Department
of Defense Licklider
Berners-Lee IBM Intel Unix
DR. JCR LICKLIDER WAS THE CREATIVE MIND THAT
CAME UP WITH ARPANET, HIS VISION OF THE FIRST INTERGALACTIC COMPUTER NETWORK
WHICH WOULD SPAWN THE INTERNET. DR. JCR LICKLIDER DIED IN 1990 AND NEVER
WAS ABLE TO SEE WHAT HIS CREATIVE MIND WOULD ACHIEVE, THE INTERNET HAS
GROWN INTO MARVEL OF CREATIVE TECHNOLOGY WHICH TRULY LINKS THE WORLD AS
A ONE WORLD GLOBAL COMMUNITY.
JCR Licklider (1915-1990)
2003 DECEMBER; Computer Pioneer Professor J.C.R.
Licklider, widely recognized for his pioneering work that established the
basis for computing concepts such as timesharing and resource sharing.
Dr. Licklider, who held advanced degrees in psychology, was among the first
to recognize that the fullest potential of the computer could only be achieved
by improving the human user's ability to interact with it. In turn,
he saw that the computer could do more than just provide data. It could
also aid its users in thinking, understanding and decision making. Professor
Licklider outlined his vision for improving the human computer dialogue
he called "man computer symbiosis" in a number of papers published
in the early 1960s. The program he outlined for achieving this symbiosis
was supported by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the Department
of Defense, which established the first large scale experimental computer
science research projects at universities across the nation, a group that
became known as "the ARPA community." Out of that effort came the basis
for timesharing, virtual memory and resource sharing, and eventually the
birth of the Internet.
Professor Licklider also made important contributions
in the application of computers to modern libraries, introducing the concepts
of digital computers and telecommunications into the processes of information
storage and retrieval. In the mid 1980s he developed a system of graphical
programming that made it possible to construct computer programs by drawing
diagrams on a computer screen instead of writing numerical and symbolic
expressions. Professor Licklider was one of six world figures who shared
the 1990 Common Wealth Awards of Distinguished Service. He received the
award, which recognized his work in computer networking and computer human
interaction, in the science and invention category. In 1962 he was named
director for Information Processing Techniques and for Behavioral Sciences
with ARPA in Washington, D.C. He returned to MIT
an remained their until his death in 1990.
The first four nodes of ARPANET began exchanging
packets in the last months of 1969. The computer mouse had only been around
a few years earlier.The Intel Corparation first designed a chip for a desktop
claculator. This chip processor was called the 4004 and contained 2,300
transistors wwhich operated on four bits of data at a time. The current
Intel Pentium 4 chip contains a count of 42 million transistors.Unix began
as a small scale project at Bell Labs by Dennis Ritchie and Ken Thompson.
It has grown dramatically and is the platform of choice for scientists
and engineers alike. Almost all computer systems in the world have adopted
the methods first created by UNIX..
TIM BERNERS-LEE VISION OF THE WORLD
WIDE WEB IN 1989 STARTED THE MARVEL OF THE 20TH CENTURY AND CONTINUES TO
GROW WITH ADVANCEMENTS IN THE FIELDS OF TECHNOLOGY, COMPUTERS ,COMMERCE
AND COMMUNICATIONS
Tim
Berners-Lee
Many have credited the invention of the Web by Tim
Berners-Lee. The World Wide Web has become a social and economic fixture
that is almost taken for granted in many parts of the world. One search
engine alone reports indexing more than three trillion pages. Tim Berners-Lee
stated, " First of all, let's get clear the difference. The internet is
a collection of computers, which was put together during the 1970's. When
I proposed the Web in 1989, the internet had been around for 15 years.
You could use e-mail, you could store files on ftp servers, and people
could access them, but it was very complicated. " Mr. Berners-Lee invented
the World Wide Web in 1989 while working for CERN, or the European Particle
Physics Laboratory, in Geneva, Switzerland. He saw it as a way to more
effectively share and distribute information not just within a corporation,
but around the world. He was the guy who thought up "http://", HTML, URLs
and started the ball rolling on creating an editable browser, too. His
idea sparked a communications revolution that some say is among the greatest
the world has ever known. TIME Magazine thought so, when it named
Tim Berners-Lee among the 100 most influential minds of the 20th century.
The web was the big step to make accessing a remote
document with just one click on a computer through a network. The internet
spread actually began quite slowly. It started in research, moved into
universities, and many people only heard about it when the web became available
as an easy way to use it. The Web architecture consists of three fundamental
concepts: identification (URIs), interaction (protocols such as HTTP and
SOAP), and representation (formats such as HTML, SVG, and PNG). These three
branches are typified by the familiar user experience of using a browser
to click on a link that identifies a Web site.
Tim Berners-Lee believes that attempting to control
the content on the web is futile, whether you are the reader or a government.
His view was, " Let's get a few things straight. Some things are illegal
online or off-line. They will continue to be. Child pornography and fraud
are examples. When it comes to appropriate or quality behavior, in my opinion,
these things are very subjective. So filtering by a user is essential and
censorship by governments is bad." Whether it is a turning point in societal
evolution depends not only on the technology -- but also how we use it!
The web does give us lots more choices about how we organize ourselves
which are independent of geography, for example. However, we are still
human beings. We have a limited amount of capacity to deal with many things.
I've always felt that e-commerce is part of the web being a universal space.
I think in the end the vast amount of commerce will be electronic because
for one thing, it will rely on digital signature for security. We have
a way to go before we are there though, both in technology and legislation.
Although the Web begins with identification, interaction, and representation,
it does not end there according to Berners-Lee. He now heads up the W3
consortium outside of Boston, a group made up of various companies and
organizations who are dedicated to pushing the Web to its full potential.
He's written a book called, Weaving the Web detailing his experiences
in it's development.
What is the Internet?
The Internet is a loose association of thousands of networks and millions
of computers across the world that all work together to share information.Like
many complex systems, the Internet is easiest to explain through the use
of metaphors, and the Net has inspired its fair share. The one that has
stuck is the "information superhighway," and while it has become a cliché,
the transportation analogy really does hold up pretty well. Think of the
Internet as a mondo version of a mass transit system like Boston's T, with
a few main subway lines that intersect at certain points. Connecting to
the subway lines are commuter rails, bus lines, and ferry boats that spread
out and crisscross the metropolitan area. On the Net, the main lines carry
the bulk of the traffic and are collectively known as the Internet backbone.
The backbone is formed by the biggest networks in the system, owned by
major Internet service providers (ISPs) such as GTE, MCI, Sprint, UUNet,
and America Online's ANS. By connecting to each other, these networks create
a superfast pipeline that crisscrosses the United States and extends to
Europe, Japan, mainland Asia, and the rest of the world. But that doesn't
mean that the network is equally well developed at every point along the
route. The U.S. backbone has so many intersecting points that if one part
fails or slows down, data can be quickly rerouted over another part, a
feature called redundancy. Overseas, the network may have less redundancy
and so be more vulnerable to slowdowns or breakdowns.
In the United States, there are five points--located in San Francisco,
San Jose (California), Chicago, New York (actually, Pennsauken, New Jersey),
and Washington, D.C.--where the main lines intersect, kind of like how
the major U.S. airlines have hub cities. Confusingly enough, three of these
are called network access points (NAPs), while the other two are called
metropolitan area exchanges (MAEs), but they basically do the same thing:
use high-speed networking equipment to connect the backbone to other networks
(see Figure 1). These networks are owned by smaller regional and local
ISPs, which in turn lease access to companies and individuals in the areas
they serve. Government agencies and universities are also actively involved
in running the parts of the Internet that link supercomputer centers devoted
to the research and education communities. While this used to be the main
purpose of the Net, the explosion of private and corporate use has caused
a huge traffic jam on the backbone. Academics now complain that they can't
get their work done because the network is too packed with everybody else.
With help from these communities, as well as financial support from the
private sector, Congress has been actively planning the Next Generation
Internet. It aims to deliver on President Clinton's pledge to build and
promote a new and faster network that will form a second backbone over
the next five years. This Internet II, as it's sometimes called, will not
replace the existing Net, but will provide alternate routes for academics
and government agencies to share information without getting caught in
commercial traffic.
How Does the Net work?
The secret of the Net is a network protocol called TCP/IP--that is, a kind
of coding system that lets computers electronically describe data, like
the contents of this story, to each other over the network. The term actually
refers to two separate parts: the transmission control protocol (TCP) and
the Internet protocol (IP). Together they form the Esperanto of the Internet.
Every computer that hooks to the Internet understands these two protocols
and uses them to send and receive data from the next computer along the
network. TCP/IP creates what is called a packet-switched network, a kind
of network intended to minimize the chance of losing any data that is sent
over the wires.First, TCP breaks down every piece of data--such as an email
message or instructions from a Java applet--into small chunks called packets,
each of which is wrapped in an electronic envelope with Web addresses for
both the sender and the recipient. The IP protocol then figures out how
the data is supposed to get from point A to point B by passing through
a series of routers--sort of like regular mail passes through several post
offices on its way to a remote location. Each router examines the destination
addresses of the packets it receives and then passes the packets on to
another router as they make their way to their final destination. If your
email was broken into ten packets, then each of those may have traveled
a completely separate route. But you'll never know it, because as the packets
arrive, TCP takes over again, identifying each packet and checking to see
if it's intact. Once it has received all the packets, TCP reassembles them
into the original. TCP/IP is the most important of a long list of Internet
protocols. It is sometimes used as a global term to describe additional
protocols, including simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), file transfer
protocol (FTP), and Telnet protocol.
What is the Web?
Although the terms Web and Internet are often used synonymously, they're
actually two different things. The Internet is the global association of
computers that carries data and makes the exchange of information possible.
The World Wide Web is a subset of the Net--a collection of interlinked
documents that work together using a specific Internet protocol called
HTTP (see "How does the Web work?"). In other words, the Net exists independently
of the Web, but the Web can't exist without the Net. The Web began in March
1989, when Tim Berners-Lee of the European Particle Physics Laboratory
(a collective of European researchers better known by its original name
CERN, or Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucleaire) proposed
the project as a means to better communicate research ideas among members
of the far-flung organization. The Web uses a metaphor of individual pages,
usually combined to make up sites. Web pages are written in HTML, or Hypertext
Markup Language, which tells the Web browser how to display the page and
its elements. The defining feature of the Web is its ability to connect
pages to one another--as well as to audio, video, and image files--with
hyperlinks. Just click a link, and suddenly you're at a Web site on the
other side of the world. (Before the Web, you had to type in exact Net
addresses or wade through a series of menus to get where you wanted to
go.) Despite its cool hyperlinking ability, the early Web labored for a
while in obscurity, a little-known alternative to the less technically
advanced Gopher protocol. But in February 1993, Marc Andreessen, then developing
for the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, introduced the
first graphical Web browser, called Mosaic. (Andreessen went on to cofound
Netscape Communications in April 1994.) And the rest, as they say, is history.
How Does the Web work?
The Web is based on a set of rules for exchanging text, images, sound,
video, and other multimedia files, which is collectively known as HTTP,
or hypertext transfer protocol. Web pages can be exchanged over the Net
because browsers (which read the pages) and Web servers (which store the
pages) both understand HTTP. But everything would still be chaos if the
Web didn't have an addressing scheme that every computer on the network
understands. An IP address is a 4- to 12-digit number that identifies a
specific computer connected to the Internet. The digits are organized in
four groups of numbers (which can range from 0 to 255) separated by periods.
Depending on how your ISP assigns IP addresses, you may have one address
all the time or a different address each time you connect. Web servers
have the same kind of addresses: if you type http://204.162.80.183/ in
your browser, you'll get the same result as if you had typed http://www.cnet.com/.
Internet domain names are the next level of Internet addressing, just as
the street name is followed by the city and state. Domain names create
a single identity for a series of computers used by a company or an institution.
So while there may be 38 servers at a given company, each with its own
IP address, they all share a common domain name, such as CNET.COM. (See
CNET's feature "how to get your own domain name" for more information.)
The domain name identifies all the computers in a group. But if you want
to get to a specific page stored on any of those computers, you'll need
an even more precise address. That's why every Web page on the Internet,
and even the objects you see displayed on Web pages, has its own unique
address, known as a Uniform Resource Locator (URL), which tells your browser
exactly where to go on the server to find a page.
Who Started the Net?
No one person or organization can claim the sole credit for the Internet.
But the first germ of the Internet was a series of memos written in 1962
by MIT's J. C. R. Licklider about what he called the "Galactic Network"
concept. He envisioned a global network through which everyone could share
and access data and programs. Only a few months later, Licklider became
the head of the computer research program at the United States Department
of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), the institution
that largely spearheaded and funded the Internet's development. In 1961,
a series of independent research teams began developing packet switching
and the beginnings of what would eventually become TCP/IP, the basic protocol
that defines how information is exchanged over the Net. (See "How does
the Net work?" for an explanation of these technologies.). In 1967, ARPA's
Lawrence Roberts published his "Plan for the ARPANet" computer network,
which built on these new technologies to propose an architectural design
for a worldwide network. By the end of 1968, the company that would become
BBN Planet (a major backbone ISP recently bought by GTE) was well into
the development of the first hardware that could route data over the ARPANet.
In late 1969, the first tests were made at UCLA and then at Stanford.
Over the next several years, this test-tube Internet grew steadily
but unremarkably as government agencies, universities, and corporations
continued to develop and hammer out protocols and architectures. Email
and the Internet made their first public appearances in 1972 at the Internet
Computer Communication Conference. In 1973 and 1974, the protocol known
as TCP/IP emerged in essentially its current form, although the same group
of collaborators would continue to refine it through the early 1980s. Once
the protocols were in place, the various developers formulated much of
the software and services that make up the Internet. The basic services
for connecting to files remotely (via Telnet), transferring files over
the Net (via FTP), and sending and receiving electronic mail appeared in
the mid- and late 1970s. The Usenet news system first appeared in 1979
as an offshoot of the rise of Unix. The World Wide Web began in 1989. In
1990, the U.S. government officially decommissioned ARPANet, and the National
Science Foundation (NSF) took over the role of managing the Internet backbone,
which was then called the NSFNet. In 1995, the NSF in turn withdrew, turning
the backbone over to a consortium of commercial providers.
Who Controls the Net?
No one person, company, institution, or government organization owns the
Internet. No one source foots the bill for it. No one entity governs it,
or even has a controlling interest. The Internet is truly a collaborative,
collective enterprise.
Many institutions and companies donate their computer resources in
the form of servers and computer technicians to hold up some part of the
Internet--for example, critical links between different regions. Governments
around the world are also starting to exert their influence through legislation.
And every computer on the Net has to understand a basic set of technologies,
which several organizations are involved in maintaining, updating, and
disseminating. There are a handful of organizations that are truly influential
and that taken together form a sort of checks-and-balances system: The
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) sets the standards for HTML and other specifics
of the Web.The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) focuses on the evolution
of the Internet with a specific eye toward keeping the Internet running
smoothly as a whole. The Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG) is
a related organization responsible for managing IETF activities and the
Internet standards process. The Internet Architecture Board (IAB) is responsible
for defining the overall architecture of the Internet (the backbone and
all the networks attached to it), providing guidance and broad direction
to the IETF. The Internet Society (ISOC) is a supervisory organization
made up of individuals, corporations, nonprofit organizations, and government
agencies from the Internet community. The group comments on Internet policies
and practices and oversees a number of other boards and task forces--including
the IAB and IESG--dealing with Internet policy issues. The Internet Assigned
Numbers Authority (IANA) and the Internet Network Information Center (InterNIC)
lead the organizations responsible for assigning IP addresses and domain
names, respectively.
Regional and long-distance phone companies, backbone ISPs, cable and
satellite companies, and the U.S. government all contribute in significant
ways to the telecommunications infrastructure that supports the Internet.
Some of these companies, such as UUNet, BBN, Sprint, and MCI, have found
ways to make lots of money by leasing access to the Internet to other companies.
As the commercial potential of the Net matures even more, these companies
might begin to throw their weight around. Several major ISPs have already
banded together to hash out industry-wide technical issues. But no one
can wrest away total control of the Net, which is why it's not just a communications
medium, but a metaphor for the new global economy.
How are online services different from the Web?
To the naked eye, there's not that much difference between online services
and the Web anymore. But the differences used to be much more marked. Customers
used to pay the four big online services--America Online (AOL), CompuServe,
Prodigy, and the Microsoft Network (MSN)--to get access to worldwide networks
with libraries of digital information, to send email around the world,
and to join online communities where people with similar interests could
communicate for business or pleasure. The online services offered all this
by building and maintaining long stretches of interconnected wires and
servers that no one but their customers could use. Each system had a different
interface and customers nearly always paid by the hour or the minute. The
companies competed over which one was easiest to use and which one had
the best content. But then the public noticed the Web, which offered a
vast network with an interface--the browser--that was the same for everybody.
Where the online services relied on vast private networks, the Web wasn't
owned by anyone in particular. To get on America Online's network, you
had to pay them. To get on the Web, you had to pay any regional or national
ISP for a local dial-up number. Suddenly, the online services were competing
with hundreds of ISPs, instead of only each other.
So the online services adapted: they started letting users roam the
Web as well as their own networks. And they got cheaper, substituting monthly
flat fees for per-hour surcharges. To most users, online services are now
simply big ISPs. Prodigy has even taken to calling itself "the SuperISP."
Of the big four, only one--AOL--is still determined to maintain its own
private network. MSN, Prodigy, and CompuServe have all instead constructed
huge Web sites to serve as new homes to all of their exclusive content.
They still want you to pay, but for access to the Web and to content you
can't see anywhere else instead of as an entrance fee for their private
networks. CompuServe and Prodigy are using the wires they still control
to sell "premium" Internet services--that is, guaranteed Net service to
businesses that demand total reliability. MSN, on the other hand, doesn't
care which ISP you use: it is more interested that you sign up to get at
its content. There still seems to be a market for private networks among
users who have never used the Net before; this is where most of AOL's new
customers come from. Disney is also launching a new online service aimed
at children and families. But the distinction between subscribing to a
private network like Disney's Daily Blast and subscribing to a private
Web site like MSN is becoming more and more blurred.
Why is the Web so Slow?
One minute you're flying along the Web, happily swinging from link to link,
and the next you've slammed into a tree, "waiting for reply" or ponderously
"transmitting data." Why? Part of it is the Internet's fault: its ability
to handle an enormous amount of data every day trades flexibility for speed.
Everyone who uses the Net shares bandwidth--the data-carrying capacity
of a network. Every time you send an email or download a file, you're contributing
to the load. Web pages are particularly bad bandwidth hogs because they
are loaded down with graphics and multimedia. Any number of things can
go wrong on the Web, from a squirrel chewing on your phone line to a breakdown
of a Web site's server to a traffic jam on the Internet's backbone that
affects everybody. Everything could be peachy again minutes later, and
usually is. Still, knowing what's wrong can relieve your frustration a
bit. The following are explanations of the most common server error codes
and browser error messages you'll see:
common server error codes 404: a host server responded to your browser,
but it cannot find the requested URL, which usually means the document
was moved or even deleted. Or it could mean that you clicked a bad link;
you may be able to fix this by simply starting over and typing the URL
into the address field. 403: the requested resource is forbidden, which
generally means you don't have the privileges needed to access that page.
Recheck the URL and try again, or look around elsewhere on the site for
another way to get to the page you need. 503: the server is probably too
busy to handle an additional request for service, or it could be some other
problem along the Internet. Try back in a few minutes as these common browser
error messages
Unable to locate server: your browser wasn't able to verify that the
domain name exists. The server name in the URL you sent is probably incorrect.
Host unavailable: the actual wording of this message depends on the browser
you're using. Anything similar to this means that the domain name you're
attempting to access does exist, but it's currently not responding to your
request. This usually occurs when a server is so busy that it is effectively
offline, when it is down for maintenance, or when it is temporarily unavailable
because of some other problem. Wait and try again later.
Is the Net safe?
The Net is about as safe as a dark alley. Maybe there are bad guys lurking
in the shadows; maybe there aren't. But you aren't defenseless. There are
two types of trouble on the Net: threats to security and threats to privacy.
Potential security bogies include viruses contained in file downloads,
rogue ActiveX controls that can crash your computer, malicious email attachments,
holes in Java that let hackers read data on your hard disk, and a host
of other weaknesses in your Internet software. Despite all the press reports,
the odds are against your becoming the random victim of a hacker. You're
much more likely to run into a virus, but installing and using antivirus
software should take care of this. Avoid opening email attachments from
people you don't know, and use good judgment about paying with credit cards
on the Web: if you don't know that the company is reputable or don't know
where to find it in the real world, then keep your card in your wallet.
For a complete rundown of security dangers on the Net--and an interactive
security check--check out CNET's feature "Net crime: don't be a victim."
Threats to your privacy are more subtle, but here again you can define
some limits. For instance, you can make your email safe from prying eyes
by using an encryption program such as Pretty Good Privacy (PGP). Encryption
software translates your message into a secret code so that it can be read
only by the person who has the correct decryption key--that is, the person
you're sending it to. But more people are probably going to want to know
your buying preferences than the contents of your email. Information circulated
on the Web can help a marketer construct a consumer profile of you. Once
they have your email address, they can then besiege you with sales pitches.
Many Web sites are actually programmed to harvest information about
any visitor who comes through. They send small files called cookies to
your hard drive. Each cookie can be read only by the Web server that created
it, for up to days or months later when you revisit the site. Among other
things, cookies permit Web sites to track your name, your email address,
your ISP's name, the last site you visited, your operating system, and
your browser's specific make and version number. They can also help you
out by storing passwords so that you can get into subscription-only sites
without having to type the password every time. But the savvy consumer
will want to control what information is being collected. You can have
your browser refuse to accept any cookies or use a program such as Kookaburra
Software's CookiePal to track and manage your cookies.
Online telemarketers are annoying, but information collected online
can also be used in more sinister ways, such as sending you obscene emails.
For example, every time you post to a Usenet newsgroup, your email address
becomes available to everyone who reads the group--and some newsgroup postings
stick around for years. One way around this problem is to use an anonymous
remailer service such as Replay, which forwards your email without your
address. Whenever you enter your name, address, and phone number in a form
on the Web, that information could be going to people you don't know, so
think twice before revealing personal info, especially your home address
or your phone number. The Federal Trade Commission and Congress have been
at work formulating privacy policies, but none of this is regulated yet.
What is a Search Engine?
When you absolutely, positively have to know something about Cretaceous
Mongolia (and, after all, who doesn't?), there's nothing quite like the
instant gratification offered by the Web. But there's searching, and then
there's finding. Understanding how various types of search sites and programs
work can make for more efficient info quests. There are three primary types
of search sites on the Web: search engines, Web directories, and parallel
and metasearch sites. Search engines such as Excite and HotBot use automated
software called Web crawlers or spiders. These programs move from Web site
to Web site, logging each site title, URL, and at least some of its text
content. The object is to hit millions of Web sites and to stay as current
with them as possible. The result is a long list of Web sites placed in
a database, which users search by typing in a keyword or phrase. (For more
about how search engines work, see CNET's feature "can you trust your search
engine?") Web directories such as Yahoo and Magellan offer an editorially
selected, topically organized list of Web sites. To accomplish that goal,
these sites employ editors to find new Web sites and work with programmers
to categorize them and build their links into the site's index. Since both
approaches make sense, all the major search engine sites now have built-in
topical search indexes, and most Web directories have added a keyword search.
Parallel and metasearch sites ride piggyback on the Web crawler sites.
Parallel search programs, such as Vironix Software's WebFerret, launch
simultaneous searches on all the popular search engine sites, returning
all the results in a single window. Metasearch sites go a step further.
One of the problems with searching on the Web is that the searching vocabulary
varies from search site to search site. For example, when you search for
Cretaceous Mongolia on Yahoo, the search term should look just like that.
But the same search performed at Infoseek would be more effective if you
entered +Cretaceous +Mongolia; at Galaxy, it should be Cretaceous AND Mongolia.
Metasearch sites, such as Metasearch.com, take care of this for you. They
let you enter a term in a single field and then automatically account for
all the particulars for half a dozen or more popular search sites.
What are Java and ActiveX?
Both Java and ActiveX are technologies that let programmers create animated
and interactive Web pages--the kinds that move, flash, and play games.
HTML is the language that describes all the basic elements of a page (such
as text and graphics), but its current incarnation can't do much to make
a page interactive; Java and ActiveX fill that void. Sun's Java is a programming
language similar to the popular C++ language used to make applications
like word processors or spreadsheets. Java applications--known on the Web
as applets--have the unique ability to run on any operating system, from
Windows to Mac to Unix. While lots of applets are available as shareware
and can be plugged ready-made into Web pages, programming Java from scratch
is not a Saturday afternoon activity. For more information about what Java
is, how it works, and what it means to Net users, see CNET's feature "20
questions about Java." Don't confuse JavaScript with Java. JavaScript is
a scripting language, a special kind of programming language used to tie
other components together or to accept user input. While the names are
confusingly similar and both technologies are designed to make Web pages
more interactive, Java and JavaScript are two very different things. For
more on JavaScript, see CNET's feature "JavaScript for beginners.")
ActiveX is a little harder to define than Java. That's because Microsoft
has chosen to make the term active a major part of its Internet marketing
campaign, but there are so many active things from Microsoft that the word
begins to lose meaning.
However, ActiveX controls are roughly equivalent to Java applets, in
that they run in Web browsers and are designed to enhance Web pages. But
where Java is a full-fledged programming language, ActiveX controls are
created in Microsoft's Visual Basic development environment. That means
that ActiveX is closely linked to other Microsoft technologies; for example,
it lets you look at Word and Excel documents from a browser window. But
where Java is designed to be cross-platform, ActiveX was created primarily
for Windows and works only with Internet Explorer, not Netscape's Navigator.
Java and ActiveX are not mutually exclusive--they can work together. But
Sun and Microsoft are both trying hard to make Web developers loyal to
one over the other.
What's an Intranet?
First, we had the Internet. But then, as if there weren't enough other
buzzwords to learn, everyone began talking about intranets. The idea was
to come up with a new word to describe corporate offshoots of the Net--digital
cul-de-sacs that connect to the Net but are closed off to the general Net-using
public. Intranets work like the Web, with browsers, Web servers, and Web
sites, but they're used internally by companies or organizations. Companies
use them because they let employees share corporate data, but they're cheaper
and easier to manage than most private networks--no one needs any software
more complicated or more expensive than a Web browser, for instance. They
also have the added benefit of giving employees access to the Web. Intranets
are closed off from the rest of the Net by firewall software, which lets
employees surf the Web but keeps all the data on internal Web servers private.
The very latest buzzword is extranet, a term coined by Netscape cofounder
Marc Andreessen. Extranets are several intranets linked together so that
businesses can share information with their customers and suppliers. This
is still an evolving concept, but suppose, for example, that two companies
form an alliance to jointly develop a product. They might connect their
intranets or parts of the intranets to each other, using a private, leased
telephone line or even the public Internet. A company's extranet could
include shared content in the form of private newsgroups that let representatives
from two or more companies hash out ideas and coordinate projects.
How does E-mail Work?
Email is not that different from regular mail, actually: you have a message,
an address, and a carrier that figures out to get it from here to there.
The difference is that email messages--and any attachments--are broken
down into small chunks of data called packets, which travel independently,
weaving their way along with innumerable other packets traveling to different
destinations. It's as if each page of a letter was mailed separately. On
the way, the packets are passed from one server to the next until they
reach their final destination. Any given message's packets and attached
file may travel by several different routes, so the components often arrive
out of order and at different times. Once all the packets have arrived,
they are recombined into their original form. This makes sending the message
faster, because it doesn't require transmitting one big, bandwidth-hogging
piece of data. But it also means that an entire message can be held up
if one little piece is missing. Usually, however, this entire process,
traveling 3,000 miles or more, takes less than a minute to complete. But
what if you don't know a person's email address? It's actually pretty easy
to track someone down on the Net. Web sites such as WhoWhere, Four11, and
Bigfoot list individual and business email addresses; all you have to do
is type in the name. Most search engine sites offer similar features, as
do the Netscape Messenger, Microsoft Outlook Express, and Eudora email
programs. If you want to send or receive a mass mailing, you need to subscribe
to a mailing list, also known as a listserv. (See CNET's feature "how to
set up and run your own Internet mailing list" for more information.) Usenet
newsgroups, on the other hand, are publicly stored messages that anyone
can look at; you don't have to be a member of a list to read these messages.
What are Newsgroups?
Say you have an overwhelming passion for rose gardening. (Just imagine
here that you do.) How do you find other rose gardeners to swap tips with
and brag to? Easy: join a newsgroup. Newsgroups are publicly posted discussion
forums--kind of an electronic clubhouse for people with shared interests.
The messages are presented in a list, known as a thread, that shows the
original message, the responses to the message, and the responses to the
responses, so that you can follow an entire conversation or just the parts
you're interested in. Your browser alone won't let you get to newsgroups.
You can read and post messages using either standalone newsreader software,
such as Forté's Free Agent, or a newsreader that's a separate part
of a Web browser package, such as Netscape's Collabra or Microsoft's Outlook
Express. Your newsreader lets you check newsgroups the way your browser
lets you surf Web sites. The Usenet is the world's largest collection of
public newsgroups. The newsgroups go by a complex set of abbreviated names,
with the first set of letters of a newsgroup's name indicating its primary
subject, such as rec (recreation), soc (society), or comp (computers).
Additional abbreviations are separated by periods and are tacked on to
indicate subtopics. It's not uncommon for an individual newsgroup to have
five, six, or more elements in its name. For example, microsoft.public.inetexplorer.ie4.setup
is a newsgroup devoted to people who want to set up Internet Explorer 4.0.
See CNET Central's FAQ File for information on how to find and subscribe
to newsgroups.
The messages in newsgroups are stored on news servers owned by ISPs,
universities, companies, and other large entities all over the world. Most
news servers keep only the more recent posts; they'd soon run out of storage
space otherwise. What happens if you can't find a newsgroup that covers
your favorite topic? (Not rose gardening--there are plenty for that.) Well,
you could create a new newsgroup--but not without a little effort. If you
want your group to be a standard Usenet newsgroup (those whose names begin
with comp, misc, news, rec, soc, sci, and talk), you must submit a highly
bureaucratic document, called a Request For Discussion (RFD), to the news.groups
newsgroup. The group then organizes a straw vote where anybody who wants
to can vote on your proposal. (To find out more about the RFD process and
how to write an RFD proposal, see Jon Bell's Creating New Newsgroups page.)
The alt newsgroup hierarchy was created because many people felt it was
too difficult to create an ordinary newsgroup. (Contrary to popular belief,
alt does not mean "alternative topics"; it means "alternative newsgroup
management structure.") If you want to create a newsgroup without all the
hassle, you post a suggestion in the alt.config newsgroup and leave it
up to the news administrators--the ones who make the ultimate decision
about carrying new alt newsgroups. For a guide to creating an alt newsgroup,
read David Barr's So You Want to Create an Alt Newsgroup.
There are also such things as local and private newsgroups. A discussion
group created on a corporate intranet is an example of a private newsgroup.
Most ISPs offer a handful of local newsgroups where they make tech support
announcements that no one but their customers would want to see.
What's all the fuss about "push"?
Some people say the Internet is just too much work: you have to go out
and look everything up for yourself, and lots of stuff is hard to find.
The industry came up with push technology to solve this problem by delivering--pushing--the
information you want directly to your computer so that all you have to
do is read it. To understand push, you first need to understand pull, the
basic delivery model of the Web. Pulled content is what you get when your
browser looks at a Web page--it goes out to the Web server where the page
is stored and pulls it to your desktop so you can look at it. In other
words, you go out and look for Web sites on your own. The push model, however,
is much more like television; the information you're interested in arrives
automatically on your desktop. Even the vocabulary is adopted from TV;
the content provider "broadcasts" its information via "channels" that your
browser "tunes in to." Each channel has different kinds of content--news,
entertainment, corporate press releases, stock information, and so on--and
users pick the channels that they're interested in. There's no guarantee
that you'll want to read every single story, but you won't have to go looking
for any of it. The latest information is always there, no matter which
channel you choose, and all you have to do is be connected to the Net.
The PointCast Network is the pioneer of push. It uses its own Web client
to tune into its channels, but is also organizing "networks" of channels
to be delivered via browsers.
There's also what is called smart pull or push-pull hybrids. A good
example is Lanacom's Headliner. It pushes up-to-the-minute headlines to
your desktop, but to get the stories behind the headlines, you must click
them, which takes you to the Web site where the full story can be found.
Push can also be used to distribute software. Marimba, for example,
is promoting push technology that can update software automatically over
corporate networks; before you even know that your word processor is out
of date, the network delivers a new one.The problem with push is that it
clogs up the wires. Unlike Web surfing, push delivers information to you
whether or not you want it at that particular moment; it can impose an
especially heavy burden on corporate networks if everyone is receiving
data broadcasts several times a day. Push technology vendors are devising
various techniques to alleviate this problem, but it's still an issue.
How do I make a Web page?
You can make this easy or hard on yourself, depending on how complex you
want the final product to be. At the very least, you need some content
formatted in HTML, a place on the Internet to store your pages, and a way
to transfer new or updated content. If you want to put up a page with a
list of your ten favorite movies of all time, a picture of your dog, and
a link to your best friend's Web page, then creating your page should be
easy and quick. If you want to do something fancier, like include interactive
forms or animated graphics, things get more complicated--but there are
lots of books and how-to guides to help you out. To create a simple Web
page without learning HTML, use a Wysiwyg HTML page creator, such as Netscape's
Composer or Microsoft's FrontPage 98. If you know or are willing to learn
HTML, use a tool where you can type in the HTML code, such as HomeSite
or BBEdit. For the pros and cons of various HTML editors, see CNET's review
"HTML editors: find the right tool." And for tips on creating your pages,
see CNET's features "know the code: HTML for beginners," "HTML tips and
tricks," and "elements of Web design." Once you've got your pages created,
you need a place to store them. Most ISPs offer their customers from 1MB
to 10MB of server space as part of their basic Net access package. For
step-by-step instructions, see CNET's feature "how to publish your Web
site."Although using your ISP's server will work just fine, your site's
URL, or Web address, will most likely be long, ugly, and hard to remember--for
instance: http://www.tiac.net/users/sfinnie/index.html. If that bothers
you, check out your ISP's domain name service. For an additional monthly
fee plus an up-front charge in the $50 to $100 range, you'll get a friendly
URL, such as www.mycoolsite.com. For details, see CNET's feature "how to
get your own domain name." After you've launched your site, you'll want
to get people to look at it. The easiest way is to register it with the
various search engines and Web directories. Submission services handle
the job of submitting to many search engines at once. For dozens more ideas
on how to attract visitors to your site, see CNET's feature "how to promote
your Web site."
How do I talk to people on the Net?
Who says that computers isolate people? The Net is a great place for a
good, old-fashioned chat: real-time (albeit written) communication with
a friend--or a complete stranger. Online services have public chat groups,
or rooms, devoted to a variety of subjects; if you find someone you want
to talk to one-on-one, you can also go into private chat rooms. But while
AOL and the other online services make chatting easy, there are lots more
ways to talk on the Net. Internet Relay Chat (IRC) lets groups of people
chat on any of hundreds of public chat servers. First off, you need an
IRC chat client, such as mIRC. You can start a chat group (called a channel)
or join an existing one. See CNET's feature "hooking up to IRC" for information
on how to get started. Using IRC does require a fairly involved setup process,
but it offers the most established--and largest--chat forums on the Net.
If the hassle isn't worth it to you, there are hundreds of newer chat sites
right on the World Wide Web, and all you need is your browser to join in.
Just pick a site, become a member (this is usually free), choose a channel,
and start chatting.
For something completely different, Telnet to a Multiple-User Dimension
(MUD) or two. These text-based virtual worlds, many of which feature a
dungeons-and-dragons-type theme, usually stress the environment and the
action over the actual chatting. For details, see CNET's feature "MUD slinging."But
no matter what kind of chat you choose, keep in mind that the world of
chat can be a wild and woolly one. You can avoid most trouble--such as
flames or sexual harassment--by obeying the rules of chatiquette and taking
some simple safety precautions. And if you don't like the tone of a chat
session, just leave and find one that's more to your taste. Or try a chat
with a moderator--such as a public chat with a celebrity.
How else can I use the Net?
The average Net user surfs the Web, sends email, subscribes to a newsgroup,
and maybe gabs in online chat rooms--and that seems enough to keep the
ISPs in business. But today's Net applications also have some colorful
ancestors, such as Archie, Veronica, and Jughead, that are still in action,
although most are not as popular as once they were. It all started with
file transfer protocol (FTP), a method of moving files around the Net.
Internet files, mostly software intended for downloading, are stored on
FTP servers; you use an FTP client program, such as Ipswitch's WS_FTP,
to get at them--that is, download, upload, move, and/or rename the files.Archie
is a search tool that hunts down specific files by name in FTP archives.
(Archie equals archive; get it?) Telnet lets you log on over the Net to
the Unix-based servers often found at public and private libraries, as
well as university resource centers. Telnet lets you access and search
directories; it also lets you read, copy, and sometimes even add files.
Basically, it opens up rich databases of information that aren't available
anywhere else on the Net. Gopher is a tool for finding and transferring
FTP and Telnet files on the Net. Developed at the University of Minnesota,
Gopher is named both for the school's mascot and for its ability to "go
fer" files. Once the most common means of navigating the Net, Gopher's
popularity has been in steady decline since the rise of the flashier World
Wide Web, but to get a sense of Net history, use your browser to take a
look at the University of Minnesota Gopher. Veronica and Jughead are searchable
indexes for Gopher archives, named as a play on Archie. It appears the
developers were fans of Archie comics--though we never did see tools named
Betty, Reggie, or Big Moose.
Will the Web become more like TV?
Some people used to say that the Web would eventually mean the end of TV.
Why would you want to watch more reruns, after all, when you could be surfing
the Net? Instead, the two technologies are becoming more like each other.
The idea of adding moving pictures to Web sites is irresistible. At
the same time, TV broadcasters have imagined using the Net to grab and
retain viewers' interest. The classic example is where someone watches
a basketball game and then clicks the tattooed guy to find his rebound
stats, his annual endorsement income, or pictures of him in drag. To move
toward this goal, companies such as WebTV (now owned by Microsoft) are
working to bring the Internet to your living room via set-top boxes, small
terminals that use phone lines to display Web pages on your television.
Intel's Intercast technology, not yet in wide use, actually lets television
programmers embed Web data in television signals, thus bypassing phone
lines. Meanwhile, streaming multimedia is making the Web more like TV.
Instead of having to download a multimegabyte file before you can play
it--a process that could take minutes or hours on a 33.6-kbps modem--a
streaming file can start to play right away. CNET's own CNET Radio uses
Progressive Networks' RealAudio, a popular streaming format for voice and
music. Popular streaming formats for moving pictures include RealVideo
(also by Progressive) and VXtreme's Web Theater (now owned by Microsoft).
But even streaming video is hampered by the limitations that modems
place on data transfer. You just can't squeeze enough data through a standard
phone line to play full-screen, full-motion video; most of it ends up looking,
as the phrase goes, like dancing postage stamps. The next big breakthrough
in Web/TV integration will come when we can break this bandwidth barrier
(see "Why is the Web so slow?"). ISDN helps, but to get television-quality
video on a computer, we're going to need even more Internet throughput.
This could eventually come from cable modems, which use cable television
lines to transmit and receive Internet data, at speeds in the realm of
10 megabits per second. In the meantime, do you really want to watch Seinfeld
on your computer? Probably not. The pictures you get on your computer are
small, choppy, and fuzzy. There are better uses for a $3,000 computer than
imitating a broken-down $99 television with bad reception.
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