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Beginners
How To Guide
The Basics of Information Technology
The Internet
The Internet is a computer network made up of thousands
of networks worldwide. No one knows exactly how many
computers are connected to the Internet . It is certain,
however, that these number in the millions.
No one is in charge of the Internet . There are organisations
which develop technical aspects of this network and
set standards for creating applications on it, but no
governing body is in control. The Internet backbone,
through which Internet traffic flows, is owned by private
companies.
All computers on the Internet communicate with one another
using a standard or protocol called the Transmission
Control Protocol/Internet Protocol suite, abbreviated
to TCP/IP. Computers on the Internet use a client/server
architecture. This means that the remote machine (server)
provides files and services to the user's local (client)
machine.
Often the terms Internet and web are used synonymously.
In casual conversation such as "I was on the Internet
" or "I was on the Web," there is no
difference. However in practice these are two entirely
different items. In the same way that a car travels
on a road, a web page travels over the Internet , which
is the physical network. An Internet user has access
to a wide variety of services: electronic mail, file
transfer, vast information resources, interest group
membership, interactive groups, multimedia displays,
real-time (live) broadcasting, shopping opportunities,
breaking news, and much more.
The World Wide Web is basically a particular way of
transporting text, images (graphics) and other multimedia
content e.g. video and sound clips, over the Internet
. Web servers (computers or software) on the Internet
are set to respond to particular requests by sending
documents to the requester, usually done in HTML. HTML
stand for Hyper Text Mark up Language and it is a standard
language made for typesetting. It is mainly used for
creating documents on the World Wide Web. Included in
the language are provisions for including pictures and
links to other pages. The requester must use a browser
(software programme) to receive this data.
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