also introduces tracking, explains how it works, and shows examples from e-commerce, courier, and India Post. Towards the end of this chapter, readers will learn about an event/movie booking workflow and understand how it's different from product shopping.

Introduction to e-commerce

E-commerce or electronic commerce is the process of buying or booking products and services on the Internet. In the physical world, we make purchases in stores whereas on the Internet, we can make purchases on websites and apps which sell products and services and these are called e-commerce/shopping websites and apps. In this chapter, we'll learn about some important elements of e-commerce which are commonly seen across different shopping websites and apps. We'll use the Flipkart website https://www.flipkart.com for our examples; however, you may refer to the interface of your favorite shopping website as you read this chapter.

Consider the typical purchase process in the physical world, which is in a large departmental store. As you walk in, you grab a shopping cart or basket. Then, you walk through several aisles; each of which has products belonging to different departments like fruits, vegetables, frozen items, cleaning products, etc. Each department has several sections where you may find products from different companies. You compare products based on their qualities and price and select the product to buy and put it in your shopping cart. Once you've filled your shopping cart with products you want to buy, you proceed to one of the checkout lanes where a store clerk will scan the products and inform you the amount you need to pay. You make the payment by cash or credit/debit card, collect a receipt, and walk out with your

purchases. If you need to return a product, you would have to bring it back to the store and they would issue you a refund. If it's an exchange, you can pick-up a different piece of the same product instead. Here, let's also consider a case of a shopping mall, which has several shops selling their products and you purchase a product from a seller and not the mall owner. However, the mall owner may also have their shop in the mall where they could be selling their own products.

Purchases on the Internet are modeled on this same process, and in fact, many of the terms have their origins in the physical shopping process that we described earlier. Let's start by looking at e-commerce terminology.

E-commerce terminology

The figure 16.1 shows the interface of a sub-category listing web page on Flipkart:

Figure 16.1: Category listing on Flipkart website [Credit:

Here are some terms which are commonly used on e-commerce websites, please refer to the figure

Shopping Also called cart or basket in short; this is a virtual area where you add items you want to buy. Note that you'll typically have to select the variant of a product (like color/size) and quantity before adding it to the cart. The Cart icon appears on

the top-right corner of the page and by hovering your mouse on it, you can sometimes see a preview of the items that were added last. Clicking on the Cart icon would open up the Cart page where all the products are listed, and you can change quantities or remove products from your cart.

Categories and Like physical stores, products on an e-commerce website are also organized into departments and nested sections. On many websites, these are called categories and often shown in the form of a nested tree structure. In apps, appear on the topleft corner of the screen under the hamburger menu. Some ecommerce websites also have the main categories as a menu which runs along the top edge of the website. You can select a category and the sub-category to view all products under it. On a mobile app, a top-level category may not show list of products directly, but instead may show highlights of sub-categories and popular searches under it. Selecting a sub-category or a popular search would show products under it. All e-commerce websites have a search bar that allows you to search a product directly using its name, model number, and other keywords. A typically appears along the top edge on the website. Some Apps have a magnifying glass icon on top-right corner of the screen, which shows the search bar when you click on it.

Filtering is the process of narrowing down a list of products by specifying a filtering criterion. Only products which meet the criteria are shown, and all other products are hidden. Filters are

typically shown on the left panel on a website, and under the Funnel icon on apps. We'll learn more about filtering in detail later in this chapter.

Sorting is the process of ordering a list of products so you may view products in a certain order. The list of products you're ordering may be based on a category or a search and may be filtered or unfiltered. We'll learn more about Sorting later in this chapter. Similar to the physical store, checkout is an action you take when you're done with shopping and want to complete the purchase of items in your shopping cart. Wish E-commerce websites allow you to bookmark products by adding them to your wish list, which allow you to find them easily later.

Some e-commerce websites allow you to compare two or more products side by side based on a list of parameters. This is only useful when the items being compared are of the same type. For example, you can compare two mobile phones, but comparing a mobile phone with a pair of headphones may not be of much use. A coupon or voucher applies a discount or promotional offer on your purchase and it's typically applied on the whole cart in the checkout process.

Seller and There are some websites which are like departmental stores where you're always buying from the business owner who owns the website. However, there are also some websites which are like shopping malls with several sellers selling their products on it. In such a case, even though you make a purchase on the website, you're not buying from the business owner who owns the website but from a different seller. Such websites are called ecommerce You can see the seller name and their rating on the product page. The Account section in an e-commerce website allows you to manage your membership, saved addresses, saved credit cards, reviews you've submitted, and change your password. It allows you to manage your wish list and view the status of past orders. Basically, anything which is based on your interaction with the ecommerce website would be found under the Account section.

The figure 16.2 shows the same interface elements on the Flipkart mobile app.

Figure 16.2: Common interface elements on Flipkart mobile app [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.flipkart.android] Let's now learn about some pages you commonly see on ecommerce websites.

Key pages on an e-commerce website

Most e-commerce websites have the following types of web pages. There are additional web pages apart from these too, but the following are important for a typical ordering workflow:

Homepage/landing This is the page that opens up when you visit an e-commerce website. On the you can often see recommended products, features products and categories, and promotional offers that are going on. These are important for product which we'll learn later in this chapter.

The login page allows you to log in into your account, and also sign-up for a new account on the websites. You can make purchases on e-commerce websites without having to sign-up, but you'll have access to wish list, recommendations, and past purchases only if you're signed in. You can sign-up by providing your email address or mobile number. Many e-commerce websites/apps also allow you to log in with your Google or Facebook logins. When you do this, your name and email address is automatically fetched from your Google or Facebook account.

Product This is the page which lists products and allows you to sort and filter the results. See figure 16.1 and figure We'll learn more about this in the ordering workflow later in this chapter.

Product The product details page lists information about the product, product pictures, its pricing, deals and offers, shipping estimate, and customer reviews and pictures. It also has action buttons which allow you to select the product for purchase. The figure 16.3 shows the top part of a product detail page. You can scroll through the page to view product information, the review section with customer pictures and feedback, products similar to this product, and some recommended products that are often bought with this product. In case of marketplace websites, the product detail page also mentions the seller of the product and their rating. You can also see other sellers who're selling the product, their rating and price, and you can choose to buy it from them instead:

Figure 16.3: Header section of Flipkart product detail page

The Cart page lists the items in your cart and allows you to modify the quantity, delete products, and to check out the cart. It also allows you to enter vouchers and coupons to apply for discounts and offers.

Checkout This is usually the first page in the checkout process and its purpose is to accept the address where the items in the order should be delivered. If you are logged in, you will usually see your saved addresses on this page, and you can choose from a saved address or enter a new one.

Shipping This is usually the second step in the checkout process and its purpose is to provide a choice of shipping methods along with the shipping charges. You have to select from the shipping methods available.

Checkout This is usually the third page in the checkout process and its purpose is to allow you to choose how you want to pay for the order. You can choose from one of the payment methods you have saved on the website, provide details of a new payment method, or choose an offline payment method like on Delivery If you choose a saved payment method like a credit card, most websites would ask you to re-enter the card CVV again; this is done to prevent misuse and fraud.

Order This is usually the next step in the checkout process and summarizes the choices you made for address, payment information, and shipping fee. It also shows the final order amount. It has a Place Order button which will charge your payment method and place the order. Payment This screen only appears in the case of online payments and is from a payment gateway. A Payment Gateway is a special website which all e-commerce websites use to authorize and process payments. Payment gateways have integration with banks, digital wallets, and credit card companies. The purpose of the Payment authorization screen is to collect all the information that's required to finally authorize the payment. For example, you may be prompted to enter an OTP for your credit card, or log in to your digital wallet. In case of a Net Banking payment, this page will allow you to choose your bank and then redirect you to your bank's website where you will log in and provide an OTP to complete the payment. Once the net banking payment is complete, you will be redirected back to the payment gateway which shows the transaction status before redirecting you back to the e-commerce website where you are making the purchase. Order The order confirmation page appears after the order has been placed and would typically have the order number and order status, which is either success or failure.

Order The order listing page shows a list of your past orders.

Order The order detail page shows the details of your past orders and enables you to take post-product actions such as initiating a return/exchange and leaving an online review. We'll learn more about post-ordering actions later in this chapter. Let's now look at the typical ordering process on an e-commerce website.

Ordering workflow

Earlier in this chapter, we reviewed a typical purchase process in a departmental store and a shopping mall in the physical world. As we went through the e-commerce terminology in the previous section, you would have noticed that some of the terms are based on the same metaphors as their physical counterparts. Let's now look at the typical steps involved in placing an order on an ecommerce website: Product research and selection.

Add to cart.

Cart checkout.

Order confirmation.

The figure 16.4 shows the ordering workflow on an e-commerce website:

Figure 16.4: E-commerce ordering workflow

Let's look at each of these steps in detail.

Product research and selection

You can find products to buy on an e-commerce website in one of several ways, some of which are:

Category You can browse the category and sub-category tree to view the offers and to list the products in a selected category/subcategory. Product You can search for a product using the Search bar, which is typically present along the top of the website. On apps, you can click on the Magnifying glass icon to view the Search bar. You can search products by their product name or by their model number. You'll see suggestions as you start typing in the search bar. Many websites also allow you to search using natural English phrases too. For example, you may search for Android Smartphones under 10000 to search for phones with Android OS which are priced under INR 10,000.

Once you have a list of products by using any of the preceding mechanism, you can narrow down the products using a combination of sorting, filtering, and customer reviews/ratings. Let's look at each of these:

Filtering is the process of narrowing down a list; typically done for a list of products. The list of products may be a result of a

category/sub-category listing, or of a Search. You can filter based on different criteria like sub-categories, price, brand, etc. If the products belong to a common sub-category, you may also see additional filtering options specific to that sub-category. For example, if you're viewing computer keyboards, you may see a filtering option which allows you to view only wired or wireless keyboards.

Sorting is the process of ordering a list of products so that you can view products in a certain order. The list of products can be based on category or a search, and can be filtered or unfiltered. You can sort a product listing on the basis of different criteria, some common criteria being price, average rating, popularity, relevance (to search keywords), newness of the product, discount, etc. Not all e-commerce websites allow all these sorting methods. Some websites allow you to also view featured products before the search results; featured products are those selected by the website and may or not meet your filter criteria. Featured products are sometimes also based on advertising and if that's the case, the product would often have either the word Ad or Sponsored mentioned on it. See figures 16.1 and figure 16.2 for examples of this. Once you have narrowed down the list of products, you may go through some of their details on the product details page. You can also read customer reviews on the product detail page to eventually shortlist and select a product. You can refer to the last chapter to understand how you can derive insights from reviews.

Product discovery

E-commerce websites also help you discover products when you're not looking for any specific ones. An example of this in the real world is the product display near the Checkout counters in departmental stores. On websites, these product recommendations are much more intelligent and many times, even personalized for you. These products may appear in several places on the website; some popular locations are as follows: Deals and featured The homepage of the shopping website typically showcases featured products, new launches and products, and categories which have some promotions running. Category pages also have featured sub-categories and products that may be bestsellers or have deals running.

The main page of the e-commerce website may recommend you products based on products you've viewed, added to your wish list, or purchased in the past.

Related products or products bought Related products and products bought together are shown on the product detail page, often at the very bottom, and are related to the product being viewed. For example, if many people who buy an electric torch also buy batteries, then batteries can be shown under Related These are typically not personalized, so all users would see the same related products for a particular product.

Similar These are alternatives to the product being viewed and also appear on the product detail page. Often, these are based on product-comparison and purchase behavior of other users of the website.

Cart/checkout Some products may be shown on the cart or checkout pages as you're going through with the purchase process for your cart. These may have been recommended based on items in your cart, or may be based on what other users buy commonly. Let us now look at the step you take once you've narrowed down on a product to buy.

Add to your cart

Once you have decided which product to buy, you can add it to your cart. You can do this from the product detail page. If the product has different variants, you'll have to select a variant before you can add it to your cart. You can also specify the quantity if you want to buy more than one unit of the product. A cart may contain multiple products so after you've added a product to your cart, you can continue researching and selecting other products that you require. Some websites also have a Buy Now button on the product detail page. This is used for quickly purchasing a single product, and instead of adding the product to the cart, it would take you to the Checkout page with that product. This is analogous to a real store where there are dedicated counters for people who have a small number of products to buy, and they may carry them in their hands instead of using a shopping cart. The figure 16.3 shows the Add to Cart and Buy Now buttons on the Flipkart website.

Once you have added all the products you want to buy to your cart, you can move to the Checkout stage, which we'll discuss next.

Cart checkout

The checkout process typically involves selecting your delivery address, shipping option, selecting a payment method, and finally authorizing the payment. Let's look at each of these in detail:

Delivery E-commerce websites allow you to register and save addresses in your account, and you can select a saved address when you are making a purchase. This makes the checkout process faster as you don't have to enter your address again and again. If you want to ship to a different address, you can enter it instead of choosing a saved address. Some e-commerce websites allow you to make a purchase without having to register.

Shipping Many e-commerce websites will charge you shipping fees which are dependent on the shipping speed. The product detail page usually lists shipping options and shipping costs available for each product. If you're logged in, you'll see the shipping estimate for your saved address. Else, you can enter your pin code/zip code to view the estimates. See figure Some websites charge a shipping fee per-order, and in such cases, you may not see the shipping costs on the product details page.

Choosing a payment You can choose from a variety of methods to pay for your order, like credit cards, debit cards, bank accounts, UPI, and digital wallets. Each of these has their own method of

authorizing the transaction. You can refer to Chapter 13: Money and Payments for details on how each of this payment methods work. You must ensure that any e-commerce website that you're shopping on uses a secure connection. You can easily check this by confirming the lock icon to the left of the address bar in your browser. E-commerce websites also allow you to save payment methods so you don't have to enter the details again and again. Even if the payment method is saved, a purchase must be authorized every time which ensures security. For example, websites would typically store your credit card type, number and expiry date, but you'll have to enter the CVV code and OTP to authorize every purchase. In the checkout process, the CVV is often entered on the Payment page, and the OTP is verified after clicking the Place Order button on the Order Summary page. In addition to online payments, many e-commerce websites also support an offline payment method called If you selected then you will have to make the payment by cash at the time of physical product delivery.

Authorizing a You'll need to authorize the payment that you have selected in the checkout process. The authorization happens after you confirm the order by pressing the Place Order button on the Order Summary page. For credit cards and debit cards, you typically have to authorize the payment using an For bank accounts, you'll have to log in with your net banking user name and password and the bank may ask for additional information or an OTP to authorize the transaction. For UPI, you will have to open your UPI app, find the transaction authorized by the ecommerce website, check the amount, and authorize the payment by entering your COD does not require a payment authorization since no payment is being collected when you place an order.

Once you have authorized the payment, the payment is processed and you're typically redirected to the order confirmation page, which we'll look at next.

Order confirmation

The order confirmation page displays the order number and order status. The status will be shown as ordered or successful if the payment has been authorized successfully. You'll also see this order under the Orders section of your

In cases where the payment was not successful, the order confirmation page may show you an order number, and the status is shown as failed. You can re-attempt payment for the order from the Order details page. We'll learn more about this in the Postordering actions later in this chapter.

In this section, we looked at a scenario where you ordered a product online and made the payment, and the physical product would be shipped later. This is the most common model on many e-commerce websites. Let's now explore some other additional models in which e-commerce websites work.

Online and offline commerce models

In the preceding sections, we went through an example where you placed an order on an e-commerce website, made a payment online, and the product is being shipped to you offline. While this is the most common model for e-commerce websites, there are additional models as well which many websites and app use. Table 16.1 lists some additional combinations of ordering, payment, and delivery with examples.

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Table 16.1: Commerce models

Post-ordering actions

You can take some additional actions on orders after they have been placed. All of these actions can be taken from the order details screen, which is often found under My refer figure Let's understand some of these actions:

Retry In case the payment at the end of the checkout process is unsuccessful, the order is moved to a pending status and appears on the order listing screen. You can choose a payment method again and re-attempt payment for the order from the order details page.

Check order Once the payment is complete for the order, it appears on the order listing page, and you can view order details and also check its status.

Order Once the items in the order have been shipped, you can view its tracking status which lists the estimated delivery date along with additional information. We'll learn more about tracking in the next section.

Returns and Purchases in the physical world have a returns and exchange To return or exchange a product, you would have to take the item back to the store along with the purchase receipt, where you can either get it exchanged or return it. Some items are non-

returnable and non-refundable. Online purchases of physical items on the Internet also have a returns and exchange policy which is specified on the product details page; refer to figure The order details page has options to exchange a product if another unit is in stock, or alternatively, to return it for a refund. Once you place a return or exchange request, many websites will get the item picked up from your address. Once the items reach their warehouse and have been inspected, they will either ship a replacement or issue a refund for amount that was charged for the product. Some e-commerce websites may require you to ship the product back yourself after you raise a return/exchange request from the website.

Post The order details page lists the products you have brought for each order and you can easily post a review for any product. You can also leave a review directly from the Review section on the Product details page.

Download You can also view, download, or print a purchase invoice from the Order details page.

Tracking

Tracking is used by postal services and courier companies to internally monitor the movement of shipments across their delivery network. This provides information about each package and also estimates the delivery of packages based on the scheduled pickup and transportation processes followed by the company. The Internet has made it possible for these companies to make this data available to their customers directly. So, customers don't have to call up courier companies to check the status of their shipments and can easily check the status using the postal service or courier company's website. This self-service capability is not only useful for customers but also for companies as it helps them reduce the human effort and the cost for servicing routine queries about status and estimated delivery times. Package tracking finds use in certain classes of postal services, couriers, and packages from e-commerce companies. When you send someone a package, you can share the tracking information with them, using which they can monitor the status of the packet and plan to receive delivery. Your bank will often send you tracking information when they send you important documents, especially those that require you to show an identity proof while accepting the delivery. Many e-commerce websites provide package tracking information on their website itself, under the Orders section, so you don't have to visit third-party courier websites to check status of packages. We discussed this in the last chapter.

Let's now learn how package tracking works.

How tracking works?

Every package has a sender and destination address. To send a package, you would typically book it at a courier company's local office or the local post office.

When the package is booked with a courier company, a bar code, and a unique number is physically attached to it. This identifier can be used to track the package as it transits through the courier service's network. The barcode is used to scan this package at different points in transit. A package may be scanned at different stages: when it's picked up from the local courier office/post office, it reaches the area hub and gets sorted, is received and sorted at the central hub, is routed to the destination city, arrives at the destination city hub, then at the zonal office, and the local office when it's picked up by the delivery person for delivery to the destination address. The status is also updated when delivery is successful and the recipient signs up for it. An event will also be logged if delivery is attempted but is unsuccessful due to a wrong address or if no-one is available to receive the package. In some of the failure cases, delivery is reattempted the next day. The figure 16.5 shows the path of a package pictorially:

Figure 16.5: Flow of a package The route that the package takes depends on the source and destination, but the legs in the route may depend on the service class under which the package is booked. A faster service class would involve fewer hops with a lesser delay. For example, overnight delivery packages may be picked up from the local office thrice a day and get routed to a different city by-air, whereas large packages booked under a regular service class may get picked up once a day and use the railways network for transportation between cities. Online tracking allows users to see all events associated with a package which creates a trail of the package's movement between the source and the destination. You may also see an estimated time of delivery, and an adjusted estimate when one of the legs in the path is delayed.

The preceding example is a simplified explanation of how tracking works. In reality, however, not every package has to be scanned, packages are associated with containers or bags at each hop in

the path, and only the container or bag is scanned. Many processes are automated as well. This tracking information remains available on the website for a few weeks to a few months after the package has been delivered. Let's now learn about alerts.

Tracking alerts

In the previous section, we learned how a tracking number can help you track packages on the path between a source and a destination. Customers get a tracking number when they book a package and can track it on the website of the courier company or postal service. For e-commerce packages, remembering a tracking number is not required as the order can be tracked from the Order Details page. However, users have to check the status again and again on these websites. This can be avoided by using automated alerts.

When you track a package the first time, many courier and postal services websites will allow you to provide an email address and a mobile number to receive automatic updates. Every time there is a new event for the package, an automated update is sent on the email address and phone. Most courier and postal services will only alert you for important events which may require you to take action, like when the package is out for delivery, or when a delivery attempt fails.

E-commerce websites provide tracking alerts by default on the email address and phone number that you provide while placing an order. They also send you notifications on the mobile app. Ecommerce order alerts are usually restricted to the following events, since these are of main interest to customers: shipped, out for delivery, delivered, and delivery failed. Alerts also include estimated Delivery date and sometimes, a time slot as well.

Let's now look at package tracking in action.

Examples of tracking

In this section, we'll look at specific examples of tracking along with the nuances of each use. Let's start by understanding how to track e-commerce packages.

E-commerce

You can track your orders from the Orders page under Account on e-commerce websites. The figure 16.6 shows the tracking details for an order on Flipkart:

Figure 16.6: Tracking Information on Flipkart [Credit:

E-commerce websites also send you SMSes and app notifications wherever there is an important change in the status of an order like delivered and delivery The following figure 16.7 shows an SMS and an app alert from Flipkart:

Figure 16.7: Order alerts from Flipkart [Credit: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details? id=com.flipkart.android]

Couriers

Most consumer courier services have tie-ups with local shops where you can book your packages. Some courier services may also offer a courier pickup from your home. Many of these local shops have pre-printed consignment slips having a unique tracking number. When they book your package, they would attach this consignment slip to your package and give you a copy of the same. At the time of booking, this pre-generated ID has not been activated yet. It gets activated once the package reaches the courier company's hub and so you may not be able to track using the ID immediately. It may take up to 12-24 hours for the package to become trackable.

Some other courier companies that work with businesses allow them to create a consignment on-demand on their website when they have a package to ship. Once the consignment is created, they get the packet picked up from the business. In such cases, the tracking ID will be activated even before the pickup has happened and the first update will appear once the package has been picked up.

Additionally, some courier services also allow you to track by reference ID which is provided by the businesses that use their shipping services. For example, an e-commerce website that uses a courier service can specify the customer order ID as the reference and customers may track their package using either the order ID or the tracking

To track a package, you need to access the courier company's website, where you will see a Track option. You'll have to enter the tracking ID in the space provided to track the package. The following figure 16.8 shows the track results on the website of a popular courier company DTDC:

Figure 16.8: Tracking on DTDC website [Credit:

India Post

The department of Posts in India allows tracking for packages booked under registered post and speed post. They also provide tracking capability for both incoming and outgoing international packages. You can visit the India Post website and enter the Consignment number mentioned in your acknowledgment slip in the Track N Trace section to check the status of your package. For incoming international packages, you can track using the tracking number provided by the sending service. However, one thing to note is that incoming international packages would only become trackable after they have arrived in the destination country.

Let us now learn how e-commerce is used for booking events and movie tickets.

Movie/event booking

E-commerce websites can be used for not just physical and virtual products but also for booking events and movie tickets. Event websites follow a booking workflow which is similar to the ordering workflow with the following key differences:

The product in the case of an events website is a movie show, a play, or an event on a particular date and time. Some products like movie shows may have multiple venues.

Movies, plays, and events often have different booking classes which are priced differently.

Many events show you the seating layout and allow you to choose seats of your choice.

In most cases, each ticket you buy allows one person to attend the event. You can choose to buy multiple tickets.

There's no notion of a cart on event booking websites. You can typically select a movie/event, venue, date, time, class, number of tickets, choose seats, and go through with the checkout process. The website/app may charge you a fee for the convenience of booking online.

Except for rare cases, there's no physical delivery of tickets. You'll receive your electronic tickets on your email ID and mobile phone as an SMS. This includes booking details. The email may have a QR code in addition to the booking information. Some websites may also send you a WhatsApp message.

When you visit the venue to attend the event, you may have to present a printout of the booking email, SMS, or WhatsApp message on your phone to collect physical entry tickets. Many event venues allow you to directly gain entry by showing the QR code which they scan using a handheld scanner or mobile device; this makes the process completely digital and paperless. BookMyShow is an event booking website where you can buy movie and event tickets for many different exhibitors. PVR cinemas have an e-commerce website and app that allows you to book movie tickets for PVR theatres across India. You can explore the booking flow in action on these websites.

Conclusion

In this chapter, we learned about e-commerce and started off by drawing parallels between shopping in the real world and on the Internet. We learned about the key terminology related to ecommerce and also looked at some important types of web pages that are seen on e-commerce websites. We then walked through the typical ordering workflow and looked at the different elements and pages involved in the process of making an online purchase. We then explored some other commerce models which result with different combinations of offline and online purchases, payments, and delivery. We also learned how package tracking works and how alerts help you get automatic updates about your packages. We also discussed how you can track e-commerce shipments, couriers, and Indian Post packages. Towards the end of this chapter, we explored movie and event booking which is another application of e-commerce.

Some other examples of e-commerce apps and websites are multiproducts (Amazon, Myntra), food (Zomato and Swiggy), groceries (BigBasket), beauty and cosmetics (Nykaa), furniture (UrbanLadder), home services (Urban Company), eBooks (Amazon Kindle), audio books (Audible), among others, which you may explore on your own. Later in this book, we'll look at online travel booking, which is another specialized use of e-commerce.

In the next chapter, we will learn about planning and booking travel on the Internet and discuss its advantages. We'll expand the e-commerce terminology that we learned about in this chapter and explore the travel booking workflow. We'll also discuss some booking and post-booking nuances of hotels, flights, trains, and bus tickets on the Internet.

Key terms

Featured products Cart

Checkout

Payment gateway Wishlist

Filter

Cash on Delivery (COD)

Tracking ID

Reference number

Alerts

CHAPTER 17 Booking Travel Online

The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.

- Saint Augustine, Theologian and Philosopher

Travel and change of place impart new vigor to the mind. - Seneca, Stoic Philosopher, Statesman and Dramatist

Why do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you came from with new eyes and extra colors. And the people there see you differently, too. Com-ing back to where you started is not the same as never leaving.

- Sir Terry Pratchett, Humorist, Satirist and Author

In this chapter, we will learn about booking travel on the Internet, which is also known as travel e-commerce . We'll discuss the advantages of booking travel online and look at the typical booking flow found on travel websites. We'll then dive into four common travel products, namely, hotels, flights, trains, and buses, and we will look at some special considerations and nuances involved in booking them online. As we do this, we'll use examples from some travel e-commerce websites which are

popular in India. We'll also discuss about packages briefly towards the end of this chapter. So, let's start the trip!

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Introduction to online travel booking

Online travel booking process

Hotel booking Flight booking

Train booking

Bus booking

Packages

Objective

The chapter introduces readers to online travel booking. It starts off by explaining the different parties involved in the booking process and explains the advantages of booking travel online. The chapter walks readers through a typical booking workflow, postbooking actions, and product discovery mechanisms commonly seen on travel e-commerce websites. Readers will be able to search and book flights, hotels, trains, and buses and understand the specific nuances of each of these products. The chapter shows examples from Cleartrip, IRCTC, and RedBus. The chapter also discusses the process of booking dynamic travel packages.

Introduction to online travel booking

If there's one industry where the Internet has put immense choice in the hands of customers, it has to be travel. Before this, travel was booked via booking executives and travel planners, and customer choices were more like preferences which travel planners tried to cater to during the booking process. Now, all these choices are available to customers' first-hand. This is not to imply that travel planners and agencies have become obsolete. They still do add value in a lot of cases as the Internet can offer choices but the onus of researching the option still lies on customers. Travel agencies use their expertise and can help you pick the most suitable options much faster. They can also make special arrangements much more easily, be it coordinating with hotels or arranging for services like local transportation and tourist guides at the destination. Having said that, travel e-commerce has surely had a major impact on a large portion of the travel market where there are no special arrangements required.

A typical booking in the real world has at least three parties involved: the the travel and the company offering the which could be the hotel, airline, train, or bus company. Practically speaking, there may be many more parties between the travel agent and the company that's offering the service but it's not of much relevance to the customer. When you book online, you're making the booking on a website. This website could either be the hotel/airline/train/bus company's own website, or it could be a

website which allows you to choose from many different service providers. The latter is analogous to a travel agent in the physical world and is called an online travel agency website. OTA websites use technology to make the options and choices available to potential customers on the Internet. Like real travel agencies, OTAs also make money as a commission on the bookings done through their website. It's also worth noting here that when you book via an OTA website, you have to consider both their booking policies, and the service provider's policies. This becomes especially important when booking flights.

Let's look at some advantages of travel e-commerce next.

Advantages of online travel booking

Booking travel online offers a lot of advantages, some of which are as follows:

Choosing a This isn't really a part of travel e-commerce but a step prior to it. Review websites like TripAdvisor and social media websites like Instagram can help you research destinations and get a feel of the place by looking at pictures, posts, and customer reviews. You can start by searching for a place on TripAdvisor or Google Maps, or the place/hashtag of the place's name on Instagram.

Searching and filtering based on Travel booking websites allow you to search and filter based on your preferences, which makes it faster to narrow down options. For example: you may choose to only show flights which depart early in the morning, or choose to view hotels in the downtown area.

Knowing what to Companies that offer bookings list detailed information about travel products. For example: a hotel may list the exact size of each room type, show the pictures of the room and list amenities like hair dryer, tea/coffee machine, etc. You may see a flight's seat map and pick a good seat using seat guru as a reference

Customer You can view customer reviews and ratings for a hotel/flight/bus, choose a hotel based on its customer ratings, read reviews and view pictures that other customers have shared. For example: hotel ratings and reviews are available on review aggregators like TripAdvisor, OTA websites, and on hotel websites. Flight seat pictures and ratings can be viewed on flight guru.

Price Online travel websites allows you to view prices for the chosen options instantly without the need of human intervention. Prices are useful for trip budgeting and planning even if you're not at the booking stage yet. Sometimes, you may find that flights on a particular day are priced higher due to a long weekend or an event, and you may choose to modify your dates if you're flexible. Upgrades and Travel websites allow you to view room upgrade prices and book add-ons like late checkout and meals based on your preferences. Add-ons often cost lesser when pre-booked, which can help you save on costs. Prices vary every minute and websites can help you find and book promotional offers quickly. Payments and Very often, your travel booking is confirmed only after you've made the payment. Sometimes, it may take a few hours after the payment has been made for the confirmation to come through. Travel websites offer online payments which allow you to get the confirmation quicker. You can make cancellations and changes yourself online.

Similar to the concept of product discovery that we learned about in Chapter 16: travel websites also provide recommendations which can help you discover destinations and travel products like flights and hotels Online travel bookings do have some disadvantages as well, when compared to bookings made in the physical world, which are worth mentioning here: Lack of Travel websites offer the most commonly used options in search/filter and show standard listings with fixed amenities. If you need a customized offering, it's best to go via a travel agent or contact the provider directly. Customer While most travel websites would allow you to specify special requests and pass them on to the provider, they cannot guarantee that those requests would be honored.

Payment Most travel websites would offer lots of online payment options, but sometimes you may want to pay by cash or cheque which a travel agent or physical booking counter is likely to accept. Lack of The travel booking process in the real-world sometimes allows for some negotiation in price, services, and policies, especially when booking in bulk or for long periods, which travel websites may not offer. It may be worth booking via a travel agent or service provider directly in such cases.

Group Group travel often involves sharing of accommodation, buses, etc. which a lot of large travel agents allow you to do, but OTAs don't.

Packages based on cultural This is more an addendum to group travel. Sometimes, groups have special dietary requirements based on culture or ethnicity and these can be accommodated by local travel agencies when they organize group travel. To bridge the gap and tap the opportunity that the Internet offers, many traditional travel agencies also have presence on the Internet. This helps them showcase some standard offerings, list prices, and get leads from the Internet. As a result, the online travel booking space has created an ecosystem which offers choice to the customer, whether they want to book online or offline.

Let's look the travel booking process now.

Online travel booking process

In Chapter 16: we learned about a standard ordering workflow and also learned how a booking workflow is different from it. This may be a good time to go back and review both these workflows again. The online travel booking process is a type of booking workflow with elements specific to the service being booked. So, when you're booking a flight, you may search for flights from a source to a destination city and filter results based on number of flight legs. Whereas when you're booking a hotel, you may search for hotels in a city and filter the list of hotels by neighborhood or amenities.

Let's dive deeper into a typical booking workflow which is commonly seen on travel websites.

Booking workflow

The figure 17.1 shows the order booking workflow:

Figure 17.1: Order booking workflow commonly seen on travel websites

The typical booking workflow on a travel website consists of the following steps:

Search The homepage of travel websites allows you to choose a travel product like hotels, flights, etc., specify a search criteria and list available options for those products. If you're sure of the destination you want to travel to, this is usually where you will start.

Search The search results page lists the travel products that are available for the search criteria that you've specified. The search results page displays key information about the product listings along with the prices. On this page, you can choose to view the results in a specific order by using the sort feature. You can also narrow down the search results on the basis of some filtering criteria. The page will typically show you the criteria that you searched for, on top, and allow you to modify the criteria and repeat the search. This is useful when you want to search the same destination for a different set of dates, or want to search for a different destination for the same dates. An important thing to note is that on most websites, the products shown on the search results page are only those which are available to book for the dates that you've specified. So, if a hotel or flight was sold out for the dates, it may not appear in the search results, or it may appear at the very end of the search results. You can click on a travel product in the search results to book it. In case of hotels, you can click a search listing (see figure to open up the hotel details page which shows information about the hotel and the rooms available to book. This is elaborated in the Hotel booking section later in this chapter.

Product The product details page displays detailed information about the travel product, its pictures, prices, customer reviews, and the different variants that you can book for the product. The page may also list the detailed change and cancellation policy for the product. Many travel products display all details in the search listing itself and may not have a product details page at all. But you will usually see this page for hotels. The prices shown on the product details page are for the search criteria you specified when

starting the search, but the page allows you to change dates or number of travelers right on the page and view availability and rates. You can pick a product variant to book on the product details page which would open up the booking information page. Booking The booking information page displays the booking details that you've chosen to book. It would typically display the name of the product, dates, number of travelers, the class/variant of the product chosen, prices and also list the change and cancellation policy. The page allows you to provide traveler information. It may also ask for contact information like email address and mobile number which are important since you will get booking confirmation and subsequent notifications on these. It is highly recommended to register on a travel website before you make a booking on it. If you do this, you won't have to enter your information again and again, and you can also view and manage your bookings from the My Account section. Once you enter the traveler information, you would be taken through the checkout process.

The checkout process of a travel website is nearly identical to other e-commerce websites. You would choose a payment type, enter billing information for it, and then authorize the payment. You can refer to Chapter 16: E-commerce to review the checkout process in detail. However, one key difference is that with the exception of Hotels, other travel products often require an online payment to be made for booking them. Once the payment has been authorized successfully, the booking confirmation page is shown.

Booking The booking confirmation page displays the status of the booking along with an identifier which can be used to manage the booking. The page also lists the details of the booking like dates, booking variant, etc. In case of flight and train bookings, the booking identifier is called as a passenger name record In case of hotels and buses, a voucher ID or some other code may be shown. Usually, you would receive an email confirmation on the email ID that you provided, and a SMS confirmation on your mobile number within a few minutes of making the booking. The email and SMS would also contain key booking information and the booking identifier. After the booking has been confirmed, it would also appear in the Bookings section of the website, often found under My Account section (if you registered for an account before making the booking).

Post-booking actions

Once a booking has been made, most travel websites would allow you to take the following actions on it. These actions are typically available under the Bookings page under the My Accounts section on the website, if you registered on the website before making the booking. If you didn't register, many travel websites may not allow you to do these online, and you may have to contact them on the phone for assistance. Some websites provide a link in the booking email which allows you to manage the booking: View/print booking You may find the booking under the Bookings section and print the booking confirmation, the ticket or a voucher. This is required many a times while checking in. Although, many establishments are starting to go paperless these days and would allow you to check-in if you show them the confirmation email or SMS on your phone.

Modify Many travel websites would allow you to modify a booking from the Bookings page. Typically, you would have to pay the differential price and a modification fee when you modify the booking. The new price is the current market price that's prevailing and the modification fee would depend on your change/cancellation policy of your booking. Some bookings may have a policy which restricts modifications and cancellations altogether.

Cancel You can also cancel a booking from the Bookings page if the booking policy allows you to. A cancellation fee may be levied and there could be additional policies on how much of the amount is refunded depending on how many days prior to the travel date the cancellation is made. For example: A hotel booking may offer you 100% refund 14 days before the check-in date and no refund within 48 hours of the check-in date. When you cancel a booking, the refund is usually provided on the same payment method that you used to make the booking. So, if you paid by credit card, your refund will also be received on the same card.

Download You can also download a tax invoice from the For most travel products, a tax invoice may only be made available after the travel has been undertaken. Apart from the linear booking process described above, you may discover travel products in other ways as well. Let's learn about those.

Product discovery

Similar to how you discover products on e-commerce websites, travel websites may also recommend you products in one or more of the following ways:

You may discover flights or hotels via For example: A deal may be running on flights and hotels on certain dates, for a particular destination, or on a particular airline or hotel chain. Similar The product details page may show you similar products of the type. For example: the hotel details page typically lists hotels in the same destination which have similar amenities or locality or star segment as the hotel being viewed. Hotels may also be considered similar because they're popular with a similar demographic of users, for example: by families. This can help you discover alternate hotels which may be lower down in the search listing, or may not meet all your search criteria so are excluded from the search results.

Travel website may choose to feature some travel products so they may appear higher up in the search results, even though they may not meet all your search criteria. Products may also be featured when they're being advertised by the hotel, and also when they're popular with customers. Hence, it's prudent to always double check whether a Featured product meets all your criteria before you book it.

Let us now look at the booking nuances of four popular travel products, starting with hotels.

Hotel booking

As we discussed in the preceding section, booking any travel product involves a similar workflow, but each product involves a set of search, filtering, and booking criteria which are specific to it. We'll be learning about the nuances of booking a hotel in this section. We'll use Cleartrip for the purposes of illustration in this section.

Hotel rooms and other types of accommodation are usually booked in terms of nights, you would typical check-in on a day and checkout on a later day, the minimum duration of stay being one night (and spanning two days). Rooms also have a maximum occupancy which specifies how many adults and children the room can accommodate. In some cases, the standard tariff may include a certain number of adults and children and you may have to pay an additional fee for every extra adult or child, up to maximum occupancy of the room. Rooms also have some characteristics, for example, the type of room, the bed size, the view it offers, and certain amenities and extras which are included in the tariff. Some of these may influence the price, and some may not. A hotel may have many different types of rooms, and each may be offered with certain set of amenities and restrictions. All these details are presented on travel sites in the following steps:

Search criteria

The figure 17.2 shows the Hotel Search options on Cleartrip:

Figure 17.2: Hotel Search on Cleartrip [Credit:

In search criteria, you can typically enter the following fields to search for hotels on travel websites:

This is usually the city but some websites also allow you to search for hotels in a particular locality or even a specific hotel by specifying its name in the Destination field.

Check-in and check-out Hotels have a nightly tariff in most cases and these dates are used to determine number of nights,

availability of rooms, and the tariffs. When you select these dates, the number of nights will typically be calculated and shown to you.

Number of You'll have to mention the number of adults and children, along with the ages of the children. This is used to find available hotel rooms which can accommodate the group and display the pricing based on the hotel's occupancy for that room type.

Sort and filter

The figure 17.3 shows the hotel search results on Cleartrip along with the sorting and filtering controls:

Figure 17.3: Hotel Search Results, Filtering and Sorting controls on Cleartrip [Credit:

You can narrow down the list of hotels shown in the hotel search results by specifying the filtering criteria. Here are some common filtering criteria that you'll find on many travel websites:

Hotel name

Locality

Price range

Star rating ranges: or ranging from 1 to 5/7 stars

Customer rating range: Usually between 1 and 5 stars

Room view: For example, a garden facing or a sea facing room

Hotel type: For example, a regular hotel, resort or a residential home stay

Amenities: For example, tea/coffee machine, bathtub, etc. Cancellation policy: For example, and refundable with conditions You may also order the search results based on your chosen sorting criteria. Here are some common sorting criteria which can be found on many websites:

By price By customer rating

By featured

By popularity

Search results

The hotel preview typically shows the following information in the search To view other detailed information, you can click on the hotel name to open the hotel details page.

Name

Locality Pictures

Star rating

Average customer review rating

Cancellation policy

Price including and excluding taxes, the price shown is usually for the cheapest available room

Hotel details

The figure 17.4 shows the hotels room offers on the hotel details page on Cleartrip:

Figure 17.4: Hotel room and offers on Cleartrip [Credit:

The hotel details page lists the different room types available in the hotel for the chosen dates and the following information is shown for each room type:

Room type name: etc.

Maximum occupancy

Room size

Bed type: Twin queen king etc.

Amenities: Tea/coffee machine, Wi-Fi, etc.

Each room type shown may have several types of offers, which influence the price and policies of the booking. Here are some common types of offers that are seen on many travel websites:

Room only This is the default rate with no extra add-ons.

Non-refundable Due to a restrictive change policy, these are usually priced lower than the room only rate.

Breakfast included. European plan/American These plans additionally include one and two meals respectively.

Airport pickup/drop. Combinations of the above may also be offered by some hotels. For example: a non-refundable breakfast included rate and a refundable breakfast included rate.

Booking information

The figure 17.5 shows the hotel booking information screen on Cleartrip:

Figure 17.5: Hotel booking information screen on Cleartrip [Credit:

Once you walk through these steps and select an offer from a hotel to book for your travel dates, you would typically have to enter the traveler information. Most travel websites will ask for only the primary traveler information. However, at the time of check-in, you will be asked to show an ID proof for all guests who are checking in, to conform to government regulations and guidelines.

Checkout

Once you've specified the guest information, you are walked through the checkout process. All websites which provide hotel booking would allow you to pay online. Additionally, some websites may also allow you to make a booking and pay at the hotel at the time of checking-in.

Booking confirmation

Once the payment is authorized, you'll be provided a booking reference number and a booking voucher will be sent to you via email. You can also download the booking voucher from the bookings section under the My Account section. The booking voucher has to be presented to the hotel at the time of checking in. Some hotels may require you to provide them a copy of the voucher, so it's advisable to print it out.

Post booking actions for hotels

Once you have made a booking, you may perform the following actions from the Bookings section under the My Account section of the website:

Modify booking

Cancel booking Print voucher

Download invoice

Review hotel

Let's now look at the booking process for flights.

Flight booking

Flight tickets can be booked both on airline websites and other travel websites but the process involved on both is nearly identical. OTA websites have the advantage that you may search and compare flights from different airlines and can even book a combination of different airline flight in a single booking. In this section, we'll look at some specifics related to booking of airline tickets, for each step of the booking workflow. We'll use the Cleartrip website for the purpose of illustration.

Search criteria

Flight tickets can be booked either from a source to a destination called as a one-way or it can be booked from a source to a destination and back, which is called a round Each booking between a source and destination city is called as a Hence, a one-way ticket has one segment and a return ticket has 2 segments. Both segments of a round-trip ticket are arranged under the same booking. It's worth noting that you may select segments from different airlines if you're booking using an OTA website. The figure 17.6 shows the Flight Search options on Cleartrip:

Figure 17.6: Hotel search on Cleartrip [Credit:

To search for a flight, you would typically have to specify the following criteria:

One-way flight or round-trip flight.

Source and You can enter the name of the city or an airport. If a city is specified which has multiple airports, then flights from all these airports are included in the search results.

Travel Depending on whether you're booking a one-way ticket or a return ticket, you'll need to specify either a departure date, or both the departure and return dates. You would have to specify the number of adults, children, and infants. This is required because different airlines have different pricing and travel policies for children and infants. Additional When you search for flights using the above criteria, the price and availability returned is for the economy class of travel, across all available airlines. You can search for specific airlines and for different classes of travel as well, such as business or first

Sort and filter

The search results page shows all available flight options from the source to the destination, and back, for the specified dates. Some websites may show you options for only the first segment first and the return segment may only be shown after you choose a flight for the first segment. The Cleartrip website shows both segments together on the same screen, but you may see the information presented differently for domestic and international flights. The figure 17.7 shows international flight search results on Cleartrip:

Figure 17.7: International flight search results, sort and filter on Cleartrip [Credit:

A segment may have a direct flight from the source to the destination, or it may involve multiple flights, for example: A booking from New Delhi to Kochi may consist of a New Delhi to Mumbai fight, and a Mumbai to Kochi flight. Each such flight is known as a and the intermediate airport is called a Hence, a segment may have one or more legs. The time that you have to wait at the intermediate airport between the arrival time of the first leg and the take-off time of the next leg is called as the layover The actual travel time can be considered to be a sum of the flying time on all legs and the layover time at all stops. It's preferable for travelers to have the least number of legs, and sufficient layover time to board another flight comfortably. It's also preferable to get the flight at the lowest price. For example, you may decide to consciously choose a flight with more stops if it's cheaper.

In filtering criteria, there are some common criteria that you can use to narrow down the flight search results: Number of stops/legs

Total travel time range Total layover time range

Price range

Departure time ranges for each flight Airline

In sort criteria, by default, the flight search results are ordered by price. You can choose to order the results on the basis of any of these criteria:

Airline Departure time

Arrival time Total travel duration

Search results

Flights typically don't have a separate flight details page. When you're booking a flight, all flight details are shown in the search results itself. Here is the information that you can see for each option in the search results:

Airline and flight number Departure time

Arrival time

legs and layover time

Name and code of the source, destination, and layover airports

Baggage allowance included in the Some websites do not show this in search results for domestic flights.

Change and cancellation policy and Some websites do not show this in search results for domestic flights. Once you've chosen an option for each of the travel segments, you can click on the Book button to proceed to the Booking information section.

Booking information

The Flight Booking Information page is also called the Itinerary page on some websites. It displays all the information that was shown for the segments in search results. Additionally, it may also show the fare breakup and lets you to specify the following information:

Traveler Legal name, gender, and age of each passenger. While booking international flights, you may also be asked for additional information like passport details and citizenship.

Contact Email ID and mobile number are used to send you the booking confirmation, notifications, or to contact you.

Purchase A lot of travel websites may also provide you a quote for optionally add-ons like travel insurance and a flexible ticket (allows modifications without paying an extra fee) at this stage. You can select the add-ons that you want to purchase.

Once you've specified traveler information, you are sent to the Checkout path.

Checkout

A typical checkout process will allow you to choose a payment method and authorize the payment. As we learnt in Chapter 16: the payment authorization page which is part of the checkout process comes from the payment gateway. It's worth noting that websites which provide airline booking only allow online modes of payments.

Booking confirmation

Once the payment is authorized, you'll be provided a booking reference number called as a PNR for flights. A booking confirmation email will be sent to you with the travel itinerary, and the booking You can also download this confirmation from the Bookings section under My

Flight bookings involve an extra ticketing step after a PNR has been generated which may take up to 24 hours. This generates a ticket number and assigns it to your PNR. Once the ticketing is done, an e-ticket or ticket number will appear under your booking details and is also emailed to you.

The booking confirmation with the ticket number has to be presented for entry at the airport and at the check-in counter of the airline. So, it's always advisable to print it out.

Post booking actions for flights

Once you have made an airline booking and have a PNR and a ticket number, you can use this PNR on both the OTA website and the airline website to specify preferences such as:

Seat Many 1airlines will show you a seating map of the aircraft and allow you to pick a seat. The airline may charge you a fee to pick some special seats which provide extra leg room. Some airlines may allow seat selection only 48 hours prior to the flight's departure time.

Meal Some domestic flights and all international flights are fullservice and your ticket includes on-board meals. You can specify your meal preferences using the website. In case the meals are paid, the airline may let you book a meal by pre-paying for it.

Other You can also specify other special requests via the website. However, it's to the airline's discretion whether to fulfill the request or not.

The preceding preferences can also be specified by calling the airline customer care number and providing them your PNR number, and they can help you with the above.

Additionally, you may also perform the following actions from the Bookings section under the My Account section of the website:

Modify booking

Cancel booking

Print itinerary and e-tickets

Download invoice

Let's now look at how you may book train tickets on the Internet.

Train booking

The Indian Railways offers several classes of travel and each train has a subset of these classes depending on whether it's a longdistance or short-distance train. The classes of travel on a train also depend on whether the train is a premium one or not. The latter often has more stations on the route and a slower speed. On the other hand, premium trains run faster and have fewer stations along its route. Most trains in India have a fixed ticket cost which depends on the source and destination stations and the class of travel. Indian Railways offers discounts to senior citizens, the specially-abled and children up to a certain age if they are sharing a seat with their parent or guardian. In recent years, some premium trains have started having dynamic pricing but it's still not the norm at the time of this writing.

When seats are available on a train, you would be able to secure a Confirmed ticket at the time of booking. However, in case the train doesn't have seat availability, you can still book a ticket under statuses like Reserved Against Cancellation and Waitlist Tickets booked under these categories get confirmed when someone holding a confirmed ticket cancels their reservation. There are also pools of seats, called reserved for bookings made from major source stations along the route of the train, and also a higherpriced pool reserved for last minute bookings, which is called a Tatkal

You can book train tickets in India on the IRCTC website and some third-party travel websites. Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation is a public sector undertaking that provides ticketing and catering services for the Indian Railway. For this chapter, the examples we demonstrate will be from the IRCTC website

Let's explore some specific nuances of train tickets for each step of the standard booking workflow that we learned about earlier in this chapter.

Search criteria

At the time of writing, train tickets can be booked one direction at a time, there's no notion of return tickets like we have for flights. The figure 17.8 shows the Train Search options on the IRCTC website:

Figure 17.8: Train Search on IRCTC [Credit:

You need to provide the following criteria to search for train tickets:

Source and destination You can enter a city name to search for a station or enter the station code if you're aware of it.

Date of You can specify a date of travel and optionally, also specify if you have some flexibility in your travel date.

Class of You can choose to search all classes of travel or you can choose a specific

Sort and filter

The search results on IRCTC show all trains between the source and destination cities, irrespective of availability. The results include train originating from and arriving to alternate stations in the cities selected as well. The figure 17.9 shows the train search results on the IRCTC website:

Figure 17.9: Train search results, filtering and sorting options on IRCTC [Credit:

You can filter these search results on the basis of the following criteria:

Journey Selecting one or more journey classes would hide the trains which don't have the classes of travel selected.

Departure and arrival You can use this if you're specifically looking for trains originating or terminating at particular stations.

Departure time range.

Arrival time range.

You can sort the search results by clicking on the Sort By button above the search results and choosing from one of the sort options. You can sort by the following: Departure time

Arrival time Travel duration

Search results

The search results show the list of trains between the source and destination stations on the selected date. The criteria that you searched for are shown at the top of the page along with a dropdown menu for a number of passengers. You can select the number of passengers and repeat the search if you're planning travel for multiple people.

The following information is shown for each train: Train number and name

Source and departure station names

Day on which the train runs

Departure time, arrival time, and travel time

List of travel classes on that train

Total fare along with the fare breakup Availability for each fare class on the train

If you select flexible dates while searching, you may also see some alternate train suggestions which don't run on the date that you selected. These are shown in a separate section below the search results.

You can choose a train and class and click on the Book Now button on any row to pick that train, date, and class for booking the ticket.

Booking information

Clicking on the Book Now button in the search results would prompt you to register or log in to the IRCTC website. Once you have logged in, the selected train, class, date, and number of passengers would be shown on the top of the booking form. The figure 17.10 shows the Booking Information screen on the IRCTC website:

Figure 17.10: Booking information screen on IRCTC [Credit:

If you don’t select the number of passenger while searching, you can also add passengers on this page directly. You'll have to enter the name, age, gender, nationality, and seat preference for each passenger.

You can also select the following optional preferences for your booking:

Consider for auto-upgradation: Opt-in to get upgraded to a higher class of travel in case it remains available when the train booking closes. Book only if a confirmed booking can be secured should be selected if you don't want to book an RAC or waitlist ticket. Reservation choices like choosing to book only if all passengers are assigned seats in the same coach, etc. Preferred coach ID. The booking information page would also allow you to purchase add-ons like travel insurance, provide your contact details, and choose a payment mode. The contact details are used to send you the booking confirmation via an email and SMS. You can enter the information and press the Continue button to proceed.

Checkout

Once you've specified the guest information and chosen a payment method, you are walked through the typical checkout process which shows the summary of the booking, passenger, and payment information along with the cancellation rules. Once you have verified the summary, you can click on the Continue button, provide details for your payment method, and authorize the payment on the payment gateway. IRCTC and other train booking websites only allow you to pay using online payment methods. Once the payment has been successfully authorized, you would be redirected to a booking confirmation page.

Booking confirmation

The booking confirmation page displays the booking and passenger details along with a booking reference number If your booking gets confirmed, you will see a coach number and seat/berth number assigned for each passenger in the booking. Please note that for some booking classes like first class, you may not be assigned a seat and coach number at the time of booking even though the booking is confirmed. If the booking was not confirmed, you may see a status such as RAC or WL against each passenger, which indicates the original waitlist position and current waitlist position in the queue. RAC bookings get confirmed before waitlist bookings in case of cancellations and the RAC and WL numbers would change as cancellations happen. You'll also be emailed a copy of the itinerary. The figure 17.11 shows the booking details section of an email itinerary sent by the IRCTC system:

Figure 17.11: Booking details in an email itinerary from IRCTC [Credit:

Once the ticket has been booked, you can manage it from the My Transactions | Booked Ticket History under the My Account menu.

Post booking actions for trains

You can manage confirmed bookings from the My Transactions | Booked Ticket History under the My Account menu. You can take the following actions for confirmed bookings:

Change boarding IRCTC only allows you to change the boarding point of booked tickets. For any other modifications, you will have to cancel the ticket and book a fresh one. Cancel When you cancel a booked ticket, the booking amount is transferred back to the payment instrument which was used to pay for the ticket after deducting the cancellation charges. The cancellation charges depend on the class of travel and the cancellation policy. The cancellation policy for Indian trains usually specifies what portion of the fare will be refunded in case a cancellation is made within a certain number of days/hours prior to the departure time.

Get PNR You can check the latest status of RAC and waitlisted tickets.

Print eTicket/ERS Resend booking SMS

Bus booking

When we talk about buses in this chapter, we're referring to intercity buses and not local transit ones. Bus booking on the Internet is mostly provided by OTAs who offer online booking for multiple bus operators. Bus operators also sell their tickets through offline channels like local travel operators. Online booking has a lot of advantages compared to booking via offline channels, most notably reduced coordination effort, the ability to block preferred seats, and the ability to confirm a booking quickly. Buses typically have a starting point in the source city and pick-up passengers at several other pre-designated points before leaving for the destination city. Likewise, buses have pre-designated drop-off points in the destination city where they drop-off passengers.

For the purpose of demonstration, we will use RedBus which is a popular website offering online booking for inter-state buses in India.

Let's look at the specific nuances of bus booking starting with the search criteria.

Search criteria

You can search for bus tickets by searching for the following criteria:

Source and destination cities

Date of travel

Sort and filter

The figure 17.12 shows the bus search results on the RedBus website:

Figure 17.12: Bus search results, sorting and filtering options on RedBus [Credit:

You can narrow down search results using the following filtering criteria on RedBus:

Type of Buses can be Air Conditioned etc. You can narrow down the search results to view only buses of a certain type.

Departure time

Arrival time

Boarding point in source You can choose to show only buses which have certain pick-off points which are closest to your location.

Drop-off point in destination You can choose drop-off points nearest to your destination address to show only buses which have that point on their route.

Bus operator For example, Wi-Fi, online bus tracking, on-board restroom, etc.

Search results

Each bus shown in the search results shows all key information which can help you select a suitable option:

Bus operator

Bus type and Seating layout, for example: 1+2 means 1 seat on one side of the aisle and 2 seats on the other side Amenities

Departure, arrival, and travel duration

Fare information

Average customer rating and reviews

Photographs

Route: Starting point in source city, ending point in destination city, and alternate pick-up and drop-off points on the route Seat and availability map: Total number of seats, number of seats available, and a Seating map with available seats shown

Policies: Change and cancellation policies for the options

Once you have chosen a bus route from the search you pick your preferred seats from the available options on the seat map and then choose a pick-up and drop-off point from the bus route to proceed with the booking. As you make these selections, the fare will also be displayed.

Booking information

Once you've made selection in the previous stage, you're redirected to the booking details stage where you can provide the following information:

Passenger name, age, gender.

Contact details, mostly email address and mobile number. You'll receive the booking confirmation and subsequent notifications on these.

Optional add-ons like insurance.

You can then proceed to the checkout stage which is identical as other bookings products. After successful payment authorization, you'll be shown a booking

Booking confirmation

Once the booking is confirmed, you'll see a booking confirmation which has all the information about your booking. You'll also receive this on the email address that you provided:

The source and destination city

The bus operator name Type of bus and seating layout

Date of travel

Passenger name and other details, along with the seat number, PNR number, and ticket number, for each passenger

Pickup and drop off points

Pick-up and drop-off time

Total fare paid Booking policy and other terms and conditions

Contact information

You can print out this confirmation once your booking is confirmed, or you can print it later from your email.

Post booking actions for buses

Once the booking is confirmed, you can manage it online on the RedBus website, if you register it before making the booking. It's highly recommended that you register on the RedBus website before making the booking for the same reason. Here are the actions you can take against your booking:

View booking information Resend SMS or email confirmation

Reschedule the booking

Cancel the booking

Now that we've looked at four popular booking products, let's discuss about packages.

Packages

Many travel websites offer travel packages which are a combination of the above travel products, and may additionally have other inclusions as well. Packages allow you to select the constituents of a trip, estimate the combined price, and book the trip together. Booking packages also offers some price benefits compared to booking the products individually. There are two broad categories of packages that you can book on the Internet: Curated There are some types of pre-packaged products where the source city is fixed and you can choose from a list of destination cities along with a start date. These types of packages are curated by travel agencies and often include some additional inclusions such as airport transfers and sight-seeing as well. They also provide good savings, which are better than dynamic packages.

Dynamic There are some other types of packages which are truly dynamic and you can select any source, destination and date and book it as a package. These offer more of a convenience and while there can be savings; they might not be as high as prepackaged products. The figure 17.13 shows the dynamic package booking screen on the Expedia website.

Figure 17.13: Package booking screen on Expedia India website

In both these types of packages, you will see an estimated price, which is the minimum package price when you go with the recommended flights and hotels. You will typically go through the search and filtering screen for each product in the package, and you can choose your preferred options. For example, a flight and hotel stay package would show you flight and hotel search results and allow you to pick a flight and hotel of your choice. If you choose a higher-priced flight and hotel, the differential price would be added to your package price and your package price would increase accordingly. Many websites may also show you this differential price in the search results.

Once you've made your choices, the remaining booking process namely booking information, checkout, and confirmation remains

the same as what we already discussed for other travel products. One thing worth noting is that packages are created and offered by OTAs as a bundled product and may have a more restrictive cancellation and change policy. Let's now discuss an important downside of online travel research.

The downsides of travel research

The Internet has had a massive impact on how travel is planned and booked. So far in this chapter, we learned how to research and plan travel. You've seen how detailed information, pictures, and customer reviews allow you to plan every little detail of your trips. I would be failing in my duty as an author and a guide if I didn't mention the downsides that this level of research and planning has. On one hand, the Internet helps you research every detail of each travel product that you wish to book. One the other hand, the Internet makes booking so quick that you may finish booking your trip while your coffee is still warm. These are two sides of the same coin as you can book quickly, but only after you've completed the research and narrowed down on the travel product you want to book.

It's worth remembering much of the pleasure that comes from travel comes from the feeling one gets when experiencing something new. So, in a way, detailed travel planning and research robs you of experiencing the sights and sounds for the first time. If you see every picture and video that has been posted for a Hotel or location, you would arrive at the destination with those pictures in your mind and the real experience may lack the surprise and delight.

The solution to this may be to strive for a balance. In my own experience as a traveler, I have found that it helps to research and choose a travel product such that it meets your preferences, but resist the urge to pre-experience the sights and sounds by reading too many reviews and browsing too many pictures. There's no doubt that the speed with which you can book travel offers advantages to both businesses that sell travel online and customers who book it. With the Internet, you can book an impulse last-minute trip late at night, and be in a different city the next day, only if you can decide. It is my sincere hope that you will embrace what the Internet has to offer without letting it erode the essence of travel and the serendipity it brings. I'd like to end by quoting the Chinese Proverb Don't listen to what they say. Go see!

Conclusion

In this chapter, we learned how the Internet allows us to book travel. We learned about the role of a travel agent in the offline and online world, and explored some advantages of booking travel online. We then looked at the typical booking workflow and postbooking actions typically seen on travel websites. We also learned how travel websites help you discover destinations and travel products. We then looked at some specific nuances of the booking process and the post-booking actions for hotels, flights, trains, and buses referring to examples from Cleartrip, IRCTC, and the RedBus websites. We also discussed packages briefly and looked at an example from the Expedia website. Towards the end of this chapter, we learned why moderate research is the key to experiencing travel serendipitously.

In the next and final chapter of this book, we will look at some key applications of computing and Internet that go beyond a PC and smartphone. We will learn about cloud computing, digital media players/smart TVs, and voice assistants.

Key terms

OTA PNR

Booking voucher

Booking segment Flight legs

Flight stops

CHAPTER 18 Beyond Your PC and Smartphone

If you think you've seen this movie before, you are right. Cloud computing is based on the time-sharing model we leveraged years ago before we could afford our own computers. The idea is to share computing power among many companies and people, thereby reducing the cost of that computing power to those who leverage it. The value of timeshare and the core value of cloud computing are pretty much the same, only the resources these days are much better and more cost effective.

- David Linthicum, Author and Cloud industry expert

We've had 80 years of linear TV, and it's been amazing, and in its day the fax machine was amazing. The next 20 years will be this transformation from linear TV to Internet TV.

- Reed Hastings, Co-founder of Netflix

What started as an isolated app on the iPhone has evolved. Intelligent assistants constitute an entirely new network of activity. No longer confined to our personal computing devices, assistants are being embedded within every object of interest in the cloud and the internet of things.

- Peter Sweeney, Entrepreneur and Blogger, The Explainable Startup

In this last chapter, we will learn about some popular applications of computing and the Internet which lie beyond typical personal computing devices like PCs, smartphones, and tablets. We'll start by discussing cloud computing, review some of its applications that we've seen earlier in this book, and look at its advantages and limitations. We'll then learn about digital media players and explore the ecosystem of offline and online entertainment sources. We'll also discuss how you may make your TV internet-enabled, and what you can use it for. We will also learn about voice assistants, a popular category of digital assistants, understand how they fit into the digital ecosystem, and discuss some key concepts related to them. We'll explore a voice assistant from Google which is available on your Smartphone, learn some of its commands, and understand some of its customization options. We'll end this chapter by looking at how voice assistants aid home automation using the Internet of Things ( IoT ). Let's step beyond your computer and smartphone!

Structure

In this chapter, we will learn the following topics: Cloud computing

Your TV and the Internet

Digital voice assistants

Objective

The chapter introduces some popular applications of computing and the Internet which go beyond the smartphone and PC. It will cover cloud computing, digital media players/smart TVs, and voice assistants. Readers will understand the difference between traditional and cloud computing, and the advantages and disadvantages of both. They will also see some applications of cloud computing that touch their life. The chapter also explores the ecosystem of offline and online sources of video entertainment and explains where digital media players and smart TVs fit in that ecosystem. Readers will also learn about voice assistants and how they work. Google Assistant will be introduced with some examples that readers can try on their smartphone. It also covers basic customization of voice assistants and discusses how voice assistants aid

Cloud computing

To understand what cloud computing is, we must first review the definition of computing. In Chapter 2: Your we had learned that computers are devices that can store, retrieve, and process data. In the same chapter, we also learned that computers have a processor, RAM/memory, and hard disk which helps it store, retrieve, and process data. Additionally, a computer has various interfaces which help it communicate with humans and with other devices. The processing that a computer does, and the storage and retrieval that processing requires is programmed as software which is part of the operating system and programs/apps. All the hardware that your computer has is physically present in the device, and all the software that your device needs in stored on your hard disk drive.

Let's consider a real-life analogy to understand this well. Let's say you need to grind wheat to make flour in your house. To do this, you may buy a motorized grinder. You may find that a more powerful motor helps you grind the wheat better, but it would cost more and it may not seem like a worthwhile investment since you would only need to grind a batch of wheat 2-3 times a month by operating the grinder for 10 minutes each time. An alternative might be to take your wheat to a local shop that has a much more powerful grinder and have them grind the wheat for you. To do this, they may charge you for their service which may be based on either the weight of wheat or the time it takes to

grind it. They may also offer you a monthly subscription fee. Most likely, this fee would be a small fraction of what it would've cost you to buy a high-powered grinder. Hence, using the local grinder's services may be more cost-efficient for you. Now, consider if you adopted this same approach for a microwave oven; instead of buying one, you considered using the oven from a local shop. This probably wouldn't be viable as you use your microwave oven quite often so buying an oven may work out to be more cost efficient. Also, the food wouldn't remain hot if you heated it at a nearby shop and then brought it home. So, buying a microwave oven would be preferable choice here.

What cloud computing does is something similar. It allows you to use servers on the Internet for storage, retrieval, and processing in cases where it's cost efficient and feasible. A common example of this is when you use apps that run in your browser or store data to the internet, instead of buying an extended local storage for your PC or to install a software program on your PC. It's worth noting that the choices that you made in the case of the appliances above don't always fall on your shoulders when it comes to cloud computing. Many times, the programmers who design and build software make these choices on the basis of multiple criteria and design the system using a combination of cloud computing and local computing. In fact, many of these complexities are handled behind-the-scenes by the Programs and Apps that you use, and you don't have to worry about these. You just have to ensure that you have a fast, reliable, and stable internet connection. In this chapter, we'll only discuss those applications of cloud computing that are visible to you as a user. There will be times when you'll have to make a decision about whether to pay a one-time price and buy software that needs to

be installed on your computer, or to pay a rental fee for a cloudbased app or service. Cloud computing has several other benefits as well apart from the cost, which we'll look at later in this chapter. It also has some limitations which we'll also discuss. An awareness of these pros and cons will help you make decisions on your purchases. Let's now review the applications of cloud computing that we've seen in this book so far.

A recap of cloud computing applications

Let's review the applications of cloud computing that we've seen in this book so far:

Chapter 1, Your Signing into a Google Account on your Smartphone/Tablet allows you to back up and sync your address book and calendar data to the cloud. You can view these from the web browser and on other devices where you've signed in with the same Google ID. Chapter 3, The We learned about web browsers and cloud-based web apps that typically run inside a web browser. The Chrome Web browser can sync your bookmarks, history, form data, and passwords to the cloud and between devices if you use your Google account to sign-in.

Chapter 5, Most email providers provide you with a web app which allows you to check and send emails in a browser. For example: Google provides web and mobile apps for Gmail, Calendar, and Contacts.

Chapter Google Google modify,

6, Google Photos uses the cloud storage from your account to store and sync photos from your phone. The Photos web app is a cloud app which allows you to view, manage, and share these pictures.

Chapter 7, Songs and The Google Photos and Google Photos web app supports videos as well. Video sharing platforms like YouTube allow you to upload your videos to their cloud storage, share, and manage them.

Chapter 8, Productivity Google Drive offers both web app and mobile app for managing the cloud storage offered by your Google account. Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Sheets are free cloud/web apps that allow you to create, edit, and share documents, presentations and spreadsheets, respectively, in your web browser.

Chapter 10, Social Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter offer both cloud/web-based apps and mobile apps that work with their services. All these services allow you to sync your contacts to their platform which can help you discover people you know easily on the platform. Chapter 12, WhatsApp allows you to backup your chats to Google Drive (cloud storage) and restore the chats when setting up a new phone. WhatsApp also has WhatsApp Web, which is a cloud/web-based interface which allows you to connect to your phone and use WhatsApp in a web browser or PC app. Multiple Many of the websites that we have seen in this book offer a rich web-app which offers similar functionality as their mobile app. Some of these have sync between the mobile app and the web app as well, so you can seamlessly switch between devices and still have access to your data.

You may notice that there are some common feature themes in all these applications which can be summarized as follows:

Periodic backup of files from local storage to cloud storage.

Cloud is the primary storage which is managed using apps. Storage could be free under a limit and paid beyond it. For example: at the time of this writing, Google offers 15GB free storage for every Google account. You can subscribe to a Premium plan and pay to get more storage.

Data is synced between multiple devices using the Internet, so it enables seamless access.

Rich Web-app A rich browser-based app is provided which may allow you to perform some processing either within the browser or on the server. The app may be free or paid. If it's paid, it may charge a monthly or annual subscription instead of an upfront purchase which is usually the case for paid apps that need to be locally installed. Allows you to share files stored in your account, with your contacts over the Internet. I'd like to reiterate here that in this book, we will only discuss the uses of cloud as it applies to end-users. There are extensive uses

of cloud for software architects/developers which are outside the scope of this book. Let's now look at some pros and cons of cloud computing.

Pros and cons of cloud computing

Cloud computing has a lot of advantages, but it's not always suitable for anything and everything. Table 18.1 lists some advantages and limitations of cloud as it applies to end-users:

end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users:

end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users:

end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users:

end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users:

end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users:

end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users:

end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users:

end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users: end-users:

Table 18.1: Advantages and Limitations of Cloud Computing Let's now learn how the Internet has changed how we watch television.

Your TV and the Internet

Your television is an old and trusted source of entertainment which has been around for long before the Internet. The TV is suitable for audio and video content and allows you to control it using physical buttons and a remote control. It has evolved a lot through the years, from its old, bulky but a small CRT displays to its large, thin, vibrant LED displays. The traditional source of entertainment on the television has been television broadcast, which has gone through its own share of evolution, from having a roof-top antenna, to cable TV and satellite TV. In many developed countries, the companies that provide you cable TV also provide you with Internet access.

Broadcast television offers multiple channels and can choose to watch whatever is being telecast on those channels at that time. In many countries, television providers also provided Video on Demand where you could browse a catalog of movies and pay for a movie to watch it on-demand. In VoD, you don't own the movie, you just rent it out. The other popular source of entertainment is DVDs and you can connect a DVD player to your TV and use it to watch DVDs that you own, rent or borrow from friends or the library.

As seen in Chapter 7: Music and the Internet also provides a lot of video content that can be consumed on your PC, smartphones,

and tablets. We have video sharing platforms like YouTube and a plethora of VoD and streaming services which offer free, freemium, and paid subscriptions. Due to the larger and higher resolution screens present on televisions, there are obvious advantages of watching Internet content on them. It also opens up a whole new world on your television, as you're no longer shackled to what's being broadcast, the DVDs you own/rent, or the VoD collection that your cable provider has. Now that we're clear that there are advantages of making Internet content available on your television, let's discuss how this can be done.

Connecting your TV to the Internet

Your television not only has a display but also some hardware and software. The hardware helps it interpret the signal from the remote control, produce sound, and signals on the many sockets and ports that are present on it. It also has software which helps the TV respond to key presses on the remote and display a user interface on the screen that helps you see channel numbers, volume level, and control many other television settings. As we learned in Chapter 4: any device that needs to communicate on the Internet needs to support an IP-based connection using which it can connect to a router over the LAN cable/Wi-Fi. All such devices also get assigned an IP address. There are two common ways in which TVs may connect to the Internet:

Smart Some TVs come pre-equipped with software and hardware which help connect the TV to a router using both a wired LAN connection and over There is also operating system software which allows you to control the user interface and TV using the remote control. It also makes use of an on-screen keyboard which is controlled using the arrow and Enter key on your remote control. Android is a popular OS for Smart but there are other OSes as well which have been adopted by manufacturers. Similar to how you do on a smartphone, you can browse and install additional apps from the App Store provided on your smart TV. All apps in the store are specifically designed for use on a TV

and have an interface which can be controlled using the Enter and arrow keys on a remote control.

Digital media There are also some specialized devices called digital media players such as streaming devices/sticks which have their own hardware and operating system and their own remote control to control their functions. These digital media players connect to your router using Wi-Fi and LAN cable. They connect to your TV and audio/video receivers using one or more of standard audio/video connectors which are used to transmit video and sound like DVD players do. We learned about audio video connectors in Chapter 4: HDMI, composite video, RCA audio, coaxial and CIR ports are commonly found on digital media players. Each media player also has an App store which a library of available apps has designed for it. Similar to smart TVs, media player apps are also designed with a user interface which can be controlled using that media player's remote. Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, and Google Chromecast are some popular international media players, whereas Jio TV is a popular Indian offering. Even gaming consoles like Xbox and PlayStation provide Media player functionality. Some media player companies are in the business of providing Free and Premium video content as well which is available on their own devices as well as other devices, for example: Jio Cinema and Amazon Prime TV.

Both smart TVs and digital media players are extensible so you can install apps to view content from them. For example: the YouTube app allows you to browse YouTube. Some smart TVs and media players also support the Bluetooth interface which can also

help you connect Wireless headphone and an external keyboard to it. Now that we understand how you can make your TV internetenabled, let's look at what kinds of Internet content you can consume on it.

Categories of online TV content

The general thumb rule is that to consume any type of service on a smart TV and digital media player, you need to install an app for it and these apps are typically available in the app store for the OS platform. But there is also an important exception to this thumb rule, and that is web browsers. There are web browser apps available on the app store which allows you to also browse the Internet. So, you can pretty much browse any website on your TV. While video streaming is the obvious motivation for using smart TVs and media players, you can view a lot of other content as well, namely:

Video Platforms such as YouTube, Vimeo, DailyMotion, etc.

Freemium and Video streaming services such as Amazon Prime, Netflix, and some which are specifically for India like Disney Hotstar, Sony Liv, Voot, etc.

Audio Streaming services such as YouTube Music, Spotify, Gaana, Saavn, etc.

Games like Pac Man, Tetris, Chess, and many others. Some media players also allow you to pair external game controllers via Bluetooth.

Social Media like Facebook, Twitter, etc.

TV channel Digital media players have come a full-circle since some streaming apps like Sony Liv and some others allow you to watch the same TV channels you can see on cable/satellite TV over the Internet. Some of these channels are free to watch and some are available only to premium members. However, there are also some geographic restrictions around TV channels due to broadcasters' licensing policies.

Web You can use any web browser app like Chrome, Safari, etc. to browse the Internet. Many media players allow you to view your PC, smartphone, and tablet screen on it over local Wi-Fi, by using the feature. Browse Many TVs and media players allow you to attach an external SD card or a USB Pen drive with your photos and browse them on your TV.

Let us now learn how you can use the Internet with your voice with the aid of voice assistants.

Digital voice assistants

We learned in Chapter 2: Your that a computer primarily uses sound and visuals, both text and images, to present information to you. When we use the term computer here, we use it in the broadest sense, as a computing device. It means any device that can store, retrieve, and process data, which includes PCs, smartphones, tablets, and a multitude of other devices too. You can communicate with a computer via its user interface, with the aid of input peripherals like a keyboard, mouse, touchpad, and touchscreen. Additionally, you may also use hardware buttons to control some functions on a computer. Voice is an important way in which humans communicate, and voice assistants allow you to use your voice to communicate with computers. In a way, it allows you to talk to your computer and ask it to perform some actions. A voice assistant would detect your voice command, interpret it, and perform the action that you've requested. This is also useful as an accessibility aid and provides a natural alternative for the visually challenged to use the Internet.

When humans talk to other humans, we use language constructs like words, sentences, and verbal cues like pauses and our tone of voice. The person you're talking to would typically reply using the same language too. Also, when you're talking to someone in particular, you would look at them and use their name to signal that you're talking to them. All of these semantics are used by voice assistants as well:

Voice assistants can communicate in different languages. You can configure your Voice assistant and choose from one of the available languages. When you choose a language, it's used by the assistant for both listening and speaking.

Voice assistants make use of pauses to infer when your command has ended.

Tone of voice is also used by assistants in subtle ways. Your voice assistant has a wake-up or wake word that you have to use to talk to it. When you use that word, your voice assistant understands that you're talking to it, and treats the words following the wake word as the command. So, a wake-up word is like your voice assistant's name. Some voice assistants also allow you to choose from a list of wake-up words. Table 18.2 lists the wake words for some popular assistants. Additionally, assistants may also allow an alternative to this where you press a button and then say your command.

There are a limited set of commands that voice assistants are pre-configured to understand. If you use a command outside of that list, your assistant will simply tell you it didn't understand.

Voice assistants also have an app store and you can enhance the list of supported commands by enabling third-party apps.

Sometimes, your assistant will repeat back the command to make sure it captured the command correctly, and ask you to confirm.

In such cases, you can respond with a Yes or No.

Your assistant can also have interactions that relies on a series of commands, and in such cases, it becomes like a conversation with some context. For example: When you ask How far is Jaipur from Ajmer? and in the next command, you ask How long will it take to get there? it understands that there refers to Jaipur and you're in Ajmer, so will tell you the driving time from Ajmer to Jaipur. Voice assistants detect words from your speech so it's important to speak slowly and deliberately. It may take some practice with an assistant to get used to it. That said, voice assistants are getting better and better at dealing with accents and fast speech.

We'll look at some configurations for voice assistants later in this chapter, which can help you control some of their behavior. Now that we've understood some concepts related to how Voice assistants behave, let's understand what a voice assistant is comprised of, on a physical level.

Types of voice assistants

At the most basic level, in order to listen to you and talk to you, an assistant needs some basic hardware, a microphone, and a speaker. It also needs some user interface for configuration and very sophisticated software to understand and interpret a voice command and decide the action it should take for that command. With this understanding, let's look at the two basic types of voice assistants: Software voice A software voice assistant is simply a program or an app which can be run on any computing device which has a microphone, a speaker, and an Internet connection. It runs in the background and uses the device's hardware to listen for its wakeup word. When it detects the word, it sends the audio command to its server on the Internet. The server will interpret the command using sophisticated software and tell the app what action to take for that command. Additionally, a software voice assistant will typically have a user interface which can help you configure it. The UI is also used to give visual feedback in response to a voice command. Many voice assistants also have a Push-to-Talk button on their UI which allows you to press the button and speak your command, an alternative to using the wake-up word. There are software voice assistants available for mobile devices and PCs. Some digital media players also support software voice assistants which work using a hardware button and microphone present on their remote control.

Hardware voice Hardware voice assistants are small and specialized Internet-enabled devices which you can place anywhere in your room. The device would have a built-in Wi-Fi, microphone, and speakers and a few hardware buttons to control the volume, turn off the microphone and sometimes a Push-to-Talk button. Some devices may also have a headphone jack and support Bluetooth which allows you to connect it to larger speakers. Some devices may also have a small screen, LED lights, and other optional features. You would typically need a partner app on your smartphone to set-up and configure a hardware assistant. The app is used to connect your hardware assistant to a Wi-Fi network and manage all its configuration settings.

Companies that sell hardware voice assistants often also have a software version of the assistant which is often known by its wake-up word. Table 18.2 lists some popular voice assistants and the companies they're from:

from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from:

from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from: from:

Table 18.2: Popular Voice Assistants

Let's now explore Google Assistant which is a popular voice assistant for Android devices.

Google Assistant

Google Assistant is already available on your Android smartphone but it may or may not be enabled. To check whether it's enabled, make sure your screen is on and say Hello If you see a popup at the bottom of the screen, your assistant is enabled.

Figure 18.1: Enabling Google Assistant on your Smartphone/Tablet

If you don't see any popup on saying Hello you can enable Google Assistant on your phone by following these steps, as shown in figure

Open Settings | Google and you would see the primary Google Account that's configured on your phone. Tap on Account Services | Search, Assistant and Voice | Google Assistant | Voice Click on the toggle button next to Hey Google under This phone section and a Wizard should come up. Click on Next and the terms and conditions are shown which you can go through.

Click on I agree to accept the Terms and Conditions of use. The wizard will ask you to speak out the two keywords Ok Google and Hey Google a couple of times and once you're done, click on the Next button.

Click on Finish and now saying Ok Google or Hey Google when your phone screen is on will bring up the Assistant.

You can try it out. Tap on the Home button, say Ok Google and ask How's the weather in Udaipur? or any other city of your choice. Google Assistant will read out the weather forecast and also display it on the screen. Table 18.3 lists a few other commands that you can try out with Google Assistant:

Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant:

Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant:

Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant:

Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant:

Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant:

Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant:

Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant:

Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant: Assistant:

Table 18.3: Sample Google Assistant commands

Now that we've seen a few examples of commands you may give to Google Assistant and the actions it takes, let's look at some ways in which you can customize the behavior of voice assistants.

Customizing your Voice assistant

Customizing your voice assistant allows you to fine tune some nuances of its behavior and also helps get more relevant and contextual results. These customizations are not specific to Google Assistant so we're not providing exact steps here. Many of these options are available in other voice assistants as well. Not all of these options would be there in all voice assistants though. I would encourage you to explore the settings of your voice assistant app to check the different options that it supports. The settings for Google Assistant are available under Settings | Google | Account Services | Search, Assistant and Voice | Google Assistant (see Figure

Voice assistants allow you to pick the languages that you wish to communicate with your assistant in. Some assistants allow you to select multiple languages as well.

Most voice assistants allow you to choose from a set of voices and support both male and female voices with the accent matching the location that you're in. For example: You'll see English (India) in India. Your Specifying your name allows the assistant to use your name when interacting with you.

Wake Some assistants allow you to choose from a list of wake words.

Personalized Many assistants would allow you to choose if you want generic results or those which are specific to you. To enable this, you may have to allow it to access to your contacts, calendar, email, and messages. Additionally, some assistants can recognize voices so many family members can use a common family device and each person will hear results which are specific to them. Calls and Many assistants would allow you to approve or deny it access to make phone calls and send SMS messages. Default Most assistants allow you to specify your home and work address and use it when you don't specify a location. For example: You can just say What's the weather forecast for tomorrow and it will provide the weather forecast for your home city, and saying What's the driving time to work? will bring up the driving time from your home to your work location. Locale and You can choose the locale and units of measurement to use that the default for searches. For example, if you provide your distance unit as then saying How far is Shimla? will tell you the distance from your home location to Shimla in Miles.

Default sources and apps for music, Setting these will use the default news sources for headlines and the default music service for playing music. If you have a premium membership for a

music service, you can also link your account in your voice assistant app to use it. For example: saying Hey Google, play Hotel California will bring up your default music app and play this song from the band Eagles.

Many voice assistants allow you to associate a phrase to a series of actions based on your preference. For example: You can associate the phrase Let's kick start this day to actions What are the news What's the driving time to and What are my appointments for the and just saying the phrase will trigger these actions in sequence.

Let's now look at how voice assistants can aid IoT in automating your home.

Voice assistants and home automation

There are a large number of objects around your home like switches, bulbs, and appliances like your AC, refrigerator which perform a particular function and purpose. The vision of the Internet of Things (IoT) is that if these objects are connected to the Internet, information from their sensors and their controls can be made available remotely. So, you could switch on a Smart Bulb without getting up, or switch on your heater using its Smart Plug 30 minutes before you get home. Collections of these everyday objects would make up a Smart Home which can be organized as

We had learned in Chapter 4: Connections that you need hardware and software to enable an IP-based connection in order to connect a device to the Internet. Thus, if the circuitry of these everyday objects is enhanced to allow for Wi-Fi connectivity and the embedded software allows you to take some actions on these, then these can join the IoT ecosystem. Since many of these objects don't have a screen, they need a controller of sorts to control their functioning.

Voice assistants with their partner apps satisfy this need well. Most voice assistants allow smart devices to be added to your voice assistant, and you can use either the partner app or voice commands to control these devices. You can name your devices and a simple voice command like Switch on the Porch light can

turn on a Smart Bulb installed in your porch. You could also set a scheduled action to turn on the porch light at 6:30 pm every day and switch it off at 7 am. You can even organize these devices under different rooms in your home to control them in tandem. In the last few years, voice assistants have become popular for home automation, and advanced home automation features can be seen on higher version of hardware assistants like Amazon Echo and Google Home. These offer a worthy alternative to dedicated home automation Hubs.

Conclusion

In this last chapter of the book, we discussed cloud computing and learned how it is different from local computing. We reviewed applications of cloud computing that we've seen earlier in this book, summarized some of its common uses, and reviewed some of its advantages and limitations. We then discussed how the Internet can help you extend your television's capabilities beyond broadcast channels and physical media like DVDs. We learned two ways of using the Internet on TVs, namely, smart TVs and digital media players, and learned how they work. We also looked at some popular digital media players and explored the different types of content you can consume on your smart TV/digital media player. We then discussed about voice assistants, learned how they work, and reviewed the two main categories of assistants. We looked at Google Assistant in action on your smartphone and explored some ways in which you may customize voice assistants. Towards the end of this chapter, we looked at the synergy between voice assistants, and home automation.

In the next and final section of the book, we'll summarize our journey through the book, reiterate some key takeaways, and discuss how you may continue your journey further.

Key terms

Cloud VoD

Smart TV

Digital media player Streaming sticks

Screencast

Voice assistants

Wake-up/Wake word

Push-to-Talk

IoT

Summing it up

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Magic. - Arthur C. Clarke, Writer

We have taken a long journey together through this book; let us retrace our steps. We started off by introducing your devices, the PC and smartphone/tablet. We looked at their software and hardware interfaces and learned about their usage. We moved on to learn about the Internet and the different types of connections that devices use for communication. We then began our exploration of the different applications and uses of the Internet. The exploration began with productivity apps, where we learned about email, photos, music, videos, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and maps. We then switched gears and discussed ways in which you may connect and communicate with people online. Under this topic, we covered social media, online communication and deep dived into WhatsApp. Each of these topics included a discussion of its security and privacy aspects. We also learned about online payments and discussed the modes of payments that are popular in India. We rounded out that topic by discussing some security considerations and recommendations for transacting securely and safeguarding yourself against common scams and frauds on the Internet.

We then moved on to e-commerce. We learned about online customer reviews and explored how you can use reviews to decide what to buy, and where to buy it from. We learned about ecommerce websites, explored the typical workflow used to make purchases online and also learned about package tracking. We also explored event booking. In a dedicated chapter on travel ecommerce, we learned how you can research and book travel on the Internet, and saw examples of flights, hotels, buses, and trains along with their specific nuances.

Toward the end of the book, we explored some ways to harness the power of the Internet beyond your PC and smartphone/tablet. We learned about the prevalent use of cloud computing in today's digital world, and explored how you can use the Internet with your voice, your TV and other smart devices around your home.

The different things that you have learned throughout this book are like tools in your toolbox. You may not need to use all of these tools regularly, but the awareness of these tools will come handy when the need to use them arises. Having an awareness of these topics helps by itself too, in staying secure, managing your privacy, and developing a comfort level with technology in general. This knowledge and awareness, coupled with an inquisitiveness to explore and self-learn are the essential ingredients for becoming savvier with technology. It is my earnest hope that you are already finding yourself more tech-savvy than you were when you started this book. Let's now look at some ways you can stay moving forward.

Staying tech-savvy

In each chapter in this book, we looked at many different examples. Throughout the book, we have seen examples of many different apps, websites, and services from Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Flipkart, Cleartrip, and a few other companies. Most of these are online services and are continuously evolving. Hence, it is expected that some of the screens may have changed between the time this book was written and when you are reading it. You may see some new features too, which you may not find mentioned in this book. However, the concepts that I have described in this book would still be largely useful and relevant as you try to familiarize yourself with different apps and websites. I would encourage you to approach the latest app or website interface with a spirit of inquisitiveness and try to map what you have learned in this book with what you see on your screen. You may be able to map most features when you do that. I have picked examples from some popular websites and apps for demonstration, but there are many other popular websites and apps as well. You can use the same approach to explore them too.

The objective of this book was to familiarize you with some popular technology topics and websites/apps and get you started with them. As you explore more, I would encourage you to make use of additional books and resources for your self-learning. This can help take you to the next level of expertise on the topics of

your interest. The publisher of this book, BPB Publications, has an amazing collection of technology books which you can explore, on Additionally, here are some free resources on the Internet which you can also use to learn about new concepts and find information. However, you should note that some of these websites, notably the Wiki ones, have content that is both created and moderated by individuals on the Internet, so the information and views may have a bias or may lean toward popular opinion.

Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

WikiHow https://www.wikihow.com/

How Stuff Works https://computer.howstuffworks.com/ YouTube https://www.youtube.com/ to search for video tutorials

WikiTravel for information about Places and Travel https://wikitravel.org/

Search Engines: like Google Bing https://bing.com Let us now revisit communication, and how technology impacts it.

Technology and communication

Cell phones are so convenient that they're an inconvenience - Haruki Murakami, Writer

Looking back at all the topics that we have discussed in this book, I would say that communication stands out as the most important one. We discussed at length how technology is a boon for communication. In parting, I feel it is my duty to present you with an alternate view as well, and share some dangers that technology can pose to communication.

Our devices, the Internet and the multitude of apps, websites, and services available to us are like gateways that allow us to reach out and communicate with anyone in the world with as much ease as we interact with our family and next-door neighbors. It is convenient and allows us to receive continuous updates from our network of friends and contacts, all day, and communicate with them. Because it is so convenient, for a lot of people, it can start to replace real human connection which comes from calling someone up or meeting them face-to-face. For example, we may find that it's more convenient to send a message to our next-door neighbors on WhatsApp rather than go meet them. In such cases, it is worth remembering that technology provides wonderful tools to complement real-life communication, but not to replace it.

Devices can also prevent you from experiencing the present moment to the fullest. We may get so excited about capturing a picture or video on our smartphone that we miss some things in the moment, especially ones cannot be captured digitally. For example, the spray of the ocean on a beach, or the fresh morning smells on a hill station. We may be watching a movie on TV and reading its online reviews on our smartphone alongside; while doing so, we may miss the cinematic performance that could've given us goosebumps, had we not been multi-tasking. We may get so engrossed in our phones that we ignore the real people who are sitting next to us. In fact, this last one is starting to become so common today that there's even a term coined for it, called Perhaps, the antidote to this is mindfulness and being fully present in the moment, be it watching a movie, or experiencing the ocean in its splendor, enjoying a special occasion or even researching something on the Internet. Smartphones/tablets, with their omnipresence, exciting features, and the continuous barrage of notifications can take-over our attention and distract us from our own life, unless we maintain an awareness of these dangers, and manage our devices consciously and with intention. I would like to end with this quote from Nobel Peace laureate Christain Lous Lange from his Nobel speech in 1921, Technology is a useful servant, but a dangerous With that reminder on staying in control, let us go and embrace technology!

Index

Symbols 2G network 110 3G network 111 4G network 111 prerequisites 111 5G network 111

A action buttons, media managing base and treble 191 equalizer 191 loop mode 190 next and previous 190 pause/play 190 player queue 190 seek 191 shuffle mode 190 action center, Windows 56 actions, YouTube annotations 201 auto play setting 200 playback speed 200 play/pause button 200 previous/next buttons 200 quality 200

screen mode 201 time slider 200 volume control 200

active communication 243 Adobe Acrobat suite 209 Alexa 414 amplitude 183 analog media 107 analog picture 161 analog sound 183 Analog to Digital Converter (ADC) 183 analog wave 183 anatomy of post activity or feeling 250 media (photos and videos) 250 topic (hashtags) 250 visibility 250 what (text content) 250 where (location) 250 who (poster) 250 with (tagged) 250 anatomy of review description 338 media 338 reviewer name 338 star rating 338 title 338 anatomy of URL about 80 protocol 80 resource input 81

server identifier 81

server resource 81 Android smartphone about 2 common tasks 22 personalizing 14 phone features, using 20 setting up Android smartphone, personalizing app, finding 15 background photo, selecting 16 display size, adjusting 19 ringtone and volume, selecting 17 screen lock, customizing 18 screensaver, selecting 17 Android software interface about 8 apps 8 home screen 8 menu button 8 navigation buttons 9 notifications bar 8 quick settings bar 8 Settings app 8 animations about 218 applying 220 Apache OpenOffice suite 209 Aperture 172 apps

installing securely 29 used, for Internet connection 93 aspect ratio 186 asynchronous communication 279 attributes, of sound amplitude 183 pitch 183 tone 183 audio. See also digital audio recording 189 audio and video calls, WhatsApp 296 audio and video connections about 116 common connectors 116 audio formats 184 audio tuner 191 Audio Tuner 191 audio-visual (A/V) 185 B bands 110 best practices, computer security 66 best practices, file privacy and security 229 best practices, online transactions security best practices, photos 177 Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) 318 Binary 35 bit depth 183 bit rate 184 blacklist 266

Bluetooth 113 blur 160 brightness 161 browsing, on PC about 86 Chrome browser activities 86 exercises 89 browsing on smartphone/tablet 90 buffering 192 bus booking about 395 booking confirmation 397 booking information 397 filter criteria 396 post booking actions 398 search criteria 395 search results 396 sort criteria 395 businesses on social media 248 C Cache 85 Calculator app 28 Calendar app about 27 setting up 28 Camera app about 160 settings 166 using 166

carrier signal 105 cart checkout, e-commerce website about 357 delivery address 357 payment, authorizing 358 payment method, selecting 358 shipping options 357 cash on delivery 322 categories, Gmail Primary 137 Promotions 137 Social 137 categories, of Spam email chain mails 155 dangerous/malware email 155 hoax 155 marketing emails 155 money scams 155 phishing email 155 spoofed email 155 chat, WhatsApp text messages 294 Chrome browser activities, on PC clear browsing data and cache 88 Cloud sync, enabling 87 default search engine 87 home button and home page 87 Site information 86 view history 87

Chrome browser activities, on smartphone/tablet

address bar 90 browsing data, clearing 92 Cloud sync 92 home button and home page 92 making full use of display pane 91 Search Engine 92 site information 91 tabs, managing 90 cladding 111 classification, of information other information 329 PCI 329 PII 329 clipboard, Windows 57 Clock app about 26 setting up 27 cloud computing about 406 advantages 408 applications, reviewing 407 common feature themes, in applications 407 disadvantages 408 cloud storage 207 Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) 110 color 161 combinations of IP-based and non-IP-based connections data, viewing from smart devices online 117

Hotspot 117 tethering 117 common apps

about 26 Calculator app 28 Calendar app 28 Clock app 27 common interface elements, online communication about 281 bell icon 283 chat 282 contacts 282 downward facing phone receiver 283 icon, for contact 283 icon, for emotions 283 icon, for files 283 icon, for images 283 icon, for location 283 icon, for videos 283 microphone icon 283 person icon plus sign 282 record icon 283 upwards slanting phone handset 282 video camera 282 common Internet connections 112 common tasks, Android smartphone Auto Rotate feature 23 contacts, managing 23 flight mode, toggling 26

screen brightness, adjusting 22 screenshot, capturing 26 space usage, checking 25 Wi-Fi, connecting to 24 common tasks, computer

files, managing 60 screenshot, capturing 62 settings, changing 63 shortcut to program or file, creating 61 space usage, checking 61 text file, creating 61 Wi-Fi, connecting to 62 common USB connectors Micro Type B 115 Mini Type B 115 Standard Type A 114 Standard Type B 115 Type C 115 communication technology impact 423 communication, WhatsApp audio and video calls 296 chat 295 common actions 300 file attachments 297 group communication 297 message actions 299 types 294 computer about 35 common tasks 60 external hardware interfaces 41 hardware interfaces 38 internal interface 41 keyboard shortcuts 69 key terms 36

personalizing 58 programs, managing 67 software interface 48 starting 48 turning off 58 computer, key terms electronic 36 processing 36 programmable 36 retrieval 36 storage 36 computer peripherals about 42 input and output devices 42 input devices 42 keyboard 42 mouse 45 output devices 42 computer, personalizing desktop background, setting 59 lock screen, setting 60 computer security

about 64 best practices 66 dealing with 66 malicious programs, types 64 prevention and cure 65 connection media about 104 example 105 connection medium

about 104 example 105 connections about 103 directionality 107 connection speed, Internet 118 connection types audio connector 121 Bluetooth 121 CIR 121 fiber-optic cable 119 HDMI and other Video connectors 122 network cable 119 RCA connector 121 SIM card slot 120 USB 120 Wi-Fi 119 connector 106 considerations, digital maps historical travel times 236

mode of travel 236 traffic patterns and disruptions en-route 236 consumer infrared (CIR) 116 contacts adding 23 managing 23 modifying 23 searching 23 storing 24 syncing, to Google account 24 content interactions, social networks

comment 253 react 253 reply 253 share on timeline 254 share privately 254 share/repost 254 content, on Internet about 95 creating 96 derived content 96 free content 98 freemium and trial content 97 paid content 97 user content 96 website's own content 96 content, social media privacy settings posts 272 stories, sharing 272 contrast 161 Cortana 414 courier services using, in e-commerce websites 365 credit cards about 319 billing address 320 card holder name 320 card number 320 Card Verification Value (CVV) 320 expiry date 320 OTP/password 320 using 320

cursor 42 D data 35 data connections, types combination of non-IP-based and IP-based connections 117 IP-based connections 108 non-IP-based connections 113 data management, WhatsApp download preferences 302 space, managing on phone 303 decibels (dB) 183 derived content, Internet average ratings 96 popular content 96 recommendations 96 search ranking 97

desktop computer about 37 usage 37 versus, laptop 37 desktop, Windows 10 accessing 54 detail 160 device hardware 6 Digital 35 digital audio acquiring 189 attributes 184

audio quality 184 file formats 185 modifying 191 recording 189 sharing 192 digital maps about 234 considerations 236 destination 235 distance 235 mode 235 place 235 route 235 source 235 time 235 digital media 107 digital photos about 160 acquiring 165 attributes 162 basics 161 best practices 177 file formats 164 image, sending 173 image, sharing 175 managing 167 modifying 170 picture, clicking 166 picture privacy 177 picture quality 163 sharing 173

using 176 Digital to Analog Converter (DAC) 183 digital video acquiring 189 attributes 186 basics 185 file formats 188 modifying 191 privacy 203 recording 203 sharing 192 using 203 video quality digital voice assistants about 411 customizing 417 for home automation 419 hardware voice assistants 413 semantics 412 software voice assistants 413 digital wallets about 320 RBI rules 321 directionality, connection 107 directories 54 documents about 209 additional content 212 creating 210 exporting 210 opening 210

page layout 209 page layout features 212 sharing, as files 227 sharing, by specifying recipient's email address 227 sharing online 227 sharing, with anonymous private link 228 text formatting 211 working with 210 domain identifier 81 Domain Name System (DNS) 78 duplex mode 106 dynamic package booking 398 E

e-commerce about 347 online and offline commerce models 360 e-commerce terminology about 348 account section 350 categories and sub-categories 349 checkout 349 compare 349 coupon/voucher 350 filter 349 search 349 seller and marketplace 350 shopping cart/basket 348 sorting 349

wish list 349 e-commerce websites key pages 351 movie/event booking 366 ordering workflow 354 post-ordering actions 360 tracking 361 editor apps 207 email about 126 characteristics 128 human network analogy 127 parts 138 protocols 129 security 154 working, on Internet 129 email actions about 140 email, composing email, forwarding 144 email, printing 145 email, replying to 144 emoticons 142 hyperlink 142 images 142 email actions, in Gmail about 145 archiving 146 delete 145 email, scheduling 146 email, starring 146

email, translating 146 mark as unread 145 message, downloading 146 move to/add label 146 muting 147 report as spam 146 report not spam 146 sender, blocking 146 snoozing 146 tasks, adding to 147 email etiquette addressing 151 alias, selecting carefully 151 colors 152 context, setting 151 do not shout 152 emoticons, using sparingly 151 letter writing rules, using 151 meaningful subject line 151 Reply All and Bcc, optimum use 152 responding 152 email header dates 138 recipient email addresses 138 sender 138 subject 138 email program/apps browser, using 130 mobile app, using 131 OS email services/apps, using 131 third-party email programs, using 131

email protocols Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) 130 Post Office Protocol (POP) 129 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) 129 emails, organizing folders 135 labels 136 equalizer 191 ethernet 109 external hardware interfaces, computer

external hardware buttons 41 ports 41 F

Facebook about 245 account, creating 245 business page, creating 248 feed 252 groups 249 people profiles 247 post, creating 251 private messaging 255 timeline 246 Facebook Messenger 255 feature phones 3 features, of Google Photos album sharing 170 face recognition 170

management 169 modifications 169 pictures, combining 170 searching 170 support for videos 169 web storage and sync 169 feed 252 fiber connections 111 file attachments, WhatsApp 297 file explorer, Windows 10 browsing 55 file formats, digital photos 164 files, Windows 10 about 54 home directory 55 filters feature, Gmail creating 149 Firewall 95 fleet 263 flight booking about 382 booking confirmation 387 booking information 386 checkout process 386 layover time 385 leg 385 post booking actions 387 search criteria 384 search results 386 sort and filter 385 stop 385

flight booking information contact information 386 purchase add-ons 386 traveler information 386 focus 160 folders 54 folders, in emails drafts 135 inbox 135 outbox 135 sent 135 spam 136 trash 136 frame rate 186 free apps 208 Freemium 97 Full HD 188

G gesture about 9 exercise 11 gestures, with single finger double tap 10 drag 10 long press 10 swipe 10 tap 9 gestures, with two fingers

pinch in 10 pinch out 10 Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) 110 Gmail about 131 Account Recovery 132 categories 137 Default Inbox type 137 default view 135 email actions 145 features 132 folders and labels 136 inbox type 138 mailbox 134 parts of email 139 signing up for 133 web interface 132 Gmail app about 132 default view 134 label, creating 137 parts of email 139 Gmail, as email tool using with custom domains 150 using, with other email providers 150 Gmail features conversation view 147 filters 150 non-conversation view 148 search 148 threaded view 147

Google account contacts, syncing 24 Google Assistant about 414 commands 417 enabling 416 settings 418 Google Docs

documents 209 features 213 Google Drive/Docs Suite 208 Google Hangouts about 283 audio video call, starting 286 call controls in Hangouts call 285 contact in contacts list, communicating with 285 features 284 invite contact to Hangout 284 inviting people 286 privacy features, reviewing 287 web interface 284 Google Maps 3D or street view 236 about 236 default view 236 navigation features 238 navigation mode 239 place, sharing 239 public transit view 236 round crosshair icon 236 route, sharing 240

satellite view 236 terrain view 236 traffic view 236 trip, planning 238 typical functions 236 Google Photos about 168 features 169 interface 168 pictures, sharing 174 pictures sharing online, for limited time/views 175 video modifications 191 Google Slides 214 Google Tasks versus, Google Keep 154 Google web apps about 152 Google Calendar 153 Google Contacts 153 Google Keep 153 Google Tasks 153 graphical user interface (GUI) 45 group communication, WhatsApp broadcast 297 features 298 WhatsApp group 298 GUI OS 46 H

haptic feedback 35 Hard Disk Drive (HDD) 77 hardware interfaces, computer device interfaces 38 external hardware 38 human interfaces 38 internal hardware 39 types 38 hardware voice assistants 413 HD 188 hertz (Hz) 183 home automation voice assistants, used for 419 home directory, folders desktop 54 documents 54 downloads 55 pictures 55 recycle bin 55 hotel booking about 377 booking confirmation 382 checkout 382 hotel booking information screen 381 hotel details page 381 post booking actions 382 search criteria 378 search results 379 sort and filter 379 Hotspot 117 hue 172

human network 76 human network analogy 127 hyperlinks 83 I image attributes

color 172 crop 171 drawing and text 173 filters 173 lighten 172 mirror 172 resolution 171 rotate 172 image resolution 162 important keys, keyboard delete key 45 enter or return key 45 spacebar 45 tab key 45 Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) URL 388 India Post using, in e-commerce websites 366 indirect networks 249 information 35 standard classification 329 information privacy 329 Infrared (IR) 115

Instagram about 255 business profile 257 comments 260 content actions 259 content supported 255 feed 257 hashtags 257 indirect networks 257 network connections 257 network type 255 partner apps 261 people profiles 256 post, saving 260 post, sharing 260 post visibility 260 private messaging (direct) 261 profile visibility 257 specialized posts 260 story 259 story comments 260 working 255 Instagram post about 258 description 258 filters and adjustments 258 hashtag 258 media 258 story 259 tagging users 259 Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system 320

interface elements, online communication communication tool 280 individual and group communication 280 locating people 280 mode of communication 281 synchronous and asynchronous communication 281 interface elements, window button 51 check box 52 dropdown 52 menu bar 51 multi-selection 52 pane 51 radio button 52 tab 51 text box 51 interface, YouTube explore 198 home 198 library 198 subscriptions 198 interface, YouTube music explore 194 home 194 library 195 interlaced scan 187 internal hardware, computer Central Processing Unit (CPU)/Processor 39 Hard Disk Drive (HDD) 39 integrated circuits (ICs) 40 motherboard 40

Random Access Memory (RAM) 39 sound card 40 internal interface, computer 41 Internet about 74 and TV 409 browsing, on PC 86 browsing on smartphone/tablet 90 concepts connecting to, with software and hardware 93 connection speed 118 content 95 different connection types 119 digital voice assistants 411 money transactions 316 pictorial representation 79 privacy, managing 327 real-life analogy uses 98 working 83 Internet-enabled devices car trackers 94 digital media players 93 e-book readers 94 gaming consoles 94 smart home devices/IoT 94 smart TVs 94 Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) 130 Internet of Things (IoT) 404 Internet security 95 Internet services provider's (ISP) network 112

inter-source transactions, payment methods 321 IP-based connections about 108 common Internet connections 112 fiber connections 112 LAN connection 109 mobile data network 111 parameters 109 Wi-Fi connection 110 K karaoke 192 keyboard about 42 alphabet keys 44 cursor control section 43 function keys section 43 important keys 45 keys 43 light indicators 44 main keyboard section 43 modifier and special keys 45 numeric keys 44 numpad 43 punctuation and special characters 45 shortcuts 43 special keys section 43 keyboard shortcuts 70 key concepts, physical map direction 233

grids and mapping 233 legends 233 scale 233 Know Your Customer (KYC) 321 L labels, Gmail creating 137 system labels 136 user-defined labels 136 LAN connection 109 laptop 37 laptop trackpad double click 47 left click 47 movement 47 right click 47 scrolling 48 latency 118 LibreOffice 209 licensed apps 208 Local Area Network (LAN) 104 lock state 44 Long Term Evolution (LTE) 110 lossless formats 163 lossy formats 163 M

Macro 228 malicious apps about 64 Adware 64 bot 64 keyloggers 64 ransomware 64 spyware 64 trojan horse 64 virus 64 worms 64 maps about 232 digital maps 234 paper maps 233 physical map 232 political map 232 map scale 233 media, managing media library 190 playlist 190 message actions, WhatsApp copying to clipboard 300 delete 300 double blue ticks 299 double tick 299 forward 300 received messages 300 sent messages 300 single tick 299 star 300

Microsoft Office and 365 suites 208 mobile phones 1 Mobile PIN (mPIN) 318 modem 112 modifications, digital photos basic image modifications 170 image attributes 171 modus-operandi (MO) 331 money sources 315 money transactions, on Internet 316 mouse about 45 laptop trackpad 47 left key 46 movement tracker 46 right key 46 scroll wheel 46 using 46 movie/event booking, on e-commerce websites 366 music streaming services about 192 YouTube music 193 N National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) 318 native apps 208 network about 75 attributes 75 network connections

bi-directional (mutual friends) 248 indirect networks 249 uni-directional (followers) 248 Network Interface Card (NIC) 109 non-IP-based connections about 113 audio and video connections 116 Bluetooth 113 consumer infrared (CIR) 116 USB 114 notebook 37 notifications, WhatsApp about 303 default notifications, customizing 303 notifications for specific conversations, customizing 303 O office applications 205 offline apps 207 online and offline commerce models 360 online apps 207 online communication about common interface elements 281 features 280 interface elements 280 privacy 286 versus, communicating online 279 online payments

about 314 payment methods 314 security 322 online reviews 336 online streaming 192 online travel agency (OTA) website 371 online travel booking about advantages 372 booking workflow 373 bus booking 395 disadvantages 373 drawbacks 400 flight booking 382 hotel booking 377 packages 398 post-booking actions 375 product discovery 376 train booking 388 online TV content audio streaming 411 browse photos 411 categories 410 freemium 410 games 411 premium 410 screencast 411 social media 411 TV channel broadcast 411 video platforms 410

web browsing 411 operating system (OS) 4 order booking workflow, online travel booking about 373 booking confirmation page 375 booking information page 374 checkout process 375 product details page 374 search results page 374 search wizard 374 order confirmation page, e-commerce website 359 ordering workflow, e-commerce website about 354 add to cart 357 cart checkout 357 order confirmation 358 product research and selection 355 P

packages, online travel booking about 398 curated packages 398 dynamic packages 398 search and filtering 399 packets 78 page layout controls left and right indent 213 margins 212 orientation and paper type 213 partner apps, Instagram

Boomerang 261 IGTV 261 layout 261 parts, of email email attachments 139 email content 139 email header 138 passive communication 243 payment methods about 315 bank account 315 cash 315 credit cards 315 digital wallet 316 payment methods, in India about 316 aspects 317 cash on delivery 322 credit cards 319 differences 318 digital wallets 320 IMPS 317 inter-source transactions 321 NEFT 317 RTGS 317 Unified Payments Interface (UPI) 318 people profiles about 246 cover picture 246

name 246 profile picture 246

tagged content 246 your content 246 your information 246 your network 246 personal computers (PCs) about 36 desktop computer 37 laptop 37 types 37 phablets 5 phone features, for smartphone call controls 21 phone call, making 20 phone call, receiving 20 SMS, reading 22 SMS, sending 22 using 20 photos. See digital photos photo services image sharing websites 176 object search (searching by images) 176 visual search (by keyword) 175 physical map about 232 key concepts 233 pitch 183 Pixelation 161

Pixels 161 pixels per inch (PPI) 163 place, digital maps latitude 235

longitude 235 player queue 190 Play Store about 29 apps, installing from 29 Point of Sale (POS) usage 319 political map 232 popular voice assistants Alexa 414 Cortana 414 Google Assistant 414 Siri 414 Portable Document Format (PDF) about 224 converting to 226 features 225 limitations 225 post about 250 anatomy 250 special types of posts 251 post booking actions, for buses 398 post booking actions, for flights meal preferences 387 other requests 387 post booking actions, for trains boarding point, changing 394 booking, cancelling 394 booking SMS, resending 394 eTicket/ERS, printing 394 PNR status, obtaining 394

post-booking actions, travel websites booking cancelling 376 booking, modifying 375 invoice download 376 view/print booking information 375 Post Office Protocol (POP) 129 post-ordering actions, e-commerce website check order status 360 invoice download 361 order tracking 360 retry payment 360 returns and exchanges 361 review, posting 361 presentations about 214 features 215 slides 216 slideshow, creating 214 slideshow, opening 214 presentation settings edit mode 215 presentation view 216 presenter view 216 slide order 216 themes 215 privacy, Internet managing 328 versus, security 331 privacy, online communication preventing specific people from contacting you 287 what can people who communicate with you see 286

who can communicate with you control 286 privacy, social media about 265 apps 273 content 272 privacy, from specific people 273 Who 266 you and your information 267 privacy, WhatsApp contacts, controlling 307 group privacy 309 message privacy 309 people, adding to blocked list 307 profile info privacy 308 status update privacy 309 private messaging, social networks 255 product discovery, e-commerce website about 356 cart/checkout recommendations 356 deals and featured products 356 recommendations 356 related products and products bought together 356 similar products 356 product discovery, travel websites deals 376 featured 376 similar hotel 376 productivity apps about categorization 208 editor apps, versus viewer apps 207

file privacy and security 228 free apps, versus licensed apps 208 native apps, versus web apps 208 offline, versus online apps 207 types 207 productivity app suites Apache OpenOffice suite 209 Google Drive/Docs Suite 208 LibreOffice 209 Microsoft Office and 365 208 product research and selection, e-commerce website category browsing 355 filtering 355 product discovery 356 product search 355 reviews 356 sorting 355 profile 246 programs used, for Internet connection 93 programs, managing on computer installed programs, viewing 67 program, installing 68 program, removing 68 progress bar 191 progressive scan 187 progress slider 191 protocol 41 Q

quarantining 65 quotas 388 qwerty 44 R Raster format 162 RBI 3D Secure (3DS) rules 320 Recorder app voice note, recording 189 recycle bin, Windows 10 56 reviews about 336 anatomy 338 insights, deriving from 343 managing 337 navigating popular review websites 342 router 112

S

sample formula and functions, spreadsheets 224 sample rate 183 sampling 108 scan on-demand, computer security full scan 66 preventive scan 65

quick scan 65 search feature, Gmail search criteria 148 security, apps apps, installing 30 apps, searching 30 apps, uninstalling 30 apps, updating 30 permissions 29 security, online payments best practices security, productivity apps best practices 229 productivity files 228 security risk, email spam mails 155 via attachments 155 via content 154 settings, Camera app advanced settings 167 camera to use 166 face detection 167 flash 167 focus 167 preset modes 167 resolution 166 zoom 167 shortcuts 42 Short Message Service (SMS) 110 SIM card 110 Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) 129

simplex 106 Siri 414 slide decks 214 slides slide animations 218 slide content slide transitions 218 slide transition applying 219 smartphones about 1 evolution 4 smartphone's hardware external hardware interfaces 7 hardware interfaces 8 key features 6 social engineering 331 social engineering attack cloaked communication medium 331 emotions 331 information being sought 332 personalization 332 trust 331 urgency 331 social engineering attempts challenge 332 detect anomalies 332 inform 333 social login 273 social media about 243

etiquette 275 privacy 265 using for businesses 247 social media terminology connections 244 network 244 people 244 posts 244 social networking about 242 active communication 242 passive communication 242 social networks about 244 content interactions 253 feed 252 groups 249 key features 255 network connections 248 post 250 private messaging 254 types 244 software interface 48 software voice assistants 413 sound attributes 183 sound card about 40 analog to digital conversion 40 digital to analog conversion 40 specialized posts, Instagram

IGTV 260 live stream 260 reels 261 story highlights 260 special types of posts check-ins 251 live post 251 recommendation 251 story 251 watch party 251 spreadsheets about 221 cell operations creating 221 formulas 224 functions 224 opening 221 worksheet layout 222 start menu, Windows about 49 home folders 49 power 50 programs 49 settings 49 status update, WhatsApp about 304 deleting 305 image/video update 305 muting 305 post text updates 304 status updates pane 304

viewers, seeing 305 viewing 305 subdomain 81 Subscriber Identification Model (SIM) 110 synchronous communication 279 system labels, Gmail draft 136 inbox 136 sent 136 spam 136 system tray, Windows 10 about 53 customizing 53 T

tablets about 5 versus, Android smartphones 5 taskbar, Windows 10 about 52 accessing task manager 53 customizing 53 running programs 52 search bar 52 shortcuts to programs 52 switching between programs 53 Tatkal quota 388 technology and communication 424

tech-savvy 423 tell-tale signs 65 tethering 117 text formatting alignment and indentation 212 columns 212 line spacing 212 lists 212 options 211 paragraph 211 text 211 three-dimensional (3D) sphere 232 tools, Google Docs spelling and grammar tools 213 view, customizing 214 word count 214 TOSLINK 112 tracking, on e-commerce websites about 361 courier services 365 e-commerce 364 examples 363 India Post 366 tracking alerts 363 working 363 train booking about 388 booking confirmation page 394 booking information checkout 393 filter criteria 390

IRCTC 388 post booking actions 394 Reserved Against Cancellation (RAC) 388 search criteria 389 search results 391 sort criteria 390 Tatkal quota 388 Waitlist (WL) 388 transitions 218 transmission media 106 travel research drawbacks 400 TV about 408

connecting, to Internet 409 TV, connecting to Internet digital media players 410 Smart TV 409 tweet about 262 filters 263 hashtag 263 location 263 media 263 tagging users 263 text 263 Twitter about 261 business profile 262 content actions 264 content supported 262

fleet 263 hashtags 262 indirect networks 262 moments 265 network connections 262 network type 262 partner apps 265 people profiles 262 private messaging 265 profile visibility 262 threads 265 timeline/home 264 tweet 262 tweet visibility 264 U Unified Payments Interface (UPI) about 318 uses 319 Universal Resource Locator (URL) 77 Universal Serial Bus (USB) 104 Universal Serial Bus (USB) port 42 UPI transactions account number 319 mobile numbers 319 QR code 319 UIDAI or Aadhar number 319 VPA/UPI ID 319 URL

about 78 anatomy 80 USB about 114 USB2.0 114 USB3.0 114 user-generated content 96 uses, Internet banking and payments 100 communication 98 e-commerce 99 entertainment 98 Internet on other devices 100 maps 100 news and weather 98 photos 99 productivity 99 reading and learning 99 social media 99 utility features, WhatsApp archived messages 306 notes to self 307 pin conversations 307 QR code 307 resources, finding from conversation 306 starred messages 306 WhatsApp on PC 306 V

Vector formats 162 video See also digital video recording 189 video actions, YouTube like/dislike 201 save button 201 share 201 video information, YouTube comments 200 hashtags 200 thumbnail 199 title and description 199 views and likes 199 video modification, Google Photos remove audio 191 rotate 191 trim 191 Video on Demand (VoD) 409 video privacy 203 video streaming services about 196 Online Video-on-Demand (VOD) platforms 196 video-sharing platforms 196 YouTube 197 viewer apps 207 virus signatures 65 voice assistants. See digital voice assistants voice memo 189 voice note 189 volumes 54

W web apps 208 web browser 3-dot menu 85 about 84 address bar 84 bookmarks 85 browser settings 85 Cloud sync 85 display pane 84 history 85 home button and home page 84 navigation buttons 84 reload button 84 search engine 84 site information 84 status bar 85 tabs 84 title bar 85 web pages, e-commerce website cart page 352 checkout address page 352 checkout payment page 353 homepage 351 landing page 351 login page 351 order confirmation page 353 order detail page 353 order listing page 353 order summary page 353

Payment authorization page 353 product details page 351 product listing page 351 shipping page 352 WhatsApp about communication 293 data, managing 301 etiquette 310 main interface 291 notifications 303 people 292 privacy, managing 307 responsible use 311 space, managing 302 status update 304 utility features 306 your profile 293 WhatsApp groups features 299 whitelist 266 Who, social media privacy blacklist 266 followers 266 friends 266 only me/private 266 public 266 specific people/list 266 Wi-Fi about 24 connecting to 25

Wi-Fi adapter 110 Wi-Fi connection 110 Wi-Fi router 110 window about 51 close 50 interface elements 51 maximize 50 minimize 50 Windows 10 interface about 49 action center 56 clipboard 57 desktop 54 desktop screen 49 file explorer 55 files 54 recycle bin 56 start menu 49 system tray 53 task bar 52 Y you and your information, social media privacy settings connecting with you 269 finding you 268 posts on your timeline 270 posts where you're tagged 272 your friends 270

your profile information 269 YouTube about 197 actions 200 for PC browser 197 live feature 202 player controls 200 player controls and video actions on browser 201 post (upload) 202 search 199 sign-up/sign-in 198 video actions 201 video information 199 YouTube mobile app interface 198 player controls and video actions 202 YouTube music about 193 app interface 194 Radio feature 193