Entertainment
Internet Surfing
The Internet connects locally connected computers to other computers all over the world. Local client software receives information from remote server software and makes it available. The concepts of the WWW were first developed at the European Particle Physics laboratory CERN in 1989. The Web is a system of information distribution using the Internet. It is a global hypertext system of linked documents written based on a set of rules called HyperText Markup Language (HTML).
Surfing the Internet is usually seen as fun, dangerous, or a tremendous waste of time, depending on who you ask. All of the above is true, but what is also true is that the Internet is a necessity for today’s computer users. It is, in one sense, the world’s largest encyclopedia (don’t know something? look it up on the Net), but it’s also the world’s largest data and software repository. Looking for printer drivers? better word processor than Notepad? a good antivirus package? a walkthrough on installing a second hard drive? advice on how to handle a balky Windows install? the new plug-in for your copy of Diablo XII? Whatever you need, you can find it and download it over the Internet, often for free.
Its only similarity to surfboarding on real surf has to do with the esthetic of “going with the flow.” The Internet could be a fearsomely difficult place to navigate until the World Wide Web was invented; casual clicking on Web links was naturally quickly compared to channel-surfing, so the expression “surfing the Web” was a natural extension of the earlier expression. But the Web is only one aspect of the Internet, and you label yourself as terminally uncool if you say “surfing the Internet.” (Cool people say “Net” anyway.) It makes no sense to refer to targeted, purposeful searches for information as “surfing”; for that reason I call my classes on Internet research techniques “scuba-diving the Internet.”
