While many today are aware of the cause and effects of the Internet- how it was invented and what kind of promising or disastrous results it has brought to mankind and the world, it is perhaps safe to say an equally astounding number of people have no idea exactly how influential the Internet has become, so much so that its existence is imperative for the society to be fully functioning and completely effective today.
Personally, it only dawned upon me when I was hit with the facts through some statistics presented in class this week, of how invasive the Internet actually is in our lives today. For instance, in simply one day, 172 and 40 million people visit Facebook and Twitter respectively. It reminded me of an article I read which claimed that if Facebook were to be a country, it would be the 3rd largest in the world!!!!!!
Simply put, the advancement of technology, or more specifically, the Internet, has connected billions of people worldwide to create an integrated and cohesive community online, also giving rise to the term “Netizens” (citizens which unite online). Facebook, one of the countless social networking sites that exist on the Internet, is just an example.
The Internet was inspired by the Cold War, and has most certainly came a long way thereon, from its very humble beginnings in 1957 when it was meant to facilitate communication over long distances. The launch of Sputnik1 resulted in President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s good foresight to come up with the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), which was eventually shut down before the Internet started becoming more popular in the 1980s to 1990s. Source: http://library.thinkquest.org/27887/gather/history/internet.shtml
It was fascinating to learn a little something about the history of the Internet, especially since I have been using it for as long as I can remember, and yet knew nothing about its origins before my first Com 125 lesson this week. Knowing about its motivations from past to present indeed gave me a better perception as I view the evolving of the Internet with a deeper appreciation.
The “Internet” is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide, while the “Web” or the “Worldwide Web” (WWW) is a system of interlinked hypertexts documents contained on the internet. After staring at both definitions on my notes, and given that (I admit) I am a computer (or rather, technology) dummy, I still cannot precisely pin point the difference between the two. As such, I took the liberty to look it up on the Internet!
The Internet links computers around the world together and forms a massive network infrastructure allowing users to communicate as long as they stay connected, while the Web through a selected browser (such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, etc) uses HTTP protocol, allowing people to transmit data and access information online, i.e. viewing webpages and navigate between them by using hyperlinks. Source: http://www.webopedia.com/DidYouKnow/Internet/2002/Web_vs_Internet.asp
My biggest takeaway from the first week of Com 125 is probably learning of the different types of Web progressing over the past years, mainly Web 1.0, Web 2.0, and Web 3.0. Web 1.0 is also known as the internet of documents, where the content is primarily read-only files that are not meant to be altered or edited by just any user. People are given the passive role of receiving information without the opportunity of giving feedback or contributing on the other hand. Now that we think about it, it may seem impossible that people were actually once restricted from and unable to speak their minds and do what they want to online during the period when only Web 1.0 existed. This is attributed to the fact that we now live in a society in which everyone is opinionated, so much so that free speech is highly valued, thus explaining the Web 2.0 that we are familiar with today.
Web 2.0 is a “read-write web” which focuses on the interaction among users and where interconnection of people is emphasized. Increasingly more avenues of social connection and media are open up to users worldwide and they are given the option of changing and uploading content as well. Examples include Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Blogger, and so on. The many advantages of Web 2.0 significantly prevails over that of Web 1.0, but a part of my acknowledges some of the benefits of Web 1.0 provides as well, such as the prevention of flaming and hate messages that are so rampant today.
Web 3.0 combines the previous two categories of Web and has shown great advancement by utilizing machine-to-machine interaction. It is a semantic web which incorporates machine generated content (MGC), where things are active participants of the web. To paint a clearer picture, I have attached a YouTube video summarizing the three categories of Web and hopefully it will grant all of you a better understanding as it has done for me!
Unlike the Internet, the Intranet is able to successfully block off outsiders to create a secure network within an organization, i.e. in school or at work. Basically, content found in the Intranet (internal web) can either be shared with the public or made private.
IP ADDRESSES!! Seriously, it sounded so technical to me I never bothered to find out what it stands for exactly. Now I know, and I will be sure to remember it from here on! IP address stands for Internet Protocol address, and it is a host number to identify itself to other hosts. In any case, every computer has its own unique IP address which is necessary for identification and communication purpose. The general idea (or rather my own understanding) is that it is the “number version” of a domain name, which only the computer with a complex mind of its own understands. This is honestly much more interesting than I actually expected, and being in Cse 111 helped me understand the whole concept of 1 byte= 8 bits so much better! :-)
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