Web

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In computing, a web application or web app is a client-server software applicationin which the client (or user interface) runs in a web browser.^[1]

Web applications are popular due to the ubiquity of web browsers, and the convenience of using a web browser as a client to update and maintain web applications without distributing and installing software on potentially thousands of client computers is a key reason for their popularity, as is the inherent support for cross-platform compatibility. Common web applications include webmail, online retail sales, online auctions, wikis, instant messaging services and many other functions.

Networked-Network

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Networked learning is a process of developing and maintaining connections with people and information, and communicating in such a way so as to support one another's learning. The central term in this definition is connections. It takes a relational stance in which learning takes place both in relation to others and in relation to learning resources.

It has been suggested that networked learning offers educational institutions more functional efficiency, in that the curriculum can be more tightly managed centrally, or in the case of vocational learning, it can reduce costs to employers and tax payers. However, it is also argued that networked learning is too often considered within the presumption of institutionalized or educationalised learning, thereby omitting awareness of the benefits that networked learning has to informal or situated learning.

Inter-Network

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Internet working is the practice of connecting a computer network with other networks through the use of gateways that provide a common method of routing information packets between the networks. The resulting system of interconnected networks is called an inter network, or simply an internet. Internet working is a combination of the words inter ("between") and networking; not internet-working or international-network.

The most notable example of inter networking is the Internet, a network of networks based on many underlying hardware technologies, but unified by an inter networking protocol standard, the Internet Protocol Suite, often also referred to asTCP/IP.

The smallest amount of effort to create an internet (an inter network, not the Internet), is to have two LAN's of computers connected to each other via a router. Simply using either a switch or a hub to connect two local area networks together doesn't imply inter networking, it just expands the original LAN.

ARPANET

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was an early packet switching network and the first network to implement the protocol suite TCP/IP. Both technologies became the technical foundation of the Internet. ARPANET was initially funded by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the United States Department of Defense.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) is a predecessor to the modern Internet. It was conceptualized in the 1950s, when computer scientists needed something better than the then available but unreliable switching nodes and network links.
There were also only a limited number of large, powerful research computers, and researchers with access were separated geographically. The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) commissioned the development of an advanced and reliable way to connect these computers through a newly devised packet switching network, which was known as ARPANET.

Browser

A browser is an application program that provides a way to look at and interact with all the information on the World Wide Web. The word "browser" seems to have originated prior to the Web as a generic term for user interfaces that let you browse (navigate through and read)text files online.

Technically, a Web browser is a client program that uses HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) to make requests of Web servers throughout the Internet on behalf of the browser user. Most browsers support e-mail and the File Transfer Protocol (FTP) but a Web browser is not required for those Internet protocols and more specialized client programs are more popular.

The first Web browser, called WorldWideWeb, was created in 1990. That browser's name was changed to Nexus to avoid confusion with the developing information space known as the World Wide Web. The first Web browser with a graphical user interface was Mosaic, which appeared in 1993. Many of the user interface features in Mosaic went into Netscape Navigator. Microsoft followed with its Internet Explorer (IE).

NSFNET

The term "NSFNET" refers to a program of coordinated, evolving projects sponsored by the National Science Foundation that was initiated in 1985 to support and promote advanced networking among U.S. research and education institutions. Participants in NSFNET projects began with the national supercomputer centers and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and continued over time with a partnership team including Merit Network, Inc., IBM, MCI, Advanced Network & Services, Inc., and the State of Michigan; regional networks; and many institutions in research and education. Projects included the construction of data networks as well as the outreach required to spur adoption of networking technologies by researchers and educators. 

NSFNET is also the name given to a nationwide physical network that was constructed to support the collective network-promotion effort. That network was initiated as a 56 kbps backbone in 1985. The network was significantly expanded from 1987 to 1995, when the early version of NSFNET was upgraded to T1 and then T3 speeds and expanded to reach thousands of institutions. Throughout this period, many projects were associated with the NSFNET program, even as the backbone itself became widely known as "the NSFNET." 

From its inception as a part of NSF's overall inventory of high speed computing and communications infrastructure development, the NSFNET program was a pioneering force in academic computing infrastructure development and in the enhancement of research efforts through advanced network services. The NSFNET backbone, in its support of the broader set of NSFNET programs, linked scientists and educators on university campuses nationwide to each other and to their counterparts in universities, laboratories, government agencies, and research centers throughout the world. 

By design, the NSFNET backbone made high speed networking available to national supercomputer centers and to inter-linked regional networks, which in turn worked to extend network availability to other research and educational organizations. Previously, only specific communities in computer science had limited access to networks such as CSNET, BITNET, and ARPANET, so the introduction of the NSFNET backbone represented a significant development in creating a unified and more comprehensive network infrastructure. By combining high-speed networking and connection between the supercomputing centers and regional networks, NSF created a "network of networks" that served as the focal point of nationwide networking during a critical period of pivotal development and that laid the foundation for today's Internet.

Brief History of Internet

The history of the Internet begins with the development of electronic computers in the 1950s. Initial concepts of packet networking originated in several computer science laboratories in the United States, Great Britain, and France. The US Department of Defense awarded contracts as early as the 1960s for packet network systems, including the development of the ARPANET (which would become the first network to use the Internet Protocol.) The first message was sent over the ARPANET from computer science Professor Leonard Kleinrock's laboratory at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) to the second network node at Stanford Research Institute (SRI).
Packet switching networks such as ARPANET, NPL network, CYCLADES, Merit Network, Tymnet, and Telenet, were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s using a variety of communications protocols. Donald Davies was the first to put theory into practice by designing a packet-switched network at the National Physics Laboratory in the UK, the first of its kind in the world and the cornerstone for UK research for almost two decades.^[1][2] Following, ARPANET further led to the development of protocols for internetworking, in which multiple separate networks could be joined into a network of networks.
Access to the ARPANET was expanded in 1981 when the National Science Foundation (NSF) funded the Computer Science Network (CSNET). In 1982, the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) was introduced as the standard networking protocol on the ARPANET. In the early 1980s the NSF funded the establishment for national supercomputing centers at several universities, and provided interconnectivity in 1986 with the NSFNET project, which also created network access to thesupercomputer sites in the United States from research and education organizations. CommercialInternet service providers (ISPs) began to emerge in the very late 1980s. The ARPANET was decommissioned in 1990. Limited private connections to parts of the Internet by officially commercial entities emerged in several American cities by late 1989 and 1990,^[3] and the NSFNET was decommissioned in 1995, removing the last restrictions on the use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic.
In the 1980s, the work of Tim Berners-Lee in the United Kingdom, on the World Wide Web, theorised the fact that protocols link hypertext documents into a working system,^[4] marking the beginning of the modern Internet. Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has had a revolutionary impact on culture and commerce, including the rise of near-instant communication by electronic mail, instant messaging,voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone calls, two-way interactive video calls, and the World Wide Web with its discussion forums, blogs, social networking, and online shopping sites. The research and education community continues to develop and use advanced networks such as NSF's very high speed Backbone Network Service (vBNS), Internet2, and National LambdaRail. Increasing amounts of data are transmitted at higher and higher speeds over fiber optic networks operating at 1-Gbit/s, 10-Gbit/s, or more. The Internet's takeover of the global communication landscape was almost instant in historical terms: it only communicated 1% of the information flowing through two-waytelecommunications networks in the year 1993, already 51% by 2000, and more than 97% of the telecommunicated information by 2007.^[5] Today the Internet continues to grow, driven by ever greater amounts of online information, commerce, entertainment, and social networking.