INTERNET BASICS

INTERNET – A world-wide computer-based communications network, which is composed of

a large number of smaller interconnected networks

WORLD WIDE WEB – A set of programs, standards, and protocols that allows the multimedia
and hypertext files to be created, displayed, and linked on the internet

Internet  World Wide Web

The internet also includes forums, research databases, USENET, email, instant messaging

Client – Any computer on a network that requests services from another computer on the
Internet

Server – Any computer that receives requests from client computers, processes and sends
the output. Web servers respond to web related requests

Webpage – Any digital page or document hosted and accessible on the Internet

Website – A collection of interconnected webpages

Web Portal – A website or a service that offers a broad array of resources such as email,
forums, search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN, Indiatimes)

Web Browser – A program or software on a client computer that retrieves information from
the web (Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari)

Web Client – A program or a component on the client side that requests and uses the
services provided by the web browser

URL – A uniform resource locator is a unique address of a web page on the internet

Blog – A web page that serves as a publicly accessible personal journal for an individual

Newsgroup – Internet discussion forums where groups of users with common interests
gather to discuss on a common topic of interest

Email – Short for electronic mail, email refers to messages distributed by electronic means
from one computer user to one or more recipients via a network, mostly the Internet

Email Address – Unique electronic post-office-box with a unique address for every email
SERVER – A server is a computer or a device that manages network resources. It serves
requests mainly related to the resources on the network, such as for sharing a resource like
a printer, or sharing storage. It is a computer that has a software loaded on it.

There are many types of servers, like file servers, web servers, email servers, etc.

Services provided by a server:

 Equipment/ Resource Sharing

 Centralized File Saving for Data Sharing
 Centralized Virus Scanning
 Centralized Backups

WEB SERVER – A web server is a WWW server that stores information on the internet and
delivers web pages to web browsers upon request

Example – Apache, GWS, IIS, nginx, Netsite

Services provided by a webserver:

 Serving Web Pages – deliver web pages on request of clients using HTTP
 Running Gateway Programs (CGI) to process requests and Returning Output
 Controlling Access to the Server – ways of receiving content from clients
 Monitoring and Logging all Access – authenticated access by monitoring programs
 Server Side Scripting – active server pages (ASP) or PHP

WEBSITE – A collection of related web pages hosted on a web server and are linked together
and share a common interface and design

The collection of files are individual web pages, which are digitally written using HTML
They are linked together through hyperlinks and hypertext

 Webhost – Hosting is where a website is physically located

A group of webpages only qualify as a website when they are hosted on web servers
On a webserver, there are a set of files to be transmitted to client’s computers when
they specify the address of a website

 Address – Address of the webpage/ URL of a website

 Home page – First webpage that appears when viewers go to a website

 Design – Overall look of the website with the proper use and integration of elements
like navigation menus, graphics, layouts, etc.

 Navigation Structure – Order of the pages, what links to what, held by nav menu
PORTAL – A web portal is a launch pad to a host to web services such as email, search
engines, weather, gaming, news, etc.

Normally an entry point or gateway for using the offered services

Linked to many other websites

Complete environment for managing and integrating a number of diverse applications

Example: Google, Yahoo, MSN, Rediff

WEBPAGE – A digital document that is linked to the World Wide Web and viewable by
anyone connected to the internet, and having a web browser

Content wise:
 Hypertext – combination of text, graphic images, audio, video tracks
 Hyperlinks – dynamic link upon clicking at which a new webpage opens

Structure wise:
 Page Title – displayed on the title bar of the browser
 Header – defines the purpose of the webpage
 Body – contains the actual content
 Navigational links – hyperlinks
 Footer – copyright notice, website contact information

How a webpage works

 Creation of a Webpage – webpage is created with proper coding

It can be written in pure HTML or can contain scripts for dynamic content too

 Uploading/ Publishing a Webpage – code is loaded on to the servers

 Retrieval – webpage delivered to the user’s computer in a web browser for viewing

1. The user types the URL of the webpage in the address bar of the web browser
2. The web browser determines the domain name of the URL and sends a request to
the web server hosting this domain name
3. The web server now sends the code of the requested web page to the web browser
on the client computer
4. The web browser on the client computer displays the web page using the received
code
WEB BROWSER – A program that lets you visit different websites on the Internet and display
their offerings on your own computer

They are intended to let people access resources on the World Wide Web

Examples: Google Chrome, Mosaic, Netscape, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera

Mosaic – first browser developed by NCSA (National Centre for Supercomputing Application)

Lynx is a text only browser

BLOG – A weblog is an online journal where entries are posted periodically about a certain
topic of interest or as an online personal diary by the blogger

 Personal blogs
 News and views
 Company blogs
 Micro-blogs

Advantages –

 You can write your thoughts or anything that interests you

 Easy to set up, don’t need much technical knowledge
 Easy and quick to update and add new posts
 People can leave comments on your blog
 Millions of blogs to choose from to read also

Disadvantages –

 Everyone can see the posts, and you may regret the post later
 Personal blogs may be biased on contain inaccurate information
 Can be time consuming as writing regular updates can be a chore
 People can leave rude or inappropriate comments
 Many dull and uninteresting blogs, difficult to find the right one

WEB ADDRESS (URL) – A location on a net server, which has a unique web address

 Type of the server or protocol (://)

 Name/ address of the server on the Internet
 File path/ location of the file

Domain name system – Character based naming system by which servers are identified

COMMON PROTOCOLS
ftp – File Transfer Protocol
Text and binary files that are arranged in a hierarchical order

gopher – Transfer Control Protocol (TCP)/ Internet Protocol (IP)

Text and binary files that are arranged in a menu structure

http – Hyper Text Transfer Protocol

Hypertext/ hypermedia files/ multimedia files

mail – Post Office Protocol (POP) Version 3/ Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMPT)
Messages sent via electronic mail

news – Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP)

Newsgroups that are organized in a hierarchical structure

COMMON DOMAINS

.com – Commercial - For commercial firms

.edu – Education - For educational firms

.gov – Government - For government organizations

.mil – Military - For military

.net – Network - For ISPs/ Networks

.org – Organization - For NGOs

.co – Company - For listed companies

.tv – Television - For TV channels and companies

Australia (au), Canada (ca), Denmark (dk), France (fr), India (in), Japan (jp), New Zealand (nz),

NEWS GROUPS – A news group or a forum is an online community bulletin board, where
users can post messages, respond to posts, or just read them.

A group of related messages is known as a Thread

HTML – Hyper Text Markup Language

Hypertext – A special type of digital text that contains links to other texts
Markup – Special symbols or instructions indicating the format, style, structure of a webpage
Language – A set of standards defined by tags to create an appropriate markup scheme
PROTOCOLS – An agreed upon or standardized method for transmitting data and/ or
establishing communications between different devices

HTTP – Hypertext Transfer Protocol

A set of rules used for transmitting hypertext over the WWW

Special format of text that contains links to other texts

Responsible for accessing hypertext documents on the Internet
Information flows from server to browser directly without any encryption

HTTPS – Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure

An enhanced version of HTTP working with SSL (Secure Socket Layer)

SSL ensures that the data is transmitted securely over the Internet

Creates a secure encrypted connection between the server and the browser