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Internet & the WWW (Issues with the Internet (There is almost too much…
Internet & the WWW
Introduction
The Internet is one of the most important changes that has happened to the way we live and work in the last 20 years.
It began life about 40 years ago, in an American military research agency called DARPA.
The Internet now spans the world, connecting billions of people in their everyday lives.
The World Wide Web (WWW)
The world wide web (WWW or just 'the web') is part of the Internet but is much younger. The Internet is about 40 years old whilst the WWW is merely 25 years old.
It was developed at CERN, the world famous underground physics laboratory in Switzerland, by Tim Berners-Lee around 1990.
The complete web is organised as millions of 'web sites'. Each web site is made up of one or more 'web pages'. Each page is made up of text, images or multimedia such as video and sound.
What is the Internet?
It's made up of millions upon millions of small computer networks all brought together to form the vast "Inter-Network". That word never caught on, so it was shortened to the much easier-to-say "Internet".
A large part of the Internet is the 'World Wide Web" (WWW). This is made up of web sites that have one or more web pages. This is the part of the Internet that you probably use most of the time.
It also inncludes:
.Instant messaging
.Chat rooms
.Email
.File transfer
.New groups
.Peer to peer networks
.Forums
Web sites, pages and browsers
Web sites are hosted on dedicated computers known as 'web servers'. These machines will send a web page to your browser when you request it.
This is very important, as it is what binds the World Wide Web together. The http is a 'protocol', which is a fancy word for a communication standard. If two computers share the same 'protocol', then they can share information. The http protocol is the one used for the world wide web.
There are many different browsers available, such as Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari and so on. But they all do the same job - namely to display a web page delivered from a web server.
Benefits of the Internet
The Internet is aways available for you to use, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You don't have to wait for it to open or wait for someone to make it available. It is just there, when you need it and for whatever you need.
The Internet provides many ways to enable you to keep in contact with people at all hours of the day and night. From email, forums, chatrooms, telephone calls and video conferencing. You are almost spoilt for choice.
Think of any search term and type it into a search engine. We can pretty much guarantee that you will find web sites with information on that term.
One of the main advantages of the Internet is how fast things can be updated. When a news story breaks, the BBC website can have that news on its pages within a couple of minutes. They can keep adding more information as it becomes available.
The Internet enables you to look at sites about or written by people in other countries. You can look at photographs of where they live and read about their way of life.
Issues with the Internet
There is almost too much information on the Internet. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by the amount of information that is out there.
With a book or encyclopedia, you can be pretty confident that what you are reading has been checked, cross referenced and is correct. But with the Internet, no one checks what has been written. The website that looks like it has all of the answers to your history homework might just be incorrect. You need to double check things out for yourself - don't just believe what you read.
No matter how careful you are when using the Internet, there is always the possibility that you will come across some sites that contain offensive or even illegal material. Use the 'safe search' option in your favourite search engine.
No one owns the Internet and there is nothing to stop people posting their opinions and points of view on web pages, forums, blogs.
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With the growth of the Internet and new technology, bullying has been moving from the traditional playground to emails, chatrooms, texts and social websites.
There has been a worrying increase in the number of people who are becoming 'addicted' to the internet. Every spare moment they have is spent online, some even go without proper sleep so that they don't have to log off. There have been reports of families breaking up and people losing their jobs because of this problem.
Email is a wonderful service, but the down side is endless spam. Spam is another word for 'unsolicited email' that fill up your inbox. The only way to tackle spam is to join a good email service that tries to filter them out. They are usually placed into a spam box in your email account. But the problem is that some of your good emails are also sent to the spam box, so more time is wasted keeping an eye on the spam box in case you have missed an important email!
Future of the internet
Every web page has to have a unique address. And 20 years ago a scheme was developed that could provide that service (it is called IPv4). But it was never dreamt that the web would be so successful. Now we are running out of addresses. We are down to the last 3% of available addresses.
You know the scene: You want to look at a video clip and you get endless 'buffering' messages. The fact is, the connection speed is often too slow and the problem lies mainly in the 'last mile' to your home.
Did you know that search engines only index a small fraction of the internet? There is a vast area called the 'Deep Web' that search engines have not found as yet. And it is getting bigger. The Deep Web consists of many things: database driven web sites, social network pages and so on.
Up to fairly recently, the only way to connect to the internet was to use a computer, either a desktop or a laptop using a modem. But now there are many other devices that can connect as well - mobile phone, tablets, e-book readers.
With connection to the internet becoming available anywhere, anytime, it is now possible to blend what you are seeing with extra information streaming from the internet. This is called 'augmented reality' or AR for short.
Uses of the Internet
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The internet is a fantastic place to research information for a project or piece of homework. It doesn't matter what topic you have been set, you can guarantee that you will find something on the subject.
Whatever you want to buy, you can pretty much guarantee that you can find it for sale somewhere on the internet.
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There are always new things turning up on the internet as entrepreneurs think of the next great service that everyone wants.
Conclusion
All in all, you can expect the internet to become faster, anywhere, anytime and to become as much part of our everyday lives as the mobile phone has become, even on the move.