Topic 2 - The Internet

• There are a lot of pornographic images and videos on the internet.
  • There are laws covering the production and distribution of this material but as much of this material comes from other countries, where the material is perfectly legal, there is not much that can be done to stop it
  • The main worry adults have is that young children could accidentally access this material
  • Unless special software is used, children can easily gain access to pornographic or violent images.

• There is an increased risk of stalking and grooming with the misuse of social media
• Illegal downloading of music and films
• Because of the increased commercial value of activities, a few media giants could take control on the internet
• There is also no control over the people who can access the material on the Internet - Privacy/Plagiarism/Hacking

The use of a web crawler - It continually searches the web looking for new pages and recording information they find which browses the web and keeps an index of what it finds

The use of a search engine - An application accessed over the internet that maintains indexes of web pages and logical operators/key words to find information you require

Use the Uniform Resource Locator (URL) - The recognised method for referring to resources on the internet. If you know the web address (URL) of a site you can simply type it in

Use hyperlinks - An area of a web page that contains a link to another location on the web. You can surf the internet, which means that you are using hyperlinks to move from one area of interest to another.

Online Database - Product, customer and order information is readily available to the company from anywhere, and customers can place their orders over the internet.

A database of something on the internet/what it is used for

A network of networks

Dialup

Dialup is very slow and limits its uses - a download done on dialup can take minutes compared to broadband

Can be used on a phone line

Broadband

Broadband is not available everywhere 

Broadband allows more devices to be connected to the internet at the same time

Advantages

• Can improve performance by adding more computers
• Can pass work to computers anywhere in the world using the Internet
• Reduces cost because an expensive powerful computer such as a supercomputer is not needed

Disadvantages

• Issues with the security of the data spread out on so many different computers
• Heavy reliance on networks and communications which may not always be reliable
• Increased costs owing to the use of expensive communication lines

Distributed Computing - Where a series of computers are networked together, and they work on solving the same problem. Each computer shares data processing and the same bandwidth, in order to solve a single problem.

SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) project - The purpose of the SETI project is to search for intelligent life outside the Earth and to do this a radio telescope is used.

In order to search for the narrow-bandwidth signals lots of computing power is needed.

At first supercomputers containing parrallel processors were used to process the huge amount of the data from the telescopes.

Then someone came up with the idea of using a virtual supercomputer consisting of a huge number of Internet-connected home computers.

Advantages

• You are not limited to file size unlike with email attachments
• Allows reliable transfers of files between platforms
• Greater Security in transfer of information
• Can have greater control of remote computer

Advantages

• Order Tracking
• Much quicker to do a price comparison
• See other customer reviews
• Allows disabled people to do more shopping
• Can find obscure goods not available locally
• Better deals available online

Disadvantages

• Fake websites - Goods do not exist
• Credit card fraud
• Lack of social interaction
• Fewer shops on the high street

Advantages

• People can email them with enquires, orders, requests
• More efficient customer targeting
• Can reach an international audience
• Large savings on shop, warehouse and office space
• Can target sales because you can see rivals prices on their website and alter your prices

Disadvantages

• Need for training staff
• Increase in delivery vans
• Cost of maintaining a company website
• Competitors can see your prices and target your company

network downtime can be expensive

File Transfer Protocol - A standard set of rules that have been established to allow the exchange of large files over the internet.

It is used for:

• Uploading a database of sales from one branch of the organisation to the head office
• Used for down/uploading a website from/onto the internet
• Distribute information on their new sales catalogue between the company and their customers and suppliers

Catalogue of stock

This means that customers are able to see the goods and see whether something is available or whether there is a delay

A shopping trolley

Customers are able to view the items all together right before they purchase them so that they can do a final check/make changes/see total price

Email Confirmation

So that the customer knows that the order/purchase went through/was successful

Maintaining a company website

The website must be maintained in order for it to run smoothly

Advantages

Can work anywhere in the home or office (teleworking)

Can access e-mail, surf the internet from wherever you are (on the move)

Can easily modify your plans - flights, trains, hotels

Disadvantages

Affects work/home balance

Increased security problems from hacking

Many blackspots/poor connectivity