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Computers and Internet

The Internet is a global communications network of computer networks usually connected by fiber optic cables, copper wires, radio signals and other such means of connectivity. The internet can be viewed as a hierarchy of connections. The simplest unit is the computer. Each computer can belong to a network. These computer networks are connected to each other to make up the internet.

Computers are storage devices that stores software and applications as well as data or information. The software or application stored in the computers gives a person the capability to manipulate enormous amounts of data, as well as store these data.

A computer network is a set of computers that are connected to each other through wireless technology or through the more traditional cables. In a computer network, people get to share the memory and space of the other computers, the applications, as well as the information stored in these computers. Of course, the amount of sharing among the computers in a network is determined by access privileges made available to each one in the network. This is because a computer in a network may be designated as an administrator, and thus, it is the only one which has absolute authority over the rest of the computers in the network. On the other hand, if the computers are configured equally in a network, there is unrestricted sharing of information across the computers.

The internet is a more complex version of a simple computer network. It is a network itself, not of computers, but of computer networks. The internet is the way by which data can be transferred and accessed from one computer network to another. Data is transferred using the process known as packet switching, and utilizing the Internet Protocol.

The internet is formed through agreements between institutions on how exchange of data will be made and how the member networks are hierarchically arranged. This is the essence of the internet protocol. There are three available layers of internet protocol: The basic Internet Protocol or IP, the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), and the application protocol.

The use of the internet began with the military when critical military information needed to be passed quickly across the world. Military technology plus academic genius made the internet the complex structure that it is now. The internet is now accessible to everyone in the world who has a computer that belongs to a network of computers. Through the internet, one can have access to the information or data found in the World Wide Web.

The World Wide Web or www for short pertains to the worldwide collection of linked documents and information resources. It is distinct from the internet. The internet is the way or the structure through which the World Wide Web can be accessed; it does not refer to the linked documents and information themselves. Simply speaking, the internet is the information superhighway and the connected documents and information, collectively, is the World Wide Web.