Newsletter - August 2006

Changes to Invoices

From the 1st September 2006, Alpha Omega Computers Ltd will start to email invoices to their clients. A hard copy of the invoice will be available upon request. Please contact us if you do not want to receive your invoices via email. (Contact details are on top of the page).

Happy Birthday to www!!

This month the World Wide Web (or more commonly known as www or simply the web), celebrated its 15th birthday. Sir Tim Berners-Lee introduced the web to the world on August 6th 1991 in the alt.hypertext newsgroup format when he was working at the CERN physics laboratory near Geneva. It was set up “to allow links to be made to any information anywhere” and that “people should not have to deal with the technology stuff.” Since its invention the web has grown considerably and now has more than 92 million websites. The future of the web is uncertain but it is known it will continue to grow and revolutionalise the way people use it, the global economy and possibly the world. Below is a brief timeline of when the web started and the way it stands now.

• 6th August 1991 - Tim Berners-Lee puts the code for www on the alt.hypertext discussion group so others could replicate it.
  
• 12th December 1991 - first web server outside Europe goes on line in USA.
  
• 22nd April 1993 - Mosaic, the first web browser to run the Windows operating system is released.
  
• 30th April 1993 - CERN announces that the web is available to anyone for free.
  
• May 1993 - ‘The Tech’ is the first newspaper to be published on the web by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
  
• June 1993 - HTML (hypertext mark-up language) programme to create web pages is released.
  
• November 1993 - first webcam goes online. This was set up by a group of computer scientists at Cambridge University watching a coffee pot.
  
• February 1994 - the precursor for Yahoo was written by two Stanford University, (USA), students. Yahoo means “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle” which features a hierarchical directory of other websites.
  
• 13th October 1994 - Bill Clinton puts whitehouse.gov on the web.
  
• 25th October 1994 - the first banner adverts by network firm AT & T and a drink called Zima appear on websites.
  
• February 1995 - Radio HK is the first web radio station online.
  
• 1st July 1995 - Amazon.com goes online.
  
• August 1995 - Microsoft’s ‘Internet Explorer’ released as part of Windows 95.
  
• September 1995 - Ebay (online auction site) founded.
  
• 4th July 1996 - Hotmail launched on Independence Day in USA.
  
• May 1997 - BBC News launched website to cover the 1997 general election.
  
• September 1998 - Google opens its first office in California.
  
• May 1999 - Napster, online music sharing service was founded by student Shawn Fanning. A much publicised legal battle was brought on by the recording industry who accused the founder for copyright theft. The site was shut down in July 2001 but a legal service was launched soon after.
  
• January 2000 - the Dotcom bubble which had been growing since 1997 when it caused share prices to soar reached its peak when the stock markets began to crash.
  
• January 2001 - Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia is founded by Jimmy Wales.
  
• November 2001 - Pope John Paul II sends email from a laptop in his office.
  
• April 2003 - Apple launches iTunes - its music download service.
  
• February 2004 - Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” becomes the most searched for image in web history during the half time show at the Superbowl.
  
• July 2004 - Web inventor, Tim Berners-Lee receives a knighthood.
  
• November 2004 - web browser Mozilla Firefox launched.
  
• April 2006 - Google launches a restricted service in China.

Presently there are more than 92 million websites online with approximately 694 million users. This number will continue to rise because of internet access available through mobile technology such as PDA’s, mobile phones and Blackberry’s and the uptake of internet use from emerging markets such as China and India.

Broadband Usage

The use of broadband internet has changed the lifestyle habits of the average consumer. It has been reported by YouGov that each person spends on average 23 hours a week online for a wide range of activities. These include shopping (2hrs), banking (2hrs), online gaming (4hrs), IP telephony (2hrs), and downloading music / film trailers (3hrs) amongst other things.

The changes in habits are due to the uptake of broadband connections rather than the traditional dial up connections. Broadband allows users to surf the net whilst keeping the telephone lines free. It also offers a faster connection with better download speeds, whether you are just surfing the net or downloading music etc. The cost of broadband has also come down considerably because of competition especially from firms like Talk Talk, Orange and Sky who are offering “free” broadband.

Internet availability and the usage are increasingly putting pressure on the traditional media’s. A report by Ofcom shows that people are only watching television for an average of 19hrs a week compared to the amount of time they are spending on the internet. The film and music industries are already struggling to fit their businesses around the web and the same could be said for the television and telephone companies.