GitHub-01: Group B

[JustineEvansUM]

GitHub-01: "What is the Internet?"

Group B (Last Name: N-Z) Submission

Please respond to the open issue and discuss your experiences this week with the materials. What interests you about the Internet, web design, and/or web development? Was any of that information new to you?

Please feel free to build your comments off of each other. You can specifically respond to other people using the "@" following by their GitHub username.

[JonSwallow]

What is the Internet?

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The internet in my humble description; is the joining of many smaller networks through the use of physical means, such as wiring and fiber optics as well as software protocols. What interest me most about the internet is the physical networking. I took a CCNA course at Missoula College and it helped me immensely. Web design is very interesting to me, however outside preformatted web services such as freewebs.com, I have little experience. I am looking forward to learning more. Some of the information was new to me concerning what it takes to keep a web page up. The types of programming languages necessary and the types of web formats. I also was unaware of Frameworks. I am confident that I will be much more versed in these subjects by the end of the course.

[JohnYingling]

Ever since the Windows 95 days, the internet has fascinated me. I remember working at McDonalds to afford my first computer, a Gateway2000. My father's friend gave me a copy of Doom on floppy drives, which I loaded up with MS-DOS, and away went my brain. I used to mess around with everything I could find, whether it be ICQ shuffling, AIM, Netbus, Sub7. I quickly found it to be dangerous, and spent most of my time playing video games like Quake and Warcraft 2. I did some very basic graphic design (mostly due to having so many screen printing materials available in High School), but wasted much of that time solely blowing people up.

In hindsight, I really wish I would have spent the last 15 years learning some useful skills, but, as we all know, it's never to late...so here I am. Looking forward to this, even if I am quite nervous even looking at this Github thing. The time is now!

[VasiliyLemeza]

The internet is a technology that allows modern humans to send and receive information from around the world. The fact that we can take a class online is pretty cool. What intrigues me about the internet is how much it has changed the jobs our parents and grand-parents had. We are at a point where people constantly talk about how things used to be, the days before internet. We really do live in amazing times that allow us to do amazing things, thanks to the internet. What I like about web development is that there are many different ways of creating a website. Anything from writing your own code from scratch to allowing users who know very little about coding be able to create a website.

[Gpowelll]

I learned a ton of new information from the 12 chapters of reading and all of the videos we were assigned! Before I knew that the internet goes through an ISP, that wireless routers give off wifi for wireless connection, and that the internet is an exspansive web of multiple servers and computers to send and receive information that work together. I didn't know any of the specifics, and especially did not know about fiber optic cables in the ocean! I mistakenly thought, like a lot of people, that the internet is through satellites and towers, being wireless exclusively. Knowing about the physical aspects of how the internet works fascinates me. I'm very interested and excited about the subject matter of this course. Its my last semester and I'm kind of wishing I would of went into computer science! I knew that code is the building block to programs, web sights, and video games, but i didn't know how many different types and forms there are. I'm really looking forward to this course and once it is over I intend to continue to self teach myself code from free web sights like code codeacademy or any others. Most of the information presented was new to me. Cheers!

[kristasmith88]

This weeks introduction had a lot of fascinating information in it! So much of what I thought was the basic principles of how the internet worked were shattered and replaced by how it all really happens. For example, I had no idea that there are cable buried in the ocean. Like @Gpowelll I thought everything was via satellites up in space. My favorite part was the video with speaker, Andrew Blum on What is the Internet, really? and how the internet is actually something that is a physical reality. It was also really interesting to learn how servers communicate with one another and with our computers as well. What was most helpful for me, however, was being able to see visuals with the videos and then being able to read about it via the 12 chapters. I have very little experience with coding and web development. My only experience really has been updating a few websites via wordpress. But reading through those 12 chapters made what I had been doing make way more sense as it mapped out the interworkings.

[CatOrfanos]

This week I really enjoyed learning more about the Internet. I have never known more than just my general knowledge on the topic so it was very interesting to learn about the creation of it and how everyday things I do operate. Pretty much all of this information was new to me. My response to ‘What is the internet’ has certainly changed since starting this course. The video I found most informational about how the Internet works was the 2nd video “How the internet works in 5 min”, it did a great job of visually laying out how my day-to-day operations work behind my clicks. Like @kristasmith88 I thought Andrew Blum’s presentation was also very fascinating when he talked about the cords under the ocean, and it really made me stop thinking of the internet as a “cloud” but actually that it is physical. To find out the Web and the Net are actually different things was shocking, because I use to use them interchangeably. I would now define the Internet as a physical service that connects its participants. I am getting a media arts minor and I am very passionate about the creative side of media arts. I have been interested in web design for a while and I have created a few websites by using the Wix platform, but I would like to learn more ways I can create a webpage on my own. I also have been interested in learning some code, so I think this class will be a good introductory to HTML. I have very little knowledge about coding and the Internet so these videos and the 12 chapters definitely opened my eyes to this world. I enjoyed the 12 chapters because I was able to get a basic understanding of code. Even though it does seem intimidating I am excited to start! The chapters had a lot of great definitions and I will definitely be using those reads as a resource throughout this course!

[GabrielleTusberg]

The Internet, Web design, and Web development

I have watched videos explaining how the internet works for a few of my media arts classes now. I am surprised by how each time I am relearning it again as if it was the first time. It makes sense and still it doesn't seem to stick. I really enjoyed the Ted talk with Andrew Blum and how he said by making the internet resemble a cloud in the sky, or something that is out of human control, it gives away the physical power we have over it.

The Metaphors

There were a few metaphors given to help understand how the internet works.

1. The internet is like the postal service. This analogy was helpful in explaining how each computer has its own address, just like each network has its own address, and each website has its own address.

2. The internet is like the ocean This metaphor was a more introspective and beautiful way of explaining how we interact with the internet and how the internet has many linguistic similarities to water.
   ""Isaac Asimov once said that Earth should have been named ocean because the sea is its dominant feature. Our oceans are vast and dangerous and deep and mysterious. So, it's no mystery that when people needed a metaphor to describe the Internet and the seemingly endless and often uncharted web of hypertext it delivered, they ran for the sea. We surf the web, navigating streams of data. There are pirates and floods and phishing. Even blogs and vlogs have their linguistic origins in logs- records originally kept by captains at sea. Like liquid water, the web is a phenomenal solvent. It makes material widely accessible and available. It has been estimated that every web page is an average of only 19 clicks away from every other web page. Like our oceans, the web is really just one global sea. And like our oceans, the web is ecosystem we need to be careful to protect. It is flexible and flowing, and as we are finding out, the web like liquid water, is something you can see yourself in."

What I have Learned

• My computer is connected to an ISP which then connects me to the internet
• Pictures are sent in packets
• The World wide web is not the Internet
• Web design and web development are different things
• "HTML is a markup language used for arranging content on a page, CSS is a separate language for changing the style of how those tags are displayed." -Not every server will work with the web site developed and developers have to change their code for most servers to process

Comments

@JohnYingling I agree it is never too late, Github is scary looking, and I hope to not get too overwhelmed and enjoy learning along side all of my class mates.

Lets Create!

[JorgeZavala]

Those videos really opened my mind to the way I look at the internet! From my childhood up until today, I've seen how the internet has exploded in popularity and growth but I never really understood how it worked. I have learned some basics of coding through Codeacademy, which really interested me and is actually one of the reasons I wanted to further my education in this area by taking this class.

What I really love about the internet is that it is pretty much endless and there are infinite possibilities. You can share, create, and transfer pretty much anything. Much of our lives are being translated digitally such as social interactions, shopping, and even our jobs/careers. One fact that was mentioned in one of the videos really blew my mind. They mentioned that 80 percent of the internet is "deep web" which means those sites don't show up on search engines. I put that in perspective and realized that most things I Google have millions of results. With all the countless things you can ask Google, it only has 20% of the web indexed.

I have already learned a lot in this first assignment and I'm very excited for all the things we'll be learning in this course.

[PirreTaylor]

Perhaps what intrigues me most about web design is how accessible basic HTML and CSS are to learn. Beforehand, I had assumed that web design and coding would entail meticulous calculations and a stream of numbers, but, through the codeschool readings, I was pleased to learn that web design centers far more around language semantics rather than the cryptic numerical wizardry I had feared. Web design is a skill set that anyone can learn, and, given the role that the internet plays in our current society, everyone can benefit from on some level.

As touched upon before me by @JorgeZavala and @GabrielleTusberg , I find it interesting that, much like the real ocean, there are vast, invisible depths within the functions of the internet that we are unable to explore. The comparisons between the inner machinations of the internet and the ocean in the "The Web is Not the Net" video really resonated with me and helped put into perspective how big and ever-changing the internet is. I find it interesting that something as artificial and tangible as the internet poses a seemingly-endless sea of possibilities.

[CourtW]

As a Business student I expect to use the internet in my career. What interests me about web development is learning the “behind-the-scenes” technical processes that allow a web page to function. In addition to that, I am interested in web design, since I think it plays an important role in conducting business on the internet. What I found most interesting from the lecture materials was how the internet is an intricate breakdown of “packets” whereby information is sent in an indirect way from one IP to another. The breakdown of information sent, along with multiple routers used to transmit them, lends to reliability of the internet and allows for continual growth.

@GabrielleTusberg I also found the metaphors about the internet being like a “postal service” or the “ocean” where helpful in understanding.

[Dakota-Wharry123]

Being a journalism student I realize that the internet is an integral part of my everyday life. As technology evolves we strive to learn how we can best use it reach wider audiences and create engaging platforms for sharing information. I was interested and chose to take this class for two main reasons. First off I intend to use my knowledge and skills from this class to develop my own website to market myself as a journalist. I want to learn how to create an engaging online portfolio to display my work and sell my photography. Second, I joined this class because I wanted to continue to broaden my skill set and tack one more useful skill onto my resume. My goal is that by graduation I will have most the skills necessary to essentially run my own publication from the ground up if I had to. This class so far has been extremely overwhelming. I'm starting to figure things out, but there's a lot more going on than meets the eye. Almost everything in this course has been new to me. I knew of some of these things, but never really knew how they worked or anything. I'm excited to see where this class goes. I can only hope that eventually I'll start to understand things a bit better.

[JConnor225]

I was very surprised by much of the content presented this week. The intricacies of web development are very new to me, and the videos we watched gave me a huge amount of new information. I thought I had a decent understanding of the internet but this week's information showed that was wrong. I was particularly interested by the history of the web and how it came to be the monstrous network we know it as today.

[tomidokoro]

I've taken a couple of Media Art classes related to the Internet. I learned it comes from ARPANET, the internet is a worldwide networking system that we share information and have a communication each other without face-to-face contacts. As people on the video say that they aren't sure about what internet is, so this is just an introduction topic for this course but probably one of the hardest topic to define what specifically the internet is because it is an unprecedented system for human. I really interested in to pursue our network system more and more, and this course can help me to do it so very exciting to learn about the topics!!

[kianasimonson]

I feel very left in the dark. I honestly had no idea what the internet was or how it worked, until today. I didn't realize the internet was so physical, I assumed as many people do that it had to do with the cloud. The second and the third video really explain that the internet is just a wire, that physically connects us all. The way that computers communicate to one another is because they are connected to the wire known as the internet. As @GabrielleTusberg said they gave us a few examples as to how the internet works. Relating it to the postal service, as well as the ocean. I was most shocked to find out the Web (WWW) is not the same thing as the internet. One thing that really stuck with me from one of the videos, and really put the puzzle pieces together said, "The internet connects participants, and the web connects information". This really helped me grasped the difference between the two.

[ashtonmwilson]

Ahh the internet. I am interested in many things about the internet. I am fascinated by current meme culture and an avid follower of obscure works like Super Deluxe, and the current explosion of content creation. I love the democratizing nature of the internet and the unfettered access many modern countries have as we breach a world of internet connected things through the Internet Of Things(IOT). Some information on the website was new to me, and some information was refreshed. I have enjoyed dabbling in the design side of websites and have done some entry level coding. I am excited to work towards creating an actual website.

[bridgetu]

WHAT IS THE INTERNET?!

This week's lesson asked me questions I'd never been asked before and encouraged me to explore topics I'd spent little to no time thinking about.

I was born into a world that had the internet, so I've never known a world without it. Because of this, I've undoubtedly taken the internet for granted. I mindlessly use the internet multiple hours per day. For something that consumes so much of my life, it's embarrassing how little I know about how it functions.

The materials we were provided with this week helped me gain so much insight about integral parts of the internet and gave me a basic understanding of the system in which it operates. Viewing the internet as a 'wire' helped me to understand the relationship between servers, ISP's, webpages, and clients. I was also excited to learn what HTTP (hypertext transfer protocol) and HTML (hypertext markup language) stood for as well as what they meant in a more practical sense... HTTP is the language used to communicate between web browsers and servers and HTML is the language that tells a webpage how to look.

My Biggest Takeaway

Beyond gaining understanding of new terminology and basic concepts, I believe this lesson prompted me to realize that there is a tangibility, reality, and physicality to the internet.

[Nickmillerc137]

When it comes to the world of web design and coding I have zero experience. The most i knew about my router before viewing the introduction was that turning it off and on again usually fixes it. It was very interesting to learn about how connecting to a webpage works with various ISP's sending packets of information through clients and routers using IP adresses. It was also very interesting to learn about HTML and how it is responsible for how the webpage looks as well as how SSL and TLS work and how HTTP and DNS manage the sending and receiving of HTML media files. I am excited to learn more about all of this as the semester progresses.

[MikeStevens1161]

when it comes to web design i have some experience with coding. I do enjoy the different ways that things can be done. Mostly I'm more interested in game development but knowing the basics of web design goes had and hand with that.