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Hindsight I T Solutions
Internet Basics
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What is the Internet?
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What is the World Wide Web?
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What is the difference between a web site and a web page?
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What can I find on the Web?
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Why use the Web?
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What is a browser?
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What is a URL?
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What is html?
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Why not use all CAPITALS?
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How do I begin?
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What is the Internet?
The Internet is a world-wide computer network made up of smaller
networks. Unlike most networks, the Internet remains usable even if
one or more of its network connections should fail. Therefore the
Internet is a very robust tool both for sharing information and, more
recently, for conducting electronic commerce.
Originally designed as a way for government and academic researchers
to share information, the net now connects universities, schools,
businesses, non-profit organizations, and individuals. While you are
reading this your computer is part of the internet
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What
is the World Wide Web?
The World Wide Web (known as "WWW', "Web" or
"W3") is the universe of network-accessible information,
the embodiment of human knowledge. It is a "distributed
heterogeneous collaborative multimedia information system". Eh ?
Pardon ?
The World Wide Web began as a networked information project at CERN,
where a British scientist Tim Berners-Lee, now Director of the World
Wide Web Consortium [W3C], developed a vision
of the project.
The term "World Wide Web" refers to the Internet's ability
to display and link files containing text, images, and a variety of
other information.
Through the use hypertext and multimedia techniques, the web is easy
for anyone to roam, browse, and contribute to. An early talk
about the Web gives some more background on how the Web was
originally conceived.
For example, a person creates a web site containing a series of pages
that describes an Technology project. These files can also contain
links to other files located anywhere in the world.
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What is the difference
between a web page and a web site?
Web pages, like the one you reading now, are the main building blocks
of a web site.
For example index.html is
the main page of the Hindsight I T Solutions™ web site. The
links from this page lead to other web pages. All of these pages
together make up the web site.
A web site is similar to a file folder. A folder contains and
organizes information and documents.
For consistency, we will refer to information placed on the Web as
web sites since these encompass web pages as well.
Many personal web sites consist of a single page. On the other hand,
there are commercial and academic sites containing tens of thousands
of pages pages.
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What
can I find on the Web?
Content on the Web is as diverse as the people and cultures of the
world. Web content covers an array of subjects that makes it
more extensive than even the largest bookstore. The originality of
the Web has no comparison and thousands of new web sites and
information is added to the Internet every day.
Web sites are created by individuals
and companies and
contain the variety of information one would expect from such organizations.
While the Web was originally conceived as a way to share academic
information, today it contains far more. There remains a wealth of
academic content for all levels, as well as a huge amount of
corporate information that range from sites seeking to sell or
advertise everything from fancy
dress to cleaning
materials.
There are also promotional and informational sites operated by non-profit,
political, and a variety of other organizations. In many respects,
the Web is an international
library, yellow pages,
and market all rolled into one.
Unfortunately, the Web contains a fair amount of material which is
unsuitable for children and young adults. So it is a tool which
should be used with deliberate caution.
If you can not find the information you want today, it may be
available next week. Keep looking!
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Why
use the Web?
The World Wide Web is an invaluable tool in today's teaching
environment. You can find a seemingly endless amount of information
on the Web: teaching materials, pictures, videos, sound clips,
exercises, games and so much more to enhance your work.
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What is a browser?
A browser is a software program/application which allows users to
view and navigate the content of the World Wide Web. The two most
popular browser programs are Microsoft's Internet Explorer. and
Netscape's Communicator.
Basic versions of these programs can be downloaded free from their
publishers web site.
Browsers do not have precisely the same features, but their basic
capabilities are very similar. If you are a typical user, you'll
probably find that 80% of your time on the Web is spent using 20% of
your browse's capabilities. These capabilities are;
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Viewing and navigating the Web A
browser displays web sites. As you move from one site to another you
have the option to go back to the previous page as well as going
forward to a page you just viewed if you have used the back key.
These keys are very useful when viewing a web site that has not
placed links to different pages on their site.
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Marking favorite pages. Browsers
can store a list of sites to which you want to return. Explorer calls
them "favorite places" and Netscape calls these
"bookmarks". Remember that these are links to web sites and
are not stored copies of the files themselves. This means that when
you click on a bookmark/favorite place, your browser will load the
most recent version of that website.
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Saving pages Your browser has the
ability to save the contents of a page to your computer. It is
important to remember that a single web page may contain numerous
pictures and graphic files. You must also have software applications
that are capable of viewing those images or you are saving them for
nothing. You must also respect any copyrights that may apply.
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What is a URL?
The acronym URL stands for "uniform resource locator," a
fancy term for the unique location of a particular web file on the
Internet. A typical URL looks like this:
http://www.hindsight-uk.com/basics/index.html
Why is this important? If you know what a URL means, you can
tell a lot about the source of the pages you are viewing. We'll begin
by breaking the URL into its component parts.
http:// is the
protocol (a set of operating rules) by which computers on the
Internet send files back and forth. The protocol for the Web
"http" is called " hypertext transfer protocol."
www.hindsight-uk.com is
the domain name. The domain name is the unique name for the network
which contains the web site you are viewing.
/basics/ is the pathname. A
pathname ( this is not always part of a URL ) is the location within
the web site where a specific web page is located. This is similar to
a subfolder or a folder within a folder. Pathnames can be called
anything that the web sites creator came up with. In most cases, the
use of a tilde "~" in a pathname indicates a web site
reserved for a given individual's personal use.
index.html is
the file name. It is the name of a single web page, located on the Internet.
All Internet addresses contain these components in varying combinations.
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What is html?
HTML stands for Hyptertext Markup Language. This is the code that
creates the page format (layout, font, size, color, pictures, etc.)
of a web page. HTML was developed from SGML in order to have a
standard to ease communication across the Internet. The most polular
versions of this standard are currently 3 and 4.
Since all browser applications read HTML, it eliminates the necessity
to convert files or data so that all users can read them. The HTML
standards are responsible for the ease in access and ultimately, the
growth of the Internet.
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Why not use all CAPITALS?
You should not use ALL CAPS when using Internet applications. This
is important! If you use all caps you are YELLING
at someone, not emphasizing a point. Unless you really are upset and
wish to yell at someone, use normal sentence case.
Also email addresses are written completely in lowercase, for example webmaster@hindsight-uk.com
Internet users can be very touchy about this. They will know you are
a newbie and if they are in a bad mood they may send you a nasty
reply (flame) .
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How do I begin?
There are only three requirements to begin using the World Wide Web.
1. a computer
2. Internet access
3. browser software
Since you are viewing this page you have access to these items.
The greatest frustration of the World Wide Web is locating the
information you need. That's why, at Hindsight
I T Solutions™ we created content which includes
pages of resources for our visitors .
The links to these resources can be found on the left panel of this
web sites Main Page
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