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The development of Information Technology has had a
significant effect on society, individuals and organizations.
Because of the advances in computer and telecommunications technologies the world can quite suddenly be perceived as a much smaller place. Continents and countries at different sides of the globe can easily be connected and joined so that information and data can be shared and passed between them almost instantaneously. Meet the InternetThe technical explanation is that the Internet is a giant, worldwide computer network made up of lots of smaller computer networks. As with any network, these computers are connected to once another so that they can share information. However, unlike most networks, the vastness of the Internet means that this information has to be passed around using modems and telephone lines rather than an office full of cables. The types of information these computers can shares covers a huge and expanding range - pictures, sounds, text, video, applications, music and much more - making the Internet a true multimedia experience. People are what make the Internet what it is, all of the information you'll find has been put up by real people, often only because they wish to shares their knowledge, skills, interests or creations with anyone who may be interested. Where there's people there is of course communication, and the Internet is a great communications system system. Exchanging messages (email) with other users, web cams, holding conversations and online meetings by typing messages back and forth or by actually sending your voice over the Internet using a microphone in place of a telephone. Are all just small parts of the use of communications over the Internet. So the Internet is big, the computers that form the Internet are counted in their millions, yet all of that information gets where its supposed to go. In much the same way an ordinary letter manages to arrive @ your house - It has an address attached to it. Every single computer on the Internet has a unique address, called its IP address. This consists of four numbers separated by dots, an example of this could be 194.72.6.226. When you need to connect to one of these computers you'll need to know its address. But there's a much easier way, other than remembering all those meaningless streams of numbers, Domain names. Apart from being a lot easier to remember than numbers, domain names can also tell you whose computer you're connected to, what type of organization it is, and where the computer is located. A break down of the 'top-level' domains is shown below:
Understanding URLsEvery page on the World Wide Web has its own unique URL. URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, but its just a convoluted way of saying 'address'. http:// This is one of the Internets many protocols, and it stands for Hypertext Transfer Protocol. It's the system used to send web pages around the Internet, so all web pages URLs have the http:// prefix. www.yahoo.com This is the name of the computer on which the required file is located and stored (often referred to as the host computer). Computers that store web pages are called web servers and their names usually begin www. html/ This is the directory path to the page you want to open. Just as on your own computer, the path may consist of several directories separated by backslashes. ****.htm This is the name of the file you want. The .htm (or .html) extension indicated that its a web page, but your browser can handle any number of different file types.
Building your own Web SiteHTML - the language of the Web Pages on the World Wide Web are written in a language called HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). Hypertext are just those clickable links that make navigation around the Web so easy. A markup language is a set of codes or signs added to a plain text to indicate how it should be presented to the reader, noting bold or italic text, typefaces to be used, paragraph breaks etc. In HTML you have to type in the codes yourself along with the text, and your browser puts the whole lot together before displaying it. These codes are known as 'tags', and they consist of ordinary text placed between less-than and greater-than signs. Here's an example: <B>Welcome to my homepage.</B> Glad you could make it! That first tag, <B> means turn on bold type. Halfway through the line, the same tag is used again, but with a forward-slash inserted directly after the less-than sign: this means turn off the bold type. If the above tag line was displayed in your browser it would look like this: Welcome to my homepage. Glad you could make it! Obviously there's more to a web page than bold text, so there must be many more of these tags. There's a small bundle that you'll see a lot and you'll soon get to recognize and know them. If you want to view the 'source script' or HTML coding of this, and any other web page, go to View then Source in your Web browsers main toolbar. Special Software Needs?Believe it or not, creating a web site is something you can do for free (once you've bought a computer and started paying for an Internet connection of course). Because HTML is entirely text-based, you can write your pages in Windows' Notepad (which is actually more fun and compelling once you get into it, than you might first think) or Word. WYSIWYGThis is an easy to remember and even easier to use acronym (pronounce 'wizzywig) for a software type that stands for 'What you see is what you get'. This is used to describe many different types of software that can show you on screen exactly what something will look like when you print it on paper or view it in your web browser (Common examples of these editors are Microsoft's FrontPage and Adobe PageMill). Instead of looking at plain text with HTML tags dotted around it, you see your web page itself gradually taking shape, with images, colours and formatting displayed. The main drawback of WYSIWYG editors is the price, these can cost serious money compared to most other types of Internet software. Also they likely wont help you avoid learning something about HTML. Microsoft FrontPage - www.microsoft.com/frontpage Adobe PageMill -
Markup editorsUsing a markup editor is rather like using Notepad - you see all the HTML codes on the page in front of you. But instead of having to type in the tags yourself, a markup editor will insert them for you at the click of a button or the press of a hotkey. Markup editors are ideal for the newcomer to HTML because if you don't know one tag from another, just click the appropriate buttons on the toolbar to insert them. For more complicated elements such as a table with a lot of cells, this automation is a great time saver. HomeSite - www.dexnet.com/homesite WebEdit PRO - www.luckman.com HTMLed - www.ist.ca |
