How the Internet Used

As the internet has grown, it has developed into a multifaceted tool with a vast range of uses. It's now easy to keep in touch with friends, publish your own articles, or even watch your favorite TV shows using the internet.
In this lesson, we'll talk about some of the ways the Internet is used today, including blogs, social networking, instant messaging, VoIP, and media.

Finding Information Online

The most common way to find information online is with a search engine. All you have to do is type in a few words, and the search engine will give you a list of results that you can click on. There are many different search engines that you can use, but Google is the most popular one.

Intelligent Personal Assistants

Asking Siri a question

If you're using a mobile device, there are some situations where it's not convenient to type a search into a search engine. Instead, you can simply talk to your device's intelligent personal assistant. One example is Siri, which comes pre-installed on the iPhone 4S and the iPhone 5.
With Siri, you can ask a question like "What's the weather today?" or "Are there any Thai restaurants nearby?" Siri will then try to give you an answer. You can also use Siri to do other things on your device such as setting up reminders. For example, you could say, "Remind me to go to the dentist on Thursday."

Using the Internet to Communicate

The internet isn't just about finding information. It's also about connecting with friends, family, and people you've never met before. Today, there are many different ways to communicate online, including social networking, chat, VoIP, and blogging.

Social Networking

A Facebook News Feed

Social networking has become one of the main ways people keep in touch. Below are a few of the most popular social networking sites:

• Facebook is used by about one billion people. If you have family or friends that live far away, you can use Facebook to keep up with their lives. You can also share things you've found online that interest you.
• Twitter lets you share brief messages (or "tweets") with the entire world, or with just your circle of friends. By following people with similar interests, you can discover new things that you wouldn't have found otherwise.
• LinkedIn is a site that you can use for business networking. It allows you to connect with other people in your field and find out about new job opportunities.

Chat and Instant Messaging

Chat and instant messaging programs allow you to have conversations with your friends or just write them a quick note. Two examples are Yahoo! Messenger and Microsoft Messenger. Some sites, such as Gmail and Facebook, allow you to chat within your browser.

A conversation using Gmail's built-in chat

VoIP

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), allows you to have telephone service through your internet connection. Some services also let you do video conferencing, such as Skype and Facebook Video Calling. Many of these services are free or very inexpensive, and some people use them as a replacement for a landline, or just to save minutes on their mobile phones.

Using a video conferencing program

Blogs

Today, the average user has the ability to shape the web by adding to it. If you have knowledge or interests that you're passionate about, you can create your own blog and share your thoughts with the world.
There are many sites like blogger.com and wordpress.com that let you create a blog for free. You don't need any web design experience—most of the technical stuff has already been created for you, and you can choose a pre-designed template that has the look and feel that you want.

An example of a blog

Media on the Internet

TV, radio, and the internet used to be completely separate things, but that's no longer true with today's technology. You can now watch TV shows on your computer, and you can connect to the internet on many TVs and DVD/Blu-ray players. In addition, you can listen to online radio from all over the world, thus granting you greater access to a more diverse range of media.

iTunes radio

Streaming Media

TV and radio on the internet are examples of streaming media, which means the media downloads while it's playing so you don't have to wait for it to download first.
Not all media is streaming. If you've ever bought music on the iTunes store, you probably had to wait for it to download before you could listen to it.

Media Players and Embedded Media

Media is often embedded in a web page, which means that it plays within the web browser. Other times, you'll use a separate program called a media player to play it. Examples include Windows Media Player and iTunes. An iPod contains built-in media player software that can play various types of files.

Windows Media Player

Online Media on Your TV

You can now access online TV shows, movies, and music on your TV. Many newer TVs are able to connect to an existing internet connection. If yours doesn't have this feature built-in, you can buy a separate digital media receiver, which is a small device that connects to your TV. Apple TV and Roku are two examples of digital media receivers. Many game consoles, such as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, can also be used to access online content.

Browsing movies with Apple TV

Using the Internet in the Future

The internet is always changing, and the ways in which we access it will also continue to change. Current trends will become more common and integrated into our everyday lives. In addition, we'll see many technologies and devices in the future that will allow us to use the internet in new and exciting ways.

Philippine Election 2013

Another election season opens in the Philippines. Friday, October 5, marked the deadline for political aspirants to file their candidacy to compete in the May 2013 midterm elections. Up for grabs are 12 senatorial seats, as well as positions in the lower house of congress and in provincial, city and local government.

For the past two years President Aquino has been consolidating power from former President Arroyo, who has now been arrested for the third time on charges of fraud and plunder. Her party coalition, the dominant force in Philippine politics but three years ago, has been decimated in the political equivalent of a well-coordinated mafia hit. Through a combination of corruption charges, scandals, and impeachments, Aquino and his allies have eliminated Arroyo’s support. While Arroyo herself is running for congress, either from jail or a hospital bed, her party is strikingly absent from the election.



Out of the political debris, two major groupings have formed: the United Nationalist Alliance (UNA) and the Liberal Party (LP) coalitions. Political parties in the Philippines do not form on the basis of platforms, or coalesce around even the semblance of a political idea or slogan. They are the personal vehicles of family dynasties for the acquisition of a share in the power and the coffers of the state. The coalitions for the 2013 election are the gathered detritus of nearly ten such parties organised into two shapeless politically amorphous heaps.

There is not even the pretense of opposition between the two coalitions. Family ties cut across their line-ups. Four senatorial candidates are running with the joint backing of both coalitions. Even a cursory glance at the senatorial line-up of the two coalitions lays bare the incestuous nature of the entire affair.

President Aquino’s Liberal Party coalition includes the political party of his uncle, Danding Cojuangco. Danding was, for decades, the mortal enemy of Aquino’s side of the Cojuangco dynasty. Both sides of the Cojuangco clan are vast landholders, whose hands are dripping with the blood of suppressing the struggles of sugarcane workers and peasants. But Danding was an intimate supporter of the Marcos dictatorship, one of the so-called Rolex 12 who plotted the staged ambushes and bombings that justified the declaration of Martial Law in 1972. When current President Aquino’s father was imprisoned by Marcos, and was later assassinated, Danding profited from his political ties to gain ground in the Cojuangco family feud. When Aquino’s mother became president, she used her power to take Danding’s holdings back. But now Aquino and Danding Cojuangco are allies.



Not only Danding. Current senator Ferdinand ‘Bongbong’ Marcos—son of the late dictator—is now Aquino’s ally as well. Aged, but rapacious as ever, the dictator’s wife Imelda Marcos is yet again running for congress. Imee Marcos, her daughter, is standing for governor of Ilocos province.
The Nacionalista Party, which fielded Aquino’s ostensible political rival Manny Villar in the last presidential election, is also part of the Liberal Party coalition. Villar has reached his term limits as Senator, so his wife is running instead.
President Aquino’s cousin Bam Aquino is running for the Senate. His sole qualification for office seems to be that when he wears glasses he bears a passing resemblance to his uncle, the assassinated Ninoy Aquino.
The UNA coalition is headed by former president Joseph Estrada, current vice president Jejomar Binay, and senate President Juan Ponce Enrile. The coalition is fielding Enrile’s son, Jack; Estrada’s son JV Ejercito; and Binay’s daughter, Nancy. One of Estrada’s other sons is already a Senator.
Repeat military coup leader Gringo Honasan is on the UNA ticket. However, the Liberal Party ticket also has its repeat military coup leader—Sonny Trillanes.
President Aquino’s aunt Tingting Cojuangco—from his side of the Cojuangco family rivalry—is running on the UNA ticket.
This is a cesspool of gangsters, movie actors, military thugs, and war criminals. There is only one tie that binds these groups together: the lust for money and power. The state apparatus yields lucrative contracts; power over business rivals; direct access to foreign investment; privileged concessions; and control over the bodies of armed men that police the country’s rampant social inequality
And into this cesspool every section of the Philippine pseudo-left has plunged with both feet. Maoists and ex-Maoists alike have traded on their threadbare radical credentials as so much devalued political currency, investing their coalition partners with the cheap coin of populism.
Akbayan, the political amalgam of former Maoists and social democrats has, since 2010, been Aquino’s own “left” party. They form an intimate part of his cabinet. Akbayan is now fielding a senatorial candidate on the Liberal Party coalition ticket.
The spokesperson for Joseph Estrada’s UNA is J.V. Bautista, the former head of the pseudo-left group Sanlakas. Sanlakas made its name in 2001 for shouting the most militant-sounding, but empty political slogans demanding then President Estrada’s ouster.
The Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its front organisations BAYAN and Bayan Muna wanted in on the political spoils as well. Their senatorial candidate Teddy Casiño approached first the UNA, stating in an article in the Philippine Daily Inquirer in June, “We’re hoping to get a slot,” and promising full political support as “part of the package.”
Of course, if the UNA turned them down—which it did—he stated that “we’re not closing the door to inclusion in the Liberal lineup. We can work with both camps … With either group there is lots of room for common cause.” This phrase-and-a-half neatly sums up the flagrant opportunism of Maoism through all of its sordid historical twists and turns based on their reactionary nationalist perspective of “socialism in one country” and the two-stage revolution. The Maoists no longer even pretend to be supporting the “progressive” wing of bourgeoisie—a perspective that brought one disaster after another for workers and the rural poor—but are simply selling their services to the highest bidder. However, both the UNA and Liberal coalitions rejected BAYAN’s pathetic overtures, so Casiño is running on an “independent” ticket.
Philippine politics have always been simultaneously bloody and farcical. For the Philippine working class and peasantry, it has never been the question of voting for the lesser of two evils, it has always been a question of survival. Behind the pageantry and the song and dance routines at party rallies, lurks violence, coercion and fraud. The Philippine Commission on Elections recently speculated that the 2013 election may see more instances of vote buying than any prior. Local candidates are routinely shot; guns for hire and private goons are the order of the day.
The character of elections in the Philippines is not an accident, nor is it an immutable cultural trait. It is the historical outcome of first Spanish and then US colonialism. The United States deliberately cultivated ties with and promoted the careers and landholdings of the dynasties that now leech the Philippine body politic.
The 2013 elections take place at a crucial juncture. The continuing global economic crisis means that the newly elected representatives will begin immediately enacting further austerity measures, slashing yet deeper the paltry living standards of the working class.
With the mounting tensions in the South China Sea, fueled by the Obama administration’s reckless assertion of US imperialist interests against China in the region, it is certain that Washington will play a role in the upcoming elections. Washington is currently on track to re-open the Subic naval facilities for the basing of US troops and warships. As the World Socialist Website has documented, the United States played a vital role in Aquino’s campaign against Arroyo, boosting its political influence in Manila at China’s expense. Washington will be working to make certain that its hold does not loosen in the 2013 election.

Types of Computer Networks

One way to categorize the different types of computer network designs is by their scope or scale. For historical reasons, the networking industry refers to nearly every type of design as some kind of area network. Common examples of area network types are:

1. Local Area Network LAN – These types of computer networks connect network devices over a relatively short distance. Quite often, a networked office building, home or school contains a single LAN although it is normal to come across a building that contains a few small LANs. On a few occasions, a LAN may also span over a group of nearby buildings. Such computer networks are usually owned by one organisation.
2. Wide Area Network WAN – As the name suggests, a WAN spans over a large physical distance. It may be regarded as a collection of LANs dispersed over a geographical area. The internet is a very good example of a WAN. LANs are connected to a WAN through a device referred to as a router. In IP networking, both the LAN and WAN addresses are maintained by the router. Most WANs exist under distributed or collective ownership and management and unlike the LANs, are not necessarily owned by one organisation.
3. Wireless Local Area Network WLAN – These types of computer networks refer to LANs that are based on Wi-Fi wireless network technology.
4. Metropolitan Area Network MAN – This is a network that spans over a physical area like a city that is smaller than a WAN but larger than a LAN. Quite often, such computer networks are owned and operated by single entities such as government bodies or large corporations.
5. Campus Area Network CAN – This type of network spans over multiple LANs but is generally smaller than a MAN. You could find such computer networks in universities or local business campuses.
6. Storage Area Network SAN – This type of computer network connects servers to devices for data storage using technology such as Fibre channel.
7. System Area Network – This type of computer network is also referred to as a Cluster Area Network. It links high-performance computers in a cluster configuration with high-speed connections.

What is the Internet ?

The Internet is a massive public spiderweb of computer connections. The Internet connects personal computers, mainframes, cell phones, GPS units, music players, soda pop machines, car alarms, and even dog collars. All of these computer connections exist for the sake of free information sharing.

The Internet (or internet) is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and optical networking technologies.

Pope Benedict XVI

VATICAN CITY — For an institution devoted to eternal light, the Vatican has shown itself to be a master of smokescreens since Pope Benedict XVI's shock resignation announcement.

And as the Catholic world reeled from shock over the abdication, it soon became clear that Benedict's post-papacy lodgings have been under construction since at least the fall. That in turn put holes in the Holy See's early claims that Benedict kept his decision to himself until he revealed it.

Many Vatican watchers suspect that the cardinals will choose someone with better management skills and a more personal touch than the bookish Benedict, someone who can extend the church’s reach to new constituencies, particularly to the young people of Europe, for whom the church is now largely irrelevant, and to Latin America and Africa, where evangelical movements are fast encroaching.

“They want somebody who can carry this idea of new evangelization, relighting the missionary fires of the church and actually make it work, not just lay it out in theory,” said John L. Allen, a Vatican expert at the National Catholic Reporter and author of many books on the papacy. Someone who will be “the church’s missionary in chief, a showman and salesman for the Catholic faith, who can take the reins of government more personally into his own hands,” he added. 

The other big battle in the church is over the demographic distribution of Catholics, which has shifted decisively to the developing world. But while most of the world’s Catholics live outside Europe, most of the cardinals come from Europe, pointing to a central tension: while the Vatican is a global organization, it is often run like an Italian village.

Valentine's Day

                                                                         


Use one of these famous Valentine's Day love quotes to express your love with a bunch of red roses. These romantic quotations will never fail to impress your Valentine and will make them realize how much you love them. These love quotes are funny, romantic and thought provoking and will surely make your beloved feel special and cared for. So read to know more about what famous people had to say about the insanity called love!

If you have someone special, love her with all your might, do not let small things interrupt their happiness. If you have someone special, tell her- you love her, that she misses you when you are away.


     As long as you love me
  I'll stay by your side 

                                                                   I'll be your companion
                                                                  Your friend and your guide

                                                                  As long as you love me
                                                                 As long as you care
                                                                 I'll do anything for you
                                                                 I'll go anywhere

                                                                 I'll bring you the sunshine
                                                                 I'll comfort your fears
                                                                 I'll gather up rainbow
                                                                                                
                                                                As long as forever
                                                                My love will be true
                                                                For as long as you love me
                                                                I'll only love you.