It is a little known fact that the GPS (Global Positioning Service) relies on physics developed by Albert Einstein. Just as the ability to pinpoint your position on the globe became a reality as a result of pioneering work by physicists, the ability to instantly communicate across the globe has become possible through the Internet. With modern broadband internet connectivity it is possible to locate yourself on the globe, get directions to any other point, find a local restaurant, and meet with people across the traditional constraints of geography and time.

Internet technology has improved drastically in the past decade both in terms of speed and market penetration. Where Internet access used to be slow and restricted only to certain markets we are increasingly finding that more and more people have access to broadband internet. This allows people to communicate with each other regardless of the geographic distance between them. The Internet really has changed the way that we do business and communicate with each other. However, the rise of the Internet has brought with it a range of new threats - viruses, worms, spyware, Trojan Horses, and privacy threats. It is possible to secure yourself against these malicious programs.

The internet has become a staple for most people working with computers. The "information highway" is fast becoming a way of life for many people, but it only really comes into its own when you have fast and reliable internet connectivity. A dial-up modem is simply not able to deal with modern websites - you need an ADSL router if you are going to be able to use Facebook, eBay, Amazon, or other exciting websites.

Pagerank is a concept used in search engine optimization to describe a measure of how important your website appears to be. Although it is not the only deciding factor that search engines use when deciding what pages to show in their results, it is still very much an important part of how your site will perform in search engine rankings. A Google pagerank will range from 1 to 9 - with a pagerank of 9 being very much the acme of success. Although the way that search engines actually calculate pagerank is kept secret from webmasters the general methods have been made available. Generally speaking, your pagerank is greatly improved by the number of other pages that link to yours. These are called "backlinks".

Have you ever wondered how wealthy you could be if you could somehow persuade each person on the planet to give you just one Rand? Surely it wouldn't be difficult to persuade a person to give you a rand, if only you had an effective way to reach that person and get your message across. Ever since the first human existence living in caves it has been an essential part of our survival strategy to form communities. One might say that the most influential technology that we have at our disposal is our social attitude of working together towards a common goal. Now that we no longer live in caves, the Internet is providing us with a new way to form communities that transport information and skills across national boundaries.

Computers have become so pervasive in our society that just about everybody uses them in some way or another. Electronic communication keeps family members in touch with each other across continents. Businesses use email, web conferences, and VoIP (internet telephony) to streamline their trading activities. Shoppers use the Internet to find bargains. This electronic lifestyle generates a constant stream of data. As one might expect there will be very negative consequences if this data is lost due to a crash, computer virus, or physical loss of your computer through fire or theft. Everything on your computer - from financial records to family digital photographs - is vulnerable to loss.