Introduction
to the Internet
In its simplest terms, the Internet is a network
of networks built upon a common set of protocols
that allow computers across the planet to
communicate. The World Wide Web (WWW or Web)
is a "hyperlinked" communications
service that piggy-backs on top of the Internet's
communications technology (TCP/IP). It is
composed of countless hyperlinked graphical
Web pages that host a wide range of text,
image, audio, and video media.
"Hyperlinks" are
a way of actively linking documents (and
other files) to other documents on other
computers across the Internet, such as this
link which brings you to the Post Office
Analogy below. "Hypertext" documents
(Web pages) on the WWW are files that contain
active hyperlinks to other documents or
files, which, in turn, may contain links
to even more documents, etc. Clicking on
a link (usually blue and underlined text
or an image) takes you to another document.
Specifically, it creates a request to be
sent to the computer hosting the other documents
or Web pages.
The "Hypertext Transfer
Protocol" (http) is the communications
protocol that makes this possible. HTTP
runs on top of the Internet's TCP/IP protocol
and defines how different types of hyperlinked
data (text and multimedia) are transmitted
and accessed. Graphical "hyperlinked"
Web pages are created and displayed mostly
through the use of the Hypertext Markup
Language (HTML). HTML is a simple way of
using text characters in certain combinations
("tags") with symbols to describe
how a Web page should be displayed in a
Web browser. Your Internet browser (most
commonly Microsoft Internet Explorer or
Netscape Navigator) uses these HTML tags
to display the web page on your screen.
The behind-the-scenes integration
gives the Internet an 'endless' appearance.
Here is a Post Office Analogy to the Internet.
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Post Office Analogy
If you were to think of the Internet as
a Post Office, it would look like this:
The letter carriers (trucks
and airplanes) would equate to the Internet
communications equipment (computers) and
wiring.
The envelope would equate
to TCP/IP, the protocol used for information
travel.
The letter would equate
to HTTP, the protocol used to define the
format.
For the most part, you will
never need to know the above intricacies.
Modern domain purchasing, Web site creation
tools, and site control panels take the
hassle out of Web site administration on
the Internet.
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