IS2034 - Week 2

• Living in the Information Age

• The International Information

Society and YOU!

• SC Chap 7

Introduction

Telecommunications (networks) Applications (software programmes) An information superhighway ~ Internet The irrelevance of physical distance An electronic village? Challenges and opportunities? Business Possibilities?

What is the Internet?

Networks - computers "connected" by "media" and software

Internet - network of networks Ownership and management Origins - ARPANET - 1969 Worldwide connectivity (almost) Uses of the Internet.

How does information flow on the Internet? - 1

Clients and Servers "Packet switching" and "routing" Direct Providers - Companies, Universities Internet Service Providers (ISPs)

– Asiaonline, Hong Kong Supernet, Netvigator Backbones, dedicated and leased lines

How does information flow on the Internet? - 2

Internet Addresses and domain names Uniqueness of the IP Address International format of addresses 144.214.2.1 - or - cityu.edu.hk hippo.ru.ac.za - or - 146.231.128.1 edu, com, int, org, gov, net, hk, br, jp, cn,... Non-standard Address Formats

– bu.edu, scmp.com, hk.super.net

Internet Applications

World Wide Web (WWW, W3, Web) Electronic Mail (Email) File Transfer Protocol (FTP) Telnet

World Wide Web - WWW, W3, Web

Information linked to information. The use of hyperlinks

– HTTP - HyperText Transfer Protocol– Multimedia plug-ins (7.12-13)– Java applets, ActiveX (12.31)

Text, audio, graphics, animation, video, … Webcasting - information pushed to you Web publishing Webmaster

WWW Characteristics

Why are hyperlinks powerful? What are the limitations of the WWW?

– Speed, Volume, Cost, Accessibility, Usefulness How do web pages actually work?

– HTML - Hypertext Markup Language– Marked-up text and Tags

Surfing the web

WWW - Browsers

To view web pages, you need a Web Browser - Netscape, Mosaic, Microsoft Internet Explorer

Home Pages URLs - Uniform Resource Locators History Lists Bookmarks

– permanence

WWW - More Features

Saving documents Saving pictures Expired links Cookies Privacy and security. Problems with graphic intensive pages

WWW - Searching for Information

Portals– Yahoo Altavista Lycos

Search Engines– Infind Fast

Intelligent Searching and Asking Proxy Servers Limitations - cost, censorship, freedom

Email

Very widely used as a communication tool Sending messages from person to person (1 to 1), or

person to people (1 to many) Messages are usually text, but can also include

attachments Creating, Sending, Receiving, Saving, Forwarding,

Deleting Address Books and IP Addresses isrobert@is.cityu.edu.hk

FTP

Exchange files with other computers on the Internet

Freeware or shareware files. Files may be compressed Access may be restricted to those who have

accounts/passwords on the computers Anonymous logins

Telnet

Permits logins to remote computers Access services provided by the remote

computer Library catalogue access Access to your mainframe-based email

account when outside CityU Telnet becoming less popular as the WWW

takes over.

Others

Newsgroups - online typed discussion on a particular subject.

Mailing lists - info sent to a list of email addresses

Chat Rooms - real-time typed conversation

Intranets (and extranets)(9.32-33)

You can see that the Inernet is a powerful tool and that the WWW can be a useful way to deliver information.

Some organisations have now adapted these technologies to their own internal use, i.e. for internal information.

This is known as an Intranet Access to an Intranet is only possible to members

of the organisation

Doing Business on the Internet:Electronic Commerce (EC)

Doing Business on the Internet - 1

Use of the Internet for advertising and promotion

Use of the Internet for Sales and Service provision

Use of the Internet for information delivery Use of the Internet for home entertainment Misuse of the Internet?

Doing Business on the Internet - 2

24-hours a day access Global Presence Lower Marketing Costs Lower Employee Costs (salaries) Lower Storage Costs Feedback - 2 way communications Working Around the clock

Doing Business on the Internet - 3Examples:

Global Organisations Hotels Travel Agents and Airlines - CX HK Telecom - Interactive TV

– http://www.hktitv.com Park'nShop Newspapers

The Future of the WWW?

Faster? Slower?Cheaper? More expensive?Better?? Worse? The same?More integrated with our lives?More effective searching for

information?Security?Privacy?

Predictions

The primary channel of communication? An integral part of education? The cause of World War 3? One network for telephone, TV, radio,

computer,…? All electronic devices connected -

microwave, washing machine, computer,…? You?

Information Information SuperhighwaySuperhighway

A network of high-speed A network of high-speed data communications links data communications links that will eventually connect that will eventually connect virtually every facet of our virtually every facet of our society.society.

Do you believe it?Do you believe it?Do you want it?Do you want it?