The use of Internet-based technologies-beyond e-mail and search engines

With the continuing explosive growth of the world wide web and the Internet, there are many opportunities to use these technologies to enhance our ability to function in an engineering and a management capacity. Most of the emphasis relates to the world wide web and developing websites based on the latest and greatest programming languages and tools. There is also a great interest in information processing, centered around using search engines and push technologies. Although e-mail has been part of the Internet experience since the very early days, it has evolved into an effective communications tool. However, there are still opportunities to use the Internet to become more effective in communication, project management, general management, and content-specific information exchange. There are companies that provide services to the on-line community that allow for the interaction of two or more people in real-time in a number of fashions. Some of the possible actions include: on-line and off-line messaging, multi-user chatting, real-time file and URL transfer, notification of other users currently on-line, Internet phone facilitation, and message history logging. Some of these services are free to the user, while others charge for the technology. The discussion of one program´s capabilities generates ideas for how the technology can make engineers and managers more effective