technology and the internet

In the 10 years since Internet Explorer was first
released as an add-on for Windows 95, the Internet landscape has changed in
many ways — maturing from an environment populated mainly by the military,
academia and professional research groups into a world open to everybody in
which sound, movement, and dynamic content is the norm.

It is difficult to underestimate the change that easy and widespread access
to the Internet has made to our way of life. "The Web" is now so popular
it has permeated our everyday life, changing how we stay in touch, share
information, complete chores, and even earn an income. A whole new industry has
sprung up dedicated to providing new ways to improve productivity, in the
process changing how we communicate and allowing us to fit ever more into our
ever busier lives.

When we think of the Internet, and how it has changed our lives, the first
things that come to mind for many are e-mail, Internet banking, and online
shopping. But there is so much more than that. As part of preparing for this
column, I had a look at all of computers in my home, old and new, to see what
we had installed over time.

Over the years my family and I have used an amazing array of programs as
part of our day to day life including flight trackers when any of us are
traveling, scrolling stock tickers to monitor our investments, online news and
weather alerts and e-mail subscriptions. I also found quite a few instant
messenger programs including ICQ, Microsoft MSN, AOL, Trillian, Yahoo
Messenger, and Google Talk.





An amazing variety of technology has been inspired by,
and is dependent upon, the Internet

Sharing and finding information



The popularity and accessibility of the Internet has been the driving force
behind many improvements and new technologies. Even technologies that were
around for a long time before the Net went mainstream have benefited from its
explosion in popularity.

Take RSS (Really Simple Syndication) for example. This technology has been
around since 1999 but has only become popular over the past few years. RSS is a
way of subscribing to a special type of Web page. Using an intermediary called
an Aggregator, these special Web pages can be automatically scanned for
updates. Whereas once it was primarily popular amongst Web Bloggers, RSS is now
seen on all sorts of Web sites. RSS is especially useful with high content Web
sites such as news sites allowing us to quickly scan all articles, downloading
only that which is of interest.





RSS makes it easy to wade through a lot of information
very quickly

Another technology that has become popular in very recent times is
podcasting, which is a way for users to subscribe to audio syndications on the
net. An early adopter of this way of distributing audio content was Web radio.
If you would like to check out this technology, Podcast.net
provides a comprehensive list of podcasters. A good example of user friendly
podcasting is http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/.

Blogging is a global phenomenon. It has been around since the mid-1990s, but
again didn't become popular until the Internet expanded its reach and
influence. Blogging is an individual's online public commentary on whatever
takes their interest on a particular day. The features that make a Blog
different to a standard Web page are that it is possible to comment on a
particular entry; Blogs can be subscribed to (most often using RSS) and Blogs
can cross-reference each other using trackbacks.





Microsoft, and its employees, lead the way when it comes
to blogging


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Staying in touch



We used to write letters to stay in touch with those far away, and if our
correspondent was very special, we would use our trusty film camera to take
some photos before taking the resultant film to the camera shop for developing
— waiting anywhere from an hour to a week to get the prints. We'd then hand
over the cash, go home, put everything in the envelope, stick a stamp on it and
post it off.

Nowadays, we grab our digital camera, take as many shots as we want, upload
them directly on to our PCs, attach a copy to an e-mail and send it off into
the ether. No more developing charges, no more postage. A whole industry has sprung
up around digital cameras and the Internet which encompasses services as
diverse as the online Kodak EasyShare Gallery, Google's Picassa, and the Photo
Gallery on MSN Spaces, all of which are accessed through a Web browser. As
digital cameras have become more popular online printing services have come to
be. We can store, share, and order prints for our photographs from the same
service.

I remember when I was still in Primary School, my father was lucky enough to
spend a year working on an island near Antarctica. Back then, the only contact
that was possible with loved ones was an occasional letter or very limited
telex, limited radio phone time, or the exchange of cassette recordings that
traveled back and forth by ship. Thanks to Satellite Internet access and other
new technologies, current residents on the island have Web cams so that their
families can see them, and the island on which they are living. That is very
different to my father's day. When he stepped off the ship in Melbourne on his
return, the only person that recognized him was my younger sister.

The popularity of the Internet and Web browsing led to a pre-existent
service known as IRC (Internet Relay Chat), which first came into being back in
1998, being reinvented and extended into an easier to use instant messaging
client.

Unlike IRC, instant messaging clients are not plain text only. One of the
forerunners of this new style of service was ICQ, released in 1996. ICQ was
later joined by AOL's AIM chat client in 1997, Yahoo Messenger in June 1999,
MSN Messenger a month later, and Trillian in 2000. Over time, these services
have matured, adding new features and abilities such as voice chat and video.
Some of the chat services are also accessible via our Web browser (for example
MSN Messenger and AIM both have online access services that duplicate their
chat clients in a browser window).

In recent years, VOIP (Voice over IP) has started to gain a foothold. This
service allows us to make telephone calls over the Internet, often at
significant cost saving. Computers fitted with a microphone and speaker have
been the traditional way to use VOIP. Nowadays we have VOIP desktop telephones
and entire business communication networks using the VOIP protocol Programme
such as Skype, and Google Talk (which combines email, chat and a Jabber based
VOIP into one program) are making VOIP easily accessible to anyone with a
computer, microphone and speakers.


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Doing business



The Internet and Web browsers have become an essential tool for business.
For example, on a daily basis I use Outlook Web Access to remotely access my
e-mail and calendar. When I am at home, I use a browser-based Web console to
remotely manage anti-spyware and anti-virus protection on my networked PCs.
Then, I may fire up Groove Virtual Office or access a SharePoint server for
some remote collaboration. For live, interactive meetings I may use hosted Web
conferencing such as Live Meeting. As an IT Pro, I can use Windows XP's Remote
Desktop or NetMeeting to access other PCs in the office without having to run
from floor to floor.

It was only natural that as the Internet became more widespread, and
businesses became more dependent upon it, that a need would arise for road
warriors to find new ways to stay in touch. So started the era of the PDA then
the Smart Phone. Internet Cafés began to appear as well as wireless hotspots.

I realized just how far we have progressed when I traveled to Seattle
recently. I was able to sit in the middle of an airport in Australia that has
no public Internet access, plug a matchbox sized USB wireless broadband modem
into the side of my laptop and surf the net just like at home. Alternatively, I
can access a wireless hotspot simply by entering my mobile phone number into a
log in screen in my Web browser, wait for an SMS message with my authorization
code and then start surfing the Web. I've never liked using Internet Cafés
because of the risk of keyloggers or other nasties, so the ever growing hotspot
network is a welcome change.

I wonder what the future holds for us and the Internet, and where we will be
in another five years time. If services like Google
Earth are anything to go by, the future is going to be pretty amazing stuff.