What is the Internet or is it internet?
What is the World Wide Web (WWW)?
What is an HTML?

Okay, so what are all those funny terms I hear people talking about?

These days, it seems like everyone is throwing around numbers and abbreviations that are supposed to describe their computers and the Internet. It is almost like they actually expect everyone to understand, or they just want to show off. A big problem with all of this is that very few people really know what they are saying. Even someone who is experienced in using the Internet may not know how it works or what all of the terms mean. Of course one of the nice things about computers and the Internet is that a person can play with it without knowing what every term means. However, after a while, you get curious.

Computer?

The easiest lesson to pick up is that bigger numbers are always better and always bring a bigger price tag. It is important to have some idea of what the numbers mean so that you do not get convinced that you need something that is really unnecessary. If I were to talk about all of the numbers that come up in a conversation about computers, the majority of you readers would probably leave after the first sentence. With this in mind, I will stick to the basic stuff about the Internet. The most important numbers on the Internet are 1's and 0's. These are the two binary operations, on and off. All information on the Internet is represented in combinations of these two numbers. These are like the cells of a body. They are small alone but create something huge when together.

Modem?

What is a 36.6 kps Modem? Well, 36.6 kps, is 36.6 thousand, or 36,600 bits per second (bps). What is a bit: a bit is either a one or zero. Curently the fastest modem is 56 kps.

Web Browser?

There are several web browsers out there. The most common one used is Microsoft Internet Explorer. The second is Netscape Communicator. Many companies, such as American Online, Prodigy, or Compuserve use their own browsers. We suggest using Microsoft Internet Explorer because of fewer problems associated with this browser. Microsoft can display many more web site functions than Netscape. You can click on an icon below to download a current version browser of your choice.

HTML???
HTML is Hyper Text Mark-up Language. Basically it is a bunch of codes put in unison to create paragraphs, headings, incorporate pictures, or create links. HTML can be tough if not learned right. It is important to have an instructor help you; if you decide to have a homepage.

How do I find what I want?
Well, to do that you need to go to a search engine. We have several listed in our Favorites Section

What is this http:// stuff?
Each Internet site is located on a server. A server is basically a computer hooked up to the Internet, or internet. This hook up can be by ethernet, or by modem.

Ethernet: A group of computers connected to the Internet using an ISDN. A common name for ISDN is "very fast modem thingie" (please excuse the layman’s term.). Sometimes it uses a T1 link. Which in all sense, is optical fiber. Optical fiber is very fast.

Modem: A device used to transmit and receive digital data over normally analog communications lines, usually as an audio signal on telephone circuits. A modem attached to a computer performs a DIGITAL-TO-ANALOG CONVERSION of data and transmits them to another modem which performs an analog-to-digital conversion that permits its attached computer to use the data. The rate of data transfer can be increased using data compression. Wireless modems send or receive data as a radio signal. A fax modem enables a computer to send and receive transmissions to and from a FACSIMILE MACHINE.

So, what does all this mean?
Well, let me use this as an example: http://199.17.198.6/Creative_Web/indexits.html
Okay, now let's dissect this.

http://       is the start code.

199.17.198.6        is the server where the HTML is placed
(for web pages on AOL's server is "www.aol.com"; for Webcrawler's page, it is "www.webcrawler.com")
(Sometimes, there is no www, or .com, it us how the server is set up.)

Creative_Web       is the account name. Also, the folder name on 199.17.198.6's server.
(a different example is http://www.corel.com/xara/index.html, this time xara is the account, or document folder)

indexits.html        is the name of the html
It can also be a htm.
Most starting pages are index.html, but in this case, since index.html is the main company, indexits was used.

Let's do another: http://www.microsoft.com/ie/author/logo/default.htm

http:// Usual starting

www.microsoft.com Microsofts server

ie In this case, it is in the folder Internet Explorer (ie)

author Inside the folder "ie" is the folder author.

logo Yet another folder inside ie/author.

default.htm This time they use default.htm as the start page. Basically ie/author/logo is a group of folders hooked together, all trying to get into one directory. An example, is trying to load a paper you typed. You first must start the computer (http://); then go into your writing tool: ie Microsoft Word (www.microsoft.com); then click on file (ie/author/logo); then open your document (default.htm).

Brief History:
Well, it started out as a military funded project. They wanted to get scientists connected so they could share research and results. Also, it was used for military alertness. For example, if one military base was attacked, the information and strategies used by the opposition were transmitted to another base. How did it become public knowledge? With the development of TCP/IP connection ("Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol" a fancy name for connecting a group of computers together) schools adopted it as a simple means to communicate. One school could find information in another schools library, or visa-versa. Soon, college students learned the system well, and out came the development of "chat". Chat is in every sense exactly what it says. It is a way for a group of computer users to talk back and forth across this Internet. Thus out-sprung the Internet.

So what are the codes?
URL Uniform Resource Locator (a name for an Internet site) http Hypertext Transfer Protocol (used to access a WWW document.) You will find this code at the beginning of most URL ftp File Transfer Protocol (usually a place to download "stuff", you can download items.) faq A faq is just Frequently Asked Questions. ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII is used to send or receive text based information across the Internet.) It is al so HTML. This remains hidden from the user. (If you want to view it, in your browser, click on "view", and "document source" or "source") DNS Domain Name System. (A computer does this automatically; what your comput er does when it is on the Internet, for example, when you send email, your computer looks up this DNS which is kind of like a street address on the Internet. Then it sends your mail message. You will find an error if a system has no DNS).

Internet vs. internet
There is a big difference between the Internet and an internet. An internet is made when two or more networks are hooked together and a certain type of data is transferred.

Networks: in computing, two or more computers connected for the purposed of exchanging messages and sharing data and system resources. A LOCAL AREA NETWORK (LAN) connects personal computers and workstations (each called a node) over dedicated, private communications links. A wide area network (WAN) connects large numbers of nodes over long-distance communications links, such as common carrier telephone lines. An internet is a connection between networks. The Internet is a WAN that connects thousands of separate networks in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, providing global communication between nodes on government, educational, and industrial networks.

The Internet is a collection of all the networks. The Internet is not on one computer, but on the computers of the world, thus the World Wide Web. The government tries to control the Internet, but it is an impossible task. No one person, or Country owns the Internet; everyone who uses contributes to it’s development. (Please note, this is not an article protesting the government.) The World Wide Web can be graphical or textual. This process is made by using HTML.