Every so often, almost like clockwork, someone will come out and say that the internet is ruining everything. This week, it’s the New York Times’  Bill Keller, who fears that “we may be unlearning, tweet by tweet… complexity, acuity, patience, wisdom, intimacy” The usual response to this from web-heads and technologists is a slightly more nuanced version of “OMG, Bill Keller is soooo stupid!”. And given the number of times it happens, that’s understandable. It gets frustrating to see people repeating the same arguments over and over again. Yet, at the same time, people are clearly worried….

Can you even remember life without the Internet? It has become such an embedded aspect of our lives that many young people couldn’t imagine not having it. In western society, nearly everything is in some way tied in through the Internet. This graphic by our friends at Grasshopper Group gives us a timeline of events that have led up to today. It hasn’t been around forever but for many, it certainly seems like it. …

I have been blogging professionally for nearly five years — it has been my sole source of income. It isn’t by any means an easy career decision, but I make it work for me. But, as they say, all good things must come to an end, and I fear that the day of the professional blogger is no different. For now, I’m in good company: 34 percent of bloggers who participated in Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere in 2010 revealed that they partake in this blogging endeavor on a full-time or part-time basis, meaning there is money to be made. Blogging is also incredibly popular in the States, where 33 percent of respondents…

Most of us spend a great deal of time on the Internet. It has become the most prevalent activity during our waking hours for millions. When you look closely at the statistics, most fall in line with our expectations (likely due to the information we’ve seen somewhere before on the Internet regarding the subject), but some things may be surprising. Did you know that 1% of people who do not use the Internet say they don’t because they are scared of catching a virus? This graphic by our friends at SiteJabber lines out many of these statistics for us. It’s an interesting look into the mass-mind that has turned…

Simply said, a protocol is a set of rules governing how things work in a certain technology, so that there is some kind of standardization. IP protocol standardizes the way packets of information are transmitted over the web. Ever computer is assigned an IP address which is a unique address used to locate and identify a device over a network. In cases where two machines are given the same IP address, packets won’t know where to go. This is known as IP conflict. As we near the end of IPv4′s unique set of addresses, computers and servers across the world must be able to identify themselves to keep the flow…

Nearly every small business in the United States relies on broadband Internet connections in one way or another. Even those who do not sell a product or a service online need the Internet for internal reasons, research, marketing, or communications. As technology gets better, the cost to stay connected and the demands of the ISPs goes up. Despite having one of the slowest average connection rates amongst industrialized countries, the expense to operate and promote a business online is high in America. The graphic by our friends at Intuit highlights the challenges, advancements, and points…

Has it really only been 17 years? Apparently, Katie Couric and Bryant Gumbel had no idea what the Internet was, or even for certain what “@” meant. We can watch this video and laugh now, but this thing that seems to have engulfed many of our lives was a mystery to most less than 2 decades ago. Just goes to show how rapidly technology is changing our world. What big, obscure mystery today will be commonplace in a couple of decades? …

There are certain things, particularly in politics and technology, that seem to make sense on the surface. Take, for instance, the rejuvenated legislation they’re considering putting back on the table that would grant the President of the United States the power to “kill” the Internet in times of extreme crisis. Makes sense, right? “Imminent cyber attacks,” as they’re described by Homeland Security, would be the triggering event to initiate a shut down. The example used is a cyber attack on the Hoover Dam that would open the gates without authorization. In such a case, the President would…

No, but we’re not far off. The acceleration of the creation and discovery of information is reaching a point that is mind-blowing. We’ve all heard the different “facts,” that we double knowledge every two years or that we gain more information every year that we did in any of the previous centuries – all of it is fodder for speculation and trivia. Still, we’re advancing terribly fast. Are there pitfalls? What if the data is lost? What if we gain it so fast that we can no longer store it properly. Electromagnetic pulses, sunspots, hackers – all are reasonable concerns regarding the most valuable type…

There is zero doubt that 2010 was a booming year for the Internet. Social media emerged as a driving force for online and real-life activities with Facebook and Twitter continuing to lead the charge. Social news had some shakeups and shifts that put sites like Reddit on top. Email is still relevant despite many pointing to its demise. Internet use in general is going up (of course) but the way we access the Internet seems to be changing. To know what 2011 holds for us, it’s good to look back at where we’ve been. Thanks to our friends at Focus, we can do just that. This graphic puts it all into perspective…