Lesson 02: How the Web Works
In this unit you will learn about the history of the Internet and get a better understanding of networking.
This unit should take you approximately 1-2 hours.
Web Servers | Browser | URL | Index | HTML Documents | View Source | Activity
A Brief History
The US government created the first network that would eventually become the Internet back in the sixties. Then in the early 1990's the World Wide Web is developed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN. Read more about the early development of these technologies at History of the Internet and the World Wide Web written by The Web Developer's Library.
Web Servers
A web server a computer with the special "server" software that allows a computer connected to the Internet to communicate with each other or "serve" up web pages. Each computer on the Internet is assigned a unique number called an IP address. For example, the number might be 555.444.333.22. Fortunately, the Domain Name System (DNS) was developed to allow us to use domain names such as mountsihighschool.com, which is much easier to remember.
If you are interested...
Norid - Domain name registries around the world.
VeriSign - This is a huge company that offers domain name registration along with a variety of other services.
Browser
A web browser is the software we run on our computers to view the web pages being "served" to us using HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol). These might include Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera or Netscape.
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Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)
Uniform Resource Locators or URL's are key to understanding how to find files on your computer, a LAN or the Internet. As a web author, you have to have a solid understanding of URL's in order to create links to other files and images.
Tutorial>> URL Anatomy Tutorial- This is one page tutorial is well worth the time if you do not have a solid understanding of this concept.
*See the "Anatomy of a URL" in the "Files" folder for a graphical representation of this concept.
Default Files
Most times when you type in a URL you don't specify the exact file. For example, when you go to http://www.mountsihighschool.com/ you don't type in a specific file name after the URL so the server looks for the default document, typically named index.htm or index.html. So most people use this file name for their home page and main pages in each of their sub folders.
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HTML Documents
Even graphic rich web pages have a very simple text based document at their core made up of (X)HTML. This HyperText Markup language or HTML uses tags to "mark up" the text content. Use the tutorial below to check out this simple example: http://www.learningwebdesign.com/materials/chapter02/kitchen.html
View Source
To view the code on any web page, on a PC you can "right click" (click and hold on a Mac) and choose "view source". You can also go to the View menu and select "source". If the web page is on your hard drive this can be a quick way to get in and edit your code.
Tutorial>> Viewing the Source of your HTML files Tutorial
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Activity
Define each of these terms.
- server
- IP address
- HTTP
- DNS
- URL
- Domain Name
- Browser
- index (special type of web page)
- Tim Berners-Lee
Describe the organization these common suffixes belong to:
- .com
- .edu
- .net
- .org
- .gov
- .mil
Turn it in: Copy these into a word processor and answer them using correct spelling and good grammar/punctuation. Make sure to include a heading on the document and name the file lastname_unit02_lesson02.doc. Of course you will substitute "lastname" for your real last name. For example, I would use "dockery_unit02_lesson02.doc." Then attach the file to an email and send it to your instructor.
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