Introduction to the Internet
The Internet began as a project and computer system for government, research, and educational facilities. These scientists decided they needed a way to share information above what was available at the time. The development of the World Wide Web led to a rapid increase in interest in the Internet. At the beginning of 1993, there were 50 known Web servers. In 1994 many commercial companies appeared on the Web. Companies like Spry and Netscape Communications released their versions of browsers to view the Web. By June 1994, there were 1500 Web servers. In 1995 the technology of the Internet increased rapidly as well. Microsoft and Wollongong entered the “browser wars” and by May of ‘95 there were over 15,000 Web servers, a 1000 percent increase over the previous year. The number of servers continues to increase at an unbelievable pace and the number of users on-line is in the teens of millions. The Internet is really just a computer network like many other networks in businesses we visit every day. The Internet just happens to have millions of computers attached. When you dial into the network you become part of it and you have access to the files on many other computers or servers on the network. This access is similar to the access you have to files on your own computer. Most people do not understand the difference between the Internet and the World Wide Web. Before development of the World Wide Web, the Internet was used mainly to share files and for e-mail. HTML(HyperText Markup Language) changed the way the Internet would be used forever. HTML is the language that people use to create the pages you see on the Web. These pages make up what we call the World Wide Web. The Internet is the network which includes the World Wide Web, e-mail, newsgroups, and many other things. So you see, the Internet is the actual network and the World Wide Web is just a part of what you can do or see on the Internet. HTML is a relatively simple language compared to other languages used on computers today. This ease of use is another reason why the Web has developed and grown so rapidly. Many personal PC users have their own Web pages. This makes the web a very exciting place because of the unlimited topics that may be found from corporate web pages or from personal web pages which share your interests. It is important to note that the Web is not the only part of the Internet to explore. After you are connected to the Internet with your dialer or direct connection, there are various programs you may run which utilize the Internet. The most common program is the browser, which lets you see HTML documents. There are other programs like e-mail, news, ftp, chat, archie, gopher, telnet, ping, and finger clients. Each of these programs do different things, and there are new programs introduced almost daily which bring new functions for you on the Internet. Some of the newest include programs to chat and share files, to play cards or checkers, to get stock quotes, to get weather, or to talk with other users. The Internet is such a large topic that it would be a grave mistake to think that we could cover even most of the relevant topics. What we will try to accomplish is to give you a modest understanding of what the Internet is and how to navigate it, use e-mail and newsgroups, and the basics of ftp(file transfer protocol). When you become comfortable with these topics you should be able to learn whatever else you desire from documents on the Internet. There is an abundance of information at the tips of your fingers and we hope we can help you find and use that which interests you the most.
Let’s Begin Our Journey!Browser -A software program for observing the Web; Web client FTP(File Transfer Protocol)-The way to exchange files on the Internet HTTP(HyperText Transfer Protocol)-Protocol used to transfer HTML (Web) Documents HTML(HyperText Markup Language)-The language used to create Web pages; Web browsers display these pages Link-A connection between a hypertext document and another document, file, or action. Surfing-The act of navigating the Web. URL(Uniform Resource Locator)-The scheme for addressing on the Internet. a URL indentifies a page or resource on the Internet.
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