Tutorial Blog 3

As I begin to make my way towards the end of my Spring semester ISM3004 class, I figured it would be important for my third blog posting to discuss one of the fastest growing mediums, the Internet. By definition, the Internet is a world-wide network of networks, connecting businesses, government agencies, educational institutions and individuals. While most people call the Internet the Web interchangeably, the Web is actually just one of the sources available to the Internet.

(http://www.designswan.com/archives/9-popular-internet-browser-icons.html)

Before ISM, I had absolutely no idea how the Internet is actually accessed, or how it was run. There are actually two types of computers connected to the Internet, there is "the client" which asks for data and "the server" who receives requests from the client and finds the data and serves it up to the client computer on a browser. Shown here is a quick YouTube clip about the history of Internet and how it has progressed:

YouTube

Then, to access the Internet there are two ways to do so: Dial-Up and High Speed (Broadband). Dial-Up, which has recently become close to extinct, is a modem connected to a standard phone line which is infamous for being slow as well as requiring a new connection each time it is used. The most common method is High Speed (also known as Broadband), which incorporates DSL, Cable, Wireless and Satellite - providing users with faster connections as well as always being accessible as long as the computer is on.

Even more recent to Broadband, there is Wi-Fi - a wireless technology brand created by InterBrand and owned by the Wi-Fi Alliance (mistakenly short for Wireless Fidelity). Wi-Fi uses radio waves to transmit signals.

Going back to the Web, the Web is most commonly used for searching for, sharing and using information, as well as viewing and sharing media and chat services. With this being said, Search Engines are encompassed in the Web and there are three parts to them. The first is "the Spider" which seeks out data, second being "the Index" which organizes data and finally the search engine software the user reacts with and how the results are given.

Next to navigating the Web, the web runs off of IP and Web addresses. An IP address is an internet protocol address with a number that uniquely identifies each computer/device to the Internet. It consists of four groups of numbers separated by periods. Web Addresses, which sound a little more complex, consist of a protocol, domain name, TLD, path and file name. They run with a Domain Name System (DNS) which translate domain names to IP addresses so that computers and devices can find each other and data can be routed from one computer to another.

The Web site link we are all most commonly used to seeing is known as a URL. By definition, a URL is a uniform resource locator, or in other words a unique address for a web page leaving a web server to deliver the content to your computer. A URL has four parts: (1) a Protocol (which is the http), (2) a Domain Name/TLD (which would be for example www.ufl.edu), (3) Path (which are subdirectories), and finally (4) the File Name (which would be the index.html).

We then, view the Internet through Browsers, which are programs used to view web pages. A few examples of browsers are Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Netscape, Safari and Opera.

All in all, the Internet is a fast-growing device which is becoming more popular and accessible each day. Close to every household owns Internet and the amount of time people spend on the Internet is becoming longer and longer.

For more information on the Internet, you can also go to: History of the Internet and More.