Historical dates are divided into years BC, or before the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, and AD, or Anno Domini. It is not our intention to debate the mistakes that the monk Dionysius Exiguus made in arriving at the date of transition between eras, or whether the more neutral terms BCE and CE (for Before the Common Era and Common Era, respectively) are preferable. Instead, we will focus on the passing of two other historic landmarks and their implications for enterprise computing.
The first date we will focus on is the advent of the Internet, which changed computing forever.
When the US Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) and open architecture networking first gave rise to the galactic network that we now refer to as the Internet, life online was very different than it is today. We can refer to this period as BG, or Before Google (although perhaps it would be more correct to refer to this period as BAV, or Before AltaVista). This new era started at the second date of importance here—the advent of full-text Internet search, which changed the Internet forever. In August of 1995, technicians at Digital Equipment Corporation's Western Research Lab completed the initial index of the entire Web, allowing full-text search of ten million Web pages. AltaVista, the first globally successful, text-based search engine was born—only later to be eclipsed by Google.
What is so earth-shattering about that moment? In the early days of the Web, bookmarks, portals, and Web indexes were very important in order to find what you were looking for online. The Internet had succeeded in connecting countless remote computer networks, but in order to find anything, paradoxically, you had to first know where it was. Many sites on the Internet prominently featured links pages, which were designed to be reference points thoughtfully provided by the sites' owners to make it easier for their visitors to find specific resources online. Earlier search tools required site owners to register their web sites, and then, only very narrow keywords would be searchable rather than the entire site contents. So using an early search engine, you might, at best, be able to find a site about sports history, but not specific information on how many home runs baseball great Hank Aaron accumulated during his career (775) or the number of goals Brazilian soccer great Ronaldo has scored in World Cup play. You could find sites containing information on industrial equipment, but probably would have trouble finding "for sale" listings for a used dewatering screen for your mining operation, or a rotary die cutter for your printing and converting company
The first date we will focus on is the advent of the Internet, which changed computing forever.
When the US Department of Defense's Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) and open architecture networking first gave rise to the galactic network that we now refer to as the Internet, life online was very different than it is today. We can refer to this period as BG, or Before Google (although perhaps it would be more correct to refer to this period as BAV, or Before AltaVista). This new era started at the second date of importance here—the advent of full-text Internet search, which changed the Internet forever. In August of 1995, technicians at Digital Equipment Corporation's Western Research Lab completed the initial index of the entire Web, allowing full-text search of ten million Web pages. AltaVista, the first globally successful, text-based search engine was born—only later to be eclipsed by Google.
What is so earth-shattering about that moment? In the early days of the Web, bookmarks, portals, and Web indexes were very important in order to find what you were looking for online. The Internet had succeeded in connecting countless remote computer networks, but in order to find anything, paradoxically, you had to first know where it was. Many sites on the Internet prominently featured links pages, which were designed to be reference points thoughtfully provided by the sites' owners to make it easier for their visitors to find specific resources online. Earlier search tools required site owners to register their web sites, and then, only very narrow keywords would be searchable rather than the entire site contents. So using an early search engine, you might, at best, be able to find a site about sports history, but not specific information on how many home runs baseball great Hank Aaron accumulated during his career (775) or the number of goals Brazilian soccer great Ronaldo has scored in World Cup play. You could find sites containing information on industrial equipment, but probably would have trouble finding "for sale" listings for a used dewatering screen for your mining operation, or a rotary die cutter for your printing and converting company
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