We hope this page will enhance your understanding of the World Wide Web

Web / web Information

There is much discussion regarding the Internet and the World Wide Web these days and it can be a bit confusing for many people. Here I have put together some information that may be useful in clarifying the subjects enabling people to make more informed decisions about this new "information superhighway".

Most common is the notion that the Internet and World Wide Web are the same thing which leads to much of the confusion.

The Internet vs. The World Wide Web

The Internet is a global computer network made up of a patchwork of many networks which are run by cooperative organizations that allow people to access information. The Internet is a very popular network in online cyberspace because of its many resources and large base of users. Thus, the Internet often acts as a common ground for communications and activity, and many online networks have some way (either through gateways or other connections) for their users to reach the Internet.

The World Wide Web is not a network but, an application system (a set of software programs). The WWW can be deployed and used on many different types of networks or no network at all. There are many other applications which run on the Internet such as FTP, Telnet, Gopher, etc.

A simple analogy would a word processor or database program which runs over an operating system such as DOS, Netware, etc. The power of the Web is that it connects Internet resources through a system of hypertext.

Web vs. web

When the term Web (with a capital W) is used it refers to the entire World Wide Web encompassing all web servers. The term web (small w) refers to an individual web such as the ProgressOne web and also to webs which are not part of the WWW. Many companies now have internal, private webs since the use of web server software is easily implemented and the Hypertext Markup Language allows easy navigation and linking of documents.

The World Wide Web

As an application that uses the Internet, the Web has a role within the larger context of all online communications. Because much data communication on the Web relies on internet protocols, the best way to take advantage of all the Web's information and qualities is by having direct Internet access.

The WWW has become a very popular means of communicating information due to its hypertext capabilities that allow a user to access data in a transparent manner in almost any location in the world while providing an easy to use graphical interface. An actual definition of the World Wide Web would be:

The WWW is a hypertext information and communication system popularly used on the Internet computer network with data communications operating according to a client/server model. Web clients (browsers) can access multiprotocol and hypermedia information (where helper applications are available for the browser) using an addressing scheme.

With the speed at which technology develops the WWW is becoming more and more popular every day as a marketing tool.

The Potential of The Web

The Web is a flexible system for communication that can be used in many contexts, ranging from individual communication on home pages through group and mass communication. In addition to these contexts, the Web serves many communication functions, such as:

Information Delivery

A Web browser provides the user with a "viewer" to "look into FTP space, Gopher space or hypertext information on the Web. The structure of hypertext enables user selectivity because of the many ways that a user can choose to follow links in hypertext.

Communication

People can use Web hypertext to create forums for sharing information and discussion and helping group members make contact with each other.

Interaction

Using gateway programming, a Web developer can build interactivity into an application, providing the user with a way to receive customized information based on queries. Gateway programs also allow a user to change or add to an information structure.

Computation

Also using gateway programming, the Web can be used to provide an interface to other applications and programs for information processing. Based on user selections, a Web application can return a computed or customized result.

Considering all of the above and the fact that the Web is available 24 hours a day on a global scale the potential of the Web is really unlimited.

Glossary of Terms

While this is certainly not an all inclusive list of terms and definitions there should be sufficient information to help in the understanding of the World Wide Web.

Anchor

The area of a hypertext document that is either the source or destination of a hypertext link. The link might extend from that area to another document or from another document to that area. When anchors are the starting points of these links, they are typically highlighted or otherwise identified in the hypertext browser.

Archie

A system for indexng contents of FTP servers.

Browser

A software program for observing the Web; synonym for a Web client

CGI (Common Gateway Interface)

A standard for programs to interface with web servers.

Client

A software program that requests information or services from another software application or server, and displays this information in a form required by its hardware platform.

Domain Name

The alphabetic name for a computer host; this name is mapped to the computer's numeric internet protocol (IP) address. An example would be www.progress1.com = 192.42.2.72.

FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

A means to exchange files across a network.

Gopher

A protocol for disseminating information on the Internet using a system of menus; items in the menus can be links to other documents, searches or links to other information services.

Graphical Browser

A Web client that displays inline images and fonts and that usually offers a mouse-based point-and-click operation.

Hotspot

The region of displayed hypertext that, when selected, links the user to another point in the hypertext or another resource.

HTML (Hypertext Mark-up Language)

The mechanism used to create web pages; web browsers display these pages according to a browser-defined rendering scheme.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol)

The native protocol of the Web, used to transfer hypertext documents.

Home Page

An entry page for access to a local web; a page that a person defines as his or her principal page, often containing personal or professional information.

Hypermedia

Hypertext that may include multimedia: text, graphics, images, sound, and video.

Imagemap

A graphic inline image on an HTML page that potentially connects each pixel or region of an image to a web resource; user clicks the image to retrieve the resources.

Internet

The cooperatively run, global distributed collection of computer networks that exchange information via the TCP/IP protocol suite.

Java

An object-oriented programming language for creating distributed, executable applications.

Link

A connection between one hypertext document and another

MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions)

A specification for multimedia document formats.

Matrix

The set of all networks that can exchange electronic mail either directly or through gateways. This includes the Internet, BITNET, FidoNet, UUCP, and commercial services such as America Online, Compuserve, the Microsoft Network, as well as other networks.

Navigating

The act of observing the content of the Web for some purpose.

Page

A single file of hypertext mark-up language.

Perl (Practical Extraction and Reporting Language)

A scripting language used for text manipulation and popular for writing gateway applications.

Robot

A term for software programs that automatically explore the Web for a variety of purposes; robots that collect resources for later database queries by users are sometimes called spiders.

Server

A software application that provides information or services based on requests from client programs.

Site

A file section of a computer on which the web documents (or other documents served in another protocol) reside. For example, a web site, a Gopher site or an FTP site.

Spider

A software program that traverses the Web to collect information about resources for later queries by users seeking to find resources; a major species of active spiders include Lycos and WebCrawler.

Surfing

The act of navigating the Web, typically using techniques for rapidly processing information in order to find subjectively valuable resources.

Tag

The format code used to make up part of an HTML element; for example, the TITLE element has a start tag and an end tag.

Telnet

A protocol for sharing information across networks using a technique for terminal emulation; appears as if the user is "logged in" to a remote computer.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator)

The scheme for addressing on the Web; a URL identifies a resource on the web. (i.e., http://www.progres1.com)

Usenet

A system for disseminating asynchronous text discussion among cooperating computer hosts; the Usenet discussion is divided into newsgroups, each on a particular topic or sub-topic.

VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language)

A specification for three-dimensional rendering used in conjunction with Web browsers.

Weaving

The act of creating and linking web pages.

web

A set of hypertext pages that is considered a single work; typically, a single web is created by cooperating authors or an author and deployed on a single server with links to other servers; a subset of the Web.

Web (World Wide Web)

A hypertext information and communication system popularly used on the Internet computer network with data communications operating according to a client/server model. Web clients (browsers) can access multiprotocol and hypermedia information (where appropriate multimedia helper applications are available for the browser) using an addressing scheme.

web Server

Software that provides services to web clients.

WWW

The World Wide Web

Hopefully this document has provided some clarification regarding the Internet and the World Wide Web. If you have questions that were not answered here please feel free to send e-mail requesting assistance.

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