Computer Applications

Computer Concepts

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Lecture Outline
At the end of this lecture you will have understood:

• Technologies that drive ICT i.e. computer, computer network, internet, internet service
provider, world wide web, web browser, website, search engine, email, webserver, protocols,
web languages

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Technological Elements that drive ICT
1. Computer

A computer is an electronic device that manipulates information, or data. It has the ability
to store, retrieve, and process data. You may already know that you can use a computer to
type documents, send email, play games, and browse the Web. You can also use it to edit
or create spreadsheets, presentations, and even videos.

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2. Computer network

A computer network is a system in which multiple computers peripheral devices are connected to
each other to share information and resources. The various types of computer networks are
categorized according to their size as well as their purpose.

The size of a network should be expressed by the geographic area and number of computers,
which are a part of their networks. It includes devices housed in a single room to millions of
devices spread across the world.
Types of networks include;
• Local Area Network (LAN)
• Wide Area Network (WAN)
• Others include; Personal Area Network (PAN), Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) etc.

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• A Local Area Network (LAN) is a group of computer and peripheral devices which are
connected in a limited area such as school, laboratory, home, and office building. It is a
widely useful network for sharing resources like files, printers, games, and other
application. The simplest type of LAN network is to connect computers and a printer in
someone's home or office.

• It is a network which consists of less than 5000 interconnected devices across several
buildings.

• When computers connect on the same network, it is called a local area network, or LAN.
When multiple networks are connected, it is called a wide area network, or WAN.

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• Wide Area Network (WAN) is computer network that which is spread across a larger
geographical area. WAN network system could be a connection of a LAN which connects
with other LAN's using telephone lines , wireless (cellular), and radio waves.

• A WAN is essentially a network of networks, the Internet being the world's largest WAN.

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3. Internet

The Internet is a global network of billions of computers and other electronic devices. With
the Internet, it's possible to access almost any information, communicate with anyone else
in the world.

The Internet: is a global collection of inter-connected computer networks, linked

by wires, cables, wireless connections to allow communication and data
exchange etc.

The Internet: A collection of computer networks that use a protocol to exchange data

When someone says a computer is online, it's just another way of saying it's connected to
the Internet (to the global network).
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Internet Connection

Once you've set up your computer, you need to purchase an Internet access so that you
can connect to the internet to send and receive email, browse the Web, stream videos, and
more.

Internet access is an Internet service that allows you to connect to the internet. This
service is provided by an Internet Service Provider (ISP).

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4. Internet Service Provider (ISP)

The ISP ensures (technical) access to the Internet. An Internet service provider (ISP) is an
organization that provides many different services for accessing and using the Internet, An
ISP can be a phone company, cable company, or the government. e.g. MTN Uganda,
AIRTEL Uganda, Smile Communications Uganda, Tangerine Limited, Gilat Telecom, Liquid
Telecom, Roke Investments etc.

ISPs (Internet service providers), the companies that provide Internet service and
connectivity, The ISP provides a bridge between your computer and all the other computers
in the world on the Internet.

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• A computer has to first connect to an ISP network through ways like Digital Subscriber
Line (DSL), Fiber Cable or Satellite broadband connection, or 3G,4G,5G
connection.

• When a computer connects to the ISP network it can access other networks connected to
the same ISP network, in return your ISP is connected to other ISPs meaning your
computer can access networks connected to other ISPs networks connected to your ISP.
ISPs are connected to other ISPs via a backbone.

• A local backbone refers to the main network lines that connect several local area
networks (LANs) together. The result is a wide area network (WAN) linked by a backbone
connection.

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• The Internet, which is the ultimate wide area network, relies on a backbone to carry data
over long distances. The Internet backbone consists of several ultra-high bandwidth
connections that link together many different nodes around the world. These nodes route
incoming data to smaller networks in the local region.

• The fewer "hops" your data needs to make before reaching the backbone, the faster it
will get sent to the destination. This is why many Web hosts and ISPs have direct
connections to the Internet backbone.

• Some of the largest companies owing and running different parts of the Internet
backbone include UUNET (Unix to Unix Network), AT&T, GTE Corp (General Telephone &
Electronics Corporation) and Sprint Nextel Corp.

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Advantages of internet

1. Faster communication

2. Provides Information resources

3. Entertainment

4. Social networking

5. E-commerce

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Disadvantages of Internet

1. Privacy & Security

2. Virus threat

3. Pornography

4. Social disconnect

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Q1: Who owns internet? Discuss.

Q2: What is the difference between the internet and an internet connection.

Q3. What is the relationship between the internet and the Web (WWW)

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5. The World Wide Web

The World Wide Web (WWW) commonly known as the Web, is a collection of different
websites you can access over the Internet.

You can access the websites on the internet using a software application called a web
browser.

The Web: is a collection of interconnected documents and other resources on the internet.

The web is an information system where documents and other web resources.

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6. Web browser

A web browser (commonly referred to as a browser) is application software for accessing

the World Wide Web. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the web
browser retrieves the necessary content from a web server and then displays the page on
the user's device.

Basically web browsers are applications used to view or display content of a website or
webpage for example google chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Opera browser.

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7. Website

A website (also written as web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that
is identified by a common domain name and hosted (stored) on a web server. Notable
examples include: wikipedia.org, google.com, and amazon.com.

All publicly accessible websites collectively constitute (make up) the World Wide Web.
There are also private websites that can only be accessed on a private network (on an
intranet or extranet), such as a company's internal website for its employees.

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A Web page (or webpage) is a hypertext document provided by a website and displayed

to a user in a web browser. A website typically consists of many web pages linked

together in a coherent fashion. The name "web page" is a metaphor of paper pages bound

together into a book.

In addition to formatted text, Web pages may contain images, video, and software

components that are rendered in the user’s Web.

Multiple Web pages with a common theme, a common domain name, or both, are called

a website.

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Domain name and Uniform Resource Locator (URL)

Domain name is the address of your website that people type in the browser URL bar to

visit the homepage (first webpage ) of a website. In simple terms, if your website was a

house, then your domain name will be its address. For example iuiu.ac.ug.

• A domain name is a part of the URL.

Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a string of information providing the complete

address of the web page on the website. For example iuiu.ac.ug/admission/ is the

complete address to locate the admissions page on the Equator University of Science &

Technology website.
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Domain Name System (DNS) server, translates domain names to IP addresses so browsers

can load Internet resources. Each device connected to the Internet has a unique IP

address which other machines use to find the device. DNS servers eliminate the need for

humans to memorize IP addresses i.e. iuiu.ac.ug translated to 196.43.182.2

Hyperlinks, are the primary method used to navigate between web pages on a website.

These links can point to other web pages, web sites, graphics, files, sounds, e-mail

addresses, and other locations on the same web page. When text is used as a hyperlink, it

is usually underlined and appears as a different color.

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Basic URL structure

https://www.iuiu.ac.ug/admission/

Complete URL structure

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8. Search engine

A search engine is a web-based tool that enables users to search for information on the
World Wide Web over the internet i.e. google search engine, bing etc.

A search engine helps people find web pages from other websites

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9. Web Server

A web server is computer software and underlying hardware that is used to host or store web
content (web sites). Web servers receive HTTP requests for web pages from a web browser
(client) via HTTP Protocol and accept these HTTP requests by sending back the requested
web content to the browser to display to the user.

Otherwise if the requested web page is not found, the web server will the send an HTTP error
message, “Error 404 Not found” as the response.

Well-known webservers are:

• Apache HTTP Server,

• Microsoft Internet Information Services (IIS).

• Nginx
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10. Network Protocol

In networking, A protocol is a set of rules for sending, receiving and formatting data. Both
endpoints (sender and receiver) need to understand the protocol.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)

HTTP is the protocol your browser uses to view webpages.

It is the foundation of any data exchange on the Web and it is a client-server protocol,
which means requests are initiated by the recipient (client), usually the Web browser.
Then a complete webpage is displayed back to the web browser as a response from the
web server.

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SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) Protocols

SSL is a standard technology for keeping an internet connection secure and safeguarding
any sensitive data that is being sent between two systems, preventing criminals from
reading and modifying any information transferred, including potential personal details.
The two systems can be a server and a client for example, a shopping website and
browser.

It does this by making sure that any data transferred between users and sites, or between
two systems remain impossible to read. It uses encryption algorithms to scramble data in
transit, preventing hackers from reading it as it is sent over the connection.

TLS (Transport Layer Security), is just an updated, more secure, version of SSL

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HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure)

HTTPS uses TLS (SSL) to encrypt normal HTTP requests and responses, making it safer and
more secure. A website that uses HTTPS has https:// in the beginning of its URL instead
of http://

• If your website is using HTTPS, its an indicator that all the information will be
encrypted by SSL/TLS certificates.

• The principal motivations for HTTPS are authentication of the accessed website, and
protection of the privacy and integrity of the exchanged data while in transit.

• Browsers mark sites that don’t use HTTPS as “not secure.”

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Kayiwa Shafik Juma | ksjuma09@gmail.com
Transmission Control Protocol (TCP)

TCP software breaks messages into packets, hands them off to the IP (internet protocol)
software for delivery, and then orders and reassembles the packets at their destination

Internet Protocol (IP)

IP software deals with the routing of packets through the maze of interconnected networks
to their final destination.

Every host on the Internet must have a unique IP address i.e. 192.168.1.101

• Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) is a communications

architecture used for networking computers and to communicate across the Internet.

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11. Email

Short for electronic mail, email is a way to send and receive messages across the Internet.
Almost everyone who uses the Internet has their own email account, usually called an
email address. This is because you'll need an email address to do just about anything
online, from online banking to creating a Facebook account.

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12. Chat and instant messaging

Chat and instant messaging (IM) are short messages sent and read in real time, allowing

you to converse more quickly and easily than email. These are generally used when both

(or all) people are online, so your message can be read immediately. By comparison, emails

won't be seen until recipients get online and check their inbox.

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Kayiwa Shafik Juma | ksjuma09@gmail.com