The World Wide Web
There is no denying the fact that in modern world,
the World Wide Web may be one’s favorite source of information which is
inevitable to communicate with outside world in the field of business,
communication, economics, information and electronic world. The reason of being
enthusiastic is to be motivated with others out side environment. Not too many years ago, we are boost of the
set of files that we preserve with vendor product documentation. We conscientiously
send for information on magazine reader service cards for products that we
might need to incorporate into one of our projects. Our goal is to be able to
pull out the product literature when we had to prepare that quick turn-around
proposal and then simply confirm pricing. This system does work, but it becomes
a burden to maintain where we have to spend a lot of time in filing the
information that we receive. Can organize our information by vendor and sometimes,
however, we wish that we have the information by product category (tape drives,
for example), because we may face troubles remembering what some of the smaller
vendors actually provide for. We also have trouble keeping track of when we
receive all the information. It seems as if we have to work hard to keep
refreshing the literature, especially in light of the rapid change in products
and pricing that goes on in the computer industry. On many World Wide Web
sites, including CERN's home page, we can
find more extensive details and a more complete listing of actual events than
the brief history of the World Wide Web
given here. This introduction to the World Wide Web history aims at providing
only a brief overview of events involved in its creation. At first, the World
Wide Web contained only a few server and client machines. Within a period of a
couple years, however, the computing people caught onto the benefits and stimulation
of this new expansion, and the World Wide Web inhabitants growth detonated.
About
new Term relevant to Server and client envisaging such type of computers which are
the basis for the entire Internet and in due sense, a server is any computer
that "serves" or delivers information and data. A client is any
computer that requests or receives the information and data. In 1993, the Web
had only about 50 servers. Within 18 months, this number was greater than
before by over 3,000 percent and within the last few years, this number has
grown into the millions, and today we can find information and files on the Web
from practically anywhere in the world. The World Wide Web was beyond doubt a farsighted
undertaking. The future seems to hold no limits. In time, most day after day
activities may very well take place through the World Wide Web. Almost every home,
school, company, and organization will be connected, and with the click of a
mouse, the world will exist at our
fingertips. In our travels through the
World Wide Web, we are bound to stumble upon some methodological terms and
phrases that we don't know much of this terminology relating to common
activities and components present on the World Wide Web. In an attempt to clear
the path for some smooth "surfing" through the World Wide Web,
several of the most common terms and phrases for encounter are provided here
for us to learn and refer to. Specific
examples of many of these elements are provided later in the lesson. Just a Minute: The terminology
presented here may have many variations in meaning, depending on whom we
ask. We’ve tried to stick to the most basic definitions to help us
easily understand some of what we’ll distinguish
on the Web.
The
most important parts of the World Wide Web are the elements, such as servers,
pages, hot links, and more--all of which comprise the bulk of the World Wide
Web. The following are some related terms
we may see:
- Web site: A collection of World Wide Web documents, usually consisting of a home page and several related pages. we might think of a Web site as an interactive electronic in such critical phenomena.
- Home page: Frequently, the "cover" of a particular Web site. The home page is the main, or first, page displayed for an organization's or person's World Wide Web site.
- Link: Short for "hypertext link." A link provides a path that connects us from one part of a World Wide Web document to another part of the same document, a different document, or another resource. A link usually appears as a uniquely decorated word that we can click to be transported to another Web page.
- Anchor: A link that takes us to a different part of the same Web page.
- Image map: A feature available on the World Wide Web that enables we to click various locations in an graphic image to link to different documents.
- Frame: A feature available on the World Wide Web that presents text, links, graphics, and other media in separate portions of the browser display. Some sections remain unchanging, whereas others serve as an exhibit of linked documents.
- Table: A feature available on the World Wide Web that presents document text, links, graphics, and other media in row and column format. Table borders may be visible in some documents but invisible in others.
·
HTML: Hypertext Markup Language. HTML is the
coding language for the World Wide Web that informs browsers how to display a
document's text, links, graphics, and other media. This language forms the
foundation for all Web pages.
·
Webmaster: The individual responsible for
maintaining and updating the content of a World Wide Web document. Webmasters
are the creative forces behind the World Wide Web.
·
Domain name: The name given to any computer
registered on the World Wide Web as an official provider of information and
files. Domain names are usually two or more terms separated by periods. Some
examples are aol.com or www.msu.edu.
·
URL: Uniform Resource Locator. A URL (pronounced we -Are-El) serves as identification for all
World Wide Web documents. The URL is
sometimes referred to as a World Wide Web page address. Every site and page on
the World Wide Web has a URL.
·
Browser:
A software program that requests, interprets, and presents World Wide Web
documents. Frequently used browsers include Internet Explorer, Netscape
Navigator, Lynx, and Mosaic.
·
Client: In addition to being a computer, a
client also can be a software program that requests and acquires information
from computers that store World Wide Web documents and files. World Wide Web
browsers are also known as clients.
·
Hot list: An option available in most World Wide
Web browsers that maintains a list of frequently accessed home pages. A hot
list also refers to a list of home pages related to a particular subject that
is published on an organization's home page.
One
of the most commonly a used capability of the Web is its ability to help we
locate just about anything. Planning to take a trip or need to locate a
place somewhere in the world? Several Web sites are designed to help we
do just that. The World Wide Web contains sites for every automobile
manufacturer in the world. Current prices, lease programs, different models,
various options, company information, dealership locations nearest we and residuals are all available at these
sites.
Assuming
that we would like to want to attend a class next year at a local campus or
university. Well, just about every educational institute maintains a site on
the World Wide Web. Michigan
State University
Frames are a more advanced design tool for World Wide
Web sites. The use of frames allows the division of the display screen into
separate sections, each of which may contain text, graphic images, and links.
Frames are especially useful if a site contains a list of links related to a
certain subject, and the Webmaster wants the linked documents to appear on the
screen while the list of links remains visible as well. With the various tools
available for constructing a World Wide Web site, we may encounter just about everything
in we
imaginations during we are to
travel as to what is not available now will be shortly, as futuristic ideas for
site development already live in the minds of designers. Some futuristic plans
for World Wide Web sites include 3-D and interactive displays. The technologies
that facilitate this type of design now exist, and a few sites already show
a glimpse of the future.
One
of the first serious uses of the Web by trade, especially those in the computer
industry, was marketing. They understand that with the way they changed their
product lines and pricing, it was almost impossible to keep their clients
up-to-date. They also had the advantage those computer techniques where among
the first users of the Web, so they could reasonably argue that their Web pages
were reaching the buying audience. Anyway, it is a great way of doing business
when researching and integrating computer systems. If we assume that vendors keep their Web pages
up-to-date, which I have found to be the case, we are guaranteed to get the latest information
whenever we need
it. We do not have to listen to
salespeople trying to make a sale or answer all the calls to see whether we are going to buy anything after we receive the literature.
What
is the actual process for finding information using the Web for many vendors, we
already know their Web addresses (URLs in Internet parlance). For example,
www.microsoft.com, www.oracle.com, and www.intel.com are appealing easier to
remember (www in front and com on the back). We will usually try to see whether
the company has a Web site that fits this pattern when I am trying to look up
information. If we do not succeed in finding the simple pattern (because the
parent company has a name that is different from the common product name or
someone else got that Internet name first), we will try one of the Internet
search engines to find the appropriate page. Some of the common search engines
can be found at the following addresses: These engines typically have a box in
which we would enter the search
criteria. Suppose, for example, that we wanted to find the address for Hewlett
Packard printers. We would type Hewlett Packard in as our search criteria and
then touch the search button. Virtually we would then get a number of matching
responses back in a display. The nice feature about this result is that the
underlined lines are actually links to the pages themselves. We can just click on the underlined text to go to
the Web site that is described. It is a very easy way to navigate to an unknown
location.
Once
we
find the address of the site that
we
want, we will typically be taken to the main page for
the company. After that, we have
the opportunity to follow links to other pages at the site that are of interest
to us. We can find general Microsoft information,
information about various products, and other literature. As we can see, there is a wealth of information
available. Another good use of the Web is to download the latest drivers and
other products. Again, once we learn
the easy point-and-click interface of the Web, we can navigate to other sites and pages. We can also download software with a single
click. It can be a very powerful tool, because there is already a great deal of
product support on the Web and it continues to increase. A final note is that
many third-party vendors provide a good deal of support through the Web similar
to the Microsoft examples that have been covered so far. Obviously, some are
better than others. However, even on the poorer sites we can usually get basic product information and
numbers to call if we have
questions that are not answered on the Web site. We never know until we try. Heck, I even downloaded a specific MPEG
driver for an IBM note in such critical phenomena for the Windows 95 operating
system in a matter of minutes that helped me get a system out in the field in
an afternoon. Imagine how long it would have taken if I had to send for the
disk. Web pages are a really great source of information.
However, they tend to be a one-way communications vehicle. The provider
determines the content and we review
it. There is often far more content than we would want to see, so we can usually find what we want. What do we do when we have a really unusual or specific problem,
however? One answer to this dilemma is the Internet Newsgroups. There are an
enormous number of newsgroups out there with topics ranging from beer making to
social commentary (there are a lot of commentary pages for frustrated
individuals). Anyway, this is an interactive medium where we post a question or comment in a newsgroup that
is devoted to the subject matter that we want to discuss. The goal here is to get a
review of what we write
by a large number of people, some of whom are experts and others who are
amateurs. In most cases, we can
find someone who has the same or a similar problem and can provide we with some insight into our situation.
A
partial listing of the newsgroups that might be of interest to BackOffice
users. Best of all, most newsgroup readers will provide we with a list of newsgroups that are available
on news server. We do not have to look
at the list provided in a in such critical phenomena that was published several
months or years ago. Go out and look at the list in the comp. database sections
to see what is currently available. Newsgroups often split up to reduce the
number of messages that a given individual has to monitor. Other times, new
ones are formed and old ones die out. Check what is currently available using the systematic browser. A few words of
caution are in order about newsgroup postings. This is an interesting world
subculture where we get
some of the best minds in the business. We also get a lot of lonely people and some
people that are downright arrogant. Here are some suggestions for those of us who
are new to newsgroups:
·
Carefully evaluate the
responses that we receive to questions. Usually, we will get someone with a high level of
experience who can really save we a lot
of time. Occasionally, we will
get people who just want to see their name on a list of postings. If a response
does not make sense to we and is
not corroborated by other responses, we might want to just ignore it.
·
Be careful about using
inflammatory tones in our postings.
There are a number of people out there who are just looking for something to
gripe about and this will distract people from the business at hand. We might want to study the etiquette of the Net
before we deviate from simple technical question and
response postings. There are a lot of people who are sensitive about job
postings (even though we see
them all of the time in the technical newsgroups for products that are in
demand) and topics that do not relate to the designated subject matter of the
newsgroup. It's a good idea to read the newsgroup for a while to see what is
generally accepted and what is not.
Newsgroups can be a very powerful
tool. They can give we access
to other people out there who are doing work similar to our own. Many of these people might have seen
the problem before and may have actually solved it. An amazing number of people
will take time to help someone whom they do not even know in response to a
posting on the newsgroup. A local alternative for those who
are not connected to the Internet or who like interpersonal communications is a
local users group for NT and/or BackOffice users. What users groups are
available in our area? The best way to
find out would be to call our local
Microsoft representatives or monitor the newsgroups and list servers to see
whether there are any in our area. If we know of several people who do work similar to our own, we might want to form our own users group, local contacts that may
be willing to have we call
them for advice when we are in
real trouble.
Microsoft
NT and BackOffice users groups are relatively new and rare. Here are a few
ideas from the local Oracle users group that I belong to—it shows what a group
that has been around for a little while can do:
·
Have speakers from the
product vendors come in to discuss new products. We would be amazed at the number of sales and
technical people who will even fly in from out of town if we tell them that we have a fair-sized group of people who actually
work in the environment of interest.
·
Provide sessions where
members bring up problems that they are challenged with and see whether others
have any suggestions for these problems.
·
Have members present
their evaluations of new products that might be of interest to other members. This
is often better than having vendor representatives come in, because our members will often give we more candid opinions about the products.
·
Have members provide
feedback on all those major conferences that we would like to attend, but there is no budget
or time.
Finally, there is an Internet tool
that lets we routinely receive electronic mail on a given
subject. we send
an e-mail to the appropriate list server administrator who then adds our name to his or her distribution list (this
is usually an automated process where we type the word subscribe in the text or heading
of our message and it in this connections
out our e-mail address). We then continue to receive mailings until we tell
them to stop our subscription. In
effect, these list servers are the equivalent of electronic magazines that get
delivered to our electronic mail inbox
as opposed to our paper mailbox. Where
do we
find out the list servers that
are available? we will
often find articles discussing them in the appropriate Internet newsgroups. We can also find references to a number of
them on various Web pages while we are
surfing around. There are several newsgroups on Windows NT and BackOffice that
are provided by Microsoft. To subscribe, go to the Microsoft home page and surf
around until we find
them (they are relatively easy to find once we get the knack of surfing the Web; they move
around as the Web pages are designed, so polish up our surfing skills). The use of Internet resources was stressed in this discussion
because that is a current emphasis of Microsoft. It enables us to get
up-to-date information and software whenever we need them. Traditional printed materials
such as this in such critical phenomena provide us with insight and information about the
products. Most of the people that we have come across (even computer types)
tend to prefer printed material for commentary, general discussions, and
step-by-step instructions. The electronic forms of media tend to be better when
we
need up-to-date information,
software to download, or answers to a very specific technical question. Try out
these various information sources when we have the time so that we know exactly
where to go and how to use these tools when problems arise and we are desperate for information
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