РефератыИностранный языкThThe Dependability Of The Web Essay Research

The Dependability Of The Web Essay Research

The Dependability Of The Web Essay, Research Paper


The Dependability of the Web


by Nathan Redman


A new age is upon us – the computer age. More specifically, the


internet. There’s no doubt that the internet has changed how fast and the way


we communicate and get information. The popularity of the net is rising at a


considerable rate. Traffic, the number of people on the web, is four times


what it was a year ago and every thirty seconds someone new logs on to the net


to experience for themselves what everyone is talking about. Even Bill Gates,


founder of Microsoft, a company that really looks into the future in order to


stay ahead of the competition, said the internet is one part of the computer


business that he really underestimated. As one of the richest men in the world


I doubt if he makes too many mistakes. Nobody could have predicted that the


internet would expand at this rate and that’s probably the reason why troubles


are arising about the dependability of the web.


As usage soars (some estimate there will be over eighty million users by


the end of 1997) could the internet overload? Even though no one predicted the


popularity of the net some are quick to foresee the downfall or doomsday of


this fade. If you call it a fade. The demand continues to rise and is now so


great that technological improvements are continually needed to handle the


burden that’s been created from all of the people using the net.


Their are many things that can lighten the load that’s been slowing down


the internet. First, it needs to have a lot better organization because with


over seventy-five million web pages, and rising steadily fast, being able to


pin-point the information you are trying to find is very difficult. It’s like


finding a needle in a haystack. When you use a search engine to find


information on a certain topic the search can come back with thousands upon


thousands of pages or sites. Sometimes with over fifty-thousand. Now you have


the never ending task of looking through each site to find what you want. Plus,


with links on most pages people can end up getting lost real fast and not being


able to find their way back. Search engines should develop what I call the


filter down affect. In the filter down affect a broad topic is chosen and then


sub-topics are chosen continuously until the list of sites has narrowed the


search to respectable sites and the information needed. Having better


organization would remove some of the worthless sites around cyperspace from


ending up first in the search engines results.


A second way to lighten the load of the internet is by improving the


time it takes to load a page. The speed of loading a page depends greatly on


the type of equipment, software, how much memory you have, your connection speed,


plus a lot of other factors, but web page designers should make more text and


less graphics, animation, and video because text takes a lot less time to load.


According to an October 1996 survey by AT&T, sixty-seven percent of sites were ?


off the net? for at least on hour per day because of overload. The web wasn’t


designed to handle graphics, animation, audio, and video. It was first


developed for E-mail (electronic mail) and transferring text files, but web


page designers want their pages to look the best so that people or for in the


case of business, potential customers, visit their site and are impressed by it


so they come back in the future and tell others about the site. After all, the


best way to have people visit your web site is by word of mouth because it i

s


very hard for people to find the site unless they happen to know the exact


address. Sometimes though, popularity can kill a site. For instance, when the


weather got bad in Minnesota one weekend the National Weather Service web site


got overloaded with people wanting to read and see the current weather forecasts.


The result was the server going down from the overload leaving nobody the


ability to visit that site. With more businesses seeing the dollar signs that


the web could produce they compete for advertising on the web because it is much


cheaper then advertising on television or the newspaper and it can reach people


all the way around the world. Designers for these pages can’t forget that


surfers aren’t willing to wait very long for pages to load so simplifying pages


can make the web a lot faster.


Another way to make things faster is to make sure that servers can


handle the load applied to them. Internet providers want to make money just like


all other businesses so they try fitting as many customers on to one server as


they can. Putting less people on each server would create faster service. Also


popular businesses or sites should have big enough capacities to handle the


amount of people that visit. Slow servers will lose a lot of business. Internet


providers and businesses should look at future capacities and not just to


current loads.


As in the case of doomsday more and more fears of logging into


cyberspace are beginning to receive attention. As mentioned above, speed is a


major concern. Besides what is recommended, technological improvements need to


be developed. For example, bigger pipelines (lines carrying computer data) like


fiber optics and satellite transmission are receiving high ratings from people,


but like all good things in life putting bigger pipelines in the ground takes a


lot of time and money. If the government or private industries are willing to


lay the foundation for putting in faster lines it will change the world just


like the railroad tracks in the 1800’s.


Another major fear of people on the superhighway of information is


security. Hackers (people that get into data on computers they aren’t suppose


to) can hack into a lot of private information on the information superhighway.


In reality it isn’t any different then credit cards and valuables being stolen


in the real world. Their is currently cybercops surfing the web looking for


illegal happenings on the information superhighway. Patrolling the web is only


one way to help put a stop to hackers. Encrypting and making better security


software needs to be developed along with other computer technology to help


control hackers or cybercriminals.


Theirs no denying the fact that the internet is very powerful in today’s


world. It combines text, audio, animation, video and graphics all in one and at


the click of a button you can receive entertainment and news, communicate with


people around the world, do your banking, reserve tickets, buy, sell and trade


merchandise or collectibles, or even order dinner for the night. These are just


a few things that can be accomplished on the net. People aren’t only attracted


to what the internet has to offer now but to what will be available in the near


future. Some day computers will replace our television, radio, answering


machine, and telephone. Technology is developing so rapidly that things not


even imaginable will be developed to make our lives easier but more confusing.


After all, no one predicted where the net is today and how fast it would it


would develop.

Сохранить в соц. сетях:
Обсуждение:
comments powered by Disqus

Название реферата: The Dependability Of The Web Essay Research

Слов:1325
Символов:8451
Размер:16.51 Кб.