1.2: What is the World Wide Web?

The Word Wide Web (WWW) is an internet application developed in 1990 by CERN researcher Tim Berners-Lee and today is the biggest application on the net (Leaver 2011). The WWW is made up of documents that are networked together via hyperlinks allowing users to access information according to thier own "associative patterns"(Leaver 2011, quoting Nelson 1965) rather than by the heirarchical order of conventially written books 

The WWW is made up of the following elements:

HTTP: Hyper Text Transfer Protocol - governs the exchange of information between the web browser to the server (W3C Webarch section/Protocols  2011).

HTML: Hyper Text Markup Language: This is the language that is used to create web pages and tells the browser how each page should be displayed (Leaver 2011).

URL: Uniform Resource Locator - this is the alpha/numeric address of a web page (Leaver 2011).

WEB SERVER: this is where web pages are stored. Prior to the development of the www, information was stored on individual computers, Berners-Lee developed the web servers which  are always turned on therefore access to information stored web servers is always available (Leaver 2011).

BROWSER: This is the user interface software that enables users to search for, and display web pages. While the Berners-Lee developed the first web browser, the first popular one - Mosaic - was developed by Marc Andreessen and Eric Bina in 1992 (Topic 1.2 ...And the the World Wide Web?  2011).

As Berners-Lee stated "the Web made the net useful" (Berners-Lee 1998) as its development and non commercialisation enabled people who did not necessarily know a lot about computers, to access and utilise the net to view and share information.

Berners-Lee, T. 1998. General Questions 1998. Q: What did you have i mind when you first developed the Web? http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/FAQ.html (accessed 1/1/12).

 Leaver, D. T. 2011. . . .  and what is the World Wide Web. http://dbs.ilectures.curtin.edu.au/lectopia/casterframe.lasso?fid=691872&cnt=true&usr=not-indicated&name=not-indicated (accessed 1/1/12).

  Topic 1.2 ...And the the World Wide Web? 2011. http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_tab_group_id=_4_1&url=%2Fwebapps%2Fblackboard%2Fexecute%2Flauncher%3Ftype%3DCourse%26id%3D_40430_1%26url%3D (accessed 1/1/12).

  W3C Webarch section/Protocols. 2011. http://www.w3.org/wiki/W3C_webarch_section/Protocols (accessed 1/1/12).

What is the Internet?

The "Internet is a collection (or network) of computers connected over cables, phone lines, power lines, radio or satellite links" (Topic 1.1 What is the Internet  2011) basically its a big network made up of smaller networks that interconnect with each other.

ABOUT NETWORKS

Server / Client Networks:

Fig a. Client/Server Model (Bieg, 2007a)

In this type of network the term "client" refers to a computer, smartphone, tablet etc who requests information. The "Server" holds the information and sends it back the client upon request.

Peer to Peer Networks:

Fig b. Peer to Peer Model (Bieg, 2007b)

In this type of network there is no centralised server holding the information. Information is stored on individual computers who act as both servers and clients. Information is shared between computers without the server as the middle man.

There are pros and cons to both. Servers can hold a lot more information than a single computer but a peer to peer network has strength in numbers. There more computers (aka nodes) connected to the network, the greater its capacity.

The idea of networking computers as explained by Bigil was first developed in America in 1957 during the cold war as a way of sharing information. The satellite technology of the Soviet Union (who launched Sputnik 1 in 1957) had America worried about missile attack. This saw the establishment of  DARPA (Defence Advanced Research Project Agency) - an American technological research agency. During this time DARPA developed a computer network called the ARPANET as way of sharing information quickly and efficiently (Bilgil 2009).

The French scientific  agency CYCLADES furthered the idea by developing a system that allowed for differing networks to be networked together. In their system each computer (or node) worked as a "transfer node" - passing information through to the next node until it reached its final destination. This system eliminated the need for information to sent via radio waves (seen as a threat to USA military operations) and meant that any node on any network could be used to transfer information. The interconnection between networks is where the term Internet came from (Bilgil 2009).

HOW INFORMATION IS SENT AROUND THE NETWORK:

 Packet Switching:

Information is broken up into small pieces  which are sent over the network and reassembled at the other end. This system was developed in the UK by the NPL (National Physical Laboratory) who were trying to develop this type of technology for commercial purposes (Bilgil 2009). Sending information in small pieces or packets was seen to reduce congestion on the network meaning that greater numbers of people could use the network at the same time.

Protocols:

The internet uses many protocols to move information around. The main ones used to in packet switching are called TCP / IP

IP - is the INTERNET PROTOCOL and is an address. Each node has an address and each packet is sent from one IP address to another IP address. Each address is numeric which works well for communication between computers but can be difficult for people to remember. Therefore an alphabetised version was also developed = Domain names. Therefore each computer has an IP address and each IP address has a domain name.

TCP is the TRANSMISSION CONTROL PROTOCOL - this protocol is in charge of breaking apart the information into packets and ensuring they are assembled in full at the receiving end.

ROUTING: a router takes the packet of information, reads the address and sends it via the fastest available rout. The packet is sent from router to router and network to network until it reaches its final destination  (Elam, Stephanson, and Hanberger 2002).

Bandwidth: Refers to the amount of data that can be sent from one connection to another - the less the bandwidth the less space,  and the less information that can be sent through at any one time. Bandwidth is measured in amounts of bits that can pass through it per second eg 56k = 56 kbits per second - dial up.  while 10G - 10 gig per second = 10 gig Ethernet connection (Topic 1.1 What is the Internet  2011).

Therefore the internet is a series of interconnected networks that information can be passed around via packet switching. Information is broken up into small pieces via the TCP protocol, addressed via the IP protocol and sent over the network via a series of routers that determine the best way for the packet to reach its destination. Once the packet has reached its final address it is reassembled with its other pieces via the TCP protocol.

 Bilgil, M. 2009. History of the Internet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hIQjrMHTv4 (accessed 10/12/11).

 Elam, G., T. Stephanson, and N. Hanberger. 2002. Warriors of the Net. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ve7_4ot-Dzs&feature=player_embedded#! (accessed 20/12/11).

  Topic 1.1 What is the Internet. 2011. http://lms.curtin.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab_id=_2_1&url=%2fwebapps%2fblackboard%2fexecute%2flauncher%3ftype%3dCourse%26id%3d_40430_1%26url%3d (accessed 15/12/11).

Whats in a Name?

Today I had to make a few decisions on regards to my on line identity particularly that of a name. I joined several social networking sites such as Flickr, Linkedin, Delicious and Friendfeed and revisited some I had tried before such as blogger (obviously), twitter and wordpress.

The aim of the game was to try and come up with a name that could be used across all platforms in order to create a uniform on line identity. Making this task so much easier is a website called Namechk which checks your desired user name over 159 different social networking sites at the click of a button (Gosse and Edinborough 2011).

I chose to use my actual name rather than an avatar and the purpose of creating a multifaceted web presence was to not only try out different platforms but increase contacts with industry professionals. Unfortunately my common name only could only be used in full on one site while an abbreviated version had to be used on the rest.

A short tour around the sites gave me a brief indication of what each one does:

Linkedin - is a social networking site geared towards career progression, allowing you to keep in contact with and nurture relationships with industry professionals you have met throughout your working life. It also allows you to form and join groups in order to seek advice (What is Linkedin?  2011).

Flickr - Allows you share photographs between family and friends as well as publicly, I'm quite impressed the "commons" an area that displays images that are out of copyright. This would be a good resource for graphic designers (Welcome to Flickr  2011).

Delicious - not all about cakes as thought! This is a "social bookmarking site" which allows you categorise and then publish bookmarks and add comments (Getting Started  2011).

Friendfeed - allows you to "start conversations" and "share" web content with friends. Seems to me to be the same as facebook  (Why FriendFeed  2011)

Blogger and Wordpress - are both blogging websites

Twitter - is a micro blogging website, allows you to send short sweet messages with links to photos or urls.

 

Getting Started. 2011. http://delicious.com/help/getstarted (accessed 5/12/11).

 Gosse, D., and A. Edinborough. 2011. namechk. http://namechk.com/ (accessed 5/12/11).

  Welcome to Flickr. 2011. http://www.flickr.com/ (accessed 5/12/11).

  What is Linkedin? 2011. http://au.linkedin.com/static?key=what_is_linkedin&trk=hb_what (accessed 5/12/11).

  Why FriendFeed. 2011. http://friendfeed.com/ (accessed 5/12/11).