V2.2 - Networking the Nerds

Information Age

• the age of the internet and the web

Web Lifestyle

• using the internet for any decisions made in your life, like planning a vacation or making a purchase, because of the internet’s efficiency

Web Years

• comparable to dog years because of how fast things are on the internet

Excite

• web portal that was founded by six guys who graduated Stanford University who foresaw that information technology was going to be big business

Vinod Khosla

• backed the company ‘Excite’ and gave them funding because he found that they were good entrepreneurs

Amazon

• originally started as an online bookstore and was one of the first virtual stores that existed

Jeff Bezos

• founded Amazon

• found that books were the ideal internet product because you did not need to touch them before purchasing

Email

• replaced the post office and telephone because it made communication easier, cheaper, and faster

The WELL

• one of the oldest electronic meeting places and communities

Sputnik

• USSR satellite which triggered two American presidents into action and started the space race

President Eisenhower

• created ARPA for space research and made the Pentagon responsible for it

President Kennedy

• challenged the Russians to be the first country to the moon and put NASA, a civilian agency, in charge for the project

JCR Licklider

• saw the growing potential for computer technology and envisioned an intergalactic network way before computers became public and personal

DARPA

• agency launched in response to the Sputnik as the central research and development center for the Department of Defense

ARPANET

• first computer network built mainly by MIT graduates to link university mainframes across campuses

Larry Roberts

• MIT computer scientist who became the chief architect of ARPANET

Interface Message Processor

• now called a router, it made packet switching for the ARPANET possible, sorting, error correcting, and sending packets across the network

Whole Earth Catalog

• had an impact on the first generation to use the internet

• the Bible of the 70s alternative lifestyle

Ted Nelson

• visionary who grasped the potential of computer networking in his book ‘Computer Lib’ way before networks were technically feasible

ALOHA Net

• first network that made it sensible to transmit data into a computer through radio waves, showing the possibility of wireless transmission

TCP/IP Protocol

• determines how computer networks talk to each other

  • invented by Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn

E-Mail

• invented at BBN in 1972

• program for sending files that was adapted to carry a mail message to different computers

Ray Tomlinson

• created the email

Bob Metcalfe

• figured how to connect all personal computers to each other

• his career took off when he was hired at Xerox PARC, where he created the Ethernet and started 3C

Ethernet

• way to link Xerox PARC’s Alto systems together and realized PC networking

Computer Communication Compatibility Corporation

• commercialized the Ethernet right when PCs started to become popular

• created by Bob Metcalfe

Work Station

• can’t do any work by itself and needs to be part of a network to be able to access information on other computers

Vinod Khosla

• graduated from an engineering school in India who dreamed of going to Silicon Valley to start a company, and started a company in India, using the Motorola Processor and Ethernet, and licensed the design to anyone who would pay

Sun Microsystems

• believed that no one should own the written and spoken language of computing

• offered low cost but high-performing work stations

Scott McNealy, Andy Bechtolsheim, Vinod Khosla

• founders of Sun Microsystems

Novell Data Systems

• startup that failed but was reborn when it got funding from Ray Norton (Mormon veteran turnaround wizard)

NetWare

• allows users to store their data files on big PCs called servers and share their data with other users

Microsoft

• felt threatened by Novell’s NetWare and partnered with 3C, but the partnership fell apart because 3C was unaware that Microsoft and IBM’s partnership was also falling apart

John McAfee

• gave away his antivirus software and made a fortune, creating a profit from the time, strictly non-commercial internet

• sold the software and charged for updates

John Doerr

• venture capitalist who viewed risk as integral for investment: people, market, technical, and financial risk

Cisco Systems

• way to connect different networks to users

• originally started at the Stanford University, but when the founders approached Stanford regarding licensing to other universities, Stanford declined

Sandy Lerner and Leonard Bosack

• founded Cisco Systems

Don Valentine

• founded Sequoia Capital who invested in Cisco Systems

Urban Decay

• Sander Lerner founded this nail polish brand after she left Cisco Systems

CERN

• where the growth of the internet began

• at the forefront for making gateways for file transfer exchange from different computers

Tim Berners-Lee

• English programmer who created the World Wide Web

URL

• specific address for something on the internet

HTTP

• allows the browser to understand the URL and interact with the web server

Ted Nelson

• proposed a global network called Xanadu where all literature was stored and accessed through hypertext, with an automatic system that paid authors their royalties

Browser

• changed the face of the internet by turning the text-based interface into something graphical and easier to understand

Mosaic Browser

• created by Marc Andreessen and was the first published browser to exist

Jim Clark

• took note of Marc’s Mosaic browser and invested in the software

Netscape

• company Marc Andreessen and Clark created and was the first commercially successful browser

• known as the fastest growing company between 1994-1995, and was famous because of the competition they had with Microsoft

America Online

• web portal that offered beginners the internet experience in an all-in-one package; an online service provider

Steve Case

• founder of American Online (AOL)

Microsoft Network

• Microsoft’s online service business that didn’t catch on because of its late entry

eWorld

• Apple Computer’s short-lived online consumer service

Search Engine

• comparable to library catalogues

• this catalogs and indexes words in its database for users to search

Motley Fool

• media company whose mission is to teach people how to invest their own money

Tom and Dave Gardner

• founders of the Motley Fool

Java

• network programming language that was the third breakout invention after the WWW and browser

• language that runs the same on every computer; one-size-fits-all

James Gosling

• invented Java

Department of Justice

• charged Microsoft with engaging in anti-competitive and exclusionary practices and trying to maintain a monopoly on the internet