Google Responds To Breaches By Employees

Giant Google made a mistake a little while ago, acknowledged the mistake and the management maturely apologized for its mistake. Ironically, while some countries have asserted the company's act was illegal, Google has maintained that it didn't break any laws.

What really happened?

In May, one of Google's engineers had created a program that vacuumed up potentially sensitive personal information, including e-mails and passwords, from unsecure wireless networks while Google cars cruised neighborhoods around the world. The cruise was primarily for Google's online mapping service. But they, reportedly, also carried an equipment to log the location of Wi-Fi networks.

According to a report by Canada Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart late last month, the incident was caused by: "an engineer's careless error as well as lack of controls to ensure that necessary procedures to protest privacy were followed."

Consequently, the leading search engine is tightening its privacy leash on employees in an effort to ensure that they don't intrude on people while Google collects and stores information about its users.

How? According to a report by Yahoo, Google said that it will require all 23,000 of its employees to undergo privacy training. The company is also introducing more checks aimed at making sure workers are obeying the rules.

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"We are mortified by what happened, but confident that these changes to our processes and structure will significantly improve our internal privacy and security practices for the benefits of all our users."

Alan Eustace, Google head engineer.

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Scams Vs E-Learning

I really appreciate the benefits that the Internet has brought along. Most importantly, I really applaud the promotion of education. For instance, classes are being administered online these days; Wikipedia and its sister encyclopedias offer free references to everything; we have sites providing free tutorials such as the w3school; which offers free tutorials on the markup and scripting languages; and, we also have free e-books.

These days, it is common for people to choose a relevant virtual academy, fill in electronic forms, pay some dollars in the registration process, take an exam, await the results, and finally, receive a well earned certificate.

On the other hand, what if these certificates are fake? What if these online academies do not comply with the regulations? What if this whole thing happens to be just but another Internet scam?

Yahoo reported, late last week but one, that the Texas Attorney General's office is suing 3 online home schools. To quote the report:
"A State district judge in El Paso granted a temporary retaining order on Thursday to close the Advent Harvest Academy schools run by Teri Tout-Dennis and Mike Martin of Tarrant county."
"The AG's suit accuses the men of unlawfully marketing fake high school diplomas to people who paid $225 to enroll in their uncredited program and take a test."

According to Yahoo, a temporary injunction hearing will be held this Nov, on 4^th.

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Some cool educational links:

• Reference: Wikipedia.
• Free Tutorials: w3school, A+ Certification, N+ Certification...
• Free e-books: free-ebooks.net

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3 Characteristics Of Information That Online Publishers And Marketers Should Pay Attention To - Richness

Previously... parent post.

1. Reach.

2. Richness.
This refers to the content itself. Marketers, as the experts say it, can achieve this by making rich information available about their products. For publishers, this can be a little more complicated. But not as complicated as I make it sound.

Since publishers focus on maintaining existing readers and attracting new ones, a lot more work needs to be done to achieve rich content. From the experts mouth, this are arguably:

• Deep content - this is where you base your content on a topic that you have a deep knowledge.
• Diverse content - this is where you provide a variety of content on your site.
• A gift to the community - this is where you add something unique to your site that is intended to enrich the entire Internet, i.e. a service, a tool, or a combination of both.
• Own voice - this is by simply being distinctive. Having a distinct voice.

3. Affiliation.

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"Viewing a web site is like looking at a painting through a magnifying glass: a visitor never has more than a small view of the entire thing. Without a special assistance, it's a challenge for visitors to discover what has changed on a site since their last visit."

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Is Facebook Ad Data Outing Gay Users?

Just let me ask you this question:
Have you heard the story of a man who ended his life after he was outed online as a gay man? Tyler Clementi, as it was reported by Yahoo, posted his last words on Facebook before taking his own life: "Jumping off the gw bridge sorry".

Well this happened a little while ago and I believe that the news is all over Facebook. And to mention Facebook, I wonder if you know the effect of a single click that you make on a Facebook ad. Let me tell you that this is also news!

The ads on Facebook happen to be, not only well displayed, but also well targeted. According to Christopher Soghian, Internet security blogger:
"Simply by clicking on the advertisements, a user could be revealing a bit of highly sensitive personal information to an advertiser, simply due to the fact that the advertiser has only targeted a particular group (gender, sexuality,religion) for that advertisement. Thus the moment you arrive at the advertiser's website, they now know that the IP address and cookie value they have assigned to you is associated with someone that is gay, muslim, or republican..."

But that is not all. To contribute on the issue, Jacqui Cheng writes:
" If the advertiser in question also collects other data such as Facebook ID, then the information can be tied together without any thought, even if the user has not made the information public" "The collection of such information (especially when tied to something as sensitive as sexual orientation) could spell out disaster for a user who thinks he/she is being fastidious when keeping his/her profile private."

The sad part of this news is that Facebook did not immediately respond to The Upshot's request for comments.

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"The researchers set up Facebook profiles for straight men, straight women, a gay woman, and a gay man to monitor the type of ads that appeared on the site when each user was logged in to their profile. They found that the ads for the gay and lesbian users were different - though not balantly so to the user - form the ads that appeared for the straight users."

Yahoo News

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3 Characteristics Of Information That Online Publishers And Marketers Should Pay Attention To - Reach

Previously... parent post.

1. Reach.

This refers to two things. These are:

One,Reach refers to the potential number of readers a publisher can interact with - for publishers, or the potential number of customers a business can interact with - for Marketers. The common word is traffic. Generating this traffic is one of the greatest challenges online publishers, advertisers and marketers face. The strategies involved include:

• Search engine optimization.
• RSS aggregators and directories.
• Social bookmarking sites.
• Pinging services.
• Groups and forums, etc.

Two, Reach also refers to the diversity of the contents publishers can provide, or the number of different categories and products a consumer interface, i.e. store, catalog, website, can cover. For instance, diverse content can be experience in Wikipedia, while a wide range of products can be found in Amazon.

2. Richness.
3. Affiliation.

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"Have you ever seen a web page and wondered: "Hey! How did they do that?" To find out, click the VIEW option in your browser's toolbar and select SOURCE or PAGE SOURCE. This will open a window that shows you the HTML code of the page."

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3 Characteristics Of Information That Online Publishers And Marketers Should Pay Attention To

Information. It is simply knowledge or facts. But Wikipedia has something a little more interesting going on about the definition. This is:

"Information, in its most restricted technical sense, is an ordered sequence of symbols. As a concept, however, information has many meanings.^[1] Moreover, the concept of information is closely related to notions of constraint, communication, control, data, form, instruction, knowledge, meaning, mental stimulus, pattern, perception, and representation."

Nevertheless, it is a fact that this era is not accidentally called the 'Information age'. It is an era that Information is sovereign. Wealth. Leadership. The secrete key to the doors of the unlocked hidden treasures. Ironically, this same Information is free.

Free distribution and sharing of Information, online, is very much evident. This is also true about the promotion of the same. For instance, The W3C's vision is One Web. One of the consortium's primary goals is to make the benefits of the web available to all people, irrespective of their hardware, software, network infrastructure, native language, culture, geographical location, physical or mental ability.

The commercial internet does not tail behind, too, in the promotion of Information. This is evident where Marketers use the 'free newsletters' strategy to market. And, this is just but to mention a few.

Most importantly, Evans and Wurster of Harvard once had an interesting argument.
The two masters of Harvard argued that:

"There are 3 characteristics of Information which, when combined with Disruptive Internet Technologies, can have a major impact on the market place."

These include:

1. Reach.
2. Richness.
3. Affiliation.

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"Disruptive Internet Technologies - Internet-based communication approach which changes the way in which information about products is exchanged, which impacts the basis for competition in a market place."

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Sailing As A Blogger

I knew what a Blog was from the start. But I didn't know that most of the interesting articles, that I was fond of reading, were blog posts. These were posts from well developed and maintained Blogs. Blogs that were, and are, owned by people who not only view blogging as a hobby, but also as a career. I am talking about people who blog day in, day out.

At first I had a certain attitude, a certain notion, about blogging. A Blog was an online diary. Simple. But, I couldn't understand why some people would maintain online personal journals and diaries, while other kept theirs in the safes. So I had no reason to blog.

As time went by, I became a little more conversant with the publishing service. I realized that a Blog was more of an electronic blank book that gave users different ways to publish online. Just as any manual blank book, you only had to choose an appropriate format, a templet, and use it the way you want. I also realized that this was why we had Blogs maintained as online journals, diaries, albums, magazines, some just kept to share jokes, ideas, experiences, and similarly, I realized that this was why Blogs developed solely for business purposes.


The whole thing proved to be just interesting, and I was persuaded to give it a try. I carefully made my first step from the dock onto the cabin of the waiting boat. I picked up the oar and I started rowing the boat. This is how I started sailing as a Blogger.

The environment was gentle, welcoming and encouraging at first. For instance, I remember posting a discussion on Blogger's General Discussion Group, saying: "I'm new here". The responses that I received were so great. I also remember that they had made my day. But, as the mime continued, the wind started blowing a little harder, a little rougher, and, the two oars and the boat could not respond to my rowing efforts anymore.
My inner peace was disturbed. My intelligence was interrupted. As a consequence, I was confused. But somewhere deep down inside of me, I knew that I had to do something. I couldn't give in to embrace failure. So I went back and retraced my whole path again. I also made some consultations and I carried out a research.

My nitial finding were more of a blow in nature. Everybody was just an expert. It was: "Do this". "No, do that". "Hey, that won't work, this will". "Hallo..." There was just a flood of information, and I was ultimately frustrated.

All in all, the struggle had to continue. The only difference is that I had to change my research approach and my information source. For instance, I opted for Wikipedia, Blogger Help, Feedburner Help... rather than a third party site. I also realized that it would be ideal to acquire relevant skills such as HTML, XHTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, and so on. At least, now, I just can't copy a code from a third party site and integrate it in my Blog's header. At least I know that I should keep XHTML away from my site, and I also know the importance of frequently validating my feed.

The best part is, for every step I have been making, I have been learning something new. This struggle is still continuing.

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I anticipate a future when all forms of businesses will be forced to fully computerize their systems, and grab a place in the online market. Or, they simply won't be able to compete.

geo_en

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The Internet Population Stats Table for 2010

Previously... How Big Is The Internet Population (Parent post)

Note:

• The table shows the internet population stats.
• The stats have been grouped according to the 6 world regions.
• The year 2010 has been compaerd to 2000, and the % growth computed as presented in the last column.

World region	Latest 2010 Population	Population 2000	% growth
Africa	1,013,779,050	4,514,400	2,357.3%
Asia	3,834,792,852	114,304,000	621.8%
Europe	813,319,511	105,096,093	352.0%
Middle East	212,336,924	3,284,800	1,825.3%
North America	344,124,450	108,096,800	146.3%
Latin America/Caribbean	592,556,972	18,068,919	1,032.8%
Oceania/Australia	34,700,201	7,620,480	179.0%
World Total	6,845,609,960	360,985,492	444.8%

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"The theory goes, own the browser and you own the audience, and maybe it's wallet too"

Laughs Bill Gates

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How Big Is the Population of the Internet

Initially, my intended question was: How big is the Internet? This question provoked curiosity, curiosity led to research and research revealed two facts:

1. The Internet is a distributed body and no complete index of it exists.
2. In what terms do I want to measure the size of the Internet? - The population online? The number of indexed websites? The distinct servers on the Internet? The traffic running per second? And, the list of similar questions proved to be a long one.

Consequently, I had to narrow down my first question. I had to come up with a single metric that would quench the exact curiosity. This is how I came up with the title of this post: How Big is the Population of the Internet?

In other words, how many users are there online?

First, let's take a little excursion. Let's imagine the Internet back before Mr. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web (before 1989). Or, preferably, let's imagine this Internet after the WWW was created but before it was released by CERN to the public (before 1991). Are you getting the picture? Back then you had to use the SMTP - Simple Mail Transport Protocol, separately to send an e-mail, and chances were, you had to know it.

So, how many users do you think were there online?

We might take a different approach and look at plain facts and existing statistics.

A fact - the World Wide Web ( a system of Internet servers that supports hypertext to access several Internet Protocols, IPs, on a single interface), was one of the developments that fueled the growth of the Internet.

Statistics - The number of websites passed 1 million in 1997; over 20 billion web pages were indexed on over 20 million websites in 2002; and, the widespread use of Blogs, RSS and podcast arose in 2006.

May I ask you one last question? What is the rough estimate you have in mind right now about the population on the Internet? Millions? Billions? - another statistic is that the Internet population passed 1 billion in 2008, just to give you a clue.

So, what's the point? The answer is, Enormous Internet Growth! I bet that there is a measurable difference between when I'm typing this and when you are reading it.

When I embarked on this, finding the population online, I thought that getting the exact figures would be one hell of a research. But, information online is always just a click away. All I had to do was just type a query, visit a few sites and finally, compile the stats I have linked to below

• The Internet Population Stats Table for 2010 in comparison with the year 2000
  

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"The Internet is so big, so powerful and so pointless that for some people, it is a complete substitute for life."

Andrew Brown.

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The 5 Principles that Guide W3C's Mission

The World Wide Web Consortium, abbreviated as W3C, is an organization with a two-word vision: One Web. It is among the Supra-governmental organizations that control the Internet, in that, it is responsible for web standards.

Let's check out the constitution; W3C is led by Tim Berners-Lee, the Inventor of the WWW, and DR. Jeffery Jaffe, as the CEO. In their support, a staff of technical experts help in coordinating technology development and in managing the day-to-day operations of the Consortium.

Mission:
To lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the web.

How does W3C work to achieve Internet Governance?
The W3C is focused to achieve its mission. This consequent to 5 principles which guide its work. These are:

1. Making the benefits of the social value of the web, such as human communication, commerce, and opportunities to share knowledge, available to all without any discrimination. - "Web for All".
2. Enabling a wide web accessibility, i.e. using devices such as Mobile phones, Smart phones, Personal digital assistants, Interactive television systems, kiosks and even certain domestic appliances. - "Web on Everything'.
3. Personalizing web experiences; Bringing authors to the web through Blogs (here we are!), wikis, etc;Flourishing market of content... - "Web for Rich Interaction".
4. Making the web a giant repository of linked data, at the same time, a giant set of services that exchange information, messages, etc. - "Web of Data and Services".
5. Supporting complex interaction among parties around the globe (you and I). - "Web of Trust".

There are many ways the web community can participate in W3C.
Check out: How to participate in W3C.

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"The open society, the unrestricted access to knowledge, the unplanned and inhibited association of men for its furtherance - these are what may make a vast, complex, ever growing, ever changing, ever more specialized and expert technological world, nevertheless a world of human community."

J. Robert Oppenheimer.

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The Role of ISOC in Internet Governance

The Internet Society is a professional membership society that was formed in 1992. It is one of the starring organizations that control Internet: Who Controls Internet?
By 2002, ten years later, the number of individual members, alone, was approximately 11,000 and in over 180 countries. As you are reading this, ISOC - with offices near Washington DC, USA and in Geneva, Switzerland, has more than 80 organizational and more than 28,000 individual membership base.

What's ISOC's Mission?
"To assure the open development, evolution and use of the Internet for the benefit of all people through out the world."

How does ISOC govern the Internet?
The Internet Society is an active global network organization that conducts a great range of activities with the aim to help promote and pursue its mission, in all parts of the Internet and in all parts of the world.

Have I answered the question yet? No. I'm just getting started, but I promise to be brief and straight to the point.

ISOC works under 3 main categories, namely:

Standards: Other than supporting the work of the 4 standards setting bodies, ISOC also seeks to promote the understanding and appreciation of the Internet model of open, transparent processes and consensus-based decision making. The Standards setting organizations include:

• Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).
• Internet Architecture Board (IAB).
• Internet Engineering Steering Group (IESG).
• Internet Research Task Force (IRTF).

Public Policy: Working together with governments, national and international organizations, Civil society, private sector and other parties, ISOC promotes policies about the Internet that conform to its core values.

Education: The ISOC;

1. Coordinates and delivers hands-on training, seminars and conferences on topical Internet issues.
2. Supports local and regional Internet organizations.
3. Issues briefings and white paper on Internet technologies.
4. Funds participation opportunities for Internet experts in developing countries.

ISOC's membership is open to individuals, organizations, and even groups which may form chapters according to either region or special interests.
For more details, check out Chapter membership.

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"The future will become vivid, spreadsheets will crumble before creativity, Information will marry Entertainment, they will have many children."

Sony advertisement, Wired Magazine

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IETF and its Focus in Internet Governance

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is one of the main technical bodies that coordinate efforts with the other 4 Supra-governmental organizations, making them 5, to achieve Internet Governance.

IETF, in description, is an international community of Network Designers, Operators, Vendors and Researchers, concerned with the development of the Internet Architecture and its Transport Protocols such as IP.

IETF does not have members. It relies on volunteers and uses 'rough consensus and running code' as its touchstone. The financial and legal framework for the activities of IETF are provided by The Internet Society (ISOC).

What's IETF's Focus?

Analysis proves that the details of IETF's operations have changed considerably as it has grown. But the same analysis points out that the basis mechanism, remains, publication of draft specification, review and independent testing by the participants, and republication.
Interoperability is the chief test of IETF's specifications becoming standards. Most of its specifications are focused on single protocols rather than tightly inter-locked systems, allowing them to be used in many different systems.

Did you know that IETF's standards are routinely re-used by bodies which create full-fledged architectures (e.g. 3GPP, IMS, etc)?

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Few influenced people involved with the Internet claim that it is a good in and of itself. It is a powerful tool for solving social problems, just as it is a tool for making money, finding lost relatives, receiving medical advice, or, come to that, trading instructions for making bombs.

Esther Dyson, New perspective Quarterly, spring 1997

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How ICANN Controls the Internet

Prior to discussing anything, let us first depict ICANN. ICANN is a non-profit body, formed in 1998, for domain names and IP ( Internet Protocols) allocation and management. It is one, perhaps the most public, of the Supra-governmental organizations that achieve Internet Governance by controlling different aspects of the Internet.


To briefly look at the organizational structure, ICANN is governed by an Internationally diverse Board of Directors who oversee the policy development process. The President and CEO, Rod Beckstrom, directs an International staff, working from 3 continents, who ensure that ICANN meets its operational commitment to the Internet.
Check out ICANN Policy Development Process.




What's ICANN's mission?
Let me qoute the site:
"The mission of The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers ("ICANN") is to coordinate, at the overall level, the global Internet's systems of unique identifiers, and in particular to ensure the stable and secure operation of the Internet's unique identifier systems. In particular, ICANN:

1. Coordinates the allocation and assignment of the three sets of unique identifiers for the Internet, which are
1. Domain names (forming a system referred to as "DNS");
2. Internet protocol ("IP") addresses and autonomous system ("AS") numbers; and
3. Protocol port and parameter numbers.
2. Coordinates the operation and evolution of the DNS root name server system.
3. Coordinates policy development reasonably and appropriately related to these technical functions.

How does ICANN work to control the Internet?
First, I am going to substitute the word 'control' with 'govern'. This is because the former is merely part of the latter, but does not fully explain the latter.
To re-phrase the question: How does ICANN work to govern the Internet?
ICANN coordinates the management of the technical elements of the DNS (Domain Name System) to ensure Universal Resolvability so that all users of the Internet can find all valid addresses. It does this by overseeing the distribution of unique technical identifiers used in the Internet operations, and the delegation of the Top-level domain names, e.g. .com, .info, etc.
To understand universal resolvability, check out the extract below:

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Ensuring predictable results from any place is called Universal Resolvability. It is a critical design feature of the DNS, one that makes the Internet the helpful, global resource that it is today. Without it, the same domain name might map to different Internet locations under different circumstances which would only cause confusion.

ICANN

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The consequent new challenge brought about by the continuing Innovation and Growth of the Internet, is that of maintaining Internet stability. ICANN comes in and focuses in building and sustaining the Internet. In its structure, governments and International treaty organizations working in partnership with businesses, organizations and the staff, collectively address those issues that directly concern ICANN's mission of technical coordination.
There are over eighty governments that closely advise the Board of Directors via their Governmental Advisory Committee.

The good news, perhaps the best, is that ICANN welcomes participation to all who have interest

in global Internet policy as it relates to ICANN's mission of technical coordination. This is by providing many online forums which are accessible through its website: www.icann.org.
Additionally, other that its Supporting Organizations and Advisory committee having active mailing lists for participants, ICANN holds public meetings through out the year.
Check out ICANN public meetings for 2011.

Preventive Maintenanace Guide For Your PC

Introduction

What is Preventive Maintenance?
Preventive Maintenace is a precautionary measure which includes performing a series of maintenance tasks to prevent system problems and also to avoid future problems. This is very different from corrective maintenance - diagnosing and troubleshooting problems, which are measures to correct an existing problem.

What does Preventive Maintenance include?
In Preventive Maintenance, we take appropriate security measures to protect our PC's hardware, software and which is also very important, data. But first it is wise to note that the future problems that we are avoiding can either be related to hardware or software. The good news is, they can easily be prevented by performing appropriate procedures.

Hardware problems, mostly, arise due to:

• Dust
• Heat
• Magnetism
• Water or corrosive agents
• Irregular power supply

Hardware Preventive Maintenance includes the use of maintenance products which keep the computer components free from dust, water and also control power supply. These products include:

1. Liquid cleaning compounds: These compounds include soapy water and different forms of alcohol such as isopropyl and denatured alcohol. These are used to remove dirt from the outer surface of the PC components such as monitor, outer case of the system unit, and keyboard. A sponge dampened with soapy water or mild detergent can be used to clean these components.

While using the liquid cleaning compounds to clean the PC components, follow the instructions provided by the manufacturer regarding their usage.

Cleaning fluids can contain ingredients that cause corrosion. It is recommended to be cautious when using sprays or liquids around computers.

Note: Liquid cleaning chemicals should not be used to clean internal circuit boards.

2. Vacuum cleaners: Dust particles enter the system unit through its air ducts and obstruct them. Obstructed air ducts affect the air circulation. This results in heating up of system unit. Dust particles inside the system unit are also responsible for wear and tear of components and conduction of charge. Therefore, the components of the system unit are prone to high risk of damage.

To prevent this problem, you can use vacuum cleaners to remove dust particles from inside the system unit. When you blow the dust off using vacuum cleaners, make sure you are not just blowing it back into the computer.

Small, portable vacuum cleaners are also available in the market. They are economical and easy to manage.

3. UPS and suppressors: Irregular power supply and voltage fluctuation due to overvoltage or undervoltage in power supply is harmful for PC component. To guard the computer against damages caused by irregular power supply and voltage fluctuation, Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) and a Suppressor( provides voltage within the specified range. It does not provide power backup in case of a power failure. It protects the computer from surges and spikes) can be used.


The software related problems arise because of:

• Viruses
• Fragmentation of data
• Spywares

Software Preventive Maintenance includes the use of software utilities such as:

• Disk Fragmenter
• ScanDisk
• CHKDSK

B68EVR8RK5MS

How the First Computer Network Changed the World

STORY OF INTERNET
Part 1: What Provoked the Idea of the Internet
Part 2: The First Computer Network To Be Created
Part 3: How the First Computer Network Changed the World ( Current post)

The first Network ever to be created was called ARPAnet. It was ARPA's project and the man incharge was Bob Taylor.

Bolt, Beranek and Newman (BBN) was the highest bidding team, and the effects of ARPAnet began to be fully experienced immediately the Network became a living reality. The fear of losing computer power that enveloped the hosts during the busy discussions, when ARPAnet was still a plan, was confirmed otherwise. Contrary to the Initial worries, the hosts gained from the communication network. They could work together on projects and not repeat each others work. And this saved as well as earned ARPA money just as Bob Taylor had contempleted.

Furthermore, it was not long when an engineer at BBN, Cambridge, Massachusetts, could contact the telephone companies and...

"Your line between Santa Barbara and Utah ain't working properly"
"At which end are you?" The telephone companies could ask curiously.
"Neither, I'm in Cambridge"
"But how can you..." The telephone crew were confused.

This was because the IMPs (small mainframe computers that that were connecting two host computers facilitating their communication) were designed to make constant checks on the condition of the network, making its engineers at a position that they would know more about the performance of the telephone lines than the telephone companies that owned and operated them.

So were there new possibilities, for instance, BBN was able to send new a software to the IMPs, immediately, as soon as they were coded. The BBN could also fix an IMP problem from Cambridge, Massachusetts - many hundreds of Kilometers away. But the biggest surprise was that the network was soon being used mostly for something that was never part of Bob Taylor's plan - chat. Technically, the network worked exactly as it was designed to. Yet by 1973, three-quarters of all the traffic on ARPAnet was nothing to do woth sharing data or programs or logging onto distance computers. It was electronic mail - e-mail.

Ray Tomlinson was the first peson to send an e-mail on ARPAnet. Ray, an engineer and in 1972, invented a simple program for sending files between computers. The software opened a connection, sent a file to another computer and then sent a message back to say that the file had arrived safely at its destination. Since e-mail boxes in computers are really just files, the next step was simple. Tomlinson changed his program so that it carried a mail message from one computer and added it to a mail box file of another computer. This is how the era began.

But the speed at which e-mail spread was surprising. Almost as soon as it was introduced, it took over the network. Today, there are more individual messages sent on the Internet more than data of any other kind. And, being the person who chose the '@' sign, which means at in e-mail address, Ray Tomlinson has left his mark on every single one of the billions of e-mails that have been sent ever since 1972.

B68EVR8RK5MS

The DOs and DON'Ts When Using Facebook

The first thing you, or anyone, should put into consoderation when using Facebook whether you want your account to be personal or professional. Alternatively, you aught to feel free to set up more than one account inorder to keep the people and the messages separate.

Here are some of the DOs and DON'Ts:

DO Be reasonably selective. You don't want to add your boss to your social account, do you?

DON'T You don't have to confirm all the requests. Feel free to abandon the burdenning ones and not 'poke' back. The good news is that it is not considered rude anymore.

DO Consider whether your profile is private or public. Private is just for your friends while public for everyone.

DON'T Don't use offensive profile photos, or put up an album with tastless or ponographic images. You never know who is checking out your site don't risk upsetting anyone. Your profile is a reflection of your personality.

DO Use the "report as spam" button to avoid junk mail. This is especially when you find an application is automatically sending you spam notifications.

DON'T Don't send multi-recipient messages. What you don't know is that Facebook defaults the option "Reply to all".

Finally, about the wall-to-wall thing. If your conversation gets personal, please go to inbox. Not everyone is worth seeing you naked.