The Internet

            Reading about the internet, something I use on a day to day basis, showed me many interesting facts I was not previously aware of. It is clear that the internet is one of the most influential technologies of the past 30 years, especially when paired with the advances in computing power. I use the internet literally every day and frequent many different sites. This could include social media, such as Facebook, email with Gmail, fun and games with the various just for fun websites, and many more. The article mentioned that the internet is able to connect a seemingly limitless number of people who could be thousands of miles away. This could include email, usenets, chats, telephonic devices and intranets. The variability of the internet is really what makes it such a powerful force. With the various internet connections, including dial up, cable modem, DSM and ADSL really allow for different internet experiences. Growing up with a dial up connection made many tasks difficult and frustrating. However, Drexel’s superb connection allows large quantities of data to be transferred in a relatively short period of time. I was not aware that the World Wide Web was a specific subset of the internet and thought that it was simply a necessary prefix to go to a website.

            The next article I read dealt with internet in engineering schools and how it plays a vital role. The article notes how the vast majority of students, many of which are engineers, look first on the internet to find their information prior to consulting a physical text. It mentions how teachers also use the internet as a means of updating their information in a fast manner. Without the internet, they have trouble sharing any classroom updates with the students without it taking a very long time. I would agree with this, Drexel’s integration with the Blackboard Vista website makes updating information for students significantly easier than a hardcopy/paper system. The article provided many tables which quantified the information the survey gathered. The target audience of the survey was engineering schools in India in the year 2006, so some extrapolation of the data may be required. However, the data clearly showed that the majority of the students used internet on a daily or every other day basis, for both school and fun reasons and nearly 100% had some sort of internet mail use when on the internet. The conclusion from this was that internet for college aged engineering students was primarily for communication and research.

            The third article I read, How Does the Internet Work, gives a broad description of the framework of the internet. The internet as a whole can be compared to the galaxy or solar system, it is not one tangible thing, but is composed of many smaller parts. The internet is not owned by an individual or corporation and is simply the higher power of its networks. These networks compose the internet and are owned by various individuals/corporations. To access a network, one must first go through the internet service provider (ISP). To access specific places on the internet, one must type in the specific uniform resource locator (URL). I was not aware that the URL was developed from a binary system originally. These domains are an innovative solution to having to remember specific number combinations, which would be confusing and difficult. I found it interesting that the article mentioned how young the internet still is. While it was initially developed over 30 years ago, it was not as universally used a few years ago as it is now. I am looking forward to see what steps the development of the internet takes over the next few years.