ADVANTAGES & DISADVANTAGES OF THE INTERNET

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Internet
Internet has been perhaps the most outstanding innovation in the field of communication in the history of mankind. As with every single innovation, internet has its own advantages and disadvantages. But usually, greater magnitude of advantages outweighs its disadvantages.

Because of his continuous quest for more and more amenities and facilities, the nineties have seen a major turn around with the invention of computers. 10 years ago, the term internet was practically anonymous to most of the people. And today internet has become the most ever powerful tool for man throughout the world. The internet is a collection of various services and resources. Although, many people still think e-mail and World Wide Web as the principle constituents of internet, there is lot more in store than e-mail, chat rooms, celebrity web sites and search engines. It also became the best business tool of modern scenario. Today internet has brought a globe in a single room. Right from news across the corner of the world, wealth of knowledge to shopping, purchasing the tickets of your favorite movie-everything is at your finger tips. Internet has great potential and lot to offer… however, like every single innovation in science and technology, internet has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages

Communication: The foremost target of internet has always been the communication. And internet has excelled beyond the expectations .Still; innovations are going on to make it faster, more reliable. By the advent of computer’s Internet, our earth has reduced and has attained the form of a global village.Now we can communicate in a fraction of second with a person who is sitting in the other part of the world. Today for better communication, we can avail the facilities of e-mail; we can chat for hours with our loved ones. There are plenty messenger services in offering. With help of such services, it has become very easy to establish a kind of global friendship where you can share your thoughts, can explore other cultures of different ethnicity.

Information is probably the biggest advantage internet is offering. The Internet is a virtual treasure trove of information. Any kind of information on any topic under the sun is available on the Internet. The search engines like Google, yahoo is at your service on the Internet. You can almost find any type of data on almost any kind of subject that you are looking for. There is a huge amount of information available on the internet for just about every subject known to man, ranging from government law and services, trade fairs and conferences, market information, new ideas and technical support, the list is end less.Students and children are among the top users who surf the Internet for research. Today, it is almost required that students should use the Internet for research for the purpose of gathering resources. Teachers have started giving assignments that require research on the Internet. Almost every coming day, researches on medical issues become much easier to locate. Numerous web sites available on the net are offering loads of information for people to research diseases and talk to doctors online at sites such as, America’s Doctor. During 1998 over 20 million people reported going online to retrieve health information.

Entertainmentis another popular raison d'être why many people prefer to surf the Internet. In fact, media of internet has become quite successful in trapping multifaceted entertainment factor. Downloading games, visiting chat rooms or just surfing the Web are some of the uses people have discovered. There are numerous games that may be downloaded from the Internet for free. The industry of online gaming has tasted dramatic and phenomenal attention by game lovers. Chat rooms are popular because users can meet new and interesting people. In fact, the Internet has been successfully used by people to find life long partners. When people surf the Web, there are numerous things that can be found. Music, hobbies, news and more can be found and shared on the Internet.

ServicesMany services are now provided on the internet such as online banking, job seeking, purchasing tickets for your favorite movies, guidance services on array of topics engulfing the every aspect of life, and hotel reservations. Often these services are not available off-line and can cost you more.

Ecommerce is the concept used for any type of commercial maneuvering, or business deals that involves the transfer of information across the globe via Internet. It has become a phenomenon associated with any kind of shopping, almost anything. You name it and Ecommerce with its giant tentacles engulfing every single product and service will make you available at your door steps. It has got a real amazing and wide range of products from household needs, technology to entertainment.

Disadvantages

Theft of Personal informationIf you use the Internet, you may be facing grave danger as your personal information such as name, address, credit card number etc. can be accessed by other culprits to make your problems worse.

Spamming: Spamming refers to sending unwanted e-mails in bulk, which provide no purpose and needlessly obstruct the entire system. Such illegal activities can be very frustrating for you, and so instead of just ignoring it, you should make an effort to try and stop these activities so that using the Internet can become that much safer. Virus threat:Virus is nothing but a program which disrupts the normal functioning of your computer systems. Computers attached to internet are more prone to virus attacks and they can end up into crashing your whole hard disk, causing you considerable headache.

Pornography: This is perhaps the biggest threat related to your children’s healthy mental life. A very serious issue concerning the Internet. There are thousands of pornographic sites on the Internet that can be easily found and can be a detrimental factor to letting children use the Internet.Though, internet can also create havoc, destruction and its misuse can be very fatal, the advantages of it outweigh its disadvantages.

GOOGLE TRANSLATE GADGET

GOOGLE TRANSLATE GADGET-Web page language translation:

Internet World Statistics show that English web surfers represent less than 28% of the Internet population. In other words, if the blog or website is English-only it is largely useless to 72% of Internet users. Free translation gadgets are used on the site to allow visitors to instantly translate the website into the most popular foreign languages.

So the Engineers at Google decided to make the google page more fun and interesting so they added all sorts of gadgets to it. There are some gadgets that are useful at work (to do list, calendar, currency converter), at school (translation tool, calculator, Wikipedia) or just for having fun (games, blogs, news etc).

Google Translate Gadget is a simple and cool application that allows translating words or phrases from one language to another.

Translate the website with Google Translate Gadget:
It becomes almost a necessity to make sure our website or blog are read by people all over the world. This means that the website or blog must be available in many different languages other than English.
Google Translate Gadget is powered by Google translate tools, and supports over 50 languages. The “gadget” is a short code snipped and can be placed anywhere in the website. For a blog, the best place for the gadget is the blog’s sidebar.
For eg, assume an English website powered by Wordpress. Follow these steps:
Go to Google Translate Tools and choose the language of the website
Use the default All languages option
Copy the code snippet shown on the page
In the Wordpress Dashboard, paste the snippet of code in a Text Widget in the Appearance>Widgets and add it to the side bar
That’s it! Now the blog can be read in over 50 languages.
This translator plays an essential role in enabling global communication, and with the rapid growth of and ease of access to digital content. It also helps to make the world’s content more accessible to everyone.

BROWSERSHOTS

Browsershots is an extremely well thought of concept, and a very well designed service.
It is like a godsend for web developers. BROWSERSHOTS-Web page design testing in different browsers

Browsershots is a web-based browser compatibility check tool that helps to preview how our website looks in all popular browsers. It is a free open-source online service created by Johann C. Rochollde.

No email or registration is required. The only work to be performed is to submit the web URL (Uniform Resource Locator) and wait for 3-5 minutes for browsershots to generate screenshots for each browser.

Browsershots contacts other distributed computers over the network. Those computers actually run the URL submitted by the user and then take a screenshot of our webpage, and upload it to the central server. This process takes a few minutes to be finished. Once the process is complete, browsershots will show all the screenshots on the screen as thumbnails. We can hover any thumbnail, and browsershots will expand it to show the actual screenshot.

Features of Browsershots:
Preview website look across 40 different browsers (Firefox, MSIE, Opera, Folk etc).
Full screen preview (includes detailed information) for each selected browser.
Optional settings: Different screen sizes, color depth, Javscript (enabled/disabled), Java (enabled/disabled).
Check out recent test screenshots created by others.

Browsershots is an extremely well thought of concept, and a very well designed service.It is like a godsend for web developers.

WRITING-Basics

THE BASICS:
Writing is the expression of language in the form of letters, symbols, or words. It is used to express & explain ideas. The primary purpose of writing is communication. People have used many tools for writing including paint, pencils, pens, typewriters, and computers. The writing can be formed on the wall of a cave, a piece of paper, or a computer screen. The writing process includes prewriting, composing, revising, editing, and publishing. There are many kinds of writing such as expository, narrative, descriptive, imaginative, and persuasive. Literature is a type of writing that includes poetry, novels, plays, and short stories.

Regardless of the language, writing has many rules including grammar, spelling, and punctuation. People use many tools to assist in their writing such as dictionaries and thesaurus (synonym finder).

WRITING SKILLS:
It's vital to communicate clearly, concisely and effectively.
Audience and Format: The first step to writing clearly is choosing the appropriate format.
The format, as well as your audience, will define your "writing voice" – that is, how formal or relaxed the tone should be.
For instance, if you write an email to a prospective client, should it have the same tone as an email to a friend? definitely not.Start by identifying who will read your message. Is it targeted at senior managers, the entire human resources team, or a small group of engineers? With everything you write, your readers, or recipients, should define your tone as well as aspects of the content.
Composition and Style:Once you know what you're writing, and for whom you're writing, you actually have to start writing.
A blank, white computer screen is often intimidating. And it's easy to get stuck because you don't know how to start. Try these tips for composing and styling your document:
Start with your audience – Remember, your readers may know nothing about what you're telling them. What do they need to know first?
Create an outline – This is especially helpful if you're writing a longer document such as a report, presentation, or speech. Outlines help you identify which steps to take in which order, and they help you break the task up into manageable pieces of information.
Use AIDA – If you're writing something that must inspire action in the reader, follow the Attention-Interest-Desire-Action (AIDA) formula. These four steps can help guide you through the writing process.
Try some empathy – For instance, if you're writing a sales letter for prospective clients, why should they care about your product or sales pitch? What's the benefit for them? Remember your audience's needs at all times.
Use the Rhetorical Triangle – If you're trying to persuade someone to do something, make sure that you communicate why people should listen to you, pitch your message in a way that engages your audience, and present information rationally and coherently.

Identify your main theme – If you're having trouble defining the main theme of your message, pretend that you have 15 seconds to explain your position. What do you say? This is likely to be your main theme.
Use simple language – Unless you're writing a scholarly article, it's usually best to use simple, direct language. Don't use long words just to impress people.
Structure
Your document should be as "reader friendly" as possible. Use headings, subheadings, bullet points, and numbering whenever possible to break up the text.
After all, what's easier to read – a page full of long paragraphs, or a page that's broken up into short paragraphs, with section headings and bullet points? A document that's easy to scan will get read more often than a document with long, dense paragraphs of text.
Headers should grab the reader's attention. Using questions is often a good idea, especially in advertising copy or reports, because questions help keep the reader engaged and curious.
In emails and proposals, use short, factual headings and subheadings, like the ones in this article.
Adding graphs and charts is also a smart way to break up your text. These visual aids not only keep the reader's eye engaged, but they can communicate important information much more quickly than text.
Grammatical Errors
You probably don't need us to tell you that errors in your document will make you look unprofessional. It's essential to learn grammar properly, and to avoid common mistakes that your spell checker won't find.
Here are some examples of commonly misused words:
Affect/effect
"Affect" is a verb meaning to influence. (Example: The economic forecast will affect our projected income.)
"Effect" is a noun meaning the result or outcome. (Example: What is the effect of the proposal?)
Then/than
"Then" is typically an adverb indicating a sequence in time. (Example: We went to dinner, then we saw a movie.)
"Than" is a conjunction used for comparison. (Example: The dinner was more expensive than the movie.)
Your/you're
"Your" is a possessive. (Example: Is that your file?)
"You're" is a contraction of "you are." (Example: You're the new manager.)
Note: Also watch out for other common homophones (words that sound alike but have different spellings and meanings) – such as their/they're/there, to/too/two, and so on.
Its/it's
"Its" is a possessive. (Example: Is that its motor?)
"It's" is a contraction of "It is." (Example: It's often that heavy.) (Yes, it is this way around!)
Company's/companies (and other possessives versus plurals)
"Company's" indicates possession. (Example: The company's trucks hadn't been maintained properly.)
"Companies" is plural. (Example: The companies in this industry are suffering.)
Proofing
The enemy of good proofreading is speed. Many people rush through their documents, but this is how you miss mistakes. Follow these guidelines to check what you've written:
Proof your headers and subheaders – People often skip these and focus on the text alone. Just because headers are big and bold doesn't mean they're error free!
Read the document out loud – This forces you to go more slowly, so that you're more likely to catch mistakes.
Use your finger to follow text as you read – This is another trick that helps you slow down. Start at the end of your document – Proofread one sentence at a time, working your way from the end to the beginning. This helps you focus on errors, not on content.

TELECOMMUNICATION

1. INTRODUCTION TO TELECOMMUNICATIONS

1.1 TELECOMMUNICATIONS: The word Telecommunication is a combination of two words TELE+COMMUNICATION. The word Tele in Latin means Distance. Hence Telecommunication is also known as Distance Communication. The French word telecommunication was coined in 1904 by the French engineer and novelist Edouard Estaunie.

It is defined as the transmission of signals over a distance for the purpose of communication. In earlier times this may have involved the use of smoke signals, drums, semaphore, flags fire or heliograph and other optical communications.
In modern times it typically involves the use of electronic devices such as telephones, televisions, radio or computers with the help of electromagnetic waves by transmitters and receivers. Early inventors in the field of telecommunication include Alexander Graham Bell, Guglielmo Marconi and John L.Baird.

BASIC ELEMENTS
A basic telecommunication system consists of three elements:
· A transmitter that takes information and converts into a signal
· A transmission medium that carries the signal
· A receiver that receives the signal and converts back into usable information.

For example, in a radio broadcast the broadcast tower is the transmitter, free space is the transmission medium and the radio is the receiver. Often telecommunication systems are two-way with a single device acting as both transmitter and receiver or Transceiver. For example, Mobile phone is a transceiver.
Telecommunication over a telephone line is called point-to-point communication because it is between one transmitter and one receiver but communication through radio broadcast is called broadcast communication as it is between one powerful transmitter and numerous receivers.

1.2 PRINCIPLES OF TELECOMMUNICATION SERVICES

The original information energy (human voice, or music, or a telegraph signal) is converted into electrical form to produce an electronic information signal. This is achieved by a suitable transducer, device that converts energy from one form to another whenever required.
When a radio frequency current flows into a transmitting antenna (aerial), power is radiated in a number of directions which is called an Electromagnetic wave.
The radiated energy will reach the receiving station by one or more of the five different propagation modes:
· Surface wave propagation
· Sky wave propagation
· Space wave propagation
· Satellite propagation and
· Scatter wave propagation

MODULATION OF SIGNALS:
Modulation is the process of translating the audio frequencies to higher level frequencies that is suitable for transmission.
In general, it is the process by which some characteristic (amplitude, frequency, and phase) of a carrier is varied in accordance with the modulating wave signal (input).

INPUT OUTPUT
(Modulating / baseband /audio / → MODULATION → (modulated signal)
Low frequency signal) ↓
Carrier (RF-high frequency signal)

NEED FOR MODULATION:
· It simplifies power amplifier design
· Frequency band shifting is made possible
· For efficient radiation and reception antenna height should be comparable to λ/4 of the frequency used.
· Low frequency message is shifted to radio frequency range and can be communicated to a long distance.

TYPES OF MODULATION:

1. Continuous wave modulation-Amplitude modulation (AM)
-Angle modulation-frequency modulation (FM)
-phase modulation (PM)
2. Pulse modulation -analog modulation
-digital modulation

1.3 TELECOMMUNICATION STANDARDS
Standardization is vital in telecommunication as it allows world wide communication. There are international, regional and national standardization agencies.

INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS:
The most encompassing international standard is the ITU (International Telecommunication Union) based in Geneva, Switzerland and has literally over 2000 standards. It has two sectors namely ITU-T (telecommunication sector) produced by CCITT (International Consultative Committee for Telephone & Telegraph) and the other sector is the ITU-R (radio communication sector) produced by CCIR (International Consultative Committee for Radio).

REGIONAL STANDARDS:
Regional standard bodies exist such as CEN (European Committee for Standardization), CEN ELEC (European Committee for Electro Technical Standardization), ETSI (European Telecommunications Standards Institute), IRMM (Institute for Reference Materials and Measurements) in Europe. ETSI is one of the important regional standards which produced the European version digital network PCM.

NATIONAL STANDARDS:
American national standards institute based in New York produces a wide range of standards. EIA (Electronics Industries Association) and TIA (Telecommunication Industries Association) are the standards that are responsible for the preparation and dissemination of telecommunication standards.
The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) standard produces 802 series specification used for enterprise networks.
The ATSC (Advanced television System Committee) standard used for video compression is used to produce CATV (Cable Television standards) standard.

ARE YOU A GOOD LISTENER

Are you a good listener?
“A listener, who truly hears, is a gem. They will not only hear what you are saying, they will understand what you mean. There is nothing more frustrating than expending your energy on a long saga, only to find your audience distracted.”
Communication begins with good listening skills. An active listener is fully present in the situation, attending to the speaker’s body language and each word said. A passive listener on the other hand is wandering and preoccupied with self thoughts. The passive listener may be waiting to jump in at the earliest opportunity to say something about themselves or their point of view and in doing so, might completely miss what the other party has said.
Many people may believe that they are already good listeners. Take the test by answering the following questions:
While listening, are you thinking about the next question to ask?
While listening, are you thinking how to top what has just been said?
While listening, are you getting angry or judging what has been said?
While listening, are you switching off and thinking about something completely different?
Answering "yes" to the above questions indicates poor listening skills. Good listening creates good empathy, which is the first step to making good relationships.
How to Be a Good Listener:
Give attention- Make eye contact with the speaker. Listen keenly and let the speaker know that you are actually listening to him. You can speak phrases like ok, true, yes to show your interest. Ask questions; this shows that you are interested. Smiling helps too! Avoid crossing your arms since this can be interpreted as being closed off. If you're speaking with someone who's sitting, you should sit too. Standing over someone is too authoritative and may make the other person feel uncomfortable.
But why do all this - It gives the speaker a boost and further encourages explaining you better.
Do not interrupt- Take the time to listen – just relax and open your ears! A good speaker will give you an opportunity to speak once you have listened to him.
Empathize- When someone shares information with you, put yourself in his shoes. Doing this will allow the two of you to discover solutions more easily and will also help you appreciate a perspective different from your own.
Don’t change the subject- Changing the subject means that your attention is elsewhere or you are not interested in the conversation. This gives the impression that you give little importance to what the speaker has to say.

E-SERVER

Email Server:
An email server is a computer that acts as an electronic post-office, to send and receive electronic mails. An email server usually stores the following items:
· Emails for local users
· Rules about how to handle emails
· Database of user accounts

Types of Email Servers:
The following are some of the types of email servers:
· Post Office Protocol 3 (POP 3): These servers retain the emails until you check them, and delete them after you check. This is the most common type for personal email accounts.
· Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP): These servers let you preview, delete, and organize emails without you having to download them to your computer. These servers store a copy of the email until you delete it. This is commonly used for business accounts.
· Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP): These servers send your emails to the Internet. Since these servers handle out-going emails, they work with POP3 or IMAP to receive emails.

How an Email Server Works:
The following steps detail how an email server works:
1. When you click Send, the SMTP server (which handles out-going emails) looks for the domain name in the recipient’s address. Details of domain names and their corresponding IP addresses are stored in the DNS Server.
2. The SMTP server connects to the DNS Server and fetches the recipient’s IP address.
3. The SMTP server breaks up the email into smaller packets and sends the packets to the recipient’s domain over the Internet.
4. The packets pass through several servers before connecting to the recipient’s domain name (IP address). Once in the recipient’s domain name, checks if the recipient’s address belongs to the specified domain name, and then sends the email to the recipient’s domain name.
5. The POP3 server on the recipient’s domain name delivers the email to the specified recipient and retains it until he/she checks it.
If you are sending the email within the same domain, then the SMTP server sends the email to the local POP3 or IMAP server.
MS Exchange, IBM Lotus Domino, Novell Netmail, and Zimbra are some of the popular email servers.

Relation Between a Domain Name, an Email Address, and an Email Server
The domain name identifies one or more IP addresses. Suppose my email address is writer@work.com, and suppose hyd.com is the company that hosts work.com. If mailserv1 is the email server designated to store all the emails for work.com, then when I get an email, it is stored in mailserv1.hyd.com. mailserv1.com then delivers the email to my mail box, which is writer@work.com.
Email Client
An email client downloads your emails from an email server (usually a remote system) and stores on your system. Some popular email clients are MS Outlook, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, and Eudora.