Argumentative Essay Research Paper In the decades

Argumentative Essay, Research Paper In the decades after the civil war, American industry transformed itself into a new wonder of the world. Now, one hundred and twenty five years later, society has thus further evolved. As the knowledge of fiber optic cables, microprocessors, silicon chips and operating systems has expanded, we embrace a technological era in which computers seem to be superior and play a larger role in our everyday life functions than it has many years ago. With the use of computers, supplemented by the Internet, mass communication and information is easily accessible from most homes or public institutions. In August 1962, J.C.R. Licklider of MIT envisioned a globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and

programs from any site, (Gregory R. Gromov, http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.html#Origins). With the help of many other great minds, this concept has turned into a reality known as the Internet. The Internet allows easy and fast access to information pertaining to almost any subject. People can send e-mail to anyone across the world within a few seconds, and also chat in real time. Who provides the Internet? There are several Internet service providers, or ISP, worldwide. Among the abundance of ISPs exist two major companies, America Online (AOL) and Earthlink Network. These two companies have long competed in becoming the number one Internet provider. Numerically speaking, AOL has at least four times the amount of customers than that of Earthlink, however, the customer

base of Earthlink is rapidly expanding. Most computer neophytes would be content with having America Online as their Internet provider, but for those intellectuals, who are not afraid to explore the vast capabilities of a pure Internet provider, will not settle for anything less than a superior ISP such as Earthlink. Earthlink exemplifies the new attitude ISPs are following, going beyond AOL s ease-of-use idea by several steps. Version 5.0 of EarthLink s Internet connection software has become one of the easiest to use among most companies providing Internet access, especially during the setup process. The software walks the customer through the entire process using a human video companion and an animated character, Blinky. Although the writer of the article considers Blinky as a

predictably annoying cartoon character, the animated effect creates a fun and appealing setting to a novice user. Once a person completes the installation, a whole world of information and possibilities are conveniently accessible. Unlike AOL, a pure ISP such as Earthlink, delivers unrestricted and unregulated Internet access. It is a direct connection to the Internet; thus giving a user fast access to websites and to everything available off of the World Wide Web. The author of the article, Joel Dreyfuss, acknowledges this fact by stating, downloading Web material via AOL can be a lot slower than using an ISP like Earthlink–probably because it s a two step process through AOL s own private network. An analogy that demonstrates AOL s restricted access and Earthlink s

unrestricted access is, the Internet being a major city with various types of buildings, and those buildings being websites, AOL would be the public bus transportation only stopping at certain buildings while passing by others. Earthlink would be considered a rental car that has the capability of stopping at any desired location. What most people consider important is being able to log online, getting what you need to do done, and then logging off. This is a common routine practiced by Earthlink members with experiencing only rare interruptions. Earthlink has a ninety-five percent connectivity rate meaning a user will be able to connect to the Internet ninety-five percent of the time with out experiencing any busy signals and stay connected with out being automatically logged off