The World Wide Web

What is World Wide Web ?

World Wide Web or WWW is the largest information service on the Internet. It was invented at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) by Tim Berners-Lee, and developed there from 1990 to 1994. The World Wide Web's development is now oversee by W3C (the World Wide Web Consortium).

Imagine the Internet is like the traffic rules on interconnected busy road system, we all have to agree to drive on the right hand side and to stop at red lights and so on. These are rules (protocols) for data traffic such as HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer protocol), FTP (File Transfer protocol) and TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) for computers to talk to each other on the Internet. WWW is like a courier system for user to order and to receive information using computer via such rules (protocols) on the Internet.

More about WWW ......

How It Works ?

WWW is a Client-Server system:

• Your Client application make request to a Server at an URL (Uniform Resource Locator) address
• The Server application of a site look-up to the document (Web page) requested by the Clients
• The Server sends the document (Web page) to the Clients
• Your Client application renders and displays the received document (Web page)

Client application also referred as Web browser by end user, or as 'Agent' by W3C.

Gopher -

A text based distributed information system developed at the University of Minnesota. A viewer provided to display text files on computer. Gopher was a step toward the World Wide Web's HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) with hypertext links - the HTML (HyperText Markup Language). When the arrival of a graphical browser Mosaic, the Web quickly transcended Gopher.

Mosaic -

The first widely-distributed graphical browser or viewer for the World Wide Web developed in NCSA (National Center of Supercomputer Applications). The software depended on the invention of the HTTP by Dr. Tim Berners-Lee. The developers of Mosaic then later introduced the Netscape Navigator.

Web Browser-

Like Firefox, Microsoft Internet Explorer and the others are computer program or software application that perform two main tasks:

• Make request to a Web server on the Internet and download the Web page.
• Interpret the HTML tags and definitions within the Web page according to W3C's HTML specification in order to display the page.

There are no two Web browsers rendering exactly the same display on the same Web page hence the Browser Compatibility issues when developing Web pages.

What is HTML ?

HTML is the lingua franca for publishing hypertext on the World Wide Web.
It is a non-proprietary format based upon SGML, and can be created and processed by a wide range of tools, from simple plain text editors - you type it in from scratch - to sophisticated WYSIWYG authoring tools.

What is SGML ?

SGML (Standard Generalized Markup Language), is an International standard, an encoding scheme for creating textual information. HTML is a subset of SGML.

HTML was originally developed by Tim Berners-Lee while at CERN, and popularized by the Mosaic browser developed at NCSA. 
During the course of the 1990s it has blossomed with the explosive growth of the Web.
During this time, HTML has been extended in a number of ways. 
The Web depends on Web page authors and vendors sharing the same conventions for HTML. 
This has motivated joint work on specifications for HTML.

Modern day's Web browsers not only Interpreting HTML and display graphics, also capable of playing audio & video multimedia, Flash movie, Web radio etc., all thanks to advanced development of DHTML (Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language), XHTML (Extensible Hypertext Markup Language) and XML Extensible Markup Language), all from the good old HTML.

List of Browser Software 

Web Server -

A Web server is a computer software that responds to a browser's request for a Web page and deliver the page to the Web browser through the Internet. 

List of Web Server software

Surf the Web -

As an end-user to access the Web we need:

• A modern computer system
  
  
• A MODEM with moderate speed, the faster the speed the lesser 'nail biting' for you !
  
  
• Reliable Internet connection from an ISP (Internet Service Provider), you may like to consider a faster broadband connection if you use the Web for research work or for business.
  
  
• A latest version of Web browser such as Microsoft Internet Explorer, Firefox and Opera. Always upgrade to the latest version when they are Free!

  You may also like to add the latest plug-ins to play music, watch video and listen to Web Radio like the BBC Radio 2.
  
  

• Get an Email Client software if you don't have one.
  
  
• Open an Email account with an Email Portal such as Hotmail or Yahoo etc. even you already have Email account with your ISP. Use the Email Portal account for anonymous and use your ISP's Email account for known names correspondence. This is the safer way to minimize anonymous mails come straight into the Email Client's inbox as most people hooked-up their Email Client with the ISP's email account when logon.
  
  
• Install Anti-Virus software in order to detect and protect your computer system from Virus attack.

  Goto Internet Security

• Have some knowledge of how to search the Web effectively and learn about Search Engines
  
  
• Install a personal Firewall software if you are concern about intrusions to your computer system while you are surfing!
  
  
• Carry out clean-up of temporary Internet files pile ups, use software tools if you don't know the 'how to'.
  

 Happy Surfing !

Resources

A Little History of the World Wide Web

About The World Wide Web

Basic HTTP
W3C

Beginner's Guide to URLs

Naming and Addressing URIs, URLs

CERN
European Organization for Nuclear Research

Guide for beginner
The Web, Email, FTP, News etc .…

NCSA
National Center of Supercomputer Applications

NCSA Mosaic

W3C
The World Wide Web Consortium

What is WWW

Browser Software

Email Client Software

Internet Security