The internet - very helpful, but use caution

I have a pretty good memory regarding a lot of things that happened during my years in school, but not once do I recall someone asking me to e-mail them or send them a text. A very good reason is because back then those means of communication weren't yet available to us. We had to get along without the internet and smartphones. I imagine kids today wonder how we got by without what they consider necessities of life but we did it, and yet we still managed to have many good memories from back then.

The first concepts of what we consider a modern computer was the Turing Machine back in 1936. Although primitive, without it the fundamentals it gave us we wouldn't be able to have the computers we know today. Another early day computer was the Eniac (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) which was developed at the University of Pennsylvania over the three year period from 1943 to 1946. This massive computer took up 1,800 square feet and weighed 47 tons.

The first computer I remember seeing was Remington Rand's Univac (Universal Automatic Computer); it was the first one capable of storing and running a program from memory. It was seen on some of television's early day quiz shows in the '50s and '60s. Univac would have the contestants' questions and answers stored in it, after a minute or so of music and suspense the show's host would retrieve the question from the computer. Univac was also a very large computer but nowhere near as big as the one known as Eniac.

For a technology that is so vast and constantly changing, it's almost impossible to credit the invention of the internet to a single person. It was the work of many pioneering engineers, programmers, and scientists to develop all the features and technologies that eventually merged to create the "information Super Highway" we know today.

Today you can find information on almost anything just by searching Google or any of the many other search engines that are available. To see videos related to many of those searches, YouTube is very popular.

The internet has both good and bad associated with it. One of the many good things associated with it is it can be a tremendous source of information on just about any subject. Looking up information and learning about something is more enjoyable now than back in school when you had to because of an assignment. However, you sure have to use caution; just because you can find something on the internet don't believe it's all true. Usually when I'm researching something or shopping for an item, I like to check four or five different sources and compare them. After you've learned more about how to search, it becomes easier to learn what to believe and what not to believe. The old saying "If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is" often applies here.

It's been reported that a greater percentage of people are getting disillusioned today with the internet, compared with just a few years ago, there are many reasons for this. A few of those reasons are accidentally loading malware, cyber predators, e-mails wanting you to share in a supposedly great amount of money, and another reason you hear a lot is simply that there are scammers everywhere.

Scammers AKA cybercriminals are one of the main reasons why many people today are losing confidence in using the internet. Also many of the popular search engines collect too much of your personal information. One that does not collect personal information has the strange name of Duck-DuckGo.

Searching for something on the internet is known mainly by the term Googling, and that's no matter whether you use Duck-Duck Go, Google, or any one of the many other search engines

Phishing, just mentioned in the previous paragraph, is when those cybercriminals attempt to get you to give them your personal information. There is an article I found by Googling titled "The 17 Most Common Online Scams," phishing is at the very top of that list. You will benefit by looking up this article and other related articles; learning about what scams to look for can make you a better and more confident researcher. I also found on YouTube some very informative videos about internet scamming that were previously on the "60 Minutes" television show.

Today's smartphones are to me just mini-computers; they are great, but also not without drawbacks. Scammers are constantly sending tempting e-mails to your computer and/or calling your smartphone or texting you. The do-not-call lists that were supposed to take care of a lot of those scam phone calls seem to not be doing much good. As soon as you think a solution has come along that might help cut down on a lot of the robocalls and scams, the scammers figure out another way to continue scamming. Many of the scammers must be pretty smart just to figure out all that they do; they just need to put that intelligence towards some helpful and legal endeavors.

Don't be afraid to use the internet. It's very informative and interesting, but be sure and use caution.

If you have any comments or questions my e-mail address is deh63shs@yahoo.com.