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Spyware - The PC Pest

2010-04-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

Spyware is any software that steals information from your PC without your authorization and knowledge. Spyware slows down your pc, using up system resources, CPU time, memory space, disk space and your Internet bandwidth. That is why it is a fast-spreading pest and is also called adware, malware, eulaware, or even crapware.

Spyware and adware attack every PC at one time or other and no PC can do without antispyware software, which removes spyware. Here is a quick look at what spyware is all about and how it affects your computer.

What is spyware? We can define spyware as any software that steals information from your PC without your authorization and knowledge. Spyware is a fast-spreading pest and also called adware, malware, eulaware, or even crapware. Unless detected and killed by antispyware removal tools, Spyware is very sneaky in the way it operates. This is how most of it operates:

How Spyware Operates:

Spyware's most common way of attacking is similar to a virus or a Trojan. You'll see various popup windows that offer to synchronize your pc's clock or help you with form filling. But that's not all – there are a lot of things it does without telling you. These trojans can hijack your home page and add new pages to your favorites folder, quietly siphoning off your browsing information. Spyware and adware stealthily track all the websites you visit and faithfully report them back to the spyware vendor. Sometimes, though you have a popup blocker, you still keep getting pop ups! These are from spyware on your computer.

Another deadly thing that spyware does is substitute its own ads on a website, killing that website's earnings in the process. We often experience broken web sites. Spyware is capable of reworking the content on the site, resulting in broken pages or JavaScript errors.

Spyware Reduces Performance
Not surprisingly, Spyware slows down your pc, using up system resources, CPU time, memory space, disk space and your Internet bandwidth. The natural consequences of this are system instability and security risks. The next thing you know is that your system just crashes, hangs or behaves strangely, messing up your work schedule. Invariably spyware testing and debugging are rudimentary, so you can't even report them or get support. Some kinds of spyware can even download and install codes in your system and you won't know about it.

The Role Of Antivirus As An Antispyware Removal Tool

If you have wondered why antivirus programs won't remove or block spyware, it is simply because spyware is not a virus. Spyware relies on the fact that every time we install new software we click on I Agree to the licenses without reading them. So we voluntarily open the gates to spyware. It looks like we agreed to have the spyware on our system, which makes it tough for antivirus companies to flag these tricky spyware. The only way to remove spyware is with anti spyware removal tools, manually or automatically, through a tested antispyware software program sold by a reputed company.

5 Simple Ways To Increase Your Computer Speed

2010-04-13T07:50:00.000-07:00

If you're a computer expert, you'll probably already know about these tips (hopefully this will provide you with a little reminder). If you're not an expert, don't worry - these tips are simple, and don't require a lot of computer experience.
While an old computer will never operate at the same speed as a newer (and bigger & faster) computer, you can help your computer stay as "young & healthy" as possible.

Disk Cleanup
Performing a disk cleanup regularly is a good idea. Whenever you "surf the internet", open attachments, delete files, your computer saves a record of your activity. Many of these files are harmless, and individually are very small. But if you spend a lot of time on your computer, before long you'll take up enough space to slow your computer down a bit.

Disk Cleanup is a Windows utility that helps keep unused and unwanted files from taking up extra storage space on your computer. You can think of it as "spring cleaning" for your computer.Basically, it removes files that may have once been useful or used but now are just taking up extra room that could be used for more useful programs and files.
To perform a disc cleanup, click on the Start button on the bottom left of your computer screen, then Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Disc Cleanup. A small box will pop up, allowing you to select the files to delete (most files are OK to delete, but if you are unsure, it is best to not select the file). Then click OK, and the unused files will be removed.
If you've never done a disk cleanup on your computer, now is a good time to get started. Then, depending on how much you use your computer, you can perform a disk cleanup every few weeks to keep your computer running smoothly!

Defragmenting Your Computer

Another way to improve the performance of your computer is to defragment your hard drive. What is defragmenting, and why do you need to do it? Here's a simple explanation:
Basically, defragmenting is putting files back where they belong. With the files in the proper order, your computer will run more efficiently.
You don't need to hire a computer expert to defragment your computer. It's simple to do. You just need to plan ahead, because if you have a lot of "stuff" on your computer, it could take a while.
And it's best not to use your computer while defragmenting.
Not sure how to defragment your computer? You can either click on your computer's help file (Click the "Start" button on the bottom left of your computer screen, then Help), or click on Start, Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Defragment - for most computers) .
Keep in mind that the actual wording is slightly different depending on the operating system you use (Windows 95, 98, XP, etc) so you might need to refer to your computer's help file.
Periodically defragmenting your computer will keep it running smoothly!

Removing Spyware & Adware

If you've ever had spyware or adware on your computer, you know how frustrating it can be - strange things happening, your homepage changing, inappropriate popups, unfamiliar icons...
What exactly is spyware or adware?
Simply, files that are often downloaded onto your computer without your knowledge (or at least without you knowing what they really are).
Unfortunately, many of these programs "sneak" their way onto your computer, so avoiding them entirely is difficult, especially if you spend a lot of time on your computer, surfing the Internet and downloading new programs and files.
Fortunately, there are ways to remove these unwanted files from your computer.
Here are 2 adware/spyware removal programs that are simple to use (and both are free):

Ad-Aware http://www.lavasoftusa.com/support/download/
Spybot http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html
Why does adware/spyware continue to be such a problem? Because most of these programs make money for the people creating and spreading them, unfortunately. So, all we can do is try to avoid them as much as possible, and to remove them when they do find their way onto our computers.

If you do find spyware on your computer, don't panic. In many cases, you just have some extra "junk" on your computer. But keeping spywaer and adware off of your computer will help it run more quickly and efficiently.

Uninstalling Old & Unused Programs

While uninstalling old, unused programs will help speed up your computer, removing the wrong files can cause you some big problems. So, please proceed carefully. And if you are not comfortable, please ask for help from someone you know who is more knowledgeable.
Most programs that you download simply have an "uninstall" feature that comes with them. If you're like me and you download a lot of free programs or free trials, after a while your computer begins to slow down. That means it's time for me to remove some of the old programs I don't use any more (and most I only used once just to see how they work).
To uninstall unused programs from your computer, first click on the Start button on the bottom left, then Programs, then click on the name of the program and Uninstall. If there is no uninstall option, then click on the Start button on the bottom left, then Control Panel, Add/Remove Programs.

Again, if you are unsure whether or not to remove a program, it is best to leave it.
If you follow these instructions, you should find your computer working faster right away.

Get A High Speed Internet Connection

If you spend a lot of time on the internet, a high speed internet connection is a must. It is more expensive, but for most people the savings in time and effort is worth the added expense.
There are several advantages of having a high speed internet connection - faster surfing, web pages open more quickly, files download faster, and if you send or receive large files, like pictures or video, trying to open these files with a slower dialup connection is extremely frustrating!

If you're already spending $20 a month or more for your dialup connection (through your phone line) then you'll find DSL to be comparable in price, and a lot faster.
A cable internet connection might cost a little more, but it is usually the fastest type of internet connection you can get from home.
High speed wireless connections are available for those who travel a lot. And high speed satellite internet is available in areas where other options are not (check your options first, as this is the most expensive high speed connection).

That's all the tips for increasing your computer speed and helping your computer run more efficiently. We hope you found these tips helpful!

How to Choose A Firewall Software Program

2010-04-09T13:02:00.000-07:00

In the real world a "fire wall" is a fireproof wall that is built to stop the spread of fire from one part of a building to others. In the Internet world a firewall has a similar purpose in that it stops the spread of harmful viruses and attacks from entering your home or office network. Because of the ever-increasing threats that are appearing on the Internet you no longer have to be in business to need the protection of a fire wall.

In fact, every computer that is connected to the internet should have one installed. You'll be a lot happier once you know that you have protected your personal files, information, and financial data, such as credit cards and bank account numbers, from being shared with every crook on the internet.
Here are some questions that you should consider before you choose a fire wall for your PC:

What features do I need?
Do I want to be protected from viruses, Trojan horses and worms?

Am I at risk because I use programs that access the Internet automatically?

How much am I willing to spend on a firewall solution?

Here are the common features that are available in almost any software-based fire wall program:

Inbound filtering - protects unknown users or programs from accessing your PC
Outbound filtering - Protects your PC from sending information to the Internet without your permission.
Application integrity verification - Verifies that any program you are running aren't sneaking around behind your back and doing things that they shouldn't be doing.
Data encryption - Automatically scrambles any sensitive data that you do allow to be transmitted.
Stealth mode - Hides that fact that your PC is even connected to the Internet so that hackers can't see you.
Pop-up ad blocking - Stops those annoying ads.
Cookie blocking - prevents web sites from sending you cookies without your permission
Spyware protection - Blocks dangerous spyware from operating on your PC

There are many software-based firewall programs that can be downloaded from the Internet. Most of them come with free trials so you can test each one and choose what's best for you.

Although you won't have to be King Geek to install and set up your firewall, there are some adjustments and settings that will have to be tweaked. All of the better firewall programs come with decent instructions and many of the products have help available at their web site.

If you notice that some program that used to work stops working after you install a fire wall then you'll have to make a change in the fire wall's configuration that will enable the program to operate freely.

If you find that there is no way to let your previously operating program pass through the firewall then that might be a good indication that you need to try a different fire wall. be sure to check with the makers of both the software program and the firewall before you give up and change.

How to Find a Good Woman

2010-04-07T01:26:00.000-07:00

Do you belong to that group of people who wander around soullessly and keep on repeating to yourself subconsciously the question as to how to find a good woman? You should remember that this is both an easy and a tough task depending on your approach and also depending upon your definition of good woman. There are some people who believe that only those women who possess voluminous assets are good and the rest are "bad". Now this is a very strange way to define something good, especially a woman, but then there are no shortages of different types of people each possessing different mindsets.

Before you proceed to ask how to find a good woman, you should try to assess what qualities you are seeking in the women you are looking for. Some people prefer women who are homely and who can take care of their house when they are away to office. Then there are those people who prefer working women who will assist them to build a family and also take care of it. The third type are those who want their women to be presentable,someone whom they can take along with them to a party and be proud of the fact that she belongs to them. There many more other types of "good women" out there.

You ask others how to find a good woman, but you yourself do not know how to present yourself properly. People do not hesitate before pointing their fingers at others, knowing fully well that other fingers are pointing at themselves. Unless you too are good at heart, you can be rest assured that you will never find a good woman. It is not that good women are not there, but your mindset is such, that it will not perceive them as good. Hence you should first be sure about your mannerisms and then if you are okay, finding women of your liking shall not be a tough task. Just look around he world and you will find that it is full of good women; you just need a clean heart to search for them.

You can find these good women at parties, in your neighborhood, on the street you walk and in malls and restaurants. Right at this moment some of them might be passing by your residence. You never bother to find out more about them and approach them and yet you keep on asking all and sundry how to find a good woman. Be honest and have the courage to walk up to the woman you like and tell her frankly that you like her because she looks so good and pretty. If you speak from your heart, you can be rest assured that she will respond back. You can use this initial step to forge ahead and build up a solid relationship. Who knows, this good woman might well end up being your life partner.

About Spyware Removal

2010-04-05T10:12:00.000-07:00

A boon to one may be the curse of another!

And same is the case with web programs. In a bid to create make web surfing smoother, some companies have created what is termed as ‘Spy ware’

Blank space on the web pages, sentences with missing words, words highlighted in yellow and bronze, links that don’t lead anywhere... These are all consequences of the Spy ware on the system.

Spyware is computer software that is installed scrumptiously on a computer to intercept or take partial control over the user's interaction with the computer, without the user's informed consent.

How It Is Installed
The Norton Internet Security and Norton Personal Firewall install an Ad Blocking feature on the computer. There is no specific way to identify an ad from a regular image, so the software blocks whatever seemingly looks like an advertisement. It also blocks out certain picture sizes that are commonly used by ads. This problem can be fixed though! The Ad Blocking in Norton Internet Security just needs to be disabled. Apart from Norton, Zone Alarm, Symantec, F-Prot AntiVirus and Webwasher also offers to block out advertisements and popup provided you choose that option.

What It Does
Other spyware programs that interfere web viewing are Gator/GAIN, Hotbar, MySearch, etc. These programs and toolbars fill in forms and keep track of all the user passwords but putting on all that information at risk. These programs run in the background simultaneously and use up system resources. This result in the slowdown of the system causes the browser to crash. They also add icons to the desktop, change browser settings and home page and block.
Through all this they collect user information about applications, Internet access records and visited websites. Based on these information, they squeeze in appropriate pop-up advertisements or unsolicited E-mails. For website owners they spell danger though by changing the affiliate code on any advertising to their code.

The spyware can enter the system through a variety of sources. By sharing music files or photos with other users through sharing sites or by downloading freeware applications one is at risk of getting infected with spyware. It can download with the most inane programs or just by clicking on a wrong menu choice.

Tips To Get Rid Of Spyware
But there are ways to prevent such soft wares from being downloaded without your consent.
From the Internet Toolbar, go to Tools > Internet Options > Advanced. And uncheck all the "Enable Install On Demand...." options.

Click on your start button and select the "settings" options.
Click on it and open the 'Control Panel' and click on 'Add/Remove Programs'.
Find the spyware in the list of programs and highlight it.
Now click 'Change/Remove' and follow the prompts to uninstall it.

The spyware-supported applications will fail to work after being removed. They should also be uninstalled as well.

After all this a spyware utility program should be run to ensure that everything has been removed. Softwares like Spyblaster may help prevent their further download in future. And for services like filling up forms or saving passwords or downloading music, safer alternatives, like Safer- Networking, Spyware Info, Roboform, and Google can be used.

At the end of the whole process, a scandisk and a defrag should be run and the registry cleaned up with the help of EasyCleaner.

reBlog from Raj Dash: Facebook Scam Alert: $500 Whole Foods Card is Fake

2010-04-03T18:31:00.001-07:00

I found this fascinating quote today:

Businesses might still be warming up to the idea of social media marketing to sell goods and services, but hackers seem to understand the potential, going to the extent of propagating a current Facebook-based scam, purportedly for Whole Foods, to gain personal information and install viruses. The scam is in various forms — and even uses Whole Foods Market’ logo — suggesting that you can a $500 gift card. This scam is being propagated through fake Facebook Fan Pages that use the name “Whole Foods,” and suggest urgency of signing up, supposedly due to limited quantities and a deadline. As CNET points out, the signup forms go so far as to ask applicants to fill out a credit assessment, which includes a fair bit of personal data. The net result is that some people have had malware installed on their computer as a result. Apparently Whole Foods is responding to people via Twitter about this scam.Raj Dash, Facebook Scam Alert: $500 Whole Foods Card is Fake, Apr 2010

You should read the whole article.

Beware Of Internet Scams

2010-04-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

A New Strategy Came Up On The Internet - And A Free Online Solution

In the past few weeks I see that they intensified their activity And what's worse, they are coming up with new strategies.

I suppose that everybody knows the old ones, with the poor russian family, with the lottery prize and with the relatives of dead generals or ministers from countries like Senegal, Nygeria and, more recent, Irak. The common thing to all these attempts id that they are coming as SPAM emails. Do not trust anyone which send you an unsolicited email, no matter what you read inside.

The usual one, with the lottery prize had made a lot of victims until now. You are announced that you are the lucky winner of a great prize of hundreds of thousands of dollars from some lottery based on email addresses and you have to give some personal information to cash your prize. The purpose is to get your personal dates and to practice the so called "Identity theft". Every lottery from every country has a web page, if you look in Google Search you will find it, and all of them make very clear their program and their procedures. Maybe there are few differences from case to case, but there is one rule which is universally available. YOU CAN NOT WIN IN ANY LOTTERY IF YOU DON'T PLAY.

The poor russian family with bank accounts of million dollars from dead relatives and the descendents of generals and ex-presidents of african countries are proposing you to help them to recover their fortune and to share it with you. There is no place in this world where you can just go and say: "Hey, I am John Doe and I am the legal inheritant of the expresident Madomba!". You will just be fooled to pay some fees to fictive legal counselors or government taxes, and you will never see your money back.

Whenever you are buying something online, do it through well known payments systems. I imagine that everyone knows about Paypal and ClickBank, companies with tradition and solid reputation. These companies gives the possibility to any merchant to open an account with them and to sell their stuff through their system, and gives you the insurance that they will track every tranzaction which you are making through them, offering you an excellent support. There are rumours that Paypal is rigide with the merchants and shut down accounts very easy, but I am glad hearing that. It means that they keep an eye on every tranzaction and when they find something unclear, they are in action. I had once the ocasion to be scammed by someone on Paypal, and they solved it in three days. I trust them more than myself.

The new strategy I was talking about is that you receive an email from some bank with common name, where you are announced that your account is blocked and you need to reset your information in order to open it, or that someone has accessed illegaly your account and you need to reset your information. No serious bank in this world would ask you private information on the Internet as long as you don't have an account with them. Do not answer to these emails, and, if you have the opportunity and the time, report them as spam.

The solution I was talking about is a free online plugin from Mozilla Firefox. It is called WOT, (Worth Of Trust), and every time when you are accessing a web page or you are hhovering a link in your browser, it gives a trustness degree. When you are accesing a web page with bad reputation you are avertised very clear about the reputation of that site. I am using it for some time and I have convinced myself that it is very useful. The Firefox browser is free to download, very easy to install and you may install the WOT plugin in the very same moment you have installed the Browser.

Lock Your Computer And Protect Your Work

2010-04-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has put in many hours, or at times even weeks of effort into work, may know what its like to lose a part of that work, but the worst thing you can do is to be the cause of your own loss. When you leave yourcomputer, lets say for a bathroom break, an emergency meeting, or even to discuss something away from your machine, it may be natural to just walk away and do what you have to do, but I know from experience that this is a habit you should engrave into your computer work ethic just the same as being polite to the CEO of your organization. Allow me to go deeper, it will make more sense by example:

A few years ago, I took a course called 'Drafting/Design Tech I'. This was a basic CAD (Computer-Aided-Design) class where we learned how to use the software and along the way, the concepts of good CAD-work, understanding of views, and being able to draw anything we saw in any variation. It was a good experience. One of the few things my instructor told the class immediately after explaining how to log in with our user accounts was to lock our computers.

"Hold down the 'windows' button, and push 'L'. This will lock your computerand protect your work."

Now why would you want protection? Look at condoms and you'll see why...Okay, so you won't get AID's if you don't lock your computer, but those of us who didn't heed the advice of my instructor learned the hard way to lock it up. By good nature, lots of us used to love to walk over to each other's workstations and talk, hang out, and mess around. By the time we came back, one of several things generally happened to our computers:

1. Our directories were cleared out of any and all work we had in them (hours, or rather weeks of hours, of racking your head over something has just gone down the drain), or

2. Our current drawing file was modified (i.e. a few lines being offset, stretched and skewed, thereby throwing off all dimensions, which is especially bad when being graded on dimensions. Even worse is when somebody scales your entire project, so when you actually build a model of your project, instead of a 1/8 scale between the model and full-size, you have a 19/128ths scale. Firsthand experience sucks.)

3. All of our file names were mixed and mismatched, so when we sat down to work, we faced the unique issue of figuring out each time which of the twenty files is which. Lots of fun when you have an upcoming deadline.

4. Any other creative mischief (i.e. turning the screen by 90 degrees, making windows look retro, or even hiding parts of our drawings so they appear deleted and we appear to be redoing it when we come back)

Besides an annoyance ranging from mild all the way up to a promise of an a$s-kicking after class, locking your computer is important for security. From my experience with multiple private networks, leaving your console unattended while in full access can cause many problems for you and the network. One of your peers with lesser access rights may decide to play a joke on another and it doesn't turn out funny to the one it was being played on. He reports it to his boss. If the 'joke' was in any way decided as unacceptable by the boss, guess which two guys lose their jobs? Or even better if there is a visitor from somewhere and suddenly he has access to all of the top-secret files which are sworn by all employees to only stay on facility? Let me express it in one word: espionage. A car just doesn't sell as well when every other major car-maker sells exact knock-offs of it because some idiot in your business left the designs and assembly plans in easy access.

Windows Button + L

OR

Alt+Ctrl+Delete , then 'k'

For this to work, you must have a password set on your account. If your account is not password-protected, here is how to make it so:

(All instructions assume that the user has full administrative access rights)

For Windows XP:
1) Click on the 'Start' menu
2) Click on 'Control Panel'
3) Double-Click on 'User Accounts'
4) Click on your user account name
5) Click on 'Create a Password'
6) Follow the on-screen instructions

How to Replacing Windows Regedit

2010-04-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

There are numerous third-party alternatives to practically every tool available with Windows. Scandisk is superseded with various data Recovery Tools that are vastly superior to the quite limited Windows tool; Outlook Express isn't any better than any other email client on the market; Windows Task Manager has a number of free and commercial alternatives. Even Internet Explorer has a number of third-party replacements that offer better security and more features. Regedit is no exception to the trend.

Reg Organizer is a vastly superior alternative to Windows Regedit. Unlike direct product replacements such as FireFox - Internet Explorer or Thunderbird - Outlook Express, Reg Organizer dips into waters not tested by any Microsoft tool.

Instead of just cloning Microsoft Regedit feature by feature, Reg Organizer provides numerous benefits to its users, unseen in any Microsoft registry tool. Not only it can edit the Windows Registry; it can find errors and fix them automatically. By cleaning out the Registry, Reg Organizer vastly improves the performance of your PC. It reduces the clutter, removes junk and makes your Registry more compact, allowing Windows Run faster and smoother.

All of these optimization features don't look like Reg Organizer is a direct replacement of Windows Regedit, but hold on! Unlike the numerous competing registry optimizers, Reg Organizer actually serves as a replacement to the primitive registry editor included with Windows. Giving its users a way to conveniently edit Windows Registry, Reg Organizer provides all browsing and editing features available in Regedit, and more! Unlike the minimalistic Regedit tool, Reg Organizer offers a fully featured graphical user interface for performing basic and advanced manipulations with the computer System Registry.

Vastly superior searching makes searching the Registry much more convenient than with Windows Regedit. Searching the Registry is where Reg Organizer shines. Not only it scans the Registry as regedit.exe does, but it allows many more things to be done when searching. You can find all registry keys related to a certain application, or run Search and Replace to substitute certain registry values with other ones. Search and Replace Registry comes handy when moving applications from one disk or folder to another, letting you change paths quickly and easily.

Managing the Registry does not end with editing, searching and replacing. Set Reg Organizer to handle .REG files, and you'll be able to actually preview the .REG files before or instead of importing them into the System Registry. Defragment and compress Windows Registry to optimize computer performance, change undocumented Windows settings without the risk of messing up the Registry, and do many other exciting things you would never do with regedit.exe! Download Reg Organizer from http://www.chemtable.com/organizer.htm.

History of the Internet

2010-04-02T09:14:00.001-07:00

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the public worldwide computer network system. For other uses, see Internet (disambiguation).

Visualization of the various routes through a portion of the Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is anetwork of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by a broad array of electronic and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast array of information resources and services, most notably the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (www) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail.

Most traditional communications media, such as telephone and television services, are reshaped or redefined using the technologies of the Internet, giving rise to services such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and IPTV. Newspaper publishing has been reshaped into Web sites, blogging, and web feeds. The Internet has enabled or accelerated the creation of new forms of human interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking sites.

The origins of the Internet reach back to the 1960s when the United States funded research projects of its military agencies to build robust, fault-tolerant and distributed computer networks. This research and a period of civilian funding of a new U.S.backbone by the National Science Foundation spawned worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies and led to the commercialization of an international network in the mid 1990s, and resulted in the following popularization of countless applications in virtually every aspect of modern human life. As of 2009, an estimated quarter of Earth's population uses the services of the Internet.

The Internet has no centralized governance in either technological implementation or policies for access and usage; each constituent network sets its own standards. Only the overreaching definitions of the two principal name spaces in the Internet, the Internet Protocol address space and the Domain Name System, are directed by a maintainer organization, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The technical underpinning and standardization of the core protocols (IPv4 and IPv6) is an activity of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), a non-profit organization of loosely affiliated international participants that anyone may associate with by contributing technical expertise.

Terminology

The terms Internet and World Wide Web are often used in everyday speech without much distinction. However, the Internet and the World Wide Web are not one and the same. The Internet is a global data communications system. It is a hardware and software infrastructure that provides connectivity between computers. In contrast, the Web is one of the services communicated via the Internet. It is a collection of interconnected documents and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs.^[1] The term the Internet, when referring to the Internet, has traditionally been treated as a proper noun and written with an initial capital letter. There is a trend to regard it as a generic term or common noun and thus write it as "the internet", without the capital.

History

Main article: History of the Internet

The USSR's launch of Sputnik spurred the United States to create the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA or DARPA) in February1958 to regain a technological lead.^[2]^[3] ARPA created the Information Processing Technology Office (IPTO) to further the research of the Semi Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) program, which had networked country-wide radar systems together for the first time. The IPTO's purpose was to find ways to address the US Military's concern about survivability of their communications networks, and as a first step interconnect their computers at the Pentagon, Cheyenne Mountain, and SAC HQ. J. C. R. Licklider, a promoter of universal networking, was selected to head the IPTO. Licklider moved from the Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory at Harvard University to MIT in 1950, after becoming interested in information technology. At MIT, he served on a committee that established Lincoln Laboratory and worked on the SAGE project. In1957 he became a Vice President at BBN, where he bought the first production PDP-1 computer and conducted the first public demonstration of time-sharing.

Professor Leonard Kleinrock with one of the first ARPANET Interface Message Processors at UCLA

At the IPTO, Licklider's successor Ivan Sutherland in 1965 got Lawrence Roberts to start a project to make a network, and Roberts based the technology on the work of Paul Baran,^[4] who had written an exhaustive study for the United States Air Force that recommended packet switching (opposed tocircuit switching) to achieve better network robustness and disaster survivability. Roberts had worked at the MIT Lincoln Laboratory originally established to work on the design of the SAGE system. UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock had provided the theoretical foundations for packet networks in 1962, and later, in the 1970s, for hierarchical routing, concepts which have been the underpinning of the development towards today's Internet.

Sutherland's successor Robert Taylor convinced Roberts to build on his early packet switching successes and come and be the IPTO Chief Scientist. Once there, Roberts prepared a report called Resource Sharing Computer Networks which was approved by Taylor in June 1968 and laid the foundation for the launch of the working ARPANET the following year.

After much work, the first two nodes of what would become the ARPANET were interconnected between Kleinrock's Network Measurement Center at the UCLA's School of Engineering and Applied Science and Douglas Engelbart's NLS system at SRI International (SRI) in Menlo Park, California, on October 29, 1969. The third site on the ARPANET was the Culler-Fried Interactive Mathematics centre at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and the fourth was the University of Utah Graphics Department. In an early sign of future growth, there were already fifteen sites connected to the young ARPANET by the end of 1971.

The ARPANET was one of the "eve" networks of today's Internet. In an independent development, Donald Davies at the UK National Physical Laboratory also discovered the concept of packet switching in the early 1960s, first giving a talk on the subject in 1965, after which the teams in the new field from two sides of the Atlantic ocean first became acquainted. It was actually Davies' coinage of the wording "packet" and "packet switching" that was adopted as the standard terminology. Davies also built a packet switched network in the UK called the Mark I in 1970. ^[5]

Following the demonstration that packet switching worked on the ARPANET, the British Post Office, Telenet, DATAPAC and TRANSPAC collaborated to create the first international packet-switched network service. In the UK, this was referred to as the International Packet Switched Service (IPSS), in 1978. The collection of X.25-based networks grew from Europe and the US to cover Canada, Hong Kong and Australia by 1981. The X.25 packet switching standard was developed in the CCITT (now called ITU-T) around 1976.

A plaque commemorating the birth of the Internet at Stanford University

X.25 was independent of the TCP/IP protocols that arose from the experimental work of DARPA on the ARPANET, Packet Radio Net and Packet Satellite Net during the same time period.

The early ARPANET ran on the Network Control Program (NCP), a standard designed and first implemented in December 1970 by a team called the Network Working Group (NWG) led by Steve Crocker. To respond to the network's rapid growth as more and more locations connected, Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn developed the first description of the now widely used TCP protocols during 1973 and published a paper on the subject in May 1974. Use of the term "Internet" to describe a single global TCP/IP network originated in December 1974 with the publication of RFC 675, the first full specification of TCP that was written by Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal and Carl Sunshine, then at Stanford University. During the next nine years, work proceeded to refine the protocols and to implement them on a wide range of operating systems. The first TCP/IP-based wide-area network was operational by January 1, 1983 when all hosts on the ARPANET were switched over from the older NCP protocols. In 1985, the United States' National Science Foundation (NSF) commissioned the construction of the NSFNET, a university 56 kilobit/second network backbone using computers called "fuzzballs" by their inventor, David L. Mills. The following year, NSF sponsored the conversion to a higher-speed 1.5 megabit/second network. A key decision to use the DARPA TCP/IP protocols was made by Dennis Jennings, then in charge of the Supercomputer program at NSF.

The opening of the network to commercial interests began in 1988. The US Federal Networking Council approved the interconnection of the NSFNET to the commercial MCI Mail system in that year and the link was made in the summer of 1989. Other commercial electronic e-mail services were soon connected, including OnTyme, Telemail and Compuserve. In that same year, three commercial Internet service providers (ISPs) were created: UUNET, PSINet and CERFNET. Important, separate networks that offered gateways into, then later merged with, the Internet include Usenet and BITNET. Various other commercial and educational networks, such as Telenet, Tymnet, Compuserve and JANETwere interconnected with the growing Internet. Telenet (later called Sprintnet) was a large privately funded national computer network with freedial-up access in cities throughout the U.S. that had been in operation since the 1970s. This network was eventually interconnected with the others in the 1980s as the TCP/IP protocol became increasingly popular. The ability of TCP/IP to work over virtually any pre-existing communication networks allowed for a great ease of growth, although the rapid growth of the Internet was due primarily to the availability of an array of standardized commercial routers from many companies, the availability of commercial Ethernet equipment for local-area networking, and the widespread implementation and rigorous standardization of TCP/IP on UNIX and virtually every other common operating system.

This NeXT Computer was used by Sir Tim Berners-Lee at CERN and became the world's first Web server.

Although the basic applications and guidelines that make the Internet possible had existed for almost two decades, the network did not gain a public face until the 1990s. On 6 August 1991,CERN, a pan European organization for particle research, publicized the new World Wide Webproject. The Web was invented by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee in 1989. An early popular web browser was ViolaWWW, patterned after HyperCard and built using the X Window System. It was eventually replaced in popularity by the Mosaic web browser. In 1993, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois released version 1.0 of Mosaic, and by late 1994 there was growing public interest in the previously academic, technical Internet. By 1996 usage of the word Internet had become commonplace, and consequently, so had its use as asynecdoche in reference to the World Wide Web.

Meanwhile, over the course of the decade, the Internet successfully accommodated the majority of previously existing public computer networks (although some networks, such as FidoNet, have remained separate). During the 1990s, it was estimated that the Internet grew by 100 percent per year, with a brief period of explosive growth in 1996 and 1997.^[6] This growth is often attributed to the lack of central administration, which allows organic growth of the network, as well as the non-proprietary open nature of the Internet protocols, which encourages vendor interoperability and prevents any one company from exerting too much control over the network.^[7] The estimated population of Internet users is 1.67 billion as of June 30, 2009.^[8]

Technology

Protocols

Main article: Internet Protocol Suite

The complex communications infrastructure of the Internet consists of its hardware components and a system of software layers that control various aspects of the architecture. While the hardware can often be used to support other software systems, it is the design and the rigorous standardization process of the software architecture that characterizes the Internet and provides the foundation for its scalability and success. The responsibility for the architectural design of the Internet software systems has been delegated to the Internet Engineering Task Force(IETF).^[9] The IETF conducts standard-setting work groups, open to any individual, about the various aspects of Internet architecture. Resulting discussions and final standards are published in a series of publications, each called a Request for Comments (RFC), freely available on the IETF web site. The principal methods of networking that enable the Internet are contained in specially designated RFCs that constitute theInternet Standards. Other less rigorous documents are simply informative, experimental, or historical, or document the best current practices (BCP) when implementing Internet technologies.

The Internet Standards describe a framework known as the Internet Protocol Suite. This is a model architecture that divides methods into a layered system of protocols (RFC 1122, RFC 1123). The layers correspond to the environment or scope in which their services operate. At the top is the Application Layer, the space for the application-specific networking methods used in software applications, e.g., a web browser program. Below this top layer, the Transport Layer connects applications on different hosts via the network (e.g., client-server model) with appropriate data exchange methods. Underlying these layers are the core networking technologies, consisting of two layers. The Internet Layerenables computers to identify and locate each other via Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, and allows them to connect to one-another via intermediate (transit) networks. Lastly, at the bottom of the architecture, is a software layer, the Link Layer, that provides connectivity between hosts on the same local network link, such as a local area network (LAN) or a dial-up connection. The model, also known as TCP/IP, is designed to be independent of the underlying hardware which the model therefore does not concern itself with in any detail. Other models have been developed, such as the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model, but they are not compatible in the details of description, nor implementation, but many similarities exist and the TCP/IP protocols are usually included in the discussion of OSI networking.

The most prominent component of the Internet model is the Internet Protocol (IP) which provides addressing systems (IP addresses) for computers on the Internet. IP enables internetworking and essentially establishes the Internet itself. IP Version 4 (IPv4) is the initial version used on the first generation of the today's Internet and is still in dominant use. It was designed to address up to ~4.3 billion (10⁹) Internet hosts. However, the explosive growth of the Internet has led to IPv4 address exhaustion which is estimated to enter its final stage in approximately 2011.^[10] A new protocol version, IPv6, was developed in the mid 1990s which provides vastly larger addressing capabilities and more efficient routing of Internet traffic. IPv6 is currently in commercial deployment phase around the world and Internet address registries (RIRs) have begun to urge all resource managers to plan rapid adoption and conversion.^[11]

IPv6 is not interoperable with IPv4. It essentially establishes a "parallel" version of the Internet not directly accessible with IPv4 software. This means software upgrades or translator facilities are necessary for every networking device that needs to communicate on the IPv6 Internet. Most modern computer operating systems are already converted to operate with both versions of the Internet Protocol. Network infrastructures, however, are still lagging in this development. Aside from the complex physical connections that make up its infrastructure, the Internet is facilitated by bi- or multi-lateral commercial contracts (e.g., peering agreements), and by technical specifications or protocols that describe how to exchange data over the network. Indeed, the Internet is defined by its interconnections and routing policies.

Structure

The Internet structure and its usage characteristics have been studied extensively. It has been determined that both the Internet IP routing structure and hypertext links of the World Wide Web are examples of scale-free networks. Similar to the way the commercial Internet providers connect via Internet exchange points, research networks tend to interconnect into large subnetworks such as GEANT, GLORIAD, Internet2(successor of the Abilene Network), and the UK's national research and education network JANET. These in turn are built around smaller networks (see also the list of academic computer network organizations).

Many computer scientists describe the Internet as a "prime example of a large-scale, highly engineered, yet highly complex system".^[12] The Internet is extremely heterogeneous; for instance, data transfer rates and physical characteristics of connections vary widely. The Internet exhibits "emergent phenomena" that depend on its large-scale organization. For example, data transfer rates exhibit temporal self-similarity. The principles of the routing and addressing methods for traffic in the Internet reach back to their origins the 1960s when the eventual scale and popularity of the network could not be anticipated. Thus, the possibility of developing alternative structures is investigated.^[13]

Governance

Main article: Internet governance

ICANN headquarters in Marina Del Rey,California, United States

The Internet is a globally distributed network comprising many voluntarily interconnected autonomous networks. It operates without a central governing body. However, to maintain interoperability, all technical and policy aspects of the underlying core infrastructure and the principal name spaces are administered by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), headquartered in Marina del Rey, California. ICANN is the authority that coordinates the assignment of unique identifiers for use on the Internet, including domain names, Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, application port numbers in the transport protocols, and many other parameters. Globally unified name spaces, in which names and numbers are uniquely assigned, are essential for the global reach of the Internet. ICANN is governed by an international board of directors drawn from across the Internet technical, business, academic, and other non-commercial communities. The US government continues to have the primary role in approving changes to the DNS root zone that lies at the heart of the domain name system. ICANN's role in coordinating the assignment of unique identifiers distinguishes it as perhaps the only central coordinating body on the global Internet. On November 16, 2005, the World Summit on the Information Society, held in Tunis, established theInternet Governance Forum (IGF) to discuss Internet-related issues.

Modern uses

The Internet is allowing greater flexibility in working hours and location, especially with the spread of unmetered high-speed connections andweb applications.

The Internet can now be accessed almost anywhere by numerous means, especially through mobile Internet devices. Mobile phones,datacards, handheld game consoles and cellular routers allow users to connect to the Internet from anywhere there is a wireless network supporting that device's technology. Within the limitations imposed by small screens and other limited facilities of such pocket-sized devices, services of the Internet, including email and the web, may be available. Service providers may restrict the services offered and wireless data transmission charges may be significantly higher than other access methods.

The Internet has also become a large market for companies; some of the biggest companies today have grown by taking advantage of the efficient nature of low-cost advertising and commerce through the Internet, also known as e-commerce. It is the fastest way to spread information to a vast number of people simultaneously. The Internet has also subsequently revolutionized shopping—for example; a person can order a CD online and receive it in the mail within a couple of days, or download it directly in some cases. The Internet has also greatly facilitated personalized marketing which allows a company to market a product to a specific person or a specific group of people more so than any other advertising medium. Examples of personalized marketing include online communities such as MySpace, Friendster, Facebook,Twitter, Orkut and others which thousands of Internet users join to advertise themselves and make friends online. Many of these users are young teens and adolescents ranging from 13 to 25 years old. In turn, when they advertise themselves they advertise interests and hobbies, which online marketing companies can use as information as to what those users will purchase online, and advertise their own companies' products to those users.

The low cost and nearly instantaneous sharing of ideas, knowledge, and skills has made collaborative work dramatically easier, with the help ofcollaborative software. Not only can a group cheaply communicate and share ideas, but the wide reach of the Internet allows such groups to easily form in the first place. An example of this is the free software movement, which has produced, among other programs, Linux, Mozilla Firefox, and OpenOffice.org. Internet "chat", whether in the form of IRC chat rooms or channels, or via instant messaging systems, allow colleagues to stay in touch in a very convenient way when working at their computers during the day. Messages can be exchanged even more quickly and conveniently than via e-mail. Extensions to these systems may allow files to be exchanged, "whiteboard" drawings to be shared or voice and video contact between team members.

Version control systems allow collaborating teams to work on shared sets of documents without either accidentally overwriting each other's work or having members wait until they get "sent" documents to be able to make their contributions. Business and project teams can share calendars as well as documents and other information. Such collaboration occurs in a wide variety of areas including scientific research, software development, conference planning, political activism and creative writing. Social and political collaboration is also becoming more widespread as both Internet access and computer literacy grow. From the flash mob 'events' of the early 2000s to the use of social networking in the 2009 Iranian election protests, the Internet allows people to work together more effectively and in many more ways than was possible without it.

The Internet allows computer users to remotely access other computers and information stores easily, wherever they may be across the world. They may do this with or without the use of security, authentication and encryption technologies, depending on the requirements. This is encouraging new ways of working from home, collaboration and information sharing in many industries. An accountant sitting at home can auditthe books of a company based in another country, on a server situated in a third country that is remotely maintained by IT specialists in a fourth. These accounts could have been created by home-working bookkeepers, in other remote locations, based on information e-mailed to them from offices all over the world. Some of these things were possible before the widespread use of the Internet, but the cost of private leased lines would have made many of them infeasible in practice. An office worker away from their desk, perhaps on the other side of the world on a business trip or a holiday, can open a remote desktop session into his normal office PC using a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection via the Internet. This gives the worker complete access to all of his or her normal files and data, including e-mail and other applications, while away from the office. This concept is also referred to by some network security people as the Virtual Private Nightmare, because it extends the secure perimeter of a corporate network into its employees' homes.

Services

Information

Many people use the terms Internet and World Wide Web, or just the Web, interchangeably, but the two terms are not synonymous. TheWorld Wide Web is a global set of documents, images and other resources, logically interrelated by hyperlinks and referenced with Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs). URIs allow providers to symbolically identify services and clients to locate and address web servers, file servers, and other databases that store documents and provide resources and access them using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), the primary carrier protocol of the Web. HTTP is only one of the hundreds of communication protocols used on the Internet. Web services may also use HTTP to allow software systems to communicate in order to share and exchange business logic and data.

World Wide Web browser software, such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Apple Safari, and Google Chrome, let users navigate from one web page to another via hyperlinks embedded in the documents. These documents may also contain any combination of computer data, including graphics, sounds, text, video, multimedia and interactive content including games, office applications and scientific demonstrations. Through keyword-driven Internet research using search engines like Yahoo! and Google, users worldwide have easy, instant access to a vast and diverse amount of online information. Compared to printed encyclopedias and traditional libraries, the World Wide Web has enabled the decentralization of information.

The Web has also enabled individuals and organizations to publish ideas and information to a potentially large audience online at greatly reduced expense and time delay. Publishing a web page, a blog, or building a website involves little initial cost and many cost-free services are available. Publishing and maintaining large, professional web sites with attractive, diverse and up-to-date information is still a difficult and expensive proposition, however. Many individuals and some companies and groups use web logs or blogs, which are largely used as easily updatable online diaries. Some commercial organizations encourage staff to communicate advice in their areas of specialization in the hope that visitors will be impressed by the expert knowledge and free information, and be attracted to the corporation as a result. One example of this practice is Microsoft, whose product developers publish their personal blogs in order to pique the public's interest in their work. Collections of personal web pages published by large service providers remain popular, and have become increasingly sophisticated. Whereas operations such as Angelfire and GeoCities have existed since the early days of the Web, newer offerings from, for example, Facebook and MySpacecurrently have large followings. These operations often brand themselves as social network services rather than simply as web page hosts.

Advertising on popular web pages can be lucrative, and e-commerce or the sale of products and services directly via the Web continues to grow. In the early days, web pages were usually created as sets of complete and isolated HTML text files stored on a web server. More recently, websites are more often created using content management or wiki software with, initially, very little content. Contributors to these systems, who may be paid staff, members of a club or other organization or members of the public, fill underlying databases with content using editing pages designed for that purpose, while casual visitors view and read this content in its final HTML form. There may or may not be editorial, approval and security systems built into the process of taking newly entered content and making it available to the target visitors.

Communication

E-mail is an important communications service available on the Internet. The concept of sending electronic text messages between parties in a way analogous to mailing letters or memos predates the creation of the Internet. Today it can be important to distinguish between internet and internal e-mail systems. Internet e-mail may travel and be stored unencrypted on many other networks and machines out of both the sender's and the recipient's control. During this time it is quite possible for the content to be read and even tampered with by third parties, if anyone considers it important enough. Purely internal or intranet mail systems, where the information never leaves the corporate or organization's network, are much more secure, although in any organization there will be IT and other personnel whose job may involve monitoring, and occasionally accessing, the e-mail of other employees not addressed to them. Pictures, documents and other files can be sent as e-mail attachments. E-mails can be cc-ed to multiple e-mail addresses.

Internet telephony is another common communications service made possible by the creation of the Internet. VoIP stands for Voice-over-Internet Protocol, referring to the protocol that underlies all Internet communication. The idea began in the early 1990s with walkie-talkie-like voice applications for personal computers. In recent years many VoIP systems have become as easy to use and as convenient as a normal telephone. The benefit is that, as the Internet carries the voice traffic, VoIP can be free or cost much less than a traditional telephone call, especially over long distances and especially for those with always-on Internet connections such as cable or ADSL. VoIP is maturing into a competitive alternative to traditional telephone service. Interoperability between different providers has improved and the ability to call or receive a call from a traditional telephone is available. Simple, inexpensive VoIP network adapters are available that eliminate the need for a personal computer.

Voice quality can still vary from call to call but is often equal to and can even exceed that of traditional calls. Remaining problems for VoIP include emergency telephone number dialling and reliability. Currently, a few VoIP providers provide an emergency service, but it is not universally available. Traditional phones are line-powered and operate during a power failure; VoIP does not do so without a backup power source for the phone equipment and the Internet access devices. VoIP has also become increasingly popular for gaming applications, as a form of communication between players. Popular VoIP clients for gaming include Ventrilo and Teamspeak. Wii, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360 also offer VoIP chat features.

Data transfer

File sharing is an example of transferring large amounts of data across the Internet. A computer file can be e-mailed to customers, colleagues and friends as an attachment. It can be uploaded to a website or FTP server for easy download by others. It can be put into a "shared location" or onto a file server for instant use by colleagues. The load of bulk downloads to many users can be eased by the use of "mirror" servers orpeer-to-peer networks. In any of these cases, access to the file may be controlled by user authentication, the transit of the file over the Internet may be obscured by encryption, and money may change hands for access to the file. The price can be paid by the remote charging of funds from, for example, a credit card whose details are also passed—usually fully encrypted—across the Internet. The origin and authenticity of the file received may be checked by digital signatures or by MD5 or other message digests. These simple features of the Internet, over a worldwide basis, are changing the production, sale, and distribution of anything that can be reduced to a computer file for transmission. This includes all manner of print publications, software products, news, music, film, video, photography, graphics and the other arts. This in turn has caused seismic shifts in each of the existing industries that previously controlled the production and distribution of these products.

Streaming media refers to the act that many existing radio and television broadcasters promote Internet "feeds" of their live audio and video streams (for example, the BBC). They may also allow time-shift viewing or listening such as Preview, Classic Clips and Listen Again features. These providers have been joined by a range of pure Internet "broadcasters" who never had on-air licenses. This means that an Internet-connected device, such as a computer or something more specific, can be used to access on-line media in much the same way as was previously possible only with a television or radio receiver. The range of available types of content is much wider, from specialized technicalwebcasts to on-demand popular multimedia services. Podcasting is a variation on this theme, where—usually audio—material is downloaded and played back on a computer or shifted to a portable media player to be listened to on the move. These techniques using simple equipment allow anybody, with little censorship or licensing control, to broadcast audio-visual material worldwide.

Webcams can be seen as an even lower-budget extension of this phenomenon. While some webcams can give full-frame-rate video, the picture is usually either small or updates slowly. Internet users can watch animals around an African waterhole, ships in the Panama Canal, traffic at a local roundabout or monitor their own premises, live and in real time. Video chat rooms and video conferencing are also popular with many uses being found for personal webcams, with and without two-way sound. YouTube was founded on 15 February 2005 and is now the leading website for free streaming video with a vast number of users. It uses a flash-based web player to stream and show video files. Registered users may upload an unlimited amount of video and build their own personal profile. YouTube claims that its users watch hundreds of millions, and upload hundreds of thousands of videos daily.^[14]

Accessibility

Graph of Internet users per 100 inhabitants between 1997 and 2007 by International Telecommunication Union

The prevalent language for communication on the Internet is English. This may be a result of the origin of the Internet, as well as English's role as a lingua franca. It may also be related to the poor capability of early computers, largely originating in the United States, to handle characters other than those in the English variant of the Latin alphabet. After English (29% of Web visitors) the most requested languages on theWorld Wide Web are Chinese (22%), Spanish (8%), Japanese (6%), French (5%),Portuguese and German (4% each), Arabic (3%) and Russian and Korean (2% each).^[15] By region, 42% of the world's Internet users are based in Asia, 24% inEurope, 15% in North America, 11% in Latin America and the Caribbean taken together, 4% in Africa, 3% in the Middle East and 1% in Australia/Oceania.^[16] The Internet's technologies have developed enough in recent years, especially in the use ofUnicode, that good facilities are available for development and communication in most widely used languages. However, some glitches such as mojibake (incorrect display of foreign language characters, also known as kryakozyabry) still remain.

Common methods of Internet access in homes include dial-up, landline broadband(over coaxial cable, fiber optic or copper wires), Wi-Fi, satellite and 3G technology cell phones. Public places to use the Internet include libraries and Internet cafes, where computers with Internet connections are available. There are also Internet access points in many public places such as airport halls and coffee shops, in some cases just for brief use while standing. Various terms are used, such as "public Internet kiosk", "public access terminal", and "Web payphone". Many hotels now also have public terminals, though these are usually fee-based. These terminals are widely accessed for various usage like ticket booking, bank deposit, online payment etc. Wi-Fi provides wireless access to computer networks, and therefore can do so to the Internet itself. Hotspots providing such access include Wi-Fi cafes, where would-be users need to bring their own wireless-enabled devices such as a laptop or PDA. These services may be free to all, free to customers only, or fee-based. A hotspot need not be limited to a confined location. A whole campus or park, or even an entire city can be enabled. Grassroots efforts have led to wireless community networks. Commercial Wi-Fi services covering large city areas are in place in London, Vienna, Toronto, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago andPittsburgh. The Internet can then be accessed from such places as a park bench.^[17] Apart from Wi-Fi, there have been experiments with proprietary mobile wireless networks like Ricochet, various high-speed data services over cellular phone networks, and fixed wireless services. High-end mobile phones such as smartphones generally come with Internet access through the phone network. Web browsers such as Operaare available on these advanced handsets, which can also run a wide variety of other Internet software. More mobile phones have Internet access than PCs, though this is not as widely used.^{[citation needed]} An Internet access provider and protocol matrix differentiates the methods used to get online.

Social impact

Main article: Sociology of the Internet

The Internet has enabled entirely new forms of social interaction, activities, and organizing, thanks to its basic features such as widespread usability and access. Social networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace have created a new form of socialization and interaction. Users of these sites are able to add a wide variety of information to their personal pages, to pursue common interests, and to connect with others. It is also possible to find a large circle of existing acquaintances, especially if a site allows users to represent themselves by their given names, and to allow communication among existing groups of people. Sites like meetup.com exist to allow wider announcement of groups which may exist mainly for face-to-face meetings, but which may have a variety of minor interactions over their group's site.

In the first decade of the 21st century the first generation is raised with widespread availability of Internet connectivity, bringing consequences and concerns in areas such as personal privacy and identity, and distribution of copyrighted materials. These "digital natives" face a variety of challenges that were not present for prior generations.

The Internet has achieved new relevance as a political tool, leading to Internet censorship by some states. The presidential campaign of Howard Dean in 2004 in the United States was notable for its success in soliciting donation via the Internet. Many political groups use the Internet to achieve a new method of organizing in order to carry out their mission, having given rise to Internet activism. Some governments, such as those of Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, the People's Republic of China, and Saudi Arabia, restrict what people in their countries can access on the Internet, especially political and religious content.^{[citation needed]} This is accomplished through software that filters domains and content so that they may not be easily accessed or obtained without elaborate circumvention.^{[original research?]}

In Norway, Denmark, Finland^[18] and Sweden, major Internet service providers have voluntarily, possibly to avoid such an arrangement being turned into law, agreed to restrict access to sites listed by authorities. While this list of forbidden URLs is only supposed to contain addresses of known child pornography sites, the content of the list is secret.^{[citation needed]} Many countries, including the United States, have enacted laws against the possession or distribution of certain material, such as child pornography, via the Internet, but do not mandate filtering software. There are many free and commercially available software programs, called content-control software, with which a user can choose to block offensive websites on individual computers or networks, in order to limit a child's access to pornographic materials or depiction of violence.

The Internet has been a major outlet for leisure activity since its inception, with entertaining social experiments such as MUDs and MOOs being conducted on university servers, and humor-related Usenet groups receiving much traffic. Today, many Internet forums have sections devoted to games and funny videos; short cartoons in the form of Flash movies are also popular. Over 6 million people use blogs or message boards as a means of communication and for the sharing of ideas. The pornography and gambling industries have taken advantage of the World Wide Web, and often provide a significant source of advertising revenue for other websites.^{[citation needed]} Although many governments have attempted to restrict both industries' use of the Internet, this has generally failed to stop their widespread popularity.^{[citation needed]}

One main area of leisure activity on the Internet is multiplayer gaming. This form of recreation creates communities, where people of all ages and origins enjoy the fast-paced world of multiplayer games. These range from MMORPG to first-person shooters, from role-playing games toonline gambling. This has revolutionized the way many people interact^{[citation needed]} while spending their free time on the Internet. While online gaming has been around since the 1970s,^{[citation needed]} modern modes of online gaming began with subscription services such as GameSpyand MPlayer. Non-subscribers were limited to certain types of game play or certain games. Many people use the Internet to access and download music, movies and other works for their enjoyment and relaxation. Free and fee-based services exist for all of these activities, using centralized servers and distributed peer-to-peer technologies. Some of these sources exercise more care with respect to the original artists' copyrights than others.

Many people use the World Wide Web to access news, weather and sports reports, to plan and book vacations and to find out more about their interests. People use chat, messaging and e-mail to make and stay in touch with friends worldwide, sometimes in the same way as some previously had pen pals. Social networking websites like MySpace, Facebook and many others like them also put and keep people in contact for their enjoyment. The Internet has seen a growing number of Web desktops, where users can access their files and settings via the Internet.Cyberslacking can become a serious drain on corporate resources; the average UK employee spent 57 minutes a day surfing the Web while at work, according to a 2003 study by Peninsula Business Services.^[19]

Notes

^ "Links". HTML 4.01 Specification. World Wide Web Consortium. HTML 4.01 Specification. Retrieved 2008-08-13. "[T]he link (or hyperlink, or Web link) [is] the basic hypertext construct. A link is a connection from one Web resource to another. Although a simple concept, the link has been one of the primary forces driving the success of the Web."
^ "ARPA/DARPA". Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Retrieved 2007-05-21.
^ "DARPA: History". Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Retrieved 2009-12-07.
^ Baran, Paul (1964). On Distributed Communications.
^ "Internet History". Living Internet site. Retrieved 2010-03-10.
^ Coffman, K. G; Odlyzko, A. M. (1998-10-02) (PDF). The size and growth rate of the Internet. AT&T Labs. Retrieved 2007-05-21.
^ Comer, Douglas (2006). The Internet book. Prentice Hall. p. 64. ISBN 0132335530.
^ "World Internet Users and Population Stats". Internet World Stats. Miniwatts Marketing Group. 2009-06-30. Retrieved 2009-11-06.
^ "IETF Home Page". Ietf.org. Retrieved 2009-06-20.
^ Huston, Geoff. "IPv4 Address Report, daily generated". Retrieved 2009-05-20.
^ "Notice of Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) Address Depletion" (PDF). Retrieved 2009-08-07.
^ Walter Willinger, Ramesh Govindan, Sugih Jamin, Vern Paxson, and Scott Shenker (2002). Scaling phenomena in the Internet, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 99, suppl. 1, 2573–2580
^ "Internet Makeover? Some argue it's time". The Seattle Times, April 16, 2007.
^ "YouTube Fact Sheet". YouTube, LLC. Retrieved 2009-01-20.
^ Internet World Stats, updated June 30, 2009
^ World Internet Usage Statistics News and Population Stats updated June 30, 2009
^ "Toronto Hydro to Install Wireless Network in Downtown Toronto". Bloomberg.com. Retrieved 19-Mar-2006.
^ "Finland censors anti-censorship site". The Register. 2008-02-18. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
^ "Scotsman.com News - Net abuse hits small city firms". News.scotsman.com. Retrieved 2009-08-07.

References

Media Freedom Internet Cookbook by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media Vienna, 2004
Living Internet—Internet history and related information, including information from many creators of the Internet
First Monday peer-reviewed journal on the Internet
How Much Does The Internet Weigh? by Stephen Cass, Discover 2007
Rehmeyer, Julie J. 2007. Mapping a medusa: The Internet spreads its tentacles. Science News 171(June 23):387-388. Available at Sciencenews.org
Castells, M. 1996. Rise of the Network Society. 3 vols. Vol. 1. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Castells, M. (2001), “Lessons from the History of Internet”, in “The Internet Galaxy”, Ch. 1, pp 9–35. Oxford University Press.
RFC 1122, Requirements for Internet Hosts—Communication Layers, IETF, R. Braden (Ed.), October 1989
RFC 1123, Requirements for Internet Hosts—Application and Support, IETF, R. Braden (Ed.), October 1989

Tips-Job Interview

2010-04-02T08:45:00.000-07:00

Some General Job Interview Tips

Do not smoke, chew gum, or eat garlic beforehand.
Wear suitable interview clothes.
Take copies of your CV with you.
Arrive on time for your job interview.
Any applications handed before the interview begins, are to be filled in as accurately as possible, make sure they match the information in your Cv and Cover Letter.
Always greet the interviewer by his/her last name and try to pronounce it correctly.
Have a good firm handshake.
Look alert and interested. Scan the room once and then keep your eyes on the interviewer.
Wait until you are offered a chair before you sit down.
Stress your achievements.
Always conduct yourself professionally and if something beyond your control occurs, show a sense of humor.
Be enthusiastic and show it in your replies and body language.
Answer the interview question by more than a simple yes or no but try not to go over the 60 second limit.
Avoid at all cost complaining about your current or former employer in your job interview.
Do not answer questions about politics or religion if the job is completely unrelated.
Do not raise salary discussions on your first interview - this is usually done on the second interview. Make sure you do your wage research before hand.

Your answer to the initial opening statements in the job interview are important, these are called "ice breakers".

Some times the interviewer will ask whether you had difficulty finding the company premises. Your answer should be brief and polite. The interviewer is merely being polite - if you had problems in finding the premises he/she doesn't need to know that.

Use replies such as:

I'm fine thank you, and you?
I'm very well, thank you.

These replies express a careless attitude:

So, so
OK
Not so well

There are various kinds of interviews:

One to One Job Interview
Panel Job Interview
Group Job Interview
Phone Job Interview
Lunch Job interview

Each job interview has it's own strategies and particular points one should be aware of.

Example Questions
Career Fair Interviews
3rd Party Recruiter Interviews
Informational Interviews
Post Interview

How to Choosing a good business name

2010-04-02T08:15:00.000-07:00

So you gave up the job search, going for job interviews, filing for unemployment insurance, and are ready for self-employment, so what's next? After you've created a business plan, the next step is choosing a good business name. A good name is the start of an excellent trademark. The name should be unforgettable and generate a positive reaction when seen and heard. Here are some guidelines on how you can create the perfect one that isn't already taken by another business:

Reflect on the perception you want to create by the sound of the name. Put pen to paper and sort the words according their main denotation.

Consider the feeling you want people to get and think about words that create similar feelings in you. Find phrases and alternative words.
Look for translations of the words and connotations such as color, animals, plants, people, and actions.
List different mixtures of the words, phrases and part of the words.

Evaluate the lists and write down the feelings associated with each word or phrase.
Ask a second opinion on the feelings the words create, easy pronouncing, and the lasting impressions.
Discard the ones you don't like and rank the rest according to their importance.
Research the availability of the name.
Find out if you can register the name as a domain since you want the name to be part of the domain on the web.
Make use if the Internet and business name searches at the company registrar office in your town.
Register the domain.
Protection is the next step in choosing a good business name. Apply for registration of a trademark.

Further guidelines in choosing a good business name:

Stay away from names such as Mickey's Balloons or Pete's Pizzas since they are not easily remembered and are difficult to trademark.
Steer clear of common names that plainly illustrate the merchandise or service, such as Wooden Windows or Stainless Steel Cabinets, Inc.
Refrain from using place names because you may want to expand or move to another location and then your business will still say Florida Meat when you are in Texas.
Don't limit the name to a small service or product field, rather think in global or expansion terms, including the possibility that your product line may change altogether.
Don't make the name long or difficult to pronounce.

Requirements for choosing a good business name

A phrase book, glossary or thesaurus, lexicon for translations, and a dictionary
Paper and pen
Second opinion
Internet access for domain names

Tips Newbies for Internet Gaming

2010-04-02T07:50:00.000-07:00

Internet games use the cyber world technology for playing. Games are extremely popular and constantly evolving.
There are:

Games played using e-mail.
Games played on a browser window by using a web address.
Games played using Internet Relay Chat, Telenet, MUD client, or a Web based forum.
Games that are graphic need stand-alone software that permits players to play with or against one another using an Internet connection.

The first game, MUD, was developed in 1978, and the market has burgeoned since then.

To play, one needs:

A reliable Internet connection.
A personal computer or game console.
Selected software required by specific games.

One can play simple board games like scrabble, or bingo, or games like poker, mahjong, and pool. Another popular category is simulation games-these imitate real-life situations and cover aspects like combat, city planning, strategies, as well as flight simulation.

For serious gaming the computer performance must be optimized. This can be done by:

Running the disk defragmenter and organizing the computer files. This should ideally be done once a month at least.
Correct folder and file errors by using scandisk---use once a week and the computer will give trouble free performance.
Clean your hard drives-get rid of Internet files, temporary files, as well as files in the trash/recycle bin. Clear the cache and uninstall programs that are not in everyday use.
Update the operating system software. Download any new security patches. Keep video drivers updated.
Clear space on the hard drive---store files on a back up system.
Clear any spyware you have inherited from websites.
Minimize number of programs running-when playing a graphic intensive game if there are too many programs running simultaneously the graphics will become choppy and game will be slow.
Delete add on game files-wall papers and other paraphernalia will just clutter the computer.
Run an anti-virus program regularly but disable it when you are loading/playing games. Antivirus programs slow down games.
Always shut down the computer properly.

The Internet allows gamers to compete with people across oceans, on the other side of the world and anywhere in the universe. Some use PCs while others use consoles. What you use is a personal choice and depends on issues like costs and so on.

Before you buy a game you must:

Consider "system requirements" - some games can run on systems that are not exact others need specific hardware.
Find out if the game is single player or multi-player. Many games need the Internet-and, the broadband connection is more efficient than the dial-up connection. Many like Xbox Live only work on a broadband connection.
Find out if the game can be played using a mouse/keyboard or whether it will need a full-featured joy stick.

Be wise and try a demo before making an actual purchase. Playing a demo benefits the player as well as game developer. Many online games offer free trial periods - beta testing is a great opportunity to find out if the game suits your taste as well as pockets.

Do your research thoroughly-usually there are several games competing for players within a genre. Read game reviews before taking the final step.

How to Use System Restore "Windows XP"

2010-04-02T07:29:00.000-07:00

Basically, System Restore is like a little hound that runs behind the scenes taking "snapshots" of various parts of the Microsoft Windows XP operating system. So, if a part of Microsoft Windows XP stops working one day, the System Restore utility is able to reference one of the "snapshots" it took and restore your system from a previous day (a day when your computer worked). It's kind of like going back in time to a day when your computer worked. All your current data (Microsoft Word files, etc.) are still retained, so you don't have to worry about losing any present day files.

In order to restore your computer just follow these simple steps:

1. Close any open programs.

2. Click on the Windows "Start" button (normally located on the bottom of your computer desktop)

3. Click on "All Programs"

4. Click on "Accessories"

5. Click on "System Tools"

6. Then click on "System Restore"

7. At this point the System Restore wizard will launch. You will have two options:

a. "Restore my system from an earlier date"

b. "Create a system restore point"

If you just need to restore your system and get it working correctly again, just select option "a" and click "Next."

8. On this screen you can select a date from the calendar that you would like to try and restore from. So, if you knew that your computer worked fine two days ago, just pick that date on the calendar and click "Next."

9. The next screen is the confirmation window. Just verify the information on the screen and click "Next." Windows XP will then reboot and try to restore your system with the settings from the date you selected.

The System Restore process can take anywhere from 10 to 30 minutes depending on how much reconfiguration Windows XP needs to do and how fast of a PC you have. When System Restore is done, a screen will popup with the results of the restore. If it was successful, you can then log into the system and start using the computer again. Any quirky issues that you were having are now hopefully gone.

Now, on step 7b above, I mentioned the "Create a system restore point" option. This option is for when you want to force Windows XP to take a snapshot of your system just before you install a program or alter any system settings that you are not sure of. It is like a safety net for when you install any internet programs (sometimes riddled with spyware) or system drivers (video, audio, etc). If you want to revert back to a virgin state just create a restore point "before" installing any software. This way, if your machine starts acting weird, you can just restore your settings from the selected point.

With a little practice, the System Restore utility is easy to use and a great way to help ensure the safety of your computer.

Tips_Small Business

2010-04-02T06:53:00.000-07:00

Every one of us want to be successful in our careers, and if you have a blooming business, your life can become heaven on earth. When you start to set out for yourself a small business, there are some very important things and small business tips that must be kept in mind so that you can start your organization smoothly. This new firm can be your key to financial freedom without any bounds. Having your own business can be the thing for many of us, who don't want to provide their expertise to any other organization, but would start their own business entrepreneurship.

If you give the necessary time and hard work to it, it is possible that your small firm will become successful and would turn out to be your pot of gold. But it is not so easy to make your commercial baby a real success, and you should have the necessary aptitude, work force, capital along with hard work to make it run. There are some very important things and tips that you must keep in mind and which can help you to take your business in overdrive.

1. Firstly, the most important thing is proper and prior planning. You should have the necessary information about the intricacies. You should know the products and the product line with full details.

2. When you start your new work, it is beneficial to keep the prices of your product cheaper than the major market players. This way people will be willing to try your products. If they like your product or services, you can raise the price later on. But the important thing to keep the quality of the product good, so that consumer think your product as a value for money product.

3. Another very important tip is that you spend a substantial part of your capital on promoting and marketing your brand. If you don't promote your brand, nobody will be able to know about your business, and consequently your sales will remain stagnant. You can even hire professional Advertising Company to promote your product effectively. Nowadays, the best method to promote you brand is through internet.

4. When you start a new small business, it is very important to hire an experienced and professional work force. A commercial organization is known by the people it employs. So, higher experienced and professional technicians should be hired, even if they charge you more than the market rate.

5. Before starting a small business, always pay enough attention to legal issues and insurance matters. This way you will be able to deal with any complication that may arise in future.

6. Always try to use new technologies and automated machines in your commercial organization. It always pays to remain connected with new technology. You don't want you to be left behind in today's modern age.

7. Last but not the least, a new business require hard work, proper organization and determination. You should remember that every big industry was once a small business organization.

Managing might look like a daunting task, but once you get the hang of it, and the right small business tips, you won't enjoy anything as much as your own business. Having a successful business truly pays off, after all the hard work and determination that is put in it.

Small Business Essentials provides you with the best small business tips in order to make your business a lot more successful.