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World Wide Web
Ratings:
107 pages1 hour
Summary
A detailed information about the world wide web,its history, web applications and uses of the world wide web
Publisher: Jubrael AbdullahiReleased: May 16, 2016ISBN: 1311197540Format: book
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World Wide Web - Jubrael Abdullahi
DEDICATION
To the loving memory of my mum.
PREFACE
World Wide Web (WWW), computer-based network of information resources that combines text and multimedia. The information on the World Wide Web can be accessed and searched through the Internet, a global computer network. The World Wide Web is often referred to simply as the Web.
The Web started to become a popular resource after 1993 when the first widely distributed browser provided a convenient way to access a variety of information on the Internet. The Web uses multimedia, which means that information can be displayed in a wide variety of formats. Users can read text, view pictures, watch animation, listen to sounds, and even explore interactive virtual environments on the Web. A user can move seamlessly from a document or Web page stored on the computer to a document or Web page stored on another computer.
The Web offers a place where companies, universities and other institutions, and individuals can display information about their products, services, facilities, or research, or their private lives. Only a small percentage of information on the Web is restricted to subscribers or other authorized users. The majority of Web pages are available to anyone who can access a computer that connects to the Internet. The Web has become a marketplace for many companies selling products or services, and a forum for people to exchange opinions and information. Museums, libraries, government agencies, and schools post information on the Web to make it available to others.
FORWARD
Timothy Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist, developed the World Wide Web during the 1980s.
Research on dividing information into packets and switching them from computer to computer began in the 1960s. The U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) funded a research project that created a packet switching network known as the ARPANET. ARPA also funded research projects that produced two satellite networks. In the 1970s ARPA was faced with a dilemma: Each of its networks had advantages for some situations, but each network was incompatible with the others. ARPA focused research on ways that networks could be interconnected, and the Internet was envisioned and created to be an interconnection of networks that use TCP/IP protocols. In the early 1980s a group of academic computer scientists formed the Computer Science NETwork, which used TCP/IP protocols. Other government agencies extended the role of TCP/IP by applying it to their networks: The Department of Energy’s Magnetic Fusion Energy Network (MFENet), the High Energy Physics NETwork (HEPNET), and the National Science Foundation NETwork (NSFNET).
In the 1980s, as large commercial companies began to use TCP/IP to build private internets, ARPA investigated transmission of multimedia—audio, video, and graphics—across the Internet. Other groups investigated hypertext and created tools such as Gopher that allowed users to browse menus, which are lists of possible options. In 1989 many of these technologies were combined to create the World Wide Web. Initially designed to aid communication among physicists who worked in widely separated locations, the Web became immensely popular and eventually replaced other tools. Also during the late 1980s, the U.S. government began to lift restrictions on who could use the Internet, and commercialization of the Internet began. In the early 1990s, with users no longer restricted to the scientific or military communities, the Internet quickly expanded to include universities, companies of all sizes, libraries, public and private schools, local and state governments, individuals, and families.
Several technical challenges must be overcome if the Internet is to continue growing at the current phenomenal rate. The primary challenge is to create enough capacity to accommodate increases in traffic. Internet traffic is increasing as more people become Internet users and existing users send greater amounts of data. If the volume of traffic increases faster than the capacity of the network increases, congestion will occur, similar to the congestion that occurs when too many cars attempt to use a highway. To avoid congestion, researchers have developed technologies, such as Dense Wave Division Multiplexing (DWDM), that transfer more bits per second across an optical fiber. The speed of routers and other packet-handling equipment must also increase to accommodate growth. In the short term, researchers are developing faster electronic processors; in the long term, new technologies will be required.
Another challenge involves IP addresses. Although the original protocol design provided addresses for up to 4.29 billion individual computers, the addresses have begun to run out because they were assigned in blocks. Researchers developed technologies, such as Network Address Translation (NAT), to conserve addresses. NAT allows multiple computers at a residence to share
a single Internet address. Engineers have also planned a next-generation of IP, called IPv6, which will handle many more addresses than the current version.
Short, easy-to-remember domain names were once in short supply. Many domain names that used the simple format http://www.[word].com, where [word] is a common noun or verb, and .com referred to a for-profit business were mostly taken by 2001. Until 2001, only a few endings were allowed, such as .com, .org, and .net. By 2002, however, additional endings began to be used, such as .biz for businesses and .info for informational sites. This greatly expanded the number of possible URLs.
CHAPTER ONE
History of World Wide Web
The World Wide Web was developed by British physicist and computer scientist Timothy Berners-Lee as a project within the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland. Berners-Lee combined several existing ideas into a single system to make it easier for physicists to use data on the Internet. Most important, he added multimedia, the ability to include graphics to the
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