| Internet |
|
Originally called ARPANET after
the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense.
This electronic network connects the hosts together so that you may go
from one web page to another efficiently. The electronic connection
began as a government experiment in l969 with four computers connected
together over phone lines. By 1972, universities also had access
to what was by then called the Internet. |
| Cyberspace |
|
Term used to describe the Internet;
the term was coined by science fiction novelist William Gibson in l984
in Neuromancer. |
| BROWSER |
|
Short for Web Browser; it is
the tool (program) that allows you to surf the web. The most popular
Web Browsers right now are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer. |
| WWW |
|
An acronym for the World Wide
Web |
| Site |
|
A place on the Internet.
Every web page has a location where it resides which is called its site.
And, every site has an address usually beginning with "http://." |
| URL |
|
An acronym for Uniform
Resource Locator. It's the address of each web site. It usually
begins with "http://." |
| http |
|
Hypertext Transfer Protocol.
A protocol that tells computers how to communicate with each other.
Most web pages locations begin with "http://." |
| HTML |
|
Hypertext Mark-up Language.
HTML is not really a programming language, but a way to format text by
placing marks around the text. For example HTML allows you to make
a word bold or underline. Early word processing programs use to work
this way. HTML is the foundation for most web pages. |
| HYPERTEXT |
|
Text on a web page that links
the user to another web page. The hypertext, or links will usually
be a different color than the other text on the page and is usually underlined. |
| FTP |
|
An acronym for File Transfer
Protocol. It is the tool you would use to transfer files through
the Internet from one computer to another. For example, you would
use an FTP to upload your web page from where you built it to a web site
so that all of your friends and neighbors can look at it. |
| ISP |
|
Internet Service Provider.
This is your connection to the Internet. You use an ISP to connect
onto the Internet every time you log on. |
| Hypermedia |
|
Media (such as pictures,
videos, and audio), a web page that links the user to another web page
by clicking on the media |
| Link |
|
A link will transport you from
one Internet site to another with just a click of your mouse.
Links can be text or graphic and are recognizable once you know what to
look for. Text links usually will be underlined and often a different
color than the rest of the text on your screen. A graphic link usually
has a frame around it. |
| Location |
|
An Internet address. While
you are in your browser you will see a section at the top of the page that
is titled "location". If you type in the name of someone's web page
and hit enter, your browser will take you to that page. However,
the address you type in the location bar must be an exact match. |
| Search Engines |
|
Software programs that constantly
visit web sites on the Internet in order to create catalogs of web pages.
Because they run automatically and index so many web pages, search engines
may often find information not listed in directories. |
| Directories |
|
Unlike search engines, directories
are created by humans. Sites must be submitted then they are assigned
to an appropriate category or categories. Because of the human role,
directories can often provide better results than search engines. |
| Hybrid Search Engines |
|
To further confuse matters,
some search engines also have an associated directory. These sites
that have been reviewed or rated. For the most part, these reviewed
sites do not appear as the "default " when a query is made to a hybrid
search engine. Instead, a user must consciously choose to see the
reviews. |