INTERNET: CONCEPT AND APPLICATIONS
The Internet is a global network of networks that links together thousands of independent networks thus bringing millions of computers on a single network to provide a worldwide communication system. It acts as facilitators for exchange of information between computers situated at different locations but are connected to the Internet. It is like a network of roads in a country that facilitates the movement of vehicles around the country.
The Internet was not a worldwide network initially. It was a small network called ARPAnet, which was developed at the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) sponsored by the Department of Defence of United States in 1969. ARPAnet was developed to help the researchers at one university to communicate with the researchers at other universities. To transfer data between these computers, the ARPAnet used the concept of packet switching in which the data was divided into small modules known as packets before transmitting. These packets were transmitted individually over the network and were reassembled at the receiver's end. The problem with ARPAnet was that it could connect only networks of the same type. In 1970s, ARPA starts developing the Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), a technology for connecting networks of different types (produced by different companies). In 1972, the access to ARPANET was extended and made available to common people and business organisations. This lead to appearance of other networks such as CSNET and BITNET
The number of computers connected to ARPAnet increased day-by-day because of which the mapping of host names to the IP addresses became difficult. In 1984, Domain Name Server (DNS) was
developed that helped in the mapping of host names to the IP addresses. In 1992, Tim Berners-Lee, a physicist from Geneva, introduced the World Wide Web, which was a network of websites that could be accessed with the help of a protocol known as Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP). In 1995, the commercial Internet providers started controlling the Internet by providing connections to different people for accessing the Internet. Today the Internet is used in almost every field, such as education, entertainment, business, defence, communication and medicine. In all these fields, the Internet is used to share data, gather information and communicate with the other users.
Applications of Internet
The Internet carries many applications and is used in almost all the fields for different purposes. Some are discussed below:
1. e-Business: In business, the Internet can be used for many purposes. An organisation can provide details about its products on the Internet that can be either used by the other organisations interested in developing business links with it or by the prospective customers. Business transactions such as sale and purchase of products and online payment can also be performed using the Internet. Electronic business encompasses business processes spanning the entire value chain: purchasing, supply chain management, marketing, sales, customer service, and business relationship
2. Communication (e-mail, VoIP, instant messaging, web conferencing): Email is an important communication service available via the Internet. Internet telephony is another common communications service realized with the Internet. VoIP systems now dominate many markets, and are as easy to use and as convenient as a traditional telephone. The Internet also provides another easy way of communication, i.e., communication through instant messaging. Instant messaging is a service of the Internet through which it is possible for a user to perform real-time communication with one or more users on the Internet. Through web conferencing, the users can talk to the other users in real-time through an audio-video interface.
3. Education: Educational material at all levels from pre-school to post-doctoral is available from websites. The Internet in general and the World Wide Web in particular are important enablers of both formal and informal education. The Internet allows universities, in particular, researchers from the social and behavioral sciences, to conduct research remotely via virtual laboratories, with profound changes in reach and generalizability of findings as well as in communication between scientists and in the publication of results. The low cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge, and skills have made collaborative work dramatically easier, with the help of collaborative software.
4. Social networking and entertainment: Many people use the World Wide Web to access news, weather and sports reports, to plan and book vacations and to pursue their personal interests. People use chat, messaging and email to make and stay in touch with friends worldwide, sometimes in the same way as some previously had pen pals. Social networking websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram have created new ways to socialize and interact. Users of these sites are able to add a wide variety of information to pages, to pursue common interests, and to connect with others.
5. e-Governance: The vast use of Internet has paved the way for e-governance. More and more government agencies are adopting the concept of e-governance to improve their service delivery capabilities. Almost all the government organisations have set up their websites that provide information related to the organisation as well as help them in performing their operations.
Intranet & Extranet
1. Intranet: Intranet is owned by a single organisation and is a tool for sharing information throughout the organisation. It is the type of Internet that is used privately. Since, intranet is a private network so no one can use the intranet whose have not valid username and password. In intranet, there are a limited number of connected devices as compared to internet. Intranet is highly secure and has a small number of visitors. It is used in order to get employee information, telephone directory etc.
2. Extranet: Extranet is owned by either a single or a many organisation. It is managed on a contractual basis between organisations and is a tool for sharing information between the internal members and external members. Like intranet, it is also a private network so only those who have a valid username and password can use the extranet. Extranet is used to check status, access data, send mail, place order etc.
WWW, WEB BROWSERS, SEARCH ENGINES
WWW (World Wide Web)
The World Wide Web (WWW) is combination of all resources and users on the Internet that are using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). We can say that the World Wide Web is a global collection of documents, images, multimedia, applications, and other resources, logically interrelated by hyperlinks and referenced with Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs), which provide a global system of named references. The Web, as it's commonly known, is often confused with the internet. Although the two are intricately connected, they are different things. The internet is, as its name implies, a vast global network that incorporates a multitude of lesser networks. As such, the internet consists of supporting infrastructure and other technologies. In contrast, the Web is a communications model. that, through HTTP, enables the exchange of information over the internet. Tim Berners-Lee is the inventor of the Web and the director of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the organisation that oversees its development. Berners-Lee developed hypertext, the method of instant cross-referencing that supports communications on the Web, making it easy to link content on one web page to content located elsewhere. The introduction of hypertext revolutionized the way people used the internet. In 1989, Berners-Lee began work on the first World Wide Web server at CERN. He called the server "httpd" and dubbed the first client "WWW." The World Wide Web has been widely available since
1991.
Web Browser
A web browser, also known as an internet browser or simply a browser, is a software program that we use to view web pages on our computer. The main purpose of an internet browser is to translate the code that computers use to create websites into the text, graphics, and other features of the web pages.
A web browser provides many advanced features that help achieve easy access to the Internet and WWW. When we open a web browser, the first page, which appears in the web browser window, is the home page set for that particular web browser.
The first web browser was called World Wide Web and later changed its name to Nexus. Created by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, it was released in 1990 and gave people a basic way to view web pages. Over the years Internet browsers have developed into powerful tools that let you safely and quickly access your favorite websites. Modern internet browsers have many helpful features. Tabbed browsing, for example, helps you open up many web pages in individual tabs, instead of needing a resource-intensive separate window for each page. Most browsers are available for free download. The most popular internet browsers today include:
- Mozilla Firefox
- Google Chrome
- Microsoft Edge (formerly Internet Explorer)
- Apple Safari
- Opera
How Internet Browsers Work
1. You type a website's URL into your browser's address bar: "http://www.google.com" is an example of a URL.
2. The browser locates and requests that page's information from a web server.
3. The browser receives a file in a computer code like HTML or JavaScript, which includes instructions about how to display the information on that page.
4. The browser interprets that file and displays the page for you to read and interact with. And it does all of this in just a few seconds.
SEARCH ENGINE
A web search engine or Internet search engine is a websites that provide the users the facility of searching for information related to some topic. The search engines maintain an index of websites available on the Internet along with a summary of the content contained in these websites. The summary of the content is displayed when a user searches for information on some topic. The search results are generally presented in a line of results often referred to as search engine results pages (SERPs). The information may be a mix of links to web pages, images, videos, infographics, articles, research papers and other types of files.
Some of the search engines that are commonly used by the users are www.google.com. www.bing.com. www.askjeeves.com, www.search.yahoo.com and www.ask.com. Among these search engines, www.google.com is the most popular search engine, which is used worldwide.
A search engine maintains the following processes in near real time:
- Web crawling
- Indexing
- Searching
Web search engines get their information by web crawling from site to site.
MESSAGING: EMAIL, SOCIAL NETWORKING
Electronic mail (e-mail)
Email service provided by the Internet is a very effective means of communication as it allows two or more persons in remote places to communicate with each other. More plainly, e-mail is a message that may contain text, files, images, or other attachments sent through a network to a specified individual or group of individuals. The first e-mail was sent by Ray Tomlinson in 1971. Tomlinson sent the e-mail to himself as a test e-mail message. To use the e-mail service, a user must have a valid email account. There are two ways in which a user can obtain an email account. The first way is to obtain an email account from an ISP. The second way to obtain an email account is to get registered on one of the websites such as gmail.com and yahoo.com, which provide free e-mail facility to their users. The email address consists of two parts separated by @sign such as gupta00shagun@gmail.com. The first part written before @ symbol in the email address is the unique identity of the user who uses the email service on the Internet. The other part written after @ symbol is the name of the website, which provides the email service. In case a user is using the email account of an ISP, the part after the @ sign will consist of the name of the website owned by the ISP. No two users can have the same email addresses.
The email service can be used by a user to send and receive email messages. An email message has two sections, a header section and a body section. The header section contains the information about the sender, the receiver and the subject of the email message. It consists of the fields such as to, cc and subject. The to field contains the email address of the person to whom the e-mail message is to be sent. The cc field or the carbon copy field contains the email addresses of other persons to whom a copy of the e-mail message has to be sent. The body section contains the actual text message, which has to be sent. This section also contains a signature block at the end where the sender places his/her signature. The user can also attach documents in the email.
Social Networking
Social Networking is the use of Internet-based social media sites to stay connected with friends, family, colleagues, customers, or clients. Social networking can have a social purpose, a business purpose, others. or both, through sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WhatsApp and Instagram, among Social networking has become a significant base for marketers seeking to engage customers. Marketers use social networking for improving conversion rates. Building a following provides access to and interaction with new, recent and old customers. Sharing blog posts, images, videos or comments on social media allows followers to react, visit the company's website and become customers. A company may use social networking to demonstrate its customer service level and enrich its relationships with consumers. For example, if a customer complains about a product or service on Twitter, the company may address the issue immediately, apologize, and take action to make it right. However, criticism of a brand can spread very quickly on social media.
Advantages
- Easy and better communication
- Business opportunities
- Study Material Availability
- Digital and Technological Solutions
- Latest News
- General Fun and Entertainment
- Crowdfunding
Disadvantages:
- False Information
- Cyber Crimes
- False Identity
- Health Issues
- Time Wastage
- Privacy Issues
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