Welcome to the Unwired Mind

I have had many people ask me about technologies to do with the Internet and I do end up explaining what the Internet is. For a full technical version of what the Internet is, and the history of why and when, I point you to this Wikipedia entry.

For those who just want to know in every day terms, please read on.

The Internet is like the telephone network. It is a far spreading technology that goes into homes, offices and even prisons! But it is just a technology made of wires. We mainly use the telephone network to make phone calls, but we can also use fax machines to send data down those little wires in the form of beeps, squeaks and buzzes.

Better still… now, go with me here. The Internet can be compared to a frying pan too. In the frying pan, you can cook steaks, eggs, you can also broil fish, stir fry vegetables, and even do some shallow frying! It is a versatile kitchen tool.

The Internet is a technological and communication ‘frying pan’.

On it, you can ‘cook’ many yummy technologies and communications tools.

Some of these technologies include:

The World Wide Web (or web), which we use ‘browser’ applications to view pages made by people, businesses and even criminals. Going back to the phone network analogy for a second, the browser is like the fax machine and the web pages you view is like the image on the fax paper that you see. Now, the Web is way cooler than a fax machine, so we will go back to the frying pan analogy… The World Wide Web is basically like… Sausages. Yes! You can get all sorts of sausages to cook in your frying pan. Some are really low grade rubbish (some would say “like this website?”). Some are German and have fancy names like Bratwurst and some have got spices and herbs. So, the web has got simple websites, ones that have interaction, such as Flash based sites, and even movie sites such as YouTube. Some sites are useful and you would use them every day (such as your local paper). The Web is a powerful part of the Internet and overlaps a lot with other uses. But since you are reading this article, you must know, that this is a website and you are probably using a browser such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera or even Chrome.

So, let’s move on.

There are also different ways of using the Internet. A common usage is email. Since you are reading this article, we can safely assume two things. You use the web and you have an email address.

Email is like cooking eggs in a fry pan. It is a very common use of the fry pan… and email is commonly used by all sorts of people and businesses. Email is a way that people can send a memo, a letter, advertising material and even ‘spam’ to each other. Email is generally received by a dedicated application such as Outlook Express, Mail, or Thunderbird. Just a quick note here: You can also check your mail via the web, if your email server allows it. There are also free services such as hotmail and gmail.

Telephony or VOIP is also a way you can use the Internet and is like… um cooking spaghetti in your pan (okay, I am reaching here…) . There are many ways you can communicate with another user. Skype is a communication tool that allows you to speak to and even see other Skype users and even dial into the telephone network. This is only one that I happen to use, but I am sure there are plenty of others. You can also connect special phones to your network that have a special number and can also connect to the traditional telephone network.

File sharing is like when you shallow fry chips in a frying pan. People share and transfer files to each other all the time; just like sharing your chips. Tools such as Dropbox allow you to share your own files via their servers and synchronise them to other computers. Handy if you have a main computer set up and also have a laptop!(Use my referral to give me more space please!)

There is also a way ‘traditional’ software such as MS Office (that is installed on your computer) uses the Internet. Some of my programs like to check their licenses are all in order and connect to their servers periodically. Others have tools built into them that need to use the Internet and most now update automatically if there are updates. If you are using any Microsoft operating system, you will know about this! Let’s not pretend… Apple users have their fair share of crazy big security downloads as well.

So that is it… The Internet is exactly like a frying pan.