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CONTENTS:
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The World Wide Web (Web, WWW, W3)
- The number of people using the Web is
estimated to be over 30 million in over 50 countries
- WWW is part of the Internet.
- An Internet access [or service] provider (ISP) is a commercial service
that establishes a connection to the Internet and then provides public access
to that connection for a fee. Often other Internet-related services are
offered as well, such as technical support and free software.
- ISPs usually connect to the Internet through special high-speed phone
lines that can carry much more information than a standard phone line.
- The common language of the Internet is TCP/IP (Transmission Control
Protocol/Internet). All computers (whether PC or Unix or Mac) on the Internet
agrees to use it.
- Computer which do not use TCP/IP (and therefore are not considered part
of the Internet) can access the Internet through a gateway--a combination of
hardware and software that translates (allows information to flow) between
networks.
- The Web is a specific kind of Internet interface--one that uses
hyperlinks and multimedia documents.
- The Internet includes:
- World Wide Web - the largest and fastest growing part; usually
easiest to use; its draw back is speed
- E-mail - [electronic mail] - the most used and highly developed aspect
of the Internet; sends and receives personal messages or participates
in mass-mailing lists
- File transfer protocol - (FTP) - allows users to easily transfer files
between computers on the Internet and their home computers; FTP sites
are often vast storehouses holding shareware, freeware, demo
applications, multimedia files, plain text-based information, anything
that can be put into a digital format
- gopher - an application based on the concept of clients (programs used
to request information) and servers (programs that provide the
requested information); popularity is on the decline due to the WWW
- Telnet - prior to WWW, the primary means to get around the Internet; a
UNIX-based system that is fast and reliable; purely text-based; often
uses a menu-driven interface to simplify use of complex UNIX functions
- Usernet News Groups - a massive collection of news and discussion
groups; these public forums attract postings of a wide variety
(debate, pleas for help, insults, gossip, etc.).
- The Web is based on the display of Web pages, which are computer
documents that can present text, graphics, sounds, film clips, software,
database searches.
- Web page represents a single location on the Web. [When you are "on the
Web" you can usually see only one Web page at a time.]
- A Web site is made up of two or more interconnected Web pages presented
as a unified place on the Web. A site can have a handful to hundreds of pages
and usually have a common theme and graphical structure.
- A Home page is the intended central or starting place on a Web site;
usually it is the first page a visitor sees. It often guides the user's
exploration of the rest of the Web site.
- The common language of the Web is the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
HTML allows images, words, or anything else on a Web page to become a link
(also called a hyperlink) and to transport the user to other locations on that
page, other Web pages, or other locations on the Internet (e.g. a gopher or
ftp site).
- Hyperlinks are based on the principle of hypertext, which is a method
of publishing that relies on interactive participation. There is no set path
when reading hypertext--the userUs feedback determines the path. In this way,
different readers can follow different paths through the same work.
- Typically, three things are needed to connect to Internet: a
computer, Internet access, and the proper software to make it work
- A browser is a program used to explore the Web. It's main function is to
interpret hypertext documents, read URLs, and navigate the WebUs hyperlink
structure
- Basically there are two kinds of browsers: text-only and graphical.
- Browsers interpret documents created with hypertext programming and
display them in a format commonly known as the Web page.
- Browsers make it possible to navigate the Web.
- Browsers work with TCP/IP--recall, this is the common language all
computers (whether PC or Unix or Mac) use to communicate on the Internet.
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