Internet Technologies and Information Services Recent Titles in Library and Information Science Text Series Basic Research Methods for Librarians, Fifth Edition Lynn Silipigni Connaway and Ronald R. Powell Public Libraries in the 21st Century Ann E. Prentice Introduction to Technical Services, Eighth Edition G. Edward Evans, Jean Weihs, and Sheila S. Intner Science and Technology Resources: A Guide for Information Professionals and Researchers James E. Bobick and G. Lynn Berard Reference and Information Services: An Introduction, Fourth Edition Richard E. Bopp and Linda C. Smith, Editors Collection Management Basics, Sixth Edition G. Edward Evans and Margaret Zarnosky Saponaro Library and Information Center Management, Eighth Edition Barbara B. Moran, Robert D. Stueart, and Claudia J. Morner Information Resources in the Humanities and Arts, Sixth Edition Anna H. Perrault and Elizabeth Aversa, with contributing authors Cynthia Miller and Sonia Ramírez Wohlmuth The Collection Program in Schools: Concepts and Practices, Fifth Edition Kay Bishop The School Library Manager, Fifth Edition Blanche Woolls, Ann C. Weeks, and Sharon Coatney Young Adult Literature in Action: A Librarian’s Guide, Second Edition Rosemary Chance Children’s Literature in Action: An Educator’s Guide, Second Edition Sylvia M. Vardell INTERNET TECHNOLOGIES AND INFORMATION SERVICES Second Edition Joseph B. Miller Library and Information Science Text Series Copyright 2014 by ABC-CLIO, LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Miller, Joseph B., 1952Internet technologies and information services / Joseph B. Miller. — Second edition. pages cm. — (Library and information science text series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-61069-473-5 (pbk: alk. paper) 1. Libraries and the Internet. 2. Libraries—Information technology. I. Title. Z674.75.I58M55 2014 020.285'4678—dc23 2014013761 ISBN: 978-1-61069-473-5 18 17 16 15 14 1 2 3 4 5 Libraries Unlimited An Imprint of ABC-CLIO, LLC ABC-CLIO, LLC 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116-1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper Manufactured in the United States of America To my wife Susan, for a lifetime of love and support This page intentionally left blank Contents Preface .............................................................................. xvii Acknowledgments ..............................................................xxi PART 1: Internet Technologies 1·Introduction .............................................................. 3 The Internet and the Changing IT World .......................... 3 The Internet Defined ....................................................... 5 A Brief History of the Internet .......................................... 5 Administration of the Internet ......................................... 7 Net Neutrality ............................................................... 8 IT Foundations ................................................................ 9 Computers: The Binary Machine ................................... 9 Client–Server Architecture ........................................... 13 The Internet and Technology Trends ............................. 13 Computing to Connecting ............................................ 13 Bandwidth ................................................................. 14 Going Mobile in a Post-PC World .................................. 15 There’s an App for That .............................................. 15 The Cloud .................................................................. 16 Big Data..................................................................... 16 Going Open Source ..................................................... 16 Internet-Based Collaboration ...................................... 17 The Long Tail ............................................................. 17 The Internet of “Everything” ........................................ 17 Summary ...................................................................... 19 viii Contents Notes............................................................................. 20 References..................................................................... 20 2·The World Wide Web................................................. 23 The Development of the Web.......................................... 23 Key Web Technologies: URLs, HTTP, and HTML ............. 25 The Invisible Web: Below the Surface ............................. 26 Web 2.0 ......................................................................... 27 The Mobile Web ............................................................. 27 The Social Web .............................................................. 28 Blogs and RSS ............................................................... 29 Wikis .............................................................................. 29 Social Networking Sites ................................................. 29 Virtualization, Grids, and Clouds .................................. 30 Virtual Machines and Virtualization .............................. 30 Grids .............................................................................. 32 Cloud Computing ........................................................... 33 Cloud Architecture ..................................................... 34 Cloud Application Examples ...................................... 35 Extending the Browser .................................................. 36 Using the Web ............................................................... 37 Information Seeking ....................................................... 37 eCommerce .................................................................... 37 The Web and Traditional Media..................................... 38 Education ....................................................................... 39 Summary ...................................................................... 40 References..................................................................... 40 3·Network and Connection Technologies .................... 43 Network Basics ............................................................. 43 The OSI Network Reference Model ................................. 44 Key Concepts and Terminology ...................................... 45 Network Hardware ........................................................ 46 The Network Interface.................................................... 46 Packet Forwarding and Routing Hardware ................... 46 Wired Network Topologies.............................................. 47 Wireless Networks ......................................................... 50 Protocols: Rules for a Common Language ...................... 51 Ethernet........................................................................ 52 Virtual Private Networks ................................................ 54 Proxy Servers ................................................................ 54 Connecting to the Internet............................................. 55 The Internet Service Provider (ISP) ................................. 55 Modems.......................................................................... 56 Analog Phone Service: POTS and PSTN ......................... 57 Broadband Services ....................................................... 57 Leased Telephone Lines ............................................ 58 Integrated Services Digital Network........................... 58 Digital Subscriber Line ............................................... 59 Contents ix Cable Broadband ....................................................... 59 Satellite Internet Service ............................................ 60 Fiber Options: FiOS Internet, U-Verse, and Google ........................................................................ 60 Wi-Fi Broadband ........................................................ 61 Mobile and Cellular Data Services ................................. 62 Mobile Phones ................................................................ 62 Mobile Layers................................................................. 63 Data Services ................................................................. 64 Broadband Technologies and the Digital Divide ............. 65 Summary ...................................................................... 66 References..................................................................... 67 4·Internet Technologies: TCP/IP ................................. 69 Packet Switching and TCP/IP ........................................ 69 IP Packet Address Headers ............................................ 71 ARP ............................................................................... 74 TCP, UDP, and ICMP ..................................................... 74 IP Addressing ................................................................ 76 Private IP Addresses, NAT, and APIPA .......................... 79 IPv6 ................................................................................ 80 Managing IP Address Assignments ............................... 80 Routing and Subnet Masks ........................................... 83 Firewalls and Proxy Servers ........................................... 87 The Domain Name System............................................. 87 Domain Name Registration ............................................ 88 DNS Lookups ................................................................. 90 TCP/IP, System Layers, and OSI.................................... 91 Command Utilities for TCP/IP ....................................... 92 Summary ...................................................................... 93 References..................................................................... 93 Additional Reading ........................................................ 94 5·Higher-Level Internet Protocols: Making the Internet Work .................................................... 95 Email: SMTP, POP, IMAP ............................................... 96 Real-Time Internet Connections .................................... 98 Telnet and TN3270 ........................................................ 99 RTP and IRC .................................................................. 99 File Management with FTP .......................................... 100 Protocols for Information Services ............................... 100 The Gopher Protocol ..................................................... 101 The Hypertext Transfer Protocol .................................. 101 HTTP and Statelessness .......................................... 105 HTTP Secure............................................................. 106 SNMP and LDAP .......................................................... 107 Summary .................................................................... 107 References................................................................... 108 Additional Reading ...................................................... 108 x Contents 6·Internet-Connected Devices and Security...............109 Security Issues for PCs and Mobile Devices ................. 111 TCP/IP and Ports ........................................................ 112 Internet Client Programs and Security ......................... 113 Internet Server Security .............................................. 114 Threats and Issues ...................................................... 115 Viruses, Worms, and Trojans ...................................... 115 Rootkits ........................................................................ 117 Spam and Phishing ...................................................... 117 Hoaxes ......................................................................... 120 Fake Sites, Pharming, and Honeypots ........................ 120 Cookies and Web Bugs ................................................ 120 Bots and Spyware ....................................................... 121 Wi-Fi Eavesdropping and Spoofing .............................. 121 Mobile Device Threats .................................................. 122 Anatomy of an Attack .................................................. 122 Security Responses ..................................................... 124 Antivirus Programs ...................................................... 124 Firewalls, Proxies, Routers, and VPN .......................... 124 OS and Office Application Updates .............................. 125 Password Security ....................................................... 125 Warning Signs of a Problem ......................................... 127 Security “Top-Ten List” ................................................ 129 Summary .................................................................... 129 References................................................................... 130 PART 2: Building the Web 7·Web Design and Graphics........................................135 Web Design Overview .................................................. 135 Design Teams for Website Development ...................... 136 Site Mission and Audience ........................................... 138 General Design Guidelines .......................................... 139 Key Elements of Web Design ....................................... 140 User Experience Design ............................................... 143 Web 2.0 and Design ..................................................... 143 Mobile 2.0 and Design ................................................. 145 Responsive Design ....................................................... 146 Tips for Mobile Designers ............................................ 146 Apps vs. Website .......................................................... 147 Site Planning ............................................................... 147 Schematics ................................................................... 147 Layout .......................................................................... 149 Site Organization ......................................................... 151 Hypertext ..................................................................... 153 Navigation .................................................................... 153 Typography and Fonts ................................................. 154 Graphics and Color in Design ...................................... 155 Analog to Digital........................................................... 156 Color Use...................................................................... 157 Contents xi Image Symbolism ......................................................... 158 Image Maps ................................................................. 158 Hardware and Graphics .............................................. 158 Graphic Types .............................................................. 159 Color Schemes ............................................................. 161 Resolution Issues ......................................................... 162 Graphic File Formats ................................................... 163 Using Images and Multimedia in Web Pages ............... 165 Accessibility ................................................................ 166 Usability and Findability ............................................. 168 Design and the Lowest Common Denominator ............. 168 Summary .................................................................... 169 References................................................................... 170 8·Web Publishing with the Hypertext Markup Language ...................................................173 Markup Languages ...................................................... 174 The Hypertext Markup Language ................................. 175 The HTML 4.01 Specification ....................................... 176 Physical vs. Logical Markup ........................................ 178 Elements, Tags, and Attributes.................................... 179 Deprecated Tags and Attributes .................................. 180 Inline and Block-Level Elements .................................. 180 Using HTML: Common Tags ........................................ 181 Images and HTML........................................................ 182 The Hypertext Reference .............................................. 183 Relative vs. Absolute References ................................. 184 Tables .......................................................................... 187 Forms ........................................................................... 187 Image Maps ................................................................. 192 Framesets and Frames ................................................ 193 Inline Frames ............................................................... 194 Hypertext Links and Frames ....................................... 196 The Base Tag ............................................................... 196 XHTML........................................................................ 196 Mobile Markup Languages........................................... 197 WML ............................................................................. 197 XHTML-MP ................................................................... 198 HTML5 ........................................................................ 198 Key Differences: HTML5 vs. HTML 4.01 ...................... 199 Major Advances with HTML5 ....................................... 200 Summary .................................................................... 201 References................................................................... 201 Additional Reading ...................................................... 202 9·Controlling Presentation with Styles ..................... 203 The Box Model ............................................................ 205 CSS Positioning ........................................................... 206 xii Contents Adding Styles to HTML ................................................ 206 External Style Files ...................................................... 207 Embedded Styles ......................................................... 208 Inline Styles ................................................................. 208 CSS Syntax and Rules ................................................. 208 CSS Rules .................................................................... 208 CSS Classes................................................................. 209 Pseudo-Classes............................................................ 211 Sizing and Color Units in CSS ...................................... 211 Understanding the Cascade ......................................... 213 HTML5 and CSS3 Modules .......................................... 214 CSS3 Modules .............................................................. 214 CSS Hacks and Shortcuts ........................................... 215 Responsive Design and CSS ........................................ 216 Putting IT Together: A CSS Example ............................ 219 Summary .................................................................... 225 References................................................................... 225 10·Introduction to Web Programming ......................... 227 Concepts and Terminology .......................................... 228 Web Programming ....................................................... 229 Databases and Web Programming ............................... 230 App Programming........................................................ 231 Script Programming Basics ......................................... 231 Software for Script Programming ................................. 233 Client-Side vs. Server-Side Programming .................... 233 Pros and Cons of Server vs. Client Execution .............. 235 Programming Details for Scripts .................................. 235 JavaScript Basics ........................................................ 237 JavaScript Examples ................................................... 239 JQuery and MooTools .................................................. 243 PHP Overview .............................................................. 243 PHP Syntax .................................................................. 244 PHP: First Example ...................................................... 245 PHP Arrays and Functions........................................... 246 PHP: HTML Form Processing Example ......................... 248 Global and Superglobal Variables ............................... 250 Summary .................................................................... 252 References................................................................... 253 Additional Reading ...................................................... 253 11· Web Technologies and Content Management ......... 255 Content Management Systems .................................... 255 Databases and Dynamic Websites ............................... 256 Relational Database Basics ......................................... 256 WCMs ......................................................................... 260 CMS Examples ............................................................ 262 Google Sites, Weebley, and Wix ................................... 263 Contents xiii WordPress .................................................................... 263 Drupal .......................................................................... 264 LibGuides ..................................................................... 265 Learning Management Systems .................................. 266 Digital Repositories and Archives................................. 266 The OAIS Reference Model ........................................... 267 Microservice Architecture ............................................. 269 Digital Repository Examples ........................................ 270 Summary .................................................................... 271 References................................................................... 272 12·XML Primer ............................................................275 XML: The Extensible Markup Language ....................... 277 XML vs. HTML............................................................. 277 XML Key Concepts ...................................................... 278 Key Components of the XML Specification ................... 279 XML and Data Structures ............................................ 280 Creating XML Documents............................................. 281 Well-Formedness and Validity ..................................... 282 The Document Type Definition (DTD)........................... 283 DTD Elements .............................................................. 284 XML Schema Definition ............................................... 286 XML Schema Definition Example ................................. 287 XML Schema Organization........................................... 290 Vocabularies and Namespaces ..................................... 292 Viewing and Processing XML ....................................... 293 CSS and XML ............................................................... 294 XSL .............................................................................. 296 XML-Related Technologies ........................................... 296 XML Implementations ................................................. 297 RDF and RDFa ............................................................. 298 XHTML........................................................................ 299 Alternatives to XML ..................................................... 300 JSON ............................................................................ 300 Summary .................................................................... 302 References................................................................... 303 Additional Reading ...................................................... 304 PART 3: Internet Content and Information Retrieval 13·Internet Content ................................................... 307 Content Challenges ..................................................... 308 File Basics................................................................... 308 Standards and Formats............................................... 309 Presenting Content on the Web .................................... 310 Common Document Formats ....................................... 311 eBooks ......................................................................... 311 xiv Contents Collaborative Content .................................................. 313 Email Discussion Lists and Usenet.............................. 313 Blogs, News Feeds, Tweets, and Podcasts ................. 314 Wikis ............................................................................ 315 Multimedia on the Web ................................................ 315 Creating Sound and Video Files .................................. 315 Streaming Audio and Video ......................................... 317 Common Multimedia Formats ...................................... 318 Compression and Encoding Formats ........................... 320 Internet Resource Evaluation ...................................... 320 Summary .................................................................... 322 References................................................................... 323 14·Information Retrieval ............................................ 325 Information Retrieval Overview .................................... 325 Textual IR Systems...................................................... 327 Indexes and Inverted Files ........................................... 328 Vocabularies................................................................ 330 Controlled Vocabularies ............................................... 331 Automatic Indexing ...................................................... 332 Query Formation .......................................................... 332 Performance Measures ................................................ 334 Classical IR Models ..................................................... 335 Boolean IR.................................................................... 336 Vector Space Model ...................................................... 337 Probabilistic Model ....................................................... 339 Nontextual IR .............................................................. 339 Concept-Based Indexing: Textual Descriptors and Metadata for Multimedia ...................................... 341 Content-Based IR for Multimedia ................................. 342 Types of Searching ...................................................... 343 Summary .................................................................... 344 References................................................................... 344 Additional Reading ...................................................... 345 15·Internet Search ......................................................347 The Challenges of Internet IR ...................................... 348 The Size and Currency of the Web ............................... 348 Format Issues .............................................................. 349 Quality of Information .................................................. 350 The Invisible Web ......................................................... 350 Web Organization......................................................... 351 A Short History of Internet Search ............................... 351 Internet Search Services .............................................. 353 Directories .................................................................... 353 Search Engines ............................................................ 355 Metasearch Engines..................................................... 356 The Economics of Search Engines ............................... 356 Contents xv Index Size and Indexical Bias ...................................... 358 Internet Search Engine Anatomy ................................. 359 The URL Database ....................................................... 359 Creating the Index ....................................................... 360 The User Interface ........................................................ 361 Query Processing and Relevance Ranking .................. 361 Link Analysis and Retrieval Rankings ........................ 362 Google: An Example of a Large-Scale Search Engine .... 363 Google History and Background .................................. 364 Google Infrastructure ................................................... 365 Google Architecture ...................................................... 365 Google and Relevance Ranking ................................... 367 PageRank ..................................................................... 367 Google Revisions and SEO ........................................... 369 Semantic Search ......................................................... 370 Google’s Knowledge Graph .......................................... 373 Google Snippets ........................................................... 374 Bing Smart Search ....................................................... 375 Peer-to-Peer ................................................................ 375 Clustering and Visualization........................................ 376 Smart Agents, Personalization, and Privacy ................. 377 Specialized Search Engines ......................................... 378 Comparison with Traditional Online Services .............. 379 Summary .................................................................... 381 References................................................................... 382 16·Libraries and the Internet: Learning from the Past, Exploring the Future .............................. 387 The Internet: Pre-Web.................................................. 390 Web 1.0 ....................................................................... 390 Web 2.0 ....................................................................... 391 Web 3.0 ....................................................................... 392 Virtual Worlds .............................................................. 393 The World Wide Computer ........................................... 394 Semantic Web .............................................................. 395 Not Dead Yet ................................................................ 396 Library 2.0: Working in the Web .................................. 396 The Googlization of Information Seeking ..................... 397 Library Systems ........................................................... 398 The Integrated Library System ................................ 398 The Library Catalog ................................................. 399 Open URL and Link Resolvers ................................. 402 Discovery Tools ........................................................ 402 Tagging .................................................................... 403 The Library as Place .................................................... 404 Social Media................................................................. 404 Social Networking Sites (SNS) .................................. 406 Instant Messaging (IM) and Twitter ......................... 408 RSS Blogs and Podcasts .......................................... 409 xvi Contents Wikis ........................................................................ 409 Sharing Photos, Videos, and Bookmarks ................. 410 Mashups and APIs ....................................................... 411 Mobile Technologies and Cloud Services ...................... 412 Mobile Technologies ..................................................... 412 SMS .......................................................................... 413 QR Codes ................................................................. 413 Cloud Services ............................................................. 415 Critiques of Web 2.0 and Library 2.0 ........................... 415 Summary .................................................................... 418 References................................................................... 418 Additional Reading ...................................................... 423 Appendix 1: The Binary Machine...................................... 425 Appendix 2: Web Hosting ................................................. 431 Glossary .......................................................................... 435 Bibliography .................................................................... 455 Index ............................................................................... 479 Preface In the preface to the first edition, I posed the question “Why another book about the Internet?” The answer I gave then still applies today: although there are many excellent books on networking, the Internet, HTML, Web design, Web programming, XML, and Web searching, there remains a need for a single survey text that explores these topics holistically in the context of the knowledge and skills needed by those preparing to enter information technology (IT) intensive fields such as library and information science (LIS), business and management information systems (MIS), and decision science (DIS). Many professions are increasingly dependent on these technologies, and this second edition is intended to serve as a text for a survey course introducing these interrelated Internet technologies and applications. It provides an overview of how they work, how they are evolving, and why they are important. My goal is to support courses in LIS or other disciplines that are aimed at students who are not technology experts but who find their chosen field mandates an understanding of many technical topics that they may not have encountered in their previous studies. I have drawn on 20 years of experience teaching technology topics to nontechnical audiences at a level that sufficiently addresses the subject without overwhelming those lacking a background in IT. Thus, this book provides an overview of these technologies and builds the foundation necessary to enable the student or practitioner to explore them more fully in subsequent courses or in professional practice. Obviously, because all these technologies have themselves been the subject of entire books, it is clear that this text cannot reflect the full depth to which each could be explored. There are places where this text is deliberately more “horizontal” than “vertical” and therefore tends to be a “mile wide and inches deep” (well, perhaps “yards” deep). Such an approach is in keeping with both its survey nature and its intended nonexpert audience. A major challenge for xvii xviii Preface such a broad text is deciding what should be included or excluded. One has to decide on a reasonable starting point and boundaries. I should emphasize that this is not necessarily intended to be a text about all important library technologies, but is intended instead to focus on those I defined as primarily Internet-related technologies. The boundaries between these notions are increasingly blurred; there are many important technologies that can be accessed or enhanced via the Internet that I have chosen not to include in this text. In addition, discussing Internet technologies requires a solid understanding of basic computer and operating system concepts, which are assumed, so the reader without that background may need to seek other sources on those fundamental concepts. Finally, I should acknowledge that most of the examples provided are drawn from the Microsoft Windows environment. This is not meant to imply anything other than my personal preference. Both the Mac OS and Linux could have been used instead—the choice is simply due to the fact that most of my personal computing experience has been in a Windowscentric environment. In my field of Library and Information Science, there is a clear need for a broad, holistic understanding of these Internet technologies. More than a decade ago Roy Tennant described a “Digital Librarian Shortage,” observing that although not everyone needs to be able to code software, “they should know what software is capable of doing, when a program could be easily written to accomplish a task, and what skills someone needs to write one” concluding such knowledge was crucial to professional success (2002, p. 32). Although his opinion regarding the need for all librarians to be conversant with HTML has since changed, he acknowledges those with these skills will have additional career opportunities (Tennant, 2013). Many in the profession still find “learning to speak machine” useful for many activities such as tweaking the PHP code in a WordPress template, performing a batch edit on a group of MARC records, or working with a catalog API (The year the code broke, 2013). There has been a surge of interest in classes devoted to learning the language of the Internet to support Web and app development predicated on the belief that these skills are both necessary and valuable in an increasingly Internet-dependent world (Wortham, 2012). I agree, believing that even as these technologies become easier to implement and apply, there will remain a need for those with a deeper understanding of what is happening behind the scenes to troubleshoot problems and apply new technologies. These skills remain relevant today, not just to librarians but also to all preparing for careers dependent on the extensive use of IT. This text addresses these topics from that point of view, acknowledging that as technologies become easier to implement not everyone needs to become expert with every technology, but that understanding what they are, how they work, and what they are capable of doing is still critical to future professional success for many. This second edition has been somewhat reorganized and some chapters of the first edition have been combined or partially deleted to accommodate new material. Major additions to this edition include more discussion on the mobile Web, HTML5, responsive design, and content management systems. It remains organized around three main areas: Part 1 covers Internet history and administration, computing and information technology fundamentals and trends, networking and connection technologies, Internet protocols, and cyber Preface xix security. Part 2 covers building the Web and includes chapters on Web design, Web publishing and graphics, HTML, CSS, Web script programming, XML, and content management systems. Part 3 covers Internet content formats, an overview of information retrieval (IR) models and issues, and Internet search engines. Part 3 concludes with a discussion of the future of the Web and the ongoing impact of Web 2.0 and mobile technologies on the information professions. For those who might benefit from additional background on basic computing concepts there are appendices with a brief primer on binary numbers and the binary nature of digital computers and UNIX hosting issues. A glossary of terms is also provided. The prediction I made in the preface of the first edition was that I was much like the potential buyer of any technology who knows that they can always find something better, faster, and cheaper if they wait until tomorrow. I enter this effort again knowing that like that buyer, tomorrow there will be something new I would have wanted to include. However, I believe the foundations and trends discussed in this edition will remain relevant even as new technologies continue to emerge. One of the goals of this text is to develop a frame of reference and the “eye for detail” that these future technologies will demand. The desired outcome of this process is an enhanced understanding and appreciation of these technologies that will provide the knowledge and confidence needed to support the lifelong learning expected of all working in these rapidly changing fields. The conventions used in the text include the use of italics (except for their occasional use for simple emphasis) to denote terms found in the glossary and the use of bold font to represent commands, filenames, and tag references within the narrative. In addition to the sources I consulted for this text, each chapter may list other recommended sources or websites for those desiring more information on the topics discussed. REFERENCES PLA Contributor. (2012, October 25). 2012: The year the code broke. The Wired Library. Retrieved May 17, 2013, from http://publiclibrariesonline.org/2012/ 10/2012-the-year-code-broke/ Tennant, Roy. (2013, March 5). Why you should not learn HTML. The digital shift. Retrieved March 15, 2013, from http://www.thedigitalshift.com/2013/03/ roy-tennant-digital-libraries/why-you-should-not-learn-html/ Tennant, R. (2002). The digital librarian shortage. Library Journal, 127(5), 32. Wortham, Jenna. (2012, March 27). A surge in learning the language of the Internet. Retrieved May 6, 2013, from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/28/ technology/for-an-edge-on-the-internet-computer-code-gains-a-following. html?_r=0. This page intentionally left blank Acknowledgments A colleague once compared writing a book to giving birth. I am somewhat skeptical of this comparison, but continuing with that metaphor, it does appear to “take a village” (at least in my case). I am extremely grateful to those who encouraged, assisted, and otherwise supported my efforts in writing both editions of this book. Several colleagues provided helpful reviews that shaped and sharpened my thinking about topics that are in their areas of expertise. Professors Kwan Yi and Sujin Kim offered advice for the first edition on the sections regarding IR, scripting, and XML, and their assistance deserves mention. Rob Aken of the University of Kentucky libraries provided a review of the HTML chapter, and Eric Weig, librarian in Digital Library Services at the University of Kentucky provided helpful input and suggestions regarding digital repositories and OASIS. I also wish to acknowledge my editors Sue Easun for the first edition and Barbara Ittner for the second, Senior Production Editor Emma Bailey, Production Manager Lydia Shinoj, and all those at Libraries Unlimited and ABC-CLIO who guided me through this project and brought it to fruition. I am indebted to these friends and colleagues for all they did to make this a better book; for all their advice and assistance, I offer my sincere appreciation while also absolving them of responsibility for any remaining errors. Obviously, most of this book does not reflect original research, and I have, as they say, stood on the shoulders of others who are the inventors, programmers, engineers, designers, and experts whose efforts I have tried to summarize into an instructional narrative. I cannot thank all these individuals personally, but they appear in the many sources referenced in this book. On a personal note, I would like to thank those who have influenced and shaped my career by sharing their time, knowledge, and advice. They are too numerous to list here, but there are several I would like to acknowledge who were instrumental to my career in LIS and provided opportunities that directed its subsequent xxi xxii Acknowledgments path. Professor Stan Hannah, formerly of the University of Kentucky SLIS, and Professor Emeritus Thomas Waldhart both encouraged and mentored me, and I am deeply grateful for their support and friendship. Finally, I want to express my heartfelt thanks to my wife, Susan, not only for her help with this project but for inspiring me to pursue a second career in library science and her ongoing support, without which I would not be where I am today. Joseph B. Miller, MSLS Associate Professor, Emeritus School of Library and Information Science University of Kentucky 1 Internet Technologies Part 1 is focused on Internet technologies, including chapters on general information technology issues, Internet and Web history and development, networks, connection technologies, TCP/IP and higher-level Internet protocols, and security issues. This page intentionally left blank 1 Introduction THE INTERNET AND THE CHANGING IT WORLD Nearly twenty years ago, Microsoft’s Bill Gates asserted that the popularity of the Internet was the most important single development in the world of computing since the introduction of the PC (Gates, 1995). His claim still holds today—the Internet is widely perceived as one of the most transformative technological innovations of the twentieth century, not only remaking our information world, but according to a recent survey, also shaping who we are with regard to our shared values and beliefs (Rosen, 2012). Although the effects of the Internet on culture, society, and individuals are undeniable, the focus of this text is to understand the technologies that support it. It is devoted to developing a practical and technical understanding of what the Internet is, how it works, how it is managed, and where it appears to be going since the first ARPANET packets were sent and received in 1969. Packets, the way datagrams are formed on computer networks, are discussed in later chapters. Such a broad agenda is quite ambitious and no single book can cover all these topics in depth. A reasonable starting point is to formally define the Internet, examine its history as well as the people who made critical contributions, and describe a few examples of the far-reaching impact it has had—and continues to have—on society and the broader information environment. The Internet has influenced and driven major developments and trends in the broad areas of computer technology, bandwidth creation, software development, and commerce. Many of these topics depend on a sound understanding of the basic concepts of information technology (IT) such as the use of binary numbers for addressing schemes, digital data representation, and Boolean logic. These will come up in various discussions throughout this text and Appendix 1 provides a review of these fundamentals. 3 4 Internet Technologies and Information Services The quote by Bill Gates back in 1995 has been reaffirmed many times and by many experts and writers over the last decade. His quote referred to how much the Internet has shaped the world of computing and IT as opposed to broader societal effects. Similarly, the focus of this text will be on the technologies of the Internet, their evolution and convergence, and their application. However, we cannot ignore how the Internet continues to have enormous effects on the worlds of politics, global commerce, and society at-large. In the popular book The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Friedman (2005) identified 10 “flatteners” in the global economy that are changing the lives and work of billions of people, and the emergence of the Internet is central to almost all of them. The impact of the Internet on library and other information-related professions has been dramatic, changing not only daily activities, services, and the professional preparation of librarians, but the very notion of the library. Indeed, no information provision business has remained unaffected by the Internet and the related technologies that have developed within and around it. Some would assert that the Internet has changed everything. Thus, although the focus of this text will be the technologies of the Internet, it will also consider some of the specific ways they have created new challenges and opportunities for professional practice in libraries. That said this text is not intended to be a broad examination of all important library technologies. Those that are examined have been included because of their direct intersection with the Internet technologies being discussed. Thus, many important and useful technologies in libraries are either not mentioned or explored in any detail. For example, software for reference management such as Endnote or productivity applications, such as Excel, is widespread and important. They are both functionally enhanced when the user is connected to the Internet; citations can be searched and downloaded into Endnote or templates downloaded into Office, but they are not Internet technologies per se. Much like the game of connecting actor Kevin Bacon to other Hollywood people or events within six steps, almost all IT today can be viewed as Internet-related due to the ways it can be used, updated, or shared using the Internet. The decision to discuss some, but not all of these technologies was an editorial one and judging any of these to be outside the scope of this book is not meant to diminish their importance in libraries. How dramatic these changes seem depends in large measure on whether you are of the “BW” (Before Web) or “AW” (After Web) generation. Those who came of age in the Web-less world are much more amazed by the changes it has wrought; those who grew up as digital natives “post-Web” take it for granted as much as electricity or running water. This is to be expected—current generations are typically unimpressed with the technological marvels that preceded them. The fact that by the late twentieth century most people in the United States could pick up a telephone and have voice communication with almost anyone in the world certainly seemed much more magical to those who grew up in the earlier era of telegrams compared to those who grew up in today’s world of ubiquitous mobile phones and Internet access. But even though we live in an ever flattening world where universal Internet access, wireless networks, mobile phones, and devices capable of storing thousands of books, songs, and photographs are taken for granted, it is still informative to step back and examine how the Internet has changed so much for so many so quickly. Introduction 5 THE INTERNET DEFINED The term Internet occurs throughout this text, so it is important to begin by defining it. In a generic sense, the term internet refers to any group of interconnected networks. However, in this text, Internet refers to the global network of computer networks utilizing packet switching and the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol; TCP/IP) standard, which includes the family of supporting services and protocols examined in detail in other chapters. A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INTERNET The modern Internet began with the formation of the ARPANET in 1969 by the Advanced Research Project Agency within the Department of Defense. Although earlier network and computer technologies were essential to development of the Internet, most people identify the ARPANET as the seminal event in its history. The ARPANET initiative resulted in the first packet switching computer network connecting a computer at UCLA with one at Stanford University, thereby creating a two-node network. It was from this modest beginning that the modern Internet emerged. ARPANET in part was a response to national defense concerns and a desire to build a decentralized communication network potentially capable of surviving the loss of a major hub and the electromagnetic disruption of a nuclear strike. ARPANET interconnections utilized dedicated processors called Interface Message Processors (Leiner et al., 1997). While the origins of the Internet go back to the 1969 ARPANET test bed, because TCP/IP is so integral to a definition of the Internet, one could argue that the Internet of today really began with the adoption of TCP/IP by ARPANET on January 1, 1983. This foundation protocol suite is the subject of Chapter 4. Zakon (2011) provides a complete timeline using Hobbes’ Internet Timeline; an abbreviated list of selected significant events since TCP/IP was defined is given here. 1980 TCP/IP standards are defined. The modern Internet (as well as numerous private intranets) is built on this family of protocols and services. 1983 TCP/IP protocols are implemented by ARPANET. The MILNET is separated from ARPANET. The Internet Activities Board (IAB) is established. 1986 The National Science Foundation (NSF) connects the five new supercomputer centers into a network known as the NSFNET. These supercomputers were very expensive and in high demand, and the NSFNET was created to facilitate access to these centers across the country. This network used the same foundations and infrastructure of the then ARPANET. The NSF had strict guidelines for what constituted appropriate uses of this network. It prohibited commercial activities, which gave rise to a culture that still influences the Internet community even though it is clearly now highly commercialized. For instance, the open source software 6 Internet Technologies and Information Services movement has some of its roots in the noncommercial culture of the Internet. 1989 Tim Berners Lee proposes a new information management system at CERN (an acronym derived from Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire). His superior, Mike Sendall, describes it as “vague, but exciting” and approves further development (CERN, 2008). His proposal would evolve to become the World Wide Web. 1990 The overlapping infrastructure and uses of the NSFNET and ARPANET result in the ARPANET disappearing as a separate entity, being supplanted by the NSFNET. 1991 The High Performance Computing Act is approved by Congress. This legislation, introduced by Senator Al Gore of Tennessee, authorizes the National Research and Education Network (NREN). Al Gore’s involvement with this legislation gave rise to the “Al Gore invented the Internet” mythology. Gore actually, never made that claim, but he was an early and prominent national voice regarding the potential of the Internet for research and education. Although NREN was legislatively approved, it did not become a separate networking entity; it did influence thinking and policy decisions about the role of government in supporting Internet access for educational and research purposes. 1991 The World Wide Web (WWW, aka the Web), developed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN goes live. The Web really provided the first glimpse of the Internet to many. Berners-Lee, a consulting programmer, initially focused on the problem of document sharing within a specialized community, namely, the physicists at CERN. As he explored a hypertext solution to this problem, he recognized it could have far broader implications for information sharing via the Internet. With the support of CERN, he went on to develop many of the protocols of the Web as well as the markup language needed to create Web content. The rest, as they say, is history (Berners-Lee, 1999). 1993 The MOSAIC browser is created and released by a team of programmers working at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. The team included Marc Andreesen who would go on to form and lead Netscape Corporation. The development of this user-friendly, graphical browser brings the Internet and the emerging Web to a mass audience. 1995 The original NSFNET has evolved into an ever more commercialized Internet, so NSFNET reverts to its research roots and becomes a very high-speed network, again devoted to education and research. It will give rise to the Internet2 initiative. 1997 Internet2 is developed as a nonprofit consortium of over 170 U.S. universities and institutions. Its purpose is to support research and be a test bed for new networking technologies. Introduction 7 1998 Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is formed as a nonprofit private corporation with responsibility to coordinate the stable operation of the Internet in four key areas: the Domain Name System (DNS); the allocation of IP address space; the management of the root server system; and the coordination of protocol number assignment. For much of its existence, ICANN is a nonprofit corporation that reported to the U.S. Department of Commerce under a Joint Project Agreement, but there has been international pressure to reformulate this organization under an international umbrella such as the United Nations. The U.S. Department of Commerce oversight of ICANN will end in 2015 and be replaced by a multinational group of stakeholders to be proposed by ICANN (Farrell, 2014). 1998 Google incorporates and launches its search engine. 2000 Internet2 backbone network deploys IPv6. ICANN releases new Top-Level Domains (TLDs) including .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .musuem, .name, and .pro. Web size estimated at 1 billion findable pages. 2003 Originally used in a book title by Dermot A. McCormack in the context of ecommerce, the term “Web 2.0” is used by Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle to describe the interactive, next generation Web. Blogs and social media are becoming popular. 2004 ICANN authorizes generic Top-Level Domains (gTLDs) of .asia, .cat, .jobs, .mobi, .tel, and .travel. Web 2.0 gains traction with social networking and Web mashups. 2008 IPv6 addresses added to six root zone servers. Google’s crawler reaches 1 trillion pages. 2010 Apple introduces the first iPad and smartphone shipments overtake those of the PC. Wired magazine cover declares, “The Web Is Dead.” 2013 Worldwide devices (PCs, tablets, and mobile phones) could total 2.4 billion units, up 9 percent from 2012; PC shipments declined 7.6 percent but is offset by strong gains in the mobile market (Gartner says, 2013). ADMINISTRATION OF THE INTERNET The Internet is a complex information system heavily dependent on strict adherence to standards. It is global in reach, crossing all political and geographical boundaries, yet amazingly, there is no centralized governing authority in charge of its overall administration. It is somehow fitting that an entity that has resulted in a flattened, interconnected, and collaborative world is itself managed in a similarly decentralized and cooperative fashion. Internet administration involves interaction among international standards organizations, the private sector, and government agencies. The Internet Society (http://www.isoc.org) is an umbrella organization of hundreds of groups and thousands of individuals 8 Internet Technologies and Information Services engaged in developing technologies and standards to maintain the viability and global scalability of the Internet. Examples of groups within the umbrella include standards groups such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and Internet Architecture Board (IAB). A progression of different entities has been responsible for the critical area of domain space control. The first was the Network Information Center (NIC), the official provider of Internet domain name registration services to the world for registration of domain names in the .COM, .NET, and .ORG top-level domains (this is now an ICANN affiliate). InterNic (http://www.internic.net) provided the public with information regarding Internet domain name registration under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Commerce. The Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) provided central control for domains, addresses, and protocols. Currently, ICANN (http://www .icann.org), a nonprofit corporation, has taken over the role of naming and address space management and IANA is a department within ICANN. Another important body is the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which is responsible for developing and maintaining Web standards such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) and Extensible Markup Language (XML). The first Internet backbone service was run on leased telephone lines and it still depends on telephone and cable networks. These include services controlled by UUNET (now part of Verizon), AT&T, and Sprint; they provide the Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) that make the physical connections among the interconnected networks. These companies, along with the cable Internet service providers (ISPs), are responsible for the “last mile” connection to homes and businesses. They also work closely with the various governing bodies to set policy. It is not hard to imagine that the various players involved in Internet policy and oversight have differing agendas that sometimes require government intervention to resolve. One example of the intersection of government regulation, policy groups, and market forces is the issue of net neutrality. This is primarily a policy issue with potentially enormous implications for different users and the cost of their Internet activities, so it is not surprising that the involved parties hold differing views. Net Neutrality The core idea of net neutrality is that all packets are equal; no packets are given “priority” status on the Internet over others. The controversy is whether this should remain the case or if there should be packet-level discrimination for some services. There are those who believe that in order to maintain quality service for new applications such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), video streaming, or interactive games, high-speed Internet “lanes” should be available at the expense of net neutrality. Much of the pressure for this position comes from the telecommunications and cable companies. On the other hand, many search engines and software companies favor the current status quo of de facto net neutrality. The argument is also philosophical; some maintain mandating “net neutrality” would increase undesired government intervention with Internet bandwidth, while others believe abandoning net neutrality could result in less technical innovation. There is some precedent for supporting the premise of net neutrality within the umbrella of telecommunication law and previous Introduction 9 government common carrier regulation. In 2010, a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruling created two classes of access, one for fixed line providers and the other for wireless, which resulted in what some call net “semineutrality.” They also established rules that wireline providers could not block or discriminate in transmitting lawful content and services to their customers. However, the courts have not sided with the FCC to date, initially ruling in 2010 that the FCC lacks authority to mandate net neutrality (Wyatt, 2010). A Washington, D.C. Appeals Court ruling in 2014 upheld the FCC’s authority in this area but stuck down much of the 2010 FCC Open Internet Order antiblocking and antidiscrimination rules, primarily because the commission had previously chosen not to treat broadband providers as common carriers. However, the ruling left the disclosure rules intact, so an ISP that gives certain data preferential treatment must disclose that fact to its customers (Chacos, 2014). In a recent development, the FCC has released draft new rules that will allow content providers to pay for faster connections, which means Comcast or Verizon could charge companies like Netflix or Google different rates for priority service (Wyatt, 2014). It appears the telecoms and cable operators are winning this round of the debate. There are precedents for a “pay as you go” model—early dialup connections described in Chapter 3 often were associated with per minute charges for connect time, and mobile data services often charge for data downloads that exceed some monthly amount. Changes in how the Internet is being used have also influenced this debate; for example, a 2011 report estimated Netflix accounted for 32 percent of all downstream Internet traffic (Wasserman, 2011). Fairness is often used to support both sides of this debate—for example, some believe users should pay for bandwidth-intensive uses. On the other side, others believe there is an inherent conflict of interest when Internet providers sell their own competing content. It will be interesting to watch how this policy debate develops over time. IT FOUNDATIONS In this text, a basic understanding of the computing technologies the Internet depends on is assumed; however, depending on the depth of that IT knowledge, it may be necessary to review these topics in other sources. The following is an overview of the topics that should be part of the working knowledge base needed to understand many of the technologies described throughout this text. Computers: The Binary Machine Computer technology is the core engine of all IT. The modern computer is an electronic, digital device that can transform inputs into outputs under the control of a stored program. Throughout this book, the terms computer and personal computer (PC) are used somewhat interchangeably. Obviously, many types of computers exist, and the PC is typically a desktop or laptop computer. In addition, while the term PC is most often assumed to refer to Wintel systems, it can refer to any type of personal computer (Windows, Linux, or Apple). The term PC is used generically in this book, but unless otherwise noted, all 10 Internet Technologies and Information Services the specific examples provided in various figures or examples are based on the Wintel platform (i.e., Intel processor architecture running a version of Microsoft Windows). This Windows-centric perspective simply reflects that most of my computing work has been in a Windows environment, but there are certainly other important platforms based on the Mac OS or Linux that could have been used in these examples. The notion of a personal computer has been extended with the emergence of the many tablets and smartphones, which are increasingly becoming the preferred platform for many. One could argue that the path to the tablet computers of today began as early as the 1830s when Charles Babbage was designing and attempting to build his mechanical computer. Although brilliant, Babbage lived in the wrong century— mechanical devices could never achieve the speed and power of electronic ones. The first electronic computers were analog ones. Vannevar Bush of Memex fame worked on electronic analog computers in the 1920s1 and in the late 1930s, the Atanasoff–Berry Computer led to the World War II-era Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer (ENIAC). However, the modern computer we know today is a digital machine. The processors that are the “brains” of the computer on a very basic level are just extremely fast switching devices with many millions of transistors. Although there is still interest in analog computers or digital– analog hybrids, digital technologies are far more prevalent, making it worthwhile to examine the distinctions between analog and digital technologies. Throughout the twentieth century, the “electronics revolution” was an analog one and included the modern marvels of the telephone, phonograph, radio, and television. These analog technologies depend on electromagnetic waves as carriers of information. Waveforms have both amplitude and frequency; amplitude is a measure of the height of the waveform, and frequency is a measure of the number of cycles per second of a waveform. Wavelength is the distance from one peak to another and is inversely proportional to frequency; that is, shorter wavelengths have a greater number of cycles per second, as shown in Figure 1.1. Figure 1.1 Waves have lengths and amplitude. Frequency is measured in cycles per second and is inversely proportional to wavelength. Introduction 11 Information can be added to the carrier signal through signal modulation. For instance, AM radio depends on amplitude modulation where the information is added by varying the wave amplitude, shown in Figure 1.2. FM radio depends on frequency modulation where the wave frequency is varied, as shown in Figure 1.3. Phase modulation refers to a delay in the natural cycle of alternating current waveforms as a way to carry signal information. Another possibility is pulse code modulation (PCM) where the waveforms are interpreted to represent two states, which is an analog way to carry digital data. Figure 1.2 With AM, a source modulates the amplitude of a carrier wave. Figure 1.3 With FM, a source modulates the frequency of a carrier wave. 12 Internet Technologies and Information Services In contrast to the continuous waveforms of analog data, digital data are represented in discrete increments. Computers and digital systems use binary numbers (0 and 1) to represent digital data. Analog to digital conversion uses sampling technologies to represent the analog signal as discrete values; the sampling level determines how faithfully the analog content is captured. In the late 1940s, Bell Laboratories mathematician Claude Shannon and others were working on the mathematics of sampling technologies. Bell Labs had a practical interest in sampling as it applies to voice communication systems. Analog to digital conversion requires a continuous time signal conversion to a discrete time one, which can then be used to reconstruct the original continuous signal when needed. The mathematics are complex, but the Nyquist–Shannon Sampling Theorem proved that a sampling rate equal to at least twice the bandwidth of the signal could adequately reconstitute the original by allowing the interpolation of data points between samplings during conversion (Shannon, 1949). The theorem name recognizes earlier related work by Harry Nyquist, also at Bell Labs. Inadequate sampling rates accentuate aliasing, which is a distortion or artifact of the sampling process. Sampling techniques are the basis of the many tools and programs developed to create digital representations that are very close to the original analog data. For instance, with commercial music CDs, a sampling rate of the original analog music of 44,100 times per second results in digital playback that is indistinguishable from the original to most human ears (Watkinson, 2000). The modern computer is a binary, digital device. The computer is known as a binary machine for two reasons. First, computers use binary numbers to represent instructions and data. Second, computers are binary machines because the logic circuitry depends on a binary logic system known as Boolean Logic. Analog computers are possible but represent a more complex engineering problem than digital computers. Digital computers need only represent two possible states, which are then interpreted as the needed 0s and 1s. Representing two states is easier to engineer with simple switches or as the presence or absence of a magnetic charge on a disk. Within the computer, data and instructions in the form of bits move from one location to another using a bus, or circuit path. The number of bits moving in tandem depends on the width of this data bus, always in multiples of 8 bits; it could be as narrow as 1 byte (1 byte is 8 bits) and as wide as 8 bytes in earlier PC architectures. Network and packet technologies are now being employed at the hardware level of the PC with the development of the Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) architecture that creates a point-to-point data bus that uses a serial stream of 8 bit packets instead of the previous parallel stream bus architectures. Digital data streams can be transmitted over analog connections with a modem, which stands for modulator/demodulator. This device modulates the computer’s digital stream into an analog form. The demodulator in the receiving computer converts the analog signal back to a digital one. Modems and other connection technologies are discussed in more detail in Chapter 3. Knowledge of these fundamental ideas is useful, not only as they apply to computing technology, but in a variety of other IT contexts in this text. For instance, binary numbering is relevant to topics such as how data are represented with text codes and why Internet protocols were developed for text standards. Understanding binary numbers is essential to the topics of IP addressing, Introduction 13 subnet masks, and the encoding schemes needed to convert binary data to a text representation. (See Appendix 1 for additional discussion of binary numbers.) ClientăServer Architecture Another important concept is client–server architecture, an essential structure to almost every activity that takes place on the Internet. This important idea can be confusing depending on the context in which the terminology is used. Client–server architecture utilizes two pieces of software designed to work together: the client’s job is to formulate a request to the corresponding server software, which in turn responds to the request. This correspondence usually takes place via a specific communication channel known as a port. On the Internet there are many such software pairings communicating with each other: mail clients with mail servers; telnet clients with telnet servers; FTP clients with FTP servers; and Web clients with Web servers. Often each of these is on hardware dedicated to the server function, but it is the software that is critical to the definition of this architecture. A desktop PC could be running both client and server programs concurrently, thereby performing both roles. THE INTERNET AND TECHNOLOGY TRENDS The Internet has driven huge changes in how computing and IT are used, affecting the knowledge base required by those planning to create new information services and instruct others in their use. Over the last 25 years, there have been dramatic changes in computer and storage technologies, bandwidth availability and capacity, and the use of the Internet in business and for human collaboration. Discussion of some specific Web-related trends is deferred to subsequent chapters, but a few broad megatrends are explored here. The first of these core changes is how users now perceive the computer itself. Computing to Connecting The Internet is largely responsible for a major paradigm shift regarding computer technology that has occurred during the life span of the PC, a shift from “crunching” to “communicating.” When computers were first developed, they were viewed primarily as computational devices able to do large scale, complex number crunching and symbol manipulation to support business, government, and science. Early computers were used during World War II for calculating projectiles, code breaking, and the Manhattan project. Even if IBM’s Thomas Watson never really predicted a world market of “maybe five computers” at that time, that sentiment has some truth, as early computers were extremely complex and expensive. This was still the predominant view of computers when the PC was introduced and it was primarily marketed to small businesses and early adopters. These early users needed to be quite enthusiastic about the technology, as 14 Internet Technologies and Information Services first-generation PCs were expensive and not particularly user friendly. During the last several decades, the cost of computing has declined significantly, and power has increased dramatically. These trends are consistent with the expectations of Moore’s Law,2 which has been extrapolated to most everything related to computing. For instance, in 1971, the Intel 4004 had approximately 2,300 transistors and was capable of about 60,000 instructions per second. By 2005, Intel reported P4 Itanium processors with 410 million transistors performing about 10,800 million instructions per second (MIPS) or about 10.8 billion instructions per second (Friedman, 2005). By 2012, the Intel Xeon Phi had 5 billion transistors capable of one teraflop (1012 floatingpoint operations per second; Intel® Xeon Phi™, n.d.). The change has been equally dramatic when the capacity and cost of storage are considered. The first PC hard drives were 10 megabytes (MB) and added about $1,000 to the price. Now a 500 GB drive costs about $50, providing 50,000 times the capacity for a twentieth of the cost. Even with computing power increasing and prices declining, PC sales did not really accelerate until the emergence of the Web in the early 1990s. According to the U.S. Census, the number of homes with computers grew from 15 percent in 1990, to 56 percent by 2001, and to 76 percent by 2010. People connecting to the Internet from home in the United States went from 18 percent in 1997, to 54.3 percent in 2010 (U.S. Census, 2006, 2010). Factors such as lower prices and better operating systems certainly contributed to the rapid growth in the PC market, but much of their acceptance and use was, and still is, related to accessing the Internet. The Internet is now driving a similar shift to mobile devices and tablets. Bandwidth An essential requirement for the computer to become an effective communication device is the availability and development of a connection infrastructure with sufficient bandwidth to support the associated activities and resulting volume of packets. Bandwidth is a measure of the capacity of a medium to carry a signal. Bandwidth developments have experienced the same type of self-reinforcing cycle computer technology has; namely, greater demand has resulted in more technological innovation, higher capacity, and lower cost, which creates more demand. The Internet was made possible by an existing telephone network infrastructure available throughout the developed world. Up until 1991, the original NSFNET backbone service used leased T1 lines that could only carry 1.5 Mbps (millions of bits per second). In the “BW” Internet, the main backbone service of the entire Internet had far less bandwidth than typical home Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) or cable broadband Internet connections have today. The high-capacity bandwidth of modern broadband enables services such as VoIP, audio and video streaming, and real-time video conferencing. There continue to be huge advances in these connection technologies; for instance, fiber optic technologies are being developed to carry 1 terabit per second on a single fiber strand, which is hundreds of thousands of times the capacity of the original T1 lines. Wireless networking and mobile data services are also contributing to the Introduction 15 increase in bandwidth, eliminating many of the barriers associated with a wired environment. Going Mobile in a Post-PC World Wireless connections and powerful mobile devices are making Internet access without tethering network connections the norm resulting in the Internet being more fully integrated into daily life. The shift toward mobile devices and smartphones has been one of the most dramatic trends of the last decade. Apple introduced the first iPhone in 2007 and it was hugely successful, setting the standard for other smartphones to come. Apple followed with the introduction of the iPad in 2010 and it was an immediate success, selling 300,000 units on the first day of release and more than 15 million by the release of the iPad2 (Apple iPad launch marred, 2010; Apple launches iPad 2, 2011). Smartphone shipments overtook those of the traditional PC in 2010, and Nielsen reports that as of mid-2013, smartphones account for 61 percent of all U.S. mobile users (Mobile majority, 2013). By the end of 2013, tablet computer sales topped PC sales for the first time (Satariano, 2013). These devices and the 3G/4G services they utilize have altered the Internet landscape significantly, changing both how people access Internet content and how designers create and manage websites. The impact of mobile devices used for Internet access will be addressed in various contexts in this text. Another feature of mobile Internet access is the way it can be combined with geolocation; the information about your physical, real-world location. Geolocation information can be associated with an IP or MAC address and can be shared and utilized; it can allow other people or applications to use location data to see how nearby your friends are, get directions to the restaurant you are reading about, or to geotag the photos you take. ThereÊs an App for That The success of mobile depends in large measure on an easily available and huge selection of inexpensive, or often free, “apps.” Generically, “app” is short for “application”—the term used for almost all computer software. However, the term app is also associated with the idea of “appliance-centered” computing that makes the device a very effective, albeit sometimes more limited, tool to accomplish a task. Thus, apps today tend to be much more task-specific; they are usually nimble solutions to a specific need designed to run on less powerful and smaller screen mobile devices. Much of the success of the Apple iPhone and tablets has been the rapidly growing collection certified apps available from the Apple App Store, now totaling more than 775,000 apps (Costello, 2013). The Android (now Google Play) and Windows markets have their own libraries to support those platforms. There are a wide variety of apps for every category of user need—apps for messaging and social media, utilities and productivity, music and entertainment, shopping, games, sports and health, and news and magazines. In 2013, the overall use of mobile apps rose by 115 percent from the previous year, led by a 203 percent increase in social media app use (Khalaf, 2014). 16 Internet Technologies and Information Services The Cloud Working on the Internet has become synonymous with working in the “cloud.” Cloud computing is the intersection of virtual machines, remote services for hardware and software, and ubiquitous access to the Web as a platform, often with a mobile device. Working in the cloud can mean simply using a remote host for data storage such as Google Drive, Apple’s iCloud, or Microsoft’s OneDrive (previously called Skydrive), using Web-based applications via a browser, or running a full virtual machine on a site like Amazon. Cloud solutions offer secure and cost-effective IT services that are becoming increasingly important to all organizations, including libraries. Cloud applications are discussed further in Chapter 2. Big Data Internet activities such as social media use, cloud storage, website-tracking data, and ecommerce transactions along with traditional scientific output and government information all are generating huge global data sets that can be mined to identify trends or find new collective meaning. All these data are often referred to as “big data.” Gartner defines it as data that are “high-volume, high-velocity and high-variety information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing for enhanced insight and decision making” (Big data, 2013). The amount of data in various digital repositories is measured in mind-numbing numbers; Google has huge data centers, estimated to have many petabytes (a petabyte is a million gigabytes) of information. However, that is dwarfed by the data stores of the National Security Agency, estimated in yottabytes (a yottabyte is a billion petabytes; Trenholm, 2009). Such huge data sets are difficult to collect and analyze, and companies are spending large portions of their marketing budgets on analytics to use these data strategically (Moorman, 2013). For libraries, there are low-cost options such as using Google Analytics to make Web design decisions or using one of the social media monitoring tools to track user opinions and views. Going Open Source The open source software movement is an interesting trend with broad implications for many organizations, including libraries. Open source is a model of software development that provides free access to programs created and supported by developers and users themselves. The Internet has played a significant role in the success of this model by fostering a culture of open access, facilitating virtual communities and collaboration to develop and support complex applications, and providing a global distribution framework for the resulting programs. The notion of open source being free does not imply there are no economic costs because there are costs in terms of people or fee-based support needed to implement open source solutions. However, the programs are free in that the source code is freely available to developers to download, modify, and adapt to meet specific needs. Open source solutions are important not just Introduction 17 in theory but because they are available to support many of the technologies discussed throughout this text, such as content management systems. Open source software such as Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL, Drupal, and Joomla are all examples of important open source solutions that have supported Web development. A few additional open source applications of particular importance to libraries are highlighted in Chapter 16. Internet-Based Collaboration Another important trend is the growing use of powerful collaborative and networking tools such as social networks, blogs, news feeds and aggregators, podcasts, and collaborative content management. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is the foundation protocol of many of these tools and is an example of XML technology. The idea of “syndication” is broadly familiar from other communication business models. For instance, a newspaper syndicate is a group of papers under the direction of a single company; in the context of RSS, it is an option to subscribe to an information source. The success of Internet in fostering social connections is also evident from the success of Facebook, which reaches over a billion active monthly users (Tam, 2013). Social networks, Wikis, blogs, twitter feeds, and Google Drive are all examples of how the Internet has created new avenues for collaborative work and they are explored further in Chapters 2 and 16. The Long Tail Networks and digital resources remove the physical constraints inherent in the economic models of the past, giving rise to new paradigms described by Anderson in “The long tail” (2004). This refers to how a graph of demand for consumer items (books, music, videos, etc.) shows a large peak for the popular and a gradually declining level of demand for the less popular. In the physical world, this curve would likely go to zero, as the item would become less and less available once its sales start to decline. In a retail environment with limited space, it is logical to weed less popular items in favor of more popular ones. However, in the digital world, everything can theoretically remain available because storage space constraints are not a major concern, and the global reach of the Internet increases the likelihood that a sustainable niche market exists for these items. The power of search enables an audience to find items in the “long tail” portion of the graph. This idea is visualized in Figure 1.4. Some of the effects of the Long Tail are explored in Chapter 2. The Internet of „Everything‰ When mobile devices, high-capacity wireless bandwidth, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) are combined with exciting new apps and cheap, small sensors, we get the “Internet of everything.” This name comes from a center at Wichita State University that is based on the premise that low cost, 18 Internet Technologies and Information Services Figure 1.4 The Long Tail (after Anderson, 2004). The sales cycle of a successful consumer item will peak, but as its popularity wanes, valuable shelf space will be given to a new more popular item, and both sales and availability will decrease to zero (dashed line). However, in the digital world where the item can still be available, demand will taper off into the “long tail” portion of the graph that continues along the x-axis. This small but ongoing demand could cumulatively result in more total sales over time than that of the initial peak. ubiquitous connectivity can be combined with apps and remote sensors to drive innovation (Wenzl, 2013). Professor Ravi Pendse points out that that there are actually multiple “Internets” today. There is an “Internet of information,” that has become indispensable to information seeking and research, exemplified by tools such as Google and Wikipedia. There is an “Internet of people” with tools such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter to expand human connections and communication. The “Internet of places” combines satellite positioning, GIS, and maps that use tools such as Google Earth and Foursquare (https://foursquare.com/) to allow us to find physical places and each other. However, he envisions a growing “Internet of things” where billions of sensors attached to most everyone and everything will communicate with each other and us through specialized apps (Wenzl, 2013). Think about a dramatic advance in the technologies of the “OnStar” driver protection system that could use a sensor in a bicycle helmet, or even in the sidewalk itself, to call for help automatically if you are in an accident. Sensors worn by you or in your clothes could communicate health information to doctors or sensors in parking lots that could report to you about available spots as you drive to work or school. This is not just in the future, it is happening now with devices such as Google Glass that can provide real-time data about your environment or Fitbit wristbands that can monitor physical activities and sleep and then synchronize the data to your mobile device. Such monitoring goes beyond just being a novelty but would be of great benefit for many with life threatening conditions; for example, potentially monitoring blood sugar levels of diabetics or providing alerts to those with heart conditions. Google is currently experimenting with a contact lens with a sensor chip the size of Introduction 19 a glitter flake that can monitor glucose levels in tears (Otis & Parvis, 2014). Of course, some people fear this level of connectivity will take on the feel of a surveillance state and worry the data could be misused, for example, by an employer or insurance company. There will be concerns about privacy and security in such a world, but the “Internet of everything” seems to be well on its way. SUMMARY The Internet and related Web technologies have changed the world, providing both new opportunities and new challenges. It seems inevitable the pace of change will continue or accelerate, and the Internet will continue to drive much of this change. Although it does seem at times that the Internet has changed everything, a few qualifying points should be made about this sweeping generalization. First, the pre-Web Internet certainly was a change agent with the potential to change everything, but the post-Web Internet has driven much of the actual change that matters to most people. Internet advocates in preWeb environment sometimes used the “Field of Dreams” reference of “If you build it, they will come” to describe how they anticipated the Internet would change the world. However, much of the anticipated change did not really occur until the emergence of the Web, so it seems a more realistic statement is, “If you build it, make it really easy to use and important to people’s lives, they will come.” The Web is responsible for much of our perception of the importance of the Internet and in fact, few now make a distinction between them. However, they are not synonymous, and the Web is explored further in the next chapter. That said, the Internet gave rise to the Web, and Internet technologies continue to be at the center of the digital convergence emerging from the mix of cheap and powerful computers, mobile devices with geopositioning capabilities, nearly limitless bandwidth, and useful net applications. This convergence is giving rise to new generations of the Web and new opportunities for services that depend on it. No matter how one views the Internet of today, it is clear that it will continue to be a powerful engine of change. Second, while emphasizing the positive impact of the opportunities the Internet has created for society and for libraries in particular, there has been, and will continue to be, a dark side as well. Pornography and filtering requirements have created many administrative and ethical issues for organizations providing public Internet access. Privacy and security concerns occupy much of the daily attention of Internet users, malware poses real threats, and spam, once estimated to comprise as much as 80 percent of all email, continues to be a nuisance (Zeller, 2005). Misconceptions about the value and usefulness of Internet resources; inappropriate materials; the long-term preservation of net-available digital resources; the potential for plagiarism; the cavalier attitude of some regarding copyright; and strategies for digital rights management that limit fair use are just a few of the issues that continue to challenge Internet users. 20 Internet Technologies and Information Services NOTES 1. In his July 1, 1945 article “As we may think” in the Atlantic Monthly, Bush described an electronic desktop capable of viewing a self-contained microfilm collection, bringing the universe of knowledge to the desktop, a scenario that has largely come to fruition with a PC connected to the Internet. 2. Moore’s Law is derived from the observation in the 1960s by Intel’s Gordon Moore that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubled every 18 months, while prices declined at a similar rate. REFERENCES Anderson, C. (2004, October). The long tail. 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