Also known as the World Wide Web (www) or using today’s synonymous term “the Cloud”, the Internet is a global wide area network that connects computer systems across the world. It includes several high-bandwidth data lines that comprise the Internet “backbone.” These lines are connected to major Internet hubs that distribute data to other locations, such as web servers and Internet Service Providers (ISPs).
In order to connect to the Internet, you must have access to an ISP, which acts the middleman between you and the Internet. Most ISPs offer broadband Internet access via a cable or fibre connection. When you connect to the Internet using a public wireless (Wi-Fi) signal, the Wi-Fi router is still connected to an ISP that provides Internet access. Even cellular data towers must connect to an ISP to provide connected devices with access to the Internet.
The Internet provides different online services. Some examples include:
Web – a collection of billions of web pages that you can view with a web browser
Email – the most common method of sending and receiving messages online
Social media -- websites and apps that allow people to share comments, photos, and videos
Online gaming – games that allow people to play with and against each other over the Internet
Software updates – operating system and application updates can typically be downloaded from the Internet
A company that provides individuals and companies with access to the Internet and other related services such as Web site building and virtual hosting. In Martin Way’s and Christian Care’s cases, this service is provided by Ionos (formerly known as 1and1).
A service that allows organisations and individuals to post a website or web page onto the Internet. A web host, or web hosting service provider, is a business that provides the technologies and services needed for the website or webpage to be viewed in the Internet. Websites are hosted, or stored, on special computers called servers. When Internet users want to view your website, all they need to do is type your website address or domain into their browser. Their computer will then connect to your server and your webpages will be delivered to them through the browser.
A way of identifying the location of a file on the internet. Uniform Resource Locators are most commonly abbreviated as URLs but they\’re also called website addresses when they refer to URLs that use the HTTP or HTTPS protocol.
The full format of an URL is `https://www.google.com`. These days it can usually be shortened to just `google.com`. The `.co.uk` extension will vary accordingly to how the domain name is registered. Other common extensions are .com, .org, .org.uk.
Most hosting companies require that you own your domain in order to host with them. If you do not have a domain, the hosting companies will help you purchase one.
Each computer on the Internet is assigned a unique address, called an IP (Internet Protocol) address. A typical IP address looks like this: 199.123.156.255. It is very difficult to keep in mind the IP addresses of all the websites we visit daily. Words are easier to remember than strings of numbers. This is where domain names come into the picture. When you visit a website, all you need to know is its URL. Computers remember numbers, and Domain Name Servers (DNS) helps us convert the URL into an IP address that the computer can understand.
When you type in `cca.org.uk` into your browser, the browser first needs to get the IP address of `www.cca.org.uk`. The browser contacts a DNS server to query the location of the server where the webpages are stored. Think of it as a directory service of IP address.
To use the phonebook directory analogy - you need to find the company “Joe’s Bookstore” so you look in the directory and see that it is located on 123 Main Street. Then you go to that address to visit the street and thence the bookstore.
HTTP is the protocol used to transfer data over the web. It is part of the Internet protocol suite and defines commands and services used for transmitting webpage data. Under this protocol, data is transmitted unencrypted which means it is sent as plain text.
HTTPS is the secure version where data is encrypted from end-to-end so that prying eyes cannot understand what is being transmitted.
HTTP uses a server-client model. A client, for example, may be a home computer, laptop, or mobile device. The HTTP server is typically a web host running web server software. When you access a website, your browser sends a request to the corresponding web server and it responds with an HTTP status code. If the URL is valid and the connection is granted, the server will send your browser the webpage and related files.
FTP is a protocol designed for transferring files over the Internet. Files stored on an FTP server can be accessed using an FTP client, such as a web browser, FTP software program, or a command line interface.
HTML is the language used to create webpages. “HyperText” refers to the hyperlinks that an HTML page may contain. “Markup language” refers to the way tags are used to define the page layout and elements within the page. Below is an example of HTML used to define a basic webpage with a title and a single paragraph of text.
<!doctype html>
<html>
<head>
<title>TechTerms.com</title>
</head>
<body>
<p>This is an example of a paragraph in HTML.</p>
</body>
</html>
` tags.
A web browser, or simply “browser” is an application used to access and view websites. Common web browsers include Edge, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, and Apple Safari.
The primary function of a web browser is to render HTML, the code used to design or \“mark up\” webpages. Each time a browser loads a web page, it processes the HTML, which may include text, links, and references to images and other items, such as Cascading Style Sheets, the browser processes these items, then shows them in the browser window.
A Markdown file is a text file created using one of several possible dialects of the Markdown language. It uses plain text formatting but contains inline text symbols that specify how to format the text. For example, surrounding text with double asterisks e.g. `**Text**` will embolden the text - Text. There are other such mark-ups for italics, indentation, headers, etc. Markdown files are designed for writing documentation in plain text that can be easily read and converted to HTML or PDF files.
Cascading Style Sheets are used to format the layout of Web pages. They can be used to define text styles, table sizes, and other aspects of Web pages that previously could only be defined in a page\’s HTML.
CSS helps Web developers create a uniform look across several pages of a Web site. Instead of defining the style of each table and each block of text within a page’s HTML, commonly used styles need to be defined only once in a CSS document. Once the style is defined in Cascading Style Sheet, it can be used by any page that references the CSS file. Plus, CSS makes it easy to change styles across several pages at once. For example, a Web developer may want to increase the default text size from 10pt to 12pt for fifty pages of a Web site. If the pages all reference the same style sheet, the text size only needs to be changed on the style sheet and all the pages will show the larger text.
While CSS is great for creating text styles, it is helpful for formatting other aspects of Web page layout as well. For example, CSS can be used to define the cell padding of table cells, the style, thickness, and colour of a table’s border, and the space (padding) around images or other objects. CSS gives Web developers more exact control over how Web pages will look than HTML does. This is why most Web pages today incorporate Cascading Style Sheets. CSS3 is the latest generation of the CSS specification.