Why the internet breaks.

[Dave A]

I'm thinking of doing a series on various aspects of the internet - before I get to geeky and can't communicate without losing folks that don't know that much about this stuff yet. Although there's probably a risk of that already.

I've struggled through so many strange issues over the last 7 or 8 months and really got to a learn a lot along the way.

I'm sure this sort of thing has been done before, but maybe I can bring in some sort of new twist, or a version that is easier-to-understand/ funnier/ twisted/ more-likely-to-attract-a-law-suite or something.

I'll shoot for a post a day - starting tomorrow. If anyone gets in the mood and wants to jump in too, be my guest.

[Dave A]

Hardware, software and information files.

First, my apologies. This is a start from scratch series so some of this early stuff could be quite boring for folks a little further down the road.

Basically, all the bits and pieces that make internet communication what it is can be placed into one of three categories - hardware, software and data files.

Data files hold the information we're trying to ship backwards and forwards.
Hardware is all the physical stuff that stores and moves the data files.
Software tells the hardware what to do with the data files.

An easy way to get the relationship between all these bits and pieces is to relate this to a road transport system.

Think of passengers and freight as the data.
Vehicles are the data files.
The roads, parking lots, offices, warehouses and homes are all hardware.
Traffic lights, police directing traffic, freight managers, signage etc are the software.

My only concern with the analogy is exactly where to put the driver, as software or data, but we'll see how that goes down the line.