online services have had a big impact on our work and on our rest time in our modern lives we use online services for all sorts of reasons such as communicating getting up-to-date information purchasing products or even paying our taxes one of the most popular ways we use online services is for communication take joey here joey's friends and families are spread across the whole world and he wants an easy and cheap way to keep in touch with them online communication services can really help him with this for example maybe he has some pictures he has taken one on holiday and wants to share them with the rest of his family he could use email for this by attaching his pictures to the email and adding all his family members email addresses as recipients this email will reach his family members almost instantly and won't cost joey a thing another option for him to share these pictures is using social networking websites like facebook he can upload these pictures to his profile and all his friends and family on the social networking website will see these new pictures appear in their news feed and comment on them another occasion where he might want to use online communication is if he wants to hold a real-time conversation with his friends he could use instant messaging software to hold a text-based conversation with a friend or even a group of friends all at once or joey could use video conferencing software which works like a phone call but with video as well so you can see the people you're talking to this is much cheaper than traditional phone calls especially if the people you're speaking to are in a different country email social networking instant messaging and video conferencing are just a few online communication services that we use in our daily lives there are many others such as news groups and blogs which have also made it cheaper and easier to communicate with others too communication is just one use of online services though another one that we use a lot is real-time information services for example sandra here is about to take a trip to visit her friend that lives in france she needs to catch a flight but before she drives to the airport she decides to check traffic reports to see if there are any problems traffic reports are just one example of online real-time information services oh no the motorway is closed down and she won't be able to make her flight on time luckily she can use online services to check train timetables too and see the departure arrival times for trains there is a train she can catch that will get her to the airport on time while at the airport and waiting for her flight sandra decides she'd like to know what the weather is like in france and the latest current news weather reports and news services are both real-time information services provided online to provide up-to-date information in france her friend jeremy is preparing to go pick sandra up from the airport before he leaves he checks the flight status updates online lucky he did as sandra's flight was delayed for an hour now he knows he won't arrive early and have to wait around till the plane arrives traffic reports train timetables weather reports new services and flight status updates are all really useful online real-time information services commerce services are online services that we use to buy and sell things over the internet as well as to manage our finances alice wants to buy a new video game she doesn't know she has enough money in her bank account to afford it though rather than spending the time traveling to her bank to find out she used online banking this lets her log into her account and check out how much money she has great she has enough for the game alice wants to find the best price for the game though she could go to the shops and look around all the different stores for the best price but instead she's going to save the time and do her purchasing online retail sales websites will let you quickly find what you want to buy so that you can easily compare prices between different websites to get the best one she can then pay for it online and get it delivered alice is a little worried that the price of the game is still quite high so she decides to check online auction websites like ebay to see if she can get a second hand copy for cheaper she finds the game going for half the price of the retail sales website and bids for the game her bid wins the game went awry for a couple of days so alice decides to get a good book to read alice still doesn't even need to leave her home but can get her book instantly thanks to electronic publishing this allows her to download an ebook to an e-reader device immediately online banking retail sales auction sites and electronic publishing are all commerce services that really change the way we shop and manage our money one other type of online services that maybe you haven't used but your parents might have is online government services then runs his own business and every year he needs to file a tax return to ensure he pays the right amount of tax on the profits his business makes he used to fill out his tax returns on paper and post them which would take a long time and he'd often make mistakes and need to start again now he uses online tax returns though this allows him to complete the task quickly it automatically checks the mistakes and he gets the response back much quicker as it doesn't need to be sent by post dylan's business also benefited from online services when he applied for a business startup loan from the government much like with tax returns dylan was able to fill out his application online which made the process much quicker and easier isn't just for business at dylan uses online government services though when voting dylan used to have to travel to the polling stations and queue up however he's recently been able to vote in some local government elections using online e-voting this is really useful as it was much quicker and more convenient online tax returns online application for grants and benefits and e-voting are all online government services are a massive help and convenience to us communication services real-time information services commerce services and government services are just a few ways we use online services in our daily lives next lesson we'll look at five more online services that we use on a regular basis in the previous lesson we learned about how the online world provides us with important services for things like communicating real-time information commerce and government services but online services are used for many other things such as education doing business and entertaining ourselves an area of online services that is growing very quickly is education james here wants to learn how to make video games however his school doesn't teach this subject so he did some researching and found a website that has a course that he can do online and will teach him exactly this being able to study online and learn new skills is an example of an online learning website of course you yourself use an online learning website know it all ninja these sites give people easy access to learning all sorts of new skills that might not be taught near them this saves him time and money on travel after completing his online video game course james gets himself a job of a video game company before he starts he needs to complete his induction training where he learns things like health and safety and work practices rather than having a trainer his employer uses an online training service this is very similar to online learning websites but is used by businesses in place of having their own training team so that employees know how to complete their jobs safely and correctly this saves the business a lot of money as they don't need to run the training themselves online learning websites and online training services have really changed the way we learn so that we have excellent access to courses on any subject and can learn in our own time another type of online service that relates closely to education our virtual learning environments becca is doing her ict homework she doesn't know the answer though and is stuck luckily her school is using a virtual learning environment or vle for short her teacher has uploaded the lesson resources to the vle as well as some useful links for further reading so she can find the answer after she finished her homework she doesn't need to bring into a lesson with her because she can submit her work to the teacher by uploading it to the vle in fact her teacher can even mark it and add her feedback on the vle too so she can always have access to her marks accessing lesson resources and submitting homework for marking are just two ways that vlas are changing the way we teach and making it easier for teachers to support students learning online services are also being more and more regularly used in the world of business for example simone has been put in charge of a team to create a new product unfortunately not all of her team members are always based in the same building as simone that's okay though as when she wants to meet with them she can use video conferencing this allows her to hold a meeting with a group of people with voice chat and video without needing to be in the same location or even the same country that saves her team a lot of time and money in travelling later simone subduced a presentation with the rest of her team in order to pitch the new product idea to her bosses the team can still work together in the same presentation document without being in the same building as they can use online collaborative working this is where you use online storage and software to produce a document that everyone has access to so the whole team can open the document add their part and then save it this makes it so much easier to work in teams outside her regular job simone runs her own business it's currently very small but she's looking to grow it and to do so she needs to make some good business contacts with suppliers and resellers she has been attending networking events to make these contacts but this involves a lot of travel and is very time consuming however now she has discovered online business networks with these she can make the content she needs over the internet without traveling outside of her own home video conferencing online collaborative working and online business networks are three fantastic ways that the online world has made doing business easier one of the most popular types of online service are entertainment services tom loves to play video games in particular he loves to play them with his friends however most of his friends don't live near him thanks to online services though he can still play his favorite games with them using online multi-user games this way he can connect with his friends online and team up without needing to be in the same console same room same building or even the same country this means he has a worldwide gaming audience to compete with when he isn't playing video games tom likes to listen to music he doesn't own any cds though as he listens to all his music online online radio players allow tom to listen to music over the internet completely for free this saves him lots of money and he doesn't distort any physical dis cyber online multi-user games and online radio players are two great ways that we use the online world to keep ourselves entertained in our leisure time a final and somewhat controversial area of online services is download services callum likes watching movies however he doesn't drive so getting to the shops to buy a blu-ray copy of a film is always a problem however he doesn't need to as he can download films over the internet there are many legal services such as google play that you can pay either a rental fee to download a film for a few days or a full fee to download the film permanently we can use similar services for tv shows and for music too callum uses a similar service when he wants to buy a new video game or software program online digital distribution services like steam allow you to buy your games and software online and download them for instant access a following away we use download services is to keep our software up to date most software over time develop problems such as security bugs being detected or it might have just become outdated the ability to download software updates such as bug fixes online is usually built into most software applications nowadays music and film downloading software and games downloading and software upgrades are all extremely popular uses online services that make it quick and easy to access without the need to travel to the shops education services virtual learning environments business services entertainment services and download services are five more types of online services that have had a major impact on how we live our lives with the growth of the online world and online services we've seen the internet become a key way that businesses advertised to their customers these adverts appear everywhere on the internet they appear in our search results they appear in banners and pop-ups on websites they even appear in your email inbox that's because online advertising allows businesses a unique opportunity to target customers for low costs search engine advertising is one of the most common ways of advertising online dimitri owns a restaurant in wokingham and he wants to attract more customers to his business he knows that if he was at the very top of the search engine results for people searching for restaurants in wokingham then he would attract lots of people to his website and ultimately to his restaurant with search engine advertising dimitri can choose keywords like restaurants in wokingham and his business will appear at the top of the search results for these keywords this is important as the top results get by far the most clicks compared to those further down the page if someone then clicks on the link in the search results dmitry has to pay the search engine a small amount of money this is known as pay-per-click therefore he should get great traffic through to his website and if he doesn't then he doesn't need to pay a thing another popular form of online advertising is banner and pop-up ads the search engine advertising campaign has been a big success for dimitri so he's decided to look at some other online advertising opportunities dimitri would like to see his restaurant advertise on food-based websites such as restaurant review blogs banner advertisements would be perfect for this banner adverts normally appear on the top or sides of website and are often animated this means you'll grab a user's attention though these animations can be distracting and seen as annoying by some users much like with search engine advertising dimitri pays the restaurant review blog for each click through to his website pop-up advertisements work similarly but instead of appearing at the top or side of a website they appear in a separate browser window another popular form of online advertising is email marketing on dimitri's website here's a sign up form where customers can ask to receive his monthly newsletter when he emails this newsletter to these customers he uses it as an opportunity to advertise his restaurant such as with vouchers and special offers this is a great way to use email marketing it costs him nothing to send the email and customers see the great deals and get tempted into paying his restaurant a visit some companies use less legitimate forms of email marketing spam emails for example are where a company sends an advert for their business or product to people who have not asked to receive the email the business sends it to thousands of people in the hope that someone might be interested normally though this type of advertising is only used for dodgy illegitimate products another popular method of online advertising is known as affiliate marketing dimitri has said he would like to make some money by adding adverts to his website himself he regularly adds blog posts with recipes for some of the great dishes his restaurant makes and decides to advertise where to buy the equipment ingredients to create the dishes with affiliate marketing dimitri signs up to a website affiliate program and they will provide him with special tracker hyperlinks to the equipment ingredients he wants to advertise now he can add these links to his recipe blog posts and this will make sure that if a user clicks on a link the advertising website knows they came from dimitri's website and they need to pay him similar to other online advertising methods this can be paid on a pay-per-click basis though often the advertising website will get paid a percentage of any sales instead this is known as pay per sale so search engine advertising allows businesses to appear at the top of search results for certain key terms in return for a small payment whenever their link is clicked banner adverts appear at the top and sides of web pages and usually involve animation in order to grab attention though these animations can sometimes be seen as distracting and annoying pop-up advertisements work similarly to banner adverts but appear in a separate browser window email marketing is where customers receive promotional emails from businesses to sell products or services spam email is where unsolicited emails are sent in bulk to people to advertise products that are usually not legitimate affiliate marketing is where a website advertises products they recommend by adding special tracker links to their website so that if someone clicks on the links and buys the products the advertiser knows a customer has come from your site and should pay you a fee when an advertising website receives a payment whenever an advert is clicked this is known as pay-per-click or ppc if the advertising website is paid a percentage of the sale instead this is known as pay-per-sale nowadays it's very common to save and share our files such as reports spreadsheets and images over the internet this can be through sending the files via email for example or more and more commonly by using online data storage services this is where we store our files on a server connected to the internet rather than on our own computer susan works in sales for a large drinks company and she often isn't able to work in her office and has to work when traveling or while in her own home instead she has found that online data storage services have many features that are invaluable in allowing her to do her job one of these is how easy it allows her to access her files previously susan could only access her files on the computer she saved them on however now she's able to access her files wherever she is on whatever device she is using all she needs is a working internet connection and she can log into her cloud storage account and access all of her files another feature that was extremely useful is data backup one day she dropped her laptop and ruined the device she was devastated and she thought she'd lost all her work luckily though the cloud storage service she used automatically backed up her files by syncing the files on her computer with the cloud storage she was therefore able to re-sync the files with her new laptop and she lost no work at all a final feature she found helpful was file sharing using cloud storage services she can share access to files with other people this allows her to collaborate on a presentation she was producing with her co-workers by sharing access to the presentation file so all members could edit the document with their own section this meant the presentation could be completed without ever having to actually meet up in person saving on the time and money involved with travel so in summary online data storage is where you store your files online rather than on your own computer this is a number of beneficial features to you and i it makes it easy to access your files wherever you are and on whatever device you are using as long as you have an internet connection you can backup your files by syncing the files on your hard disk with the cloud storage service you can also allow file sharing by allowing multiple people to access a file on your cloud storage this is great for collaborative working when storing files online or sharing them over the internet such as with email we often use a technique called file compression susan needs to send a word document file to a colleague using email however the size of the file is larger than the maximum allowance given by her email provider in order to send the file she uses file compression file compression software can search through text-based documents looking for patterns so that repeated word spaces and redundant data can be removed this reduces the size of a file so she can email it to her colleague who can use the same file compression software to decompress the word document and use it because the data can be restored to its uncompressed form this is known as lossless compression using compression this way really helps susan as her files can be transferred and downloaded over the internet much more quickly she can also put more than one file in a single compressed folder so multiple files can be sent at once in her spare time susan is also an avid amateur photographer and she stores hundreds of her photos on her computer this has taken up the entire hard drive though and she cannot store any more images she can use file compression here to reduce the file size of her images the most common form of compression used with images is lossy image compression this will alter images so that different shades of the same color are rewritten to be the same shade this reduces the number of colors in the image which makes the file smaller image files compressed using lossy compression cannot be decompressed though and will be of a lower quality than the original uncompressed image file it is possible to use losses compression with images so the quality can be restored however this doesn't reduce the file size of the images as much so file compression allows us to reduce the size of files which makes it faster for us to transfer them over the internet it also lets us send multiple files at once in a single compressed folder and reduces the storage space required on our hard disk or cloud storage documents use a form of lossless compression where patterns are searched to find repeated words spaces and redundant data which can be removed images use lossy compression where different shades of the same color are rewritten as the same shade to reduce the number of colors being stored and so reducing the file size nowadays we don't just store our files online we actually run our software over the internet too with online software which we sometimes call software as a service we don't install applications on our computer rather they are installed on a server and we access them through our browser the alternative to online software is standalone software this is where your software is installed directly on your hard drive standalone software is still very popular but online software has many advantages that has led to it really growing in popularity dan wants to upgrade the office software he uses in his business unfortunately the computers used at his workplace are very old and don't have the storage capacity or processing power needed by many modern standalone software applications online software is perfect for this though with online software all the functions of the software are carried out on a remote server this means your computer needs less processing power similarly as a software is stored on the remote server and you could make use of online storage for saving the files created by using the online software dan doesn't need as much hard disk space on his computer in addition to the problem with his outdated computer hardware he has found he doesn't have enough time in his day for maintaining the software correctly such as running updates and backing up his files this is another great reason for using online software because it automatically updates to the latest version this means his business can keep a competitive edge as they have all the latest features available also online software services allow dan to schedule automatic backups this makes the backup process more reliable as he knows it will run exactly when it should such as every evening without having to manually perform the task himself within his business dan has two other employees often he needs to work these employees on the same document such as producing a presentation together luckily online software supports collaborative working this means that dan can make changes to the presentation on his computer and the document will be updated in real time on the computer of the other users this means they can work simultaneously on the same document while dan currently has two employees he's looking at possibly expanding soon he doesn't want to risk buying the software for additional employees right now though software as a service allows dan to access his software much more flexibly as he pays to access it on a monthly subscription so he only needs to pay for software when he needs it he can also access the software on any type of device as long as it has an internet connection and a browser finally dan also wants to be able to share certain files with his employees so they can read them and possibly edit them online software works closely with online storage and you can share your files with others so they can access the files themselves too reduce processing requirements reduced demand and hard disk space automatic updates automatic backups collaborative working greater access flexibility and sharing documents are all fantastic benefits of using online software when we use online software and storage to share our documents we have to be careful over the security of the files two techniques used to help with this include version control and levels of access danos created a spreadsheet for tracking sales made by himself and his employees later on he opened the spreadsheet to add a new cell he'd made but found that the document was showing as being locked and he could not edit the file this is a form of version control called file locking one of dan's employees opened the file and it became locked this means that while dan can open the file to read it he cannot edit it once the employee saves changes the file can become unlocked and dan can add a sale this is designed to stop people from opening and editing the document at the same time as you might overwrite each other's changes when you save levels of access are another way to keep our files safe when sharing them online this allows us to set different file permissions for different users when accessing files later dan shared a new document with his employees on safe ict practice he doesn't want them to edit the file though just read it he can set the file permission of the employees to read only this sets their level of access so they cannot edit or delete the file if he wanted to allow the employees to make changes to the document then he could assign the employees read write permission this allows them to open the file to read and to make changes to it however they still cannot delete the file full control is the highest access level dan has given himself full control over the document so he can read it edit it and delete it setting the file permissions to give everyone the right level of access they require is important if everyone had full control then they could accidentally delete all the data from the system or maliciously edit or steal all the data so when sharing documents online we use version control such as file locking to ensure users can't override each other's changes to a document levels of access are used to ensure files are secure by limiting what users can open edit and delete there are three main file permissions that can be assigned read only read write and full control the online world has become a key way by which we communicate with others we use these online communication channels for all sorts of reasons such as to publish and access information to share information in education and even to build online communities one of the most common ways of communicating online is to publish and access information using social media adam wants to publish his opinions on new movie releases online so that others can access this information he decides to create a blog to do just this every week he watches a new movie and is able to post an entry to his blog on how he enjoyed the film others can then view his review and even comment on it to share their own thoughts this is a perfect use for a blog blogs are like online journals which we regularly update to share our thoughts and feelings on a topic we're interested in they're quick and easy to update without being a tech whiz contain text images and often even video whilst writing his latest review adam wants to look up some information about the film's director he found a wiki that contained all the information he needed he noticed a mistake though he was able to sign up to become a member of the wiki and was able to edit the article and fix the error himself so others wouldn't be misled you see wikis are websites that are maintained by a community of users who have signed up as members they can edit the articles in the wiki written by themselves or other members and save it so all users get information that is accurate and up to date finally admins found his movie review blog is very popular and a few of his regular visitors have asked him if he could do a podcast so they could listen to his weekly opinions on films by listening to on their smartphone podcasts are a really popular form of publishing and accessing information they're audio or video files that are usually published in regular episodes this is a great non-written way of sharing information so blogs are an online journal that is regularly updated to share opinions wikis are websites are maintained by community of members to share up-to-date and accurate information and podcasts are audio or video files that are usually published in regular episodes that share information in a non-written form these are all examples of social media used to publish and access information another reason we use online communication is for education using a virtual learning environment oxana is studying an ict course at her local college to help with her studies the college is using a virtual learning environment or vle for short one day while working on her coursework she realized she wasn't sure about how to complete a section luckily her teacher had uploaded all of the course notes and resources to the vle so oxana could download them to help her do the work after working through the resources oxana was still not absolutely sure on how to complete the section she thought it would be great to be able to ask her classmates but she was at home and so unable to speak to them however her teacher has set up a discussion forum on the vle this allows her to ask questions and participate in discussions with her classmates after asking her classmates to help she was pretty sure she knew exactly what to do but she wanted to be 100 sure so she decided to speak to her teacher rather than speaking face to face or using email she could use the vle to send a message to a teacher to ask her questions finally oxana has completed her coursework and is ready to submit it for assessment rather than printing it out and handing it in she can submit her work electronically from home using the vle this is great because it saves the time and cost wasted on printing it also lets her teacher mark her work directly on the vle so she can access her feedback on there and track her progress easily so vle is a fantastic way of communicating in education it lets us access lesson resources take part in discussion forums with classmates message teachers submit work for assessment and receive our feedback to track progress however it's worth noting that there are some downsides for example if the vle is down or the teacher doesn't have internet access then they won't be able to mark any work a final common use of online communication is for sharing information and building online communities using social networking online communities are a virtual community where members interact with each other teresa wants to create an online community based around her interest in the local football team she thinks it would be great to share her thoughts on the matches and discuss the results with fellow fans a good way of setting up an online community like this is using social networking websites like facebook teresa can create a group on the social networking site that allows fellow fans to join everyone can post new comments to this group and respond to each other's comments to build an online community teresa also wants to be able to share news on her personal life and keep in touch with her friends social networking websites can build networks of friends by friending people we know so when they post updates we can see what they're saying so social networking sites help us to share information with others we use it to build online communities by creating groups on a topic of interest that others can comment on we also use it to build networks of friends where we frame people we know so that we can see the updates they post and they can see our updates so we can keep track of what is happening in each other's lives so social media such as blogs wikis and podcasts are used to publish and access information virtual learning environments are used in education for things like downloading resources taking part in discussion forums messaging teachers and submitting work for assessment social networking websites are used to share information by building online communities as well as through networks of friends while online communication methods have undoubtedly had a big positive impact on our lives there are some drawbacks to these methods of communication too one of the most common ways we communicate with others online is through social networking waka's going traveling through europe but he wants to keep in touch with his friends and family so they know how he's getting on he's been taking lots of photos and videos while on his travels and would love to share them with everyone back home one of the benefits of social networking websites is that he can upload images and videos to the site and this will appear in his friends and family's timelines to notify them also while on his travels waka's sister had her birthday and he wanted to send her a message to wish her a happy birthday luckily social networking sites often have a built-in real-time chat feature so he can have a text-based conversation with her directly on the site in fact it's usually possible to use group messaging so he can have a text-based conversation with his whole family all at once this makes it really easy for wakas to keep in close contact with all his loved ones perhaps the best thing about social networking is that all of these benefits are available to wakas completely for free and they're really accessible as he just needs an internet connection whether that is through using existing wi-fi connections mobile broadband on a smartphone or an internet cafe of course there are some drawbacks whackers using social networking sites to communicate wakas needs to be careful about privacy settings on his social networking profile otherwise his profile and all his photos and videos may be publicly available not just to his friends and family this could lead to identity fraud for example where people use his personal information in order to do things like sign up to credit cards in his name or he might find old photos and videos are seen by a potential employer and cost him a job opportunity even if wakas has set his privacy settings correctly he always needs to be careful about user profile hacking if his password isn't very secure for example someone might be able to guess it and gain access to his social networking account and then misuse all of his personal information he keeps on there so social networking has a number of benefits to us it allows us to share photos and videos with others to have real-time chat conversations hold great messaging conversations it is very cheap as social networking sites known cost extra to use and it's very accessible as all you need is an internet connection however you have to be careful about the dangers of your personal information not being private which could be used for identity fraud or seen by people you don't want to see it such as a potential employer your profile could also be hacked and your personal information stolen another popular way of communicating online is through the use of instant messaging lowry wants to hang out with her friends and decides to organize a meet up with them at the local bowling alley using instant messaging she is able to send a message out to all of her friends at the same time they can then all respond to each other this is group messaging as one of the best benefits of using instant messaging additionally as messages are sent in real time this means they can instantly see each other's messages and respond to them this makes it really easy for them to hold a conversation to agree what times they should meet up at unfortunately not all of lowry's friends know where the bowling alley is but instant messaging saves the day again as lowry can include web links in her instant message to the bowling alley's website or she can even send a file and a message such as a document with directions to the bowling alley there are some downsides to instant messaging though for example many instant messaging apps allow anyone to send you a message this means that you can receive a lot of unwanted spam messages also messages sent using instant messaging can be intercepted so any private information that you send could be misused lowry has found instant messaging has made a massive difference to her life however she realizes she doesn't actually know how it works and would like to know well instant messaging relies on a client which is the computing device that lowry has instant messaging software installed on and a server she uses the client to write the message she wants to send when she sends the message it travels over the internet to a server run by the instant messaging company this server will then redirect the message to the client of the person you are sending the message to they then can read the message and reply to it so instant messaging gives us many benefits this includes group messaging real-time messaging sharing web links and sending files however there are some drawbacks these include unwanted spam messages and security due to the possibilities that your messages could be intercepted and misused lastly the role of the client in instant messaging is to write and send messages and then to display them to the recipient the server's role is to receive the message and redirect it to the recipient's client a final common method of online communication is real-time communication with speech and video such as web conferencing and voip eliot wants to have a conversation with a friend that lives in another country a good way of doing this would be by using voip or voice over internet protocol this allows him to have a conversation with speech and video over the internet this is a great choice for eliot as voip software is very cheap to use in fact usually it's completely free he can also use it anywhere that has an internet connection as most voip software works on desktop laptop tablet and smartphone devices so it's really accessible you can even use it with your mobile broadband connection at elliot's work he needs to hold a meeting with several other members of his team however a number of them are working from home that's okay as he can use web conferencing this is where he has a speech and video conversation over the internet with a group of people so that you don't all need to be in the same location usually web conferencing makes use of voip technology but also has other abilities such as being able to send files and display a presentation to all the members of the web meeting using voip and web conferencing does have some disadvantages though elliot has found that on occasions when having a conversation with a friend that the quality of the video is extremely blurry and often even the sound quality of his friend's voice is not very good that's because video and voice quality is reliant on a fast internet connection and so if your connection isn't very fast then it downgrades the quality similarly he can sometimes be unable to access voip in web conferencing such as when his internet connection is down this means that this type of communication is not very reliable lastly security can be a concern as the voice and video data being transferred over the internet could be intercepted by a malicious user so voip allows us to have a real-time conversation with text and video over the internet web conferencing works similarly to voip but allows you to communicate with large groups of people at the same time such as holding a meeting without being in the same location these technologies have many benefits such as being cheap to use as well as being extremely accessible as it works on many different devices and it can even work with a mobile broadband connection there are some downsides to these technologies such as the low quality of voice and video if your internet connection is slow the lack of reliability as it needs an active internet connection with good speed and potential security threats as the voice and video data can be intercepted while being transferred over the internet the online world is ever-changing and we are always seeing new ways of using the internet to improve our lives and how we do business an example of this is cloud computing services such as cloud storage another is ubiquitous computing which is also known as the internet of things when we access software and data storage on another business's servers as opposed to on our own computer we often refer to this as cloud computing we've already seen this in previous videos with online software and online storage zack is looking at starting to use cloud computing as he often needs to work in different locations and on different devices he feels cloud computing would be right for this as his software and data will run on an external server run by a hosting company this means he can use any device and access the software and data storage by using an internet connection and a web browser this high level of availability is one of the biggest advantages to cloud computing zach did consider upgrading the software he uses on his computer using standalone software however this type of software usually has a large upfront price to pay in order to use it cloud computing services however are often free and even paid services run on monthly subscriptions which is easier for zach to afford this isn't just true for online software but also for online storage where zac can increase his storage allowance by slightly increasing his subscription fee zack does have some concerns over using cloud computing services though he sometimes finds his internet connection drops out and can't be used or runs slowly when this happens he can't use the cloud computing services he also sometimes finds the whole server also goes down which stops him from accessing his software in storage this means that cloud computing access is not always reliable also because the software is accessed over the internet rather than directly on zach's computer it usually runs a lot slower especially if he's using a slow internet connection another drawback is that zach has no control over how the files are stored on the server or when and how often the software is updated this means that his files might not be secure if the hosting company doesn't run regular backups firewalls and other security measures and the software might be out of date and so missing the latest features so cloud computing allows us to run our software and store our files on external servers as opposed to on our own computer this benefits us as it gives us greater availability as we can access the cloud computing services on any device in any location using a browser and an internet connection it's also cheaper than traditional standalone software and local storage there are some drawbacks though it is less reliable to access and it is slower than local software and storage it can also be less secure and we don't have control over updating the software when everyday objects have processors embedded in them we refer to this as ubiquitous computing this essentially means that computing is available everywhere not just confined to your desktop amit's business stores a lot of stock in their warehouse but have found a lot of time is wasted locating items track and stock levels and such forth he decided to improve things through the use of rfid chips and ubiquitous computing an rfid chip or radio frequency identification chip is a tiny device that transmits data wirelessly amit uses rfid chips on all of his stock so that he can wirelessly identify the products using an rfid reader device this allows him to identify stock levels by reading the wireless signals to identify what stock is in the warehouse and what is left this saves him time as he doesn't need to manually check stock levels it can also be used to reorder stock levels automatically from the supplier over the internet he can even use robotics to automatically retrieve stock from the warehouse as these robots are programmed to read the rfid signals to find the stock and collect it this saves amit on needing warehouse staff to collect stock it's also much quicker also because of the stock level tracking and product retrieval is automated this eliminates human error which saves the cost on things like incorrectly ordering the wrong amount of stock it's not just in his stock control that amit has seen ubiquitous computing in use though he sees it everywhere and in everyday objects at his house he has a cat flap that only unlocks when it detects the rfid chip on his cat's collar this stops stray's cats from entering his house his fridge can monitor his contents and then send him updates to his smartphone and what he currently has and what he needs to buy at the supermarket this makes sure he never forgets to buy what he needs or buys things he doesn't need his garden plants are automatically watered by a system that reads soil moisture and rain levels to detect where watering is needed this saves him the time watering his garden and saves on wasting water by over watering his plants so ubiquitous computing is where processors are embedded in everyday objects we often make use of rfid chips with ubiquitous computing to wirelessly identify objects such as stock in a warehouse this allows us to automatically monitor stock level and even use robots to retrieve stock from the warehouse this all saves time money and reduces human error we also see ubiquitous computing in many other places such as a cat flap that automatically unlocks for your cat a fridge that monitors its contents and informs you of what you need to buy and an automatic plant watering system the internet is a global network of interconnected computers it's what allows us to access things like the web email and online gaming while it seems that the internet is a very simple thing from the outside there's actually a lot of complexity hidden in the background that you don't see in order to work the internet relies on a number of different components that together make up the infrastructure of the internet molly wants to access a web page over the internet in order to do so she loads the web browser on her computer and types the url for the web page the computer that she uses to run the browser software and type the url on is known as the client this doesn't have to be a pc the client is any device that we use to access the services provided over the internet by a server once she has typed the url and press enter her request for the web page needs to make its way to where the web page is stored which could be on the other side of the world a regular network is a group of computers that are connected together so they can share resources however the internet is made especially complex as it is a network of networks so we need to be able to traverse through all of these these different networks are connected together using a router the router is a device that directs data along the correct route wherever two networks meet so that molly's request can take the fastest path to where the web page is stored while being redirected to the location where the web page molly wants is stored her request travels across the internet backbone this is the superfast network lines that are run by a number of large organizations this makes up the principal route for transferring data over the internet finally after traversing over the internet molly's web page request arrives at a server this is the computer that manages access to resources and services over a network in this case it is storing the web page file molly wants its job is to find the web page file that molly has requested and send it back to her however there are lots of different types of servers such as mail servers for accessing email and print servers for accessing a printer over a network now the server has found the web page and sent it back to molly her client can receive the file and display it in her web browser so the client is the device we use to access the services provided by a server over a network like the internet a router is a device that connects together two networks and directs data between those networks so that it can reach its destination a network is a group of computers that are connected together in order to share resources the internet backbone is the super fast network alliance that make up the primary route for transferring data over the internet and a server is a computer that manages access to resources over a network together these components make up the infrastructure of the internet in order for us to be able to access the internet we also need isps pops and naps james wants to get internet access to his home in order for james to get internet he uses an isp or internet service provider an internet service provider is a company that supplies internet access for homes and businesses in return for a monthly fee in each major region an isp will have a pop or point of presence this is a building containing all the hardware such as racks of modems that users like james can dial into in order to gain access to the isp and isp's pops are all linked together however there are lots of individual isps who each use their own pops so how do these different isps connect together well there are locations where all the isps agreed to share data between each other and these are called network access points or naps these naps then have a dedicated connection to the internet backbone that these isps can share of course an isp doesn't just provide access to the internet they provide a number of other services to james too such as an email account web hosting space and online support these are all included for free with a subscription he pays for internet access so an isp supplies home and business internet access for a monthly fee a pop is the location run by an isp that contains all the hardware required for a user to gain access to an isp naps are where the different isps connect with each other so that they can share data between themselves and share access to the internet backbone as well as providing internet access an isp often also provides access to email web hosting space and online support the way the infrastructure of the internet works allows anyone to be able to access it for relatively low costs however there are different ways for users to connect to the internet that we'll look at in this video we'll also see what protocols are and why they're important in making the internet work when we want to access the internet there are three main internet connection methods that we use these are wireless broadband and dial-up chris wants to be able to access the internet to help him run his business he works both at home and while commuting he's not sure what the best method of connecting to the internet would be for him though he heard that wireless methods will allow him to use the internet wherever he is this would be a great benefit to him as he works while commuting and needs the internet while doing so this means he doesn't need to be stuck a stationary desktop computer in order to use the internet however wireless connections can be less secure this is a big concern for chris as he needs to work with private personal information and can't risk it being intercepted and stolen he's also been told that wireless connections tend to be slower than wide broadband connections and if there isn't a wireless access point available then he won't be able to receive a signal and connect to the internet an alternative for him to use is a wired broadband connection he can have this installed in his home and it will give him fast internet speeds and he'll get better reception than with wireless however he will only be able to use his connection while at a stationary computer at home as the computer needs a direct cable connection this means he wouldn't be able to use it while commuting chris was planning to go with broadband but discovered it wasn't available in his area as he lives in a very remote countryside so he has instead looked into getting dial-up internet this is available in his home because it uses existing telephone lines so it's always available where broadband sometimes isn't however the speed of this dialup connection is very slow compared to both wireless and broadband connections also because dial up signals must convert between digital and analog signals to transfer data over telephone lines this can cause errors so wireless connections allow you to access the internet without any physical cables this means you can use the internet without being tied to a single stationary computer however it is less secure tends to be slower and if you're not near a wireless access point you won't be able to use the internet anymore wired broadband connections is where you use physical network cables connecting you to a broadband supplier this gives very fast speeds and gets better reception however it does tie you down to a stationary computer dial up connections are where you use telephone lines to connect to the internet it is very accessible as it uses the existing telephone lines which are available across the entire country it is usually very slow though and is prone to errors in the data being transferred when choosing his connection method and his isp chris has seen two terms that he isn't very familiar with bandwidth and data transmission speed he wants to know what the difference between these two things are to help him make the best decision for his internet connection the bandwidth of an internet connection measures the maximum amount of data that can be sent or received across a network this is usually measured in bits per second if we were to think of it as a motorway increasing the bandwidth would be like adding another lane in the road on our motorway more cars can now travel across it at the same time similarly an increased bandwidth means that more data can travel across the network at the same time the term data transmission rate can often be used interchangeably with bandwidth in computer networking but there is a subtle difference while the bandwidth is the maximum capacity the data transfer rate is the measure of how much data we can actually send across the network at a specific period of time this is still measured in bits per second but is usually less than your bandwidth due to other factors like latency and signal interference so bandwidth is the maximum capacity for transferring data over a network while data transfer rate is the practical speed we are getting at a specific point in time they are both usually measured in bits per second there are all kinds of different devices that connect to the internet however for all of these different types of devices to communicate with each other we need something called protocols protocols are the rules that define how different devices can communicate with each other over the internet you can think of it as kind of like a common language so they can speak to each other the two most common of these are the transmission control protocol or tcp and the internet protocol or ip when chris wants to send data across the internet to his friend it all seems to happen practically automatically however there is a lot going on under the bonnet for example before his data can be sent it needs to be broken into smaller packets of data this is done by the tcp to allow the data to transfer across the internet more easily quickly and with less errors at this point the tcp passes the data packets to the ip the ip will then identify the address of each packet of data and direct the data packets to the correct computer that they are being sent to then when his friend's computer receives the data packets the tcp will reassemble them when reassembling the data the tcp also checks for errors and if it finds any it gets the problem data packet resent another well known protocol is the file transfer protocol or ftp the ftp is used to transfer files between two devices across a tcp based network like the internet this is commonly used for downloading and uploading large files over the internet so protocols are the rules that define how different devices can communicate with each other over the internet the transmission control protocol is used to break data into smaller packets and then to reassemble them once they have arrived at the destination it also checks for errors in the data packets and gets any corrupted packets resent the internet protocol identifies the address of each packet of data and directs them to the computer that the address points to the file transfer protocol allows us to transfer files between two devices over the internet in order for you and i to be able to make use of the web we need special software and hardware technologies we need these technologies in order to create the web pages we want to use as well as to access them over the internet websites are created using a special type of language called html or hypertext markup language usma has become interested in creating her own personal portfolio website and has heard that in order to create web pages she needs to learn html but she doesn't know how to use it at all well html is made up of special tags that tell a web browser what each part of our website should do these tags are written between triangular brackets and usually come in pairs an opening tag and a closing tag in between the opening and closing tags we add some text which is what will actually be displayed on the web page some of the common tags that usma may use include the h1 tag this is used to identify main heading in your website you can also use h2 for a subheading h3 for a sub subheading all the way down to h6 the p tag this is used to add a paragraph to a web page we can use this as much as we like and don't number them like with heading tags the table tag this is used to create a table in our web page to create a table though we also need tr tags to create a table row and td tags to add a cell in a row td stands for table data the br tag this adds a line break to a web page this is like pressing the enter key on your keyboard br tags are special as they don't have a closing tag like most other html tags do the a tag this creates a hyperlink the a actually stands for anchor to use the a tag we need to add a special attribute this is the href attribute and we use this to tell the browser what page we are linking to in the hyperlink the img tag this adds an image to our website it also has a special attribute this time the src or source attribute which gives the file path to where the image is stored that we want to appear on our web page the img tag also doesn't have a closing tag much like the br tag these are just a few of the commonly used html tags though so html stands for hypertext markup language and we use it to create web pages html tags are written between triangular brackets and usually come in pairs an opening tag and a closing tag between the opening and closing tags we write some text which is what will actually display on our web page common html tags include the h1 tag for a heading p tag for a paragraph table tr and td tags to create tables the br tagged about a line break the a tag to add a hyperlink and the img tag to add an image when accessing the worldwide web there are two incredibly important pieces of technology the web browser and the web server usma has finished creating her website using html and she wants to put it onto the internet so that others can view it to allow others to view her website she uploads it to a web server this web server is computer with an internet connection that stores web pages like usma's business friend simon wants to view the website that usma has created using a web browser he is able to enter the url for issma's website this sends a request across the internet to the web server that is storing the web page the web server receives the request simon sent using his browser and then locates the html web page file on its hard drive and sends it back across the internet to simon's computer his web browser receives the web page file and is able to interpret the html code in order to display the web page as was intended so a web server is a computer that hosts html documents and files so they can be accessed over the internet and a web browser is a software application that we use to access and display web pages the world wide web is the massive collection of information that is stored on computers connected to the internet we can access this information on web pages through the use of hyperlinks urls and search engines to appreciate how the web works we need to understand the structure of a website merit is visiting her favorite video games website she's currently on the home page but wants to navigate to the webpage for upcoming game releases merit doesn't need to know the exact url for the webpage she wants so she can use a hyperlink you see a website is a group of interconnected web pages when we say interconnected we mean that they are all linked together and these links are formed by using hyperlinks merit can see a link in the menu bar labeled upcoming releases when she clicks on the hyperlink text she is taken to the upcoming releases page automatically she could also have clicked on the advertising image for upcoming releases that can be seen on the home page when a hyperlink is applied to an image instead of text we call this a hotspot so simply put a website is a group of interconnected web pages these links are created using hyperlinks which are pieces of text that when clicked on will take you to another web page this might be on the same website or another website altogether hotspots are the same as hyperlinks but are added to images instead of text when you want to visit a new website and you don't have a hyperlink available to take you there you can enter the url for the website instead merit wants to visit her own profile page on her favorite social networking website she accesses the website by entering the uniform resource locator or url in the address bar of her web browser the url is the exact address to a webpage that is accessed over the internet when entering the url merit enters three different pieces of information the protocol the domain and the file path the protocol used web pages is usually the hypertext transfer protocol or http this is the set of rules for transferring files over the world wide web in a previous lesson you learned about the file transfer protocol which is also used for transferring files we use http for web pages though as it has a couple of benefits for this one is that is more secure as you can use encryption when transferring the files it's also faster because a single connection can be used to download multiple files the second part of the url is the domain this is the name of our website and points to the computer on the internet that our website files are stored on the last part of the url is the file path this is the exact location on the server that the file is stored you don't always have to enter this though if you enter just the domain it will automatically go to the file path for the home page file which is normally called index.html by entering the full url for her profile page on the social networking website she can get to the page without any navigating around through hyperlinks so a url is the address to a webpage that is accessed over the internet the protocol we use for web pages is the hypertext transfer protocol similar to ftp this is used to transfer files over a network however it's more secure and faster than ftp when working with web pages the domain is the name of the website that points to the server the site is stored on the file path is the location on the server where the page we want is stored when we want to find a specific piece of information on the world wide web we often use a search engine merit is using the web to do research for her school homework in order to find good information in her research she's going to use a search engine this is a website that allows merit to enter key phrases that the search engine will then match against relevant web pages for her to view it lists these pages with the most popular pages on the top along with a short description of what will be found on the web page so that mera can select the best link for what she's looking for the search engine is able to match key terms to relevant web pages because it maintains a database of web pages known as the search engine index this index is built automatically by the use of small programs called web crawlers or web spiders that systematically work their way across the world wide web to find new web pages and discover what these pages are about they can then be added to the search engine index merit is still struggling to find the exact information that she needs in order to complete her homework luckily there are some special techniques that she can use to improve her searches for example she can wrap her search term in quotation marks this means it will only return web pages that use those words in that order together before it was searching for those words separately anywhere in the web page another is the minus symbol this lets merit search web pages that do not contain a certain term these are called search modifiers and there are many others that can be used to help merit improve our search engine use so a search engine is a web page that lets us enter key phrases that the search engine will then match against relevant web pages for us to view the search engine index is a database of web pages that it maintains through the use of web crawlers these web crawlers search the web for new and updated websites so that we can find them in the search results search modifiers allow us to make more specific searches such as exact phrase searches and negative searches when we want to communicate with others over the internet the most common method we use is email or electronic mail this is a method of sending messages over the internet from user to user of course you've probably used email on countless occasions and feel comfortable in how to use it but what you might not know is the process email goes through when travelling from your computer to someone else's wayne is sending an email to his classmate to discuss the homework they need to complete for the next day to write the email wayne opens his email client on his computer the email client is a program that is used to write send receive and read email messages as well as writing his message he adds the email address for his friend as well as a subject line to describe what the message is about he can then click send once williams clicks send his message gets sent to his outgoing mail server this outgoing mail server is responsible for looking at the recipient's email server and then forwarding the message there over the internet once the email message arrives at the recipient's email server it gets stored in their mailbox waiting for wayne's classmate to log into the server later that day harry wayne's classmate loads up his email client on his computer and the email client will log into his mail server using his username and password the email client will then see if there is any waiting email messages in the mailbox and download them to the email client so that harry can read them and reply to them if he wants so an email client is used to write send receive and read email messages when we send an email it gets sent to the outgoing mail server this looks up the location of the recipient's mail server and forwards the message there the recipient's mail server will store the email message in the recipient's mailbox once the email recipient logs into their mail server the messages can be downloaded so that they can be read and reply to email has become hugely popular in our personal and work lives and is one of the most heavily used methods of communicating that's because there are many extremely useful advantages to using email though there are a few drawbacks too when wayne was sending his email to his classmate harry he realized that it would be great to get some other people involved in the homework conversation too he was easily able to do this with email as he can send an email to multiple recipients at the same time using the cc or carbon copy feature this was made even easier as his email client software has a built-in address books that stores the email addresses of all his classmates so he can add them as recipients really easily by selecting them from a list he also wanted to send the homework document in the email and so attach the document to the email you can add all kinds of attachments to emails such as photos spreadsheets and reports the thing that amazed wayne most about email though is how fast the messages would travel to his classmates in seconds his email arrives in the inbox of all his classmates he could even send his email to someone on the other side of the world and it would still arrive in mere moments it's also really accessible as he can send emails 24 hours a day seven days a week all he needs is a computer with an internet connection this is quite different to traditional old-fashioned mail where messages are only collected for posting once a day wayne knows that he needs to be really careful when he uses email though for example sometimes he receives emails with attachments that he doesn't recognize he once opened one of these attachments and this infected his computer with a virus that caused a lot of damage to his files and was very difficult to remove he also sometimes receives emails that claim to be from his bank and asked him to click a link and enter his bank details this is called phishing the email isn't really from his bank they're trying to trick him into revealing his bank details so that they can steal his money another problem is that he receives a lot of spam mail this takes a long time to remove and can be a real annoyance he uses a spam filler to stop a lot of it from bothering him but this causes further problems as many legitimate emails get caught in the spam filler and so he doesn't see them the advantages of email include that you can send an email to multiple recipients at the same time can use an address book to easily add people as recipients to your emails you can add attachments such as reports or photos to your emails email is very quick even when emailing to the other side of the world and it's also very accessible as you can use it at any time on any day however email also has problems because you can receive viruses and attachments phishing emails try to trick you into revealing personal information such as bank details spam emails can fill your inbox and be a big annoyance and spam filters can block legitimate emails so you don't see them we know that protocols are the rules by which we send data over a network like the internet well emails are no different in fact there are a number of different protocols we use when sending and receiving emails over the internet when we use email there are potentially three different protocols that are often used these are smtp pop3 and imap in the previous lesson we saw that wayne was sending an email to his classmate harry and we learned that when he wrote his email and clicked send the email message was sent to wayne's outgoing mail server well the protocol we used to transfer the data from wayne's computer to the outgoing mail server is smtp or the simple mail transfer protocol the smtp also controls the transferring of the message between wayne's outgoing mail server and harry's mail server once the email has arrived at harry's computer there are two different protocols that can be used for his email client to retrieve the email that was sent these are pop free or the post office protocol and imap or the internet message access protocol with pop3 when you retrieve your emails they download to your computer and are deleted from the mail server whereas with imap your emails are synced with your server so when they're downloaded to your email client it is merely a copy and the message still exists on the server itself when he set up his email client harry wasn't sure whether he should use pop3 or imap there are some key benefits and drawbacks to each of these though that could help him make a decision for example with pop3 because the emails are downloaded to his computer this means his emails are always accessible even when he isn't connected to the internet however the downside to pop3 is that because the emails are deleted from the server once delivered harry wouldn't be able to access the emails on a different device this is an advantage of imap you can always access your emails on multiple devices as each can be synced with the mail server imap also offers faster download speeds which helps when receiving large files over a slow connection this means that if harry needs to access his emails on multiple different devices such as his tablet home computer and school computer then he's better off using imap however if he needs to sometimes re-access emails while he doesn't have an internet connection then pop3 would be better so the simple mail transfer protocol is used when sending emails it transfers the file from your computer to your outgoing mail server and then from your outgoing mail server to the recipient's mail server the post office protocol is a method of retrieving emails where the message is downloaded to the recipient's email client and it from the server this allows you to access your emails even when offline but means that you cannot access your emails on multiple devices the internet message access protocol is another method of retrieving emails where your mail server and email client are synced so that your emails stay on the server even when accessed on the client this means you can access your emails on multiple devices easily it's also often faster than the post office protocol in our explanation of how email works we saw that emails are stored in the mailbox of our mail server until we log into the server and our messages can be downloaded this is known as the store and forward model when wayne sent his email it was stored in the recipient's mail server it waited there until his classmate harry logged into his mail server this message was then forwarded onto his computer so that he could read it as you can see when working with email the store and forward model is used when we are using the pop3 protocol so it has the same benefits and drawbacks as using pop3 for retrieving your emails the store and forward model isn't just used in email though it's used in many forms of communication such as instant messaging and sms no matter what form it happens in the basic elements stay the same so the store and forward model is where a message is stored on a server until the user logs into the server and the message can be forwarded to their device this is how email works when using the pop3 protocol data exchange is the passing of data between computers in a network such as the internet in order to allow us to exchange data over a network efficiently though we use a method called packet switching packet switching is where we break down the data we want to transmit into a series of small packets which can be sent across the network independently of each other they can then be reassembled on the other side every packet has a number of different bits of information we refer to this as the packet contents anna is sending a document over the internet to a friend before the document is sent the file is broken up into a series of packets each of these packets has three parts the header the payload and the trailer the header contains a few different pieces of information the source address which is the ip address where the data has come from so anna's ip address the destination address which is the ip address where the data is going to so anna's friend's iep address the protocol being used to transfer the data since anna's transferring a document this could be the file transfer protocol finally the header will contain a packet identification number this uniquely identifies each packet so we know how to reassemble all the packets back together the payload contains one key piece of information the actual coded data this is the piece of the overall data that we are transferring over the network the trailer which we sometimes call the footer contains the error control bits these are used to check the data packets are reassembled correctly if there is a problem with one of the packets we need to get it resent so a data packet is broken into three main sections the header which contains the source address destination address protocol and packet identification the payload which contains the actual coded data and the trailer which contains the error control bits packet switching is not the only method of exchanging data over network however it is extremely common this is because there are several benefits of packet switching when anna's transferring her document over the internet to her friend we know that the document is broken down into packets well each of these packets can transfer over the internet independently taking completely different routes while still arriving at the same destination this allows us to have a faster delivery time as these small packets can be transferred much more quickly than larger chunks of data which could get caught in bottlenecks on the network it also makes transferring the data much more efficient as the load of transfer in the data is spread across different routes each finding the most efficient one and not focusing on one single route packet switching is very fault tolerant if a section of the network goes down it is very easy to redirect packets around the issue so that transmission can continue lastly if data is corrupted during transfer it is easier and quicker to re-transmit the data as we only need to send the individual damage packet and not the whole document so the benefits of packet switching are that it gives us faster delivery times it makes much more efficient use of the network it is tolerant to any faults on the network and corrupted data can be retransmitted much more quickly when we exchange data between two devices there are a number of different ways to transmit the data for example we could transmit the data in only one direction or in both directions we could also transmit the data one bit at a time or several bits at the same time we use these different ways of transmitting data in different situations as they each have their own benefits and uses simplex half duplex and full duplex for example are all different data transmission modes that are used in different situations julian wants to change a channel on his tv to do so he presses a button on his remote control this transmits data from the remote control to the tv to tell it what channel it should change to this is an example of simplex data transmission a remote control can send data to the tv but the tv cannot send data to the remote control the data is transmitted in only one direction later at his work as a security guard he uses a walkie-talkie in order to communicate with his fellow security guards while they're doing their rounds when he starts speaking into his walkie-talkie his voice is transmitted as data wirelessly to his colleagues walkie-talkie while he is talking his colleague cannot talk back to him he has to wait for julian to finish his message first that's why you say over when you finish a message when speaking on a walkie-talkie to let the recipient know that they can now speak this is half duplex data transmission deity can be sent in both directions but only one at a time finally julian decides to phone a friend when he speaks to his friend over the phone both he and the friend can speak and listen at the same time this is full duplex data transmission devices like phones can both send and receive data simultaneously so simplex data transmission is where you can send data in only one direction such as a remote control half duplex is where data can be sent in both directions but only one at a time such as with a walkie-talkie lastly full duplexes where data can be sent in both directions at the exact same time such as with a telephone as well as the direction of data transmission we can also use different modes that control how much data can be sent at the same time we know this is parallel and serial transmission julian is now trying to print a document to do so he connects his printer to his pc using a cable his printer has two different options for the cables he can use parallel and serial as you might guess a parallel cable uses parallel data transmission this means that the data can be sent down the cable multiple bits at a time along an equal number of wires eight bits at the same time is common the alternative serial data transmission transfers data one bit at a time a benefit to parallel transmission is that inferior is capable of greater speeds and serial transmission in our example here with parallel we send the data eight times in the time it takes us to send it once with serial this is because we can send multiple bits of data at the same time however there are a number of downsides to parallel transmission for example parallel transmission is only good over short distances this is because parallel transmission is sending data simultaneously down individual wires that are closely packed together this can lead to interference which damages the data over long distances parallel cables are also generally more expensive due to there being several wires in the individual cable serial transmission can work over longer distances and is cheaper the one real downside is that because all the data has to be broken down into individual bits this causes additional complexity to the transmission process so parallel transmission is where we send multiple bits of data simultaneously this in theory is faster than serial transmission however parallel cables are more expensive than serial cables serial transmission is where data is sent one bit at a time this works over longer distances than parallel as it doesn't suffer from interference however it does add additional complexity as the data has to be broken down into individual bits data exchange can be performed using physical wires like ethernet cables or wirelessly such as infrared these different types of wired and wireless methods each have their own benefits drawbacks and uses utp sdp coaxial and fiber optic cables are all examples of wide transmission methods darren is setting up a home network he needs to connect his computer to his modem to do this he uses a type of utp stp cable utp stands for unshielded twisted pair while stp stands for shielded twisted pair this type of cable can reach speeds of 1000 megabits per second and has a range of 100 meters as well as for local area networks it's also used for telephone systems the great thing for darren using it in his home network is that utp stp cables are cheap to buy and really easy to install as they are quite thin and malleable however utp stp only works well over shorter distances and can be susceptible to interference from other nearby digital devices another time darren used wired data transmission is when he connected his tv to his aerial to do this he used coaxial cable coaxial cable can achieve speeds of megabits per second and a range of 100 meters while it is less susceptible to outside interference than the likes of utp stp it really is only useful over short distances it has a limited bandwidth and the cable is quite thick so it's difficult to work with a final type of cable that darren is using is fiber optic cable he doesn't have this in his house but the telephone company is connected to his local exchange using it fibre optic cables can achieve 100 gigabits per second and have a maximum range of over 10 kilometers this means it has a massive range compared to other cable types and is also much faster it also suffers from interference a lot less and is considered very reliable of course there are some downsides to fiber optic cables the most notable disadvantage is that is very expensive when compared to other cable types so utp stp cables have a max speed of 1000 megabits per second and a max range of 100 meters they're commonly used in local area networks the benefit of them is that they are cheap to buy and easy to install however they are only useful over short distances and are susceptible to interference coaxial cable has a max speed of 100 megabits per second and a range of 100 meters we use them for connecting your tv to your aerial the benefit of coaxial is that is less susceptible to interference than utp stp but they are only useful over short distances are slow and can be difficult to work with fiber optic cable has a max speed of 100 gigabits per second and a range of over 10 kilometers they're used to connect the telephone company to your local exchange the benefit of fiber optic cable is that it's very fast and has a big range it also suffers from very little interference however it is very expensive any method of transmitting data without any physical cables is known as wireless transmission methods for example infrared microwave and satellite darren uses infrared communication all over his house a good example of this is his tv remote they communicate wirelessly with the tv via infrared this type of wireless transmission has a max speed of 4 megabits per second and a range of 10 meters the upside of infrared is that is generally seen as a reliable transmission method however it has a very short range and data transfer speed it also requires a line of sight between the sender and the receiver he also uses microwaves when he uses his television he is a satellite television dish which uses microwave transmission this has a maximum speed of 300 gigabits per second and a maximum range of 30 to 40 miles this is obviously a very high speed and a long range however it still requires line of sight they cannot pass through things like hills and mountains they are also susceptible to interference from weather conditions the last type of wireless transmission system is satellite transmission we use this to transmit between different points on earth by relaying a signal of a satellite usually for global communication systems this offers huge speeds and a massive maximum range of around 3 600 kilometers which are its greatest benefits however it is extremely expensive so infrared transmission has a max speed of 4 megabits per second and a range of 10 meters we commonly see it used in television remotes the benefit is that is considered reliable however it has a small range of speed and requires line of sight microwave transmission has a max speed of 300 gigabits per second and a range of 30 to 40 miles we use it in home satellite tv dishes the benefit is that it doesn't degrade over long distances so it has a big range however it is affected by weather conditions and still requires line of sight satellite transmission has a huge max speed and a range of 3 600 kilometers you mostly see it used in global communication systems the benefit is the massive speed and range but it is very expensive voip or voice over internet protocol allows us to make voice and video calls over the internet it has become hugely popular as it is much cheaper to call someone using voip than using standard telephone calls especially when phoning from one country to another in order to use voip there are a number of different hardware and software technologies required jenny has moved to another country but she wants to keep in contact with her parents back home in order to do so she is going to use voip to use voip she needs to buy some new input and output devices she starts off by buying a microphone this allows her to input audio such as her voice so it can be transmitted over the internet to her parents because she also wants to have a video conversation she also requires a webcam this will input live video of her so it can be transmitted over the internet along with her voice to her parents lastly in order to hear her parents speak to her she requires either speakers or headphones these will output audio she chose headphones instead of speakers because it offers greater privacy as others cannot hear what her parents are saying jenny didn't need to spend a lot of money on these devices as you don't need a very high quality input and output devices to use void in fact as all voice and video is heavily compressed you would never be able to tell the difference between someone using high quality microphones and webcams and someone who is not as well as these hardware devices jenny also needs to use voip software such as skype there are also specialist video conferencing software applications that also offer voip capabilities as well as other features to help you hold a meeting so in order to use voip you need a microphone for inputting audio a webcam for inputting video and headphones or speakers for outputting audio these do not need to be very expensive or high-end you also need a voip software application like skype all voip software applications use something called a codec in order to compress your voice and video so it can be transferred over the internet jenny is using her voip software to have a conversation with her parents her computer is constantly sending voice and video data from her computer to her parents computer it's also constantly receiving voice and video data this is a lot of data in order to allow her internet connection to handle this it uses a codec which stands for compressor decompressor the codec will take her voice and video signal and digitally encode it compress it and then convert it into data packets so it can be transmitted over the internet then on her parents computer the codec will reassemble the data packets decompress and decode the data so our parents can see and hear her there are a number of pros and cons to codex for example because they compress the data it can be sent over the internet quicker this reduces stuttering that is caused when your internet connection cannot keep up with the data however these codecs will result in much lower quality voice and video for the receiver if it is heavily compressed they can be difficult to make out the picture and sound at all so a codec is a software program that compresses your voice and video so it can be transferred over the internet on the sender's end it will take your voice and video signal and digitally encode it compress it and convert it into data packets so it can be transmitted over the internet on the receiver's end it will reassemble the data packets decompress and decode the data so that you can see and hear it codecs allow the data to be transmitted over the internet more quickly which reduces stuttering in the voice and video however it reduces the quality potentially very heavily when we are processing data that is being transmitted across a network like the internet we can perform the processing on the user's computer or on the server we commonly see this in web pages which often have bits of code known as scripts that need to be processed by a computer when the data is processed on the user's computer this is known as client-side processing dwight is making a website in the website he wants to include a rollover effect so that when someone hovers their mouse over an image it displays some text describing the image to do this he uses client-side processing when someone views his webpage the script is sent to their computer and run on it in his website he also wants to include a contact form but he wants to ensure that people fill the form out correctly before sending it to ensure they do so he will use form validation that checks things like whether something has been left blank lastly he wants to use cookies in his website these are small text files that are stored in the user's computer in order to remember them when they return to the site dwight will use this to show his website users the web pages they viewed the last time they visited the website all three of these features are created using client-side scripting that's because there are some benefits to client-side scripting over server-side scripting that really suit these features for example client-side scripting has much faster response times than server-side scripting if we look at the rollover effect example it needs to respond quickly to someone hovering over an image if you use server side processing every time he hovered over the image a request would need to be sent all the way to the server which then performed the processing and then send an updated web page with a text showing this is very slow whereas with client-side processing when the user hovers over the image it immediately runs the script on their computer and displays the description text another benefit of client-side processing is that it's more secure with server-side processing data needs to be sent across the internet to the server to be processed this has the threat of being intercepted while it is being transmitted client-side processing doesn't suffer from this threat because data doesn't need to be transmitted to be processed there are some downsides to using client-side processing though client-side processing can be browser-specific what we mean is that some client-side scripting technologies require you to use certain browsers or to have certain other software installed if you don't the script can't run there can also be an issue with the speed of processing compared to server side processing user computers usually have less processing power than servers and so aren't as fast at performing the processing so client-side processing can be used for things like rollover effects validating forms and cookies the benefits include that has a fast response type and it is more secure the drawbacks include that it can be browser-specific and can be slow at processing when the processing is performed on the server before it's sent to the user's computer this is known as server side processing dwight has decided he wants people to be able to log into his website users will enter a username and password and this will be compared to a database of usernames and passwords on his server he will also be adding an e-commerce shop to his site to sell his products much like with the login system he keeps a database of all his products on his server this means that when a user wants to view a product all the details are loaded from the database and displayed in the web page another good feature he will include in his website is a message board this will allow his users to discuss his products and share reviews when a user adds a comment to the message board is saved to the database on the server when someone clicks on a link to view the comment it can be loaded from the database and displayed to them these are just free uses of server-side processing is used for many different reasons search engines for example also use server-side processing when you enter a search term is then compared against a database of web pages on the server to see if your search term matches any sites these can then be shown to you server-side processing gives us some key benefits the speed of processing is a big one as we mentioned in client-side processing a user's computer is not as powerful as a server usually so the processing can be completed more quickly by a server server-side processing can also make it easier to update websites in the example of our e-commerce shop if our product prices change we don't need to alter the code for the actual web page we can just update the price on the database this makes it much friendlier to non-technical users finally because the processing is running the server is browser-independent it doesn't matter what browser the end user is using because the processing doesn't happen on their computer however there are some drawbacks one of these is security in the example of the login system the user's username and password has to be sent over the internet to the server so that it can be processed the user's username and password could be intercepted while it's being transmitted a second drawback is that the server can be overloaded because the processing for every user is being performed by the server if you have thousands of people using your website it will need to perform that processing thousands of times this can overwhelm the server causing it to slow down and even crash so server side processing is used for things like user profile logins search engines e-commerce sites and message boards it has a number of benefits such as speed of processing the ease of updating websites and browser independence however there are security issues and the server can become overloaded a database is a collection of data that is organized in a way that makes it easy to access and maintain databases have become an important part of the online world with most websites relying on them for things like search engines user profile logins and blogs when we store data in a database it is organized into tables records and fields hamad is a physiotherapist he makes several appointments with customers every day and needs an organized method of storing the data for these appointments to do this he uses the database in his appointments database he has a table within this table he has records visually we see records as rows of the table each record stores the data on a single item such as a single appointment each record has a number of fields these are like the columns of our table each field stores a single piece of data about an appointment all of our data is structured into these tables so that we can quickly identify the data we want on a particular appointment so a database stores data in tables this is a grid made up of rows and columns a record stores the data on a single item a field stores a single piece of data about an item when creating a database every field in a table must have a data type this defines what kind of data we can store in each field in hammer's appointment database he stores a lot of different pieces of information for example we can see here that he's storing the name of the person who made the appointment the name field here uses the text data type this can store alphanumeric data so this includes letters numbers and symbols he also uses text for the person's phone number and email address another piece of data that hamad stores is the appointment id number he uses the number data type here the number data type can only store numbers these can be whole numbers fractional numbers and even negative numbers though every appointment requires a date and a time for the appointment so hamad knows when to expect the customer he uses the date time data type for these fields which are designed to store exactly this type of data finally he wants to store whether the patient has already paid for their appointment or not to do this he uses the boolean data type the boolean data type stores a true or false value so he can set it to true if they have paid or false if they have not so the data type defines the kind of data each field can store the text data type stores alphanumeric data like a name or a phone number the number data type stores numerical data like an id number the date time data type stores date and time values such as an appointment date finally the boolean data type stores a true false value such as whether a customer has paid their bill when we store our data in a database there are actually two common types of databases you can use these are flat file and relational databases hammond has been using a flat file database all of the data for his appointments are stored in a single table this can cause him a whole bunch of problems though a better option is a relational database in a relational database we store data not in a single table but in multiple tables that are linked together free relationships take hammer's flat file appointment database in this one table he is storing data on both his customers and on the appointments that have been made in a relational database we split this into two tables an appointments table and a customer table in the appointments table we saw all the details about the appointments itself such as the time and date of the appointment in the customers table we store all the details about the customer such as their name phone number and email you can also see that we've added a customer id field to the customer table one of the rules of a relational database is every record must have a field that is always unique to it this is known as the primary key field a customer's name isn't unique to each customer because many people have the same name similarly someone's phone number can be used by multiple people a home phone number used by a whole family for example so we use a customer id field here which is the unique number we give each new customer we have an appointment id field in the appointment table for a similar reason now we have two tables we need to create a relationship between them this is easy we simply copy the primary key field from one table and add it to the other table this is then called the foreign key field we can now add the right customer id to each appointment in the appointments table and we've linked it to the customer deals in the customer table relational databases are clearly a bit more complicated than flat file databases so why do we use them well the big reason is that we can reduce redundant data duplication in our flat file database whenever a customer made an appointment we had to enter in all of the customer details even if they've made an appointment with us before whereas with the relational database we just need to add the customer id to the appointment and it will link to all the existing data we have for them in the customer table this is obviously much quicker to enter data it also gives us a couple of add-on benefits for example because we have less redundant data our database is smaller and better organized so we can search it much more quickly and efficiently also because we need to enter less data whenever we make an appointment this can help reduce human error such as typo mistakes so a flat file database is where all data is stored in a single table whereas a relational database is where data is split across multiple tables a primary key field is a field that uniquely identifies each record in a table we create relationships between our tables by copying the primary key field from one table into another this then becomes a foreign key field there are a number of benefits to relational over flat file databases notably they reduce data redundancy allow for more efficient searching and they reduce human error databases can be accessed offline or online whatever way we want to access them though we need to use a piece of software called a database management system and to understand a language called sql when we access the database over the internet we refer to this as an online database charlotte wants to do some research at the local library for her college coursework she doesn't want to travel to the library not knowing whether they have any books of use to her though luckily her local library has an online database for their book catalog the library created the database using specialist online database software and hosts the database on a server connected to the internet charlotte can access it over the web using her web browser some online databases charge the subscription fee to access them though we use online databases for all sorts of reasons not just library catalogs there are online databases to look up legal history music films really absolutely anything having an online database at the library is of real benefit to charlotte as it makes it much more accessible for her to research what books are available she can access the database 24 7 from her own home there is a downside to online databases though they're less secure this doesn't have a huge impact on something like an online library catalog but databases are often used to store private and personal data and if this is stored online a malicious user could hack the database and steal that data so an online database is the database we access over the internet they're created using specialist online database software and are hosted on servers connected to the internet we can access them using our web browser from anywhere with an internet connection sometimes we may need to pay a subscription fee to gain access so online databases can be used for all kinds of reasons such as a library catalog legal history music and films the advantage of them is that they are much more accessible than offline databases however they are also less secure in order to create and manage a database we use database management software and sql pat wants to create a database to manage the stock levels for his shop to create the database he's going to use the database management system or dbms creating the structure of a database is one of the functions of a dbms we use it to create the tables define the types of fields set the primary keys and create the relationships after creating the database structure he realized he missed out a field in one of the tables another function of a database management system is that it can modify the structure of a database now he has created his database structure he needs to add some records of data to it he adds all of his products to the product table and supplies to the supplier table database management systems are also how we actually add data to the database a final function of the database management system is that allows him to search and sort the data he can search for products with less than 50 items in sock for example and sort it from highest to lowest when using his dbms to perform all these functions he uses a special programming language called sql or structured query language all dbmss use sql to perform these functions though we often split the language into two main parts the data definition language or ddl includes all the commands for creating and modifying our database structure the data manipulation language or dml includes all the commands for adding removing searching and sorting our data so a database management system is used to create and manage a database it has a number of functions including creating the database structure modifying the database structure inserting data into the database searching the database and sorting the database to interact with the dbms we use a special programming language called sql sql has two main parts the data definition language for creating and modifying the database structure and data manipulation language for adding removing searching and sorting data in the database computers are so important to us that when something goes wrong it can cause real harm when using computer systems especially when we are making use of the online world we are open to a number of threats that can damage our computers and data and so really impact on our personal and business lives not all threats to our computer systems are caused maliciously sometimes they are caused by accidental damage rajesh works on a computer system every day in his office one day he was deleting some old documents when he realized he had deleted his record of all the sales he has made for the past week he'd already cleared his recycled folder and the data was lost human error like deleting a file accidentally or overwriting a file can cause major harm to a business rajesh now has no record of his sales and so cannot complete these orders and bill his customers natural disasters can also count as accidental damage a fire or flood for example that will actually physically damage computer systems and the data they store not all harmed it systems are innocent though one of the most well-known and common threats to its systems is malware or malicious software rajesh uses email in his job one day he received an email he did not recognize that had an attachment he opened the attachment to see what it contained unfortunately it contained a virus a virus is a malware program that spreads itself through duplicating and attaching itself to other files and programs it is usually designed to damage your computer such as by deleting files or even wiping an entire hard drive viruses aren't the only type of malware though spyware is a malware program that installs itself in a computer system and steals personal information that the user has stored or enters this can be used for bank and identity fraud worms are like viruses but unlike viruses they don't need to attach themselves to other files and programs to spread they can tunnel their way through a network copying themselves over and over until all your memory and hard disk space is taken causing your computer and network to crash finally trojans are a malware program that pretends to be a legitimate program but secretly contains a harmful payload it is often used to damage your data by deleting it or to steal personal information a final threat that commonly affects us when using computer systems is phishing where i just learned his lesson about the dangers of email attachments after the virus however he later received an email that appears to be from his bank it asked him to click on a link to visit their web page and enter his bank details for a security check he quickly did so later though he discovered money had been taken from his bank account that he never spent he spoke to his bank and found that the email wasn't from them it was a phishing email phishing emails are where you receive an email that pretends to be a business or person you can trust in order to trick you into revealing personal information the link regest clip wasn't to his bank's website but to another website that looked like his bank's website when he entered his bank details it went straight to the person who sent the phishing email so there are many threats that can harm our i.t systems and our data accidental damage is a threat that is caused not by a malicious user but by things like human error such as accidentally deleting a file or from natural disasters like fires and floods malware are programs that are designed to harm our data and i.t systems these include viruses spyware worms and trojans phishing emails are emails that pretend to be from a legitimate business or person we can trust in order to trick us into revealing personal information because the online world opens up our computer systems to such a wide variety of threats we need to make sure that we have ways of protecting our data you probably are very familiar with many of these such as passwords and antivirus software but there are many others despite our best efforts we can't always protect our data though so we need to make sure we can recover when the worst happens to help prevent threats affecting our computer systems and data we employ a wide variety of security measures remember regesh from our previous lesson well he got sick of constantly falling afoul of the threats posed to its systems he's gone on an i.t security course and has returned to his workplace and taken upon himself to protect his business the first thing he wants to do is stop malicious users from hacking his computer system he does this through the use of a password his old password was a simple word all in lower case this is not secure it can be cracked in seconds he's changed it to one that has uppercase and lowercase letters as well as numbers and symbols it's also now eight characters in length which is the minimum it should be unfortunately he knows that not all employees will use the same complexity of password however he can still reduce the impact of a malicious user gaining access to his computer systems by using levels of access he sets it so that users can only access and edit the files they need to this means if someone hacks their account they'll only be able to harm certain files and not everything it also helps prevent accidental damage as the user can't accidentally delete everything on the system the next security measure rajesh implemented was a firewall this is a software program that monitors the data that's coming into and out of its computer system if you think something looks dangerous it blocks it this can help block hackers trying to gain unauthorized access as well as melissa's software especially worms it can also help protect regests from phishing attacks by preventing him from going to dodgy websites that pretend to be legitimate ones another piece of software that rajesh has installed is an antivirus this is designed to prevent malware from infecting his computer and causing damage it scans all of his files regularly and if it detects a suspicious program it quarantines it so that rajesh can decide if he wants to remove it regest has also started to use encryption encryption turns data into an unreadable form called ciphertext there are two main types of encryption and regis uses both of them but for different reasons he uses symmetric encryption to encrypt the files he keeps on his hard disk symmetric encryption uses the same encryption key to both encrypt and decrypt the data this means that someone gains access to his hard disk they won't be able to read the data without having the encryption key he used to encrypt it he uses asymmetric encryption when transferring data over the internet asymmetric encryption uses two different keys to encrypt and decrypt the data when he wants to send data to someone he uses their public key to encrypt the data when they receive the data they use their private key to decrypt it this means if a malicious user intercepts the data during transmission they won't be able to read it a final security measure regest has started to use in his business is monitoring technology he has installed screen capturing software and key loggers on employees machines to monitor how they use the it systems and detect if they misusing it in a way that could make the data unsafe or detect the malicious user making use of someone else's login he could also use physical monitoring technologies like cctv and gps trackers for monitoring the location of people and technology in his office for example a gps tracker on expensive computer hardware means he can find it if it's stolen so complex passwords can protect our systems from unauthorized access as well as malicious software you should ensure there are at least eight characters and contain uppercase and lowercase letters as well as numbers and symbols levels of access can protect our systems from unauthorized access and accidental damage this involves allowing users to only be able to access and edit the files they need to firewalls protect our system from unauthorized access as well as malicious software and phishing it monitors data going into and out of a computer system and blocks anything that looks suspicious antivirus software protects our system from malicious software as well as phishing attacks it examines files and programs and if it finds a suspicious program it will quarantine it so the user can decide whether it's a threat and remove it encryption protects our systems from unauthorized access encryption is where we convert our data into an unreadable form known as ciphertext there are two main kinds of encryption symmetric encryption is where the same key is used to encrypt and decrypt the data is commonly used to encrypt data on a hard disk asymmetric encryption is where different keys are used to encrypt and decrypt the data this is commonly used to encrypt data that is being transmitted over the internet monitoring technology can protect our system from unauthorized access and accidental damage this is where we use technology like cctv gps trackers screen capturing software and key loggers to monitor the behavior of employees and others when interacting with our i.t systems when we lose data due to one of the threats we have looked at we need some way to get the data back we do this through the use of backup and recovery regest's business despite his best efforts was hacked and a huge amount of data was deleted this is disastrous for the business as he's lost all of his customer records this could cause his business to collapse however regis has come a long way and he has been keeping a regular backup of his data there are a few different types of backup that can be used for example a full backup which is where a copy of every file and folder is taken an incremental backup where any files and folders that have changed are copied and a differential backup where files and folders that have changed since the previous full backup are copied regis is the full backup that he's taken every week so he has minimized the data he's lost he stores his backup on a usb stick which he locks in a safe in his office this isn't the best way of taking the backup though what if his building burned down he'd lose his usb stick in the fire and it's back up with it we often use remote backups where our files are stored in a different location in order to protect us from this sort of danger a good way for regest to do this in future would be by backing up the cloud storage so backups allow us to recover from data losses this is important as big data losses can ruin a business there are a number of different types of backup such as a full backup incremental backup and differential backup it is common to store local backups on usb sticks or external hard drives however if these are not stored in a remote location we are still in danger from things like fires and floods cloud storage is commonly used nowadays for backing up data as this would be stored in a remote location from our business when using websites like social networking sites what we say can affect our e-reputation this can affect our personal lives and our businesses in major ways and we should always take care to manage it a negative e-reputation is now a major threat when using the online world another major factor that can affect how we use the online world and are impacted by it is legislation many laws have been passed to make misusing other people's data and computer systems illegal and we should always be aware of these laws your reputation online is known as your e-reputation stanley uses social networking websites regularly he shares his opinions political views and images using these sites he never gave it much thought but after failing to get a new job for some time he got some employment advice and they told him that employers often check someone's social networking profile before employing people he was shocked to discover that his statements and images posted on these sites were publicly available to everyone not just his friends some of them did not paint him in the best light and could be affecting his employment he's discovered that he can change his profile settings to private so that only his friends can see his pictures it's not just people that get affected by your reputation though sally runs a coffee shop she used to be very busy but has found she's been getting less and less customers one day when searching for her own business online she discovered that she has several negative reviews for a coffee shop on a review site review websites blogs forums and social networking sites can have a real impact on a business's e-reputation and this can cost them real-life business started to respond to the negative feedback and offered the unsatisfied customers a free coffee and refunds she slowly found the reviews became more positive and some of the negative comments disappeared so your e-reputation is your reputation online sharing images and opinions on social networking sites can be publicly visible if your privacy settings aren't set correctly this could cost you job opportunities if a business searches for you and doesn't like what they see businesses also are affected by your reputation from places such as review websites blogs forums and social networking being used to share negative or positive opinions many businesses employ social media experts whose job is to engage with customers online to manage the negative reviews and gain more positive ones to help protect businesses and individuals from the threats to i.t systems and data there have been a number of legislations passed the most well-known examples are the data protection act and computer misuse act in megan's business she keeps the database of her customers personal information this includes things like their name address and even their bank account number she knows that it's important to keep this information safe to protect her customers it's also important that she keeps it safe because of the data protection act the data protection act is a law that says businesses like megan's that collect personal data on individuals must keep that data safe and not misuse it an organization known as the information commissioner's office will monitor businesses and investigate those it thinks might not be using individuals personal data correctly if they found that megan was misusing or failing to secure her customers personal information then they could give her a huge fine megan knows that the departation act isn't the only law that relates to the data she keeps in her business there's also the computer misuse act the computer misuse act covers three main crimes the own authorized access to computer material such as hacking into someone's computer account the unauthorized access women tend to commit further crimes such as hacking into someone's bank account to transfer money out of the account into their own and the authorized modification of computer material such as spreading a virus to someone's computer system if you commit any of these crimes you can face a large fine and up to 10 years in jail this helps megan as it can deter people from trying to hack her business as they know if they are caught they could end up in jail so the day of attention act is a piece of legislation that ensures that businesses that collect personal data must keep that data secure and not misuse it if a business breaks the law it can receive a huge fine the computer misuse act is a piece of legislation that makes it illegal to gain unauthorized access to an i.t system to gain unauthorized access with a view to committing further crimes and the unauthorized modification of computer material if you break this law you can be fined and receive a jail sentence of up to 10 years