INTRODUCTION TO INTERNET, and

Basic Web Design

 Internet

• It is the largest network in the world that connects

hundreds of thousands of individual networks all
over the world.
• The popular term for the Internet is the
“information highway”.
• Rather than moving through geographical space, it
moves your ideas and information through
cyberspace – the space of electronic movement of
ideas and information.
 Internet

• No one owns it.

• It has no formal management organization.
• As it was originally developed by the Department
of defense, this lack of centralization made it less
vulnerable to wartime or terrorist attacks.
• To access the Internet, an existing network need to
pay a small registration fee and agree to certain
standards based on the TCP/IP (Transmission
Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) .
 The History of
Internet
1970 - Advanced Research Agency Network (ARPANET) hosts
started to use Network Control Protocol (NCP).

1972 - The first Telnet specification, “Ad hoc Telnet Protocol” was
submitted as RFC 318 (RFC-Request for Comments).

1973 - RFC-454, “File Transfer Protocol”, was introduced.

1974 - The Transmission Control Program (TCP) was specified in

detail.

1981 - The IP (Internet Protocol) standard was published in RFC

791.
 The History of
Internet
1982 - Control Protocol (TCP) and Internet Protocol
(IP) as the TCP/IP protocol suite.

1983 - ARPANET switched from NCP to TCP/IP.

1984 - Domain Name System (DNS) was introduced.

1986 - The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)

initiated the development of the NSFnet, which
even now provides a major backbone
communication service for the Internet
 The History of
Internet
1989 - The web was initially conceived and created by Tim
Berners-Lee, a computer specialist from the European Particle
Physics Laboratory (CERN) in 1989. He and his partner Robert
Cailliau created a prototype web for CERN and released it to
the Internet community for testing and comments.

1991 - NSF dropped its funding of the Internet and lifted the ban
on commercial traffic on its backbone.
 The History of
Internet
• The most important technological development in
the history of the web, besides the creation of the
web itself, was the development of graphical
browsers in the early 90s. Beginning with NCSA's
Mosaic and its evolution into Netscape's Navigator
and Microsoft's Internet Explorer, these programs
allowed users to browse the resources on the web
in an extremely user friendly environment.

• This made the web a "fun" place and marked the

beginning of the true web revolution.
 The History of
Internet
After 1991,
• Commercial enterprises could respond more quickly to the
market and to demand for information.

• New commercial backbones are built and of course, the

marketing and popularization of the Internet came.

• The Net started to move away from UNIX and other science
application languages to Windows-based interfaces that were
easy for the public to use.

• As the Internet became more accessible, companies began to

see the enormous potential for business on the Internet. In
addition, users also began to see some of the incredible
applications for which they could use the Internet.
 New Terms
New Term: Protocol: A protocol is nothing more than a set of
rules. On the Internet, it is a set of rules computers use to
communicate across networks. As long as everyone follows the
rules, communication can occur freely

New Term: Backbone: A backbone is nothing more than a major

cable that carries network traffic. Although thousands of
regional private and public networks exist, most Internet
traffic spends most of its trip on one of the major backbones

TCP/IP is a set of protocols developed to allow cooperating

computers to share resources across a network. Today TCP/IP
is the most important protocol that internet is based on.
 The uses of the Internet

• Send e-mail messages.

• Send (upload) or receive (download) files
between computers.
• Participate in discussion groups, such as
mailing lists and newsgroups.
• Surfing the web.
 Ways of Internet
Utility
1. Communication

2. Remote File Transfer Operations

3. Web Publishing

4. Document Searching
 Ways of Internet
Utility
• With all the publicity and television commercials, you might
conclude that the most popular use of the Internet is the
World Wide Web.

• Well, here's a surprise. The most popular use, even today, is

electronic mail, or e-mail. That's right, good old person-to-
person, "let's talk"-type communication. It is almost fitting
that one of the original uses of the Internet would still be
the most popular.

• You can, of course, communicate in other ways on the Net.

In the following sections, you look at a few ways people are
using the Internet to communicate with one another.
 Communication
Personal Communication

Why e-mail ?

• E-mail provides you with more than just a way to write a

note about how things are going. Of course, many people
can and do use e-mail for this very task, and it is very
effective when used this way. But you also can find some
more practical reasons for personal communication.
 Communication

• Using e-mail, you can quite often get hold of people who
might otherwise take hours or days to get in touch with. Not
only that, but by using e-mail, you can contact them on your
time--no more waiting on hold or wondering whether you've
been disconnected.

• Just send some e-mail, go about your other business, and

wait for a response to pop in your mailbox. Which, by the
way, points to e-mail's biggest advantage: It's fast! It's in
the Mail
 Communication

• Faxes are nice, but over long distances, the costs can add
up. What if you had a quick and easy way to transmit
instantly any type of file, document, or computer program
electronically? Well, you do. With most e-mail programs,
you can encode and "attach" documents to e-mail
messages.

• Why bother with wasted paper and time at the fax

machine? E-mail your message!
 Communication

A Public Forum

• Wouldn't it be great if you could have access to hundreds

of other people through one e-mail address? The listserv
is just such a vehicle.

• By signing up, or "subscribing," to a listserv, you then

gain instant access to everyone else who subscribes to
that listserv.
 Communication
A Public Forum

• New Term: Listserv: A listserv is basically an e-mail address that

is configured to forward every message it receives to the e-mail
addresses of the users who have "subscribed" to it. You can think of
a listserv as an electronic interactive newspaper.

• Listservs have literally thousands of topics for their member to

discuss. Everybody from programmers to zoologists can find a
listserv. If more than one person is interested in a particular topic,
you can almost certainly find a listserv for it.
 » Listserv

• An automatic mailing list server developed by Eric Thomas for BITNET

in 1986. When e-mail is addressed to a LISTSERV mailing list, it is
automatically broadcast to everyone on the list. The result is similar to a
newsgroup or forum, except that the messages are transmitted as e-mail
and are therefore available only to individuals on the list.

• LISTSERV is currently a commercial product marketed by L-Soft

International. Although LISTSERV refers to a specific mailing list server,
the term is sometimes used incorrectly to refer to any mailing list server.
 Communication

More Public Forums

• Using listservs isn't the only way to reach out and

talk to large groups of people on the Internet.

• Using newsgroups, you can accomplish the same

task in a different way.
 Communication
The differences between listserv and newsgroups

• The first difference between a listserv and a newsgroup is

in the way messages are received.

• With listservs, messages are sent directly to your mailbox,

where you have to sort them out and decide what to read.

• Newsgroup messages, on the other hand, are posted to

something like a public electronic bulletin board, where
you have to go to read the messages.
 Communication

The differences between listserv and newsgroups

• The second difference is one of access.

• Anybody with an e-mail address can subscribe to a

listserv.

• To read newsgroups, however, your Internet service

provider must provide you with access.
 Communicate in Real
Time
• In the last few years, the Internet has been hit by a wave of real-time
communication. The processes of getting information, talking to
others, and collaborating with colleagues no longer require a waiting
period.

Chatting

• At some point, you may want to remove the time delay between
sending and receiving e-mail. You may want to converse directly with
another person or have the ability to address a group of people.

• Today the most popular chatting services and tools are IRC and ICQ.
 What Is IRC and How
Does It Work?
• IRC (Internet Relay Chat) was developed in the late 1980s
by Jarkko Oikarinen. It consists of a network of chat servers
located all over the globe. Each server is connected via the
network, allowing users to have real-time communications.

• Using IRC, large groups of people can simultaneously

participate in discussion groups, called channels.

• A user's message is instantly viewed by all the other guests

in that channel.
 Remote File Transfer
Operations
• FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is the one of the most important
and popular protocols used in Internet. Any two computers
from any two parts of the world can be connected to each
other through FTP in order to send, get any file to/from each
other.

• Most of the FTP servers require user accounts with

passwords in order to allow their users to connect
themselves.

• FTP servers may allow foreign users to login (connect

themselves) as anonymous user with limited rights.
 WEB Publishing

• World Wide Web (WWW) is going to be the most

effective and the cheapest publishing environment
of today (it is competing with TV now).

• Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) is a language

that forms the documents in order to published in
the WWW environment.

• Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a protocol,

that is used for transferring HTML pages from WEB
servers to the clients browsers.
 Document Searching

• The Internet isn't called the Information

Superhighway for nothing.

• The Internet is information.

• Sometimes unfiltered, many times even useless,

more information is available on the Internet than
any one person could ever deal with.
 Document Searching

• Fortunately, some powerful search tools can help

you find just about anything you want (Finding
People, Places, and Things, etc.).

• In the final analysis, whether you find the Internet

useful depends to a large degree on whether you
can find the information you want and need.
 Document Searching

Finding People

• Because everyone on the Internet has an e-mail address,

you should be able to find anyone, right?

• Well, think about it. How easy would it be to publish a

telephone book with every phone number in the world? Not
very easy at all.

• Even if you could gather all the numbers, by the time you
published it, 10 percent of them would be wrong,
disconnected, or changed.
 Document Searching

Finding People

• The same challenge faces the Internet, and

to be honest, sometimes the best way to
find a friend's e-mail address is to just pick
up the phone, call, and ask.

• With some tools, however, you can, with a

little afford, locate e-mail addresses.
 Document Searching
Finding Places

• One of the newest crazes on the Internet is locator services.

Many Internet sites help you plan trips, find locations, take
you through tours on maps, and more.

• All these services start with a search engine, which enables

you to search a database for information you want. In this
case, the database consists of locations, highway routes, and
other geographical information.
 Document Searching

• New Term: Search engine: A search engine does

exactly what its name says. It is really a computer
program that indexes a database and then enables
users to search it for relevant information.

Finding Things

• You can search for billions of things on the

Internet. Searching is an integral part of anyone's
Internet use today.
 The Internet for Fun
and Entertainment
Games of Internet
 National Quake Teams (Play with other users)
 Bots (Play with computer characters that they have artificial
intelligence)

Music on Internet
 RealAudio, Radio station on Internet, …

Video on Internet
 Real Video, Emblaze Video, Internet TV, …

Video Conferencing
 With the help of a small, inexpensive camera, and the right
software on your computer, you can conduct face-to-face
business and personal meetings right over the Internet.
 What is Web?
• The Web (World Wide Web) consists of information
organized into Web pages containing text and graphic
images.
• It contains hypertext links, or highlighted keywords
and images that lead to related information.
• A collection of linked Web pages that has a common
theme or focus is called a Web site.
• The main page that all of the pages on a particular
Web site are organized around and link back to is
called the site’s home page.
 What is a
client/server system?
• A server system is a very keen way of distributing
information across information systems like a local
area network (LAN), a wide area network (WAN),
or the Internet.

• A server system works something like this:

 A big hunk of computer (called a server) sits in some
office somewhere with a bunch of files that people might
want access to.
 This computer runs a software package (also called a
server unfortunately) that listens all day long to requests
over the wires.
 What is a
client/server system?
• Usually, the "client" is actually a software program,
like Netscape Navigator, that is being operated by
a person who is the one who really wants to see
the file.

• The client software however, deals with all the

underlying client/server protocol stuff and then
displays the document (that usually means
interpreting HTML, but we'll get there in just a bit)
to the human user.
 What is a
client/server system?
• The whole process looks something like the figure
below:
 What is HTTP?

• So if the web is a huge client/server system, what is the

underlying client/server protocol that is used by the client
software and the server software for communication?

• Well the client/server protocol used by the web is HTTP

(Hypertext Transport Protocol).
 What is HTTP?

• Hypertext Transfer Protocol, HTTP is the underlying

protocol used by the World Wide Web. HTTP defines how
messages are formatted and transmitted, and what actions Web
servers and browsers should take in response to various
commands. For example, when you enter a URL (Uniform
Resource Locator) in your browser, this actually sends an HTTP
command to the Web server directing it to fetch and transmit the
requested web page
• The other main standard that controls how the World Wide Web
works is HTML, which covers how Web pages are formatted and
displayed.
 What is HTML?

• HTML or Hypertext Markup Language is the

standard markup language used to create web
pages.
 Hypertext Markup Language
(HTML)

• The public files on the web servers are ordinary

text files, much like the files used by word-
processing software.
• To allow Web browser software to read them,
the text must be formatted according to a
generally accepted standard.
• The standard used on the web is Hypertext
markup language (HTML).
 Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)

• HTML uses codes, or tags, to tell the Web browser

software how to display the text contained in the
document.
• For example, a Web browser reading the following line of
text:
<B> A Review of the Book<I>Wind Instruments of
the 18th Century</I></B>
• recognizes the <B> and </B> tags as instructions to
display the entire line of text in bold and the <I> and </I>
tags as instructions to display the text enclosed by those
tags in italics.
 HTML the Language
of the Web
• So what does a web browser (client software) do with a file it
receives from a web server (server software)? Does it just
display it to the human user as is?

• The answer is yes and no. Actually, in some cases, the web
browser will display a document exactly the way it receives it
from the web server. For example, if the document requested
is an image, the web browser will display it directly. Similarly,
plain text files will be displayed just as they are sent.

• However, if the document is an HTML document, the web

browser will "interpret" the HTML and display it according to
the instructions contained within the HTML code.
 HTML the Language
of the Web
• Well, what is HTML code and why must it be
interpreted?

• HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) is a very

simple language used to "describe" the logical
structure of a document.
 HTML the Language
of the Web
• Is HTML a Programming Language?

• Actually, though HTML is often called a programming

language it is really not.
• Programming languages are 'Turing-complete', or
'computable'. That is, programming languages can be used
to compute something such as the square root of pi or some
other such task.
• Typically programming languages use conditional branches
and loops and operate on data contained in abstract data
structures.
• HTML is much easier than all of that. HTML is simply a
'markup language' used to define a logical structure rather
than compute anything.
 HTML the Language
of the Web
• For example, it can describe which text the browser should
emphasize, which text should be considered body text versus
header text, and so forth.

• The beauty of HTML of course is that it is generic enough

that it can be read and interpreted by a web browser running
on any machine or operating system.

• This is because it only focuses on describing the logical

nature of the document, not on the specific style.

• The web browser is responsible for adding style. For instance

emphasized text might be bolded in one browser and
italicized in another. It is up to the browser to decide.
 Some Common Terms
• The Internet is a network of computers spanning the
globe. It is also called the World Wide Web.

• An Internet Browser is a software program that enables

you to view Web pages on your computer. Browsers
connect computers to the Internet, and allow people to
“surf the Web.”

• Internet Explorer is one of the browsers most

commonly used. There are other browsers available as
well, including Netscape.
• A site or area on the World Wide Web that is
accessed by its own Internet address is called a
Web site.

• A Web Page is like a page in a book. Websites

often have several pages that you can access by
clicking on links. A Web site can be a collection
of related Web pages.

• Each Web site contains a home page (this is

the original starting page) and may also contain
additional pages.

• Different computers will have different home

pages. You can set your own webpage.
 Layout of a Web Page

1. Title bar – tells you the name of the web page

2. Menu bar – has commands for moving around the webpage,
printing, etc
3. Tool bar – short cuts to commands. Each picture
represents a command
4. Address bar – webpage address. If you want to go directly
to a web page, you will need to know the address.
 Parts of a Web Address
• A web address is typically composed of four parts:
• For example, the address http://www.google.ca is
made up of the following areas:
• http://
This Web server uses Hypertext Transfer Protocol
(HTTP). This is the most common protocol on the
Internet.
• www
This site is on the World Wide Web.
• google
The Web server and site maintainer.
• ca
This tells us it is a site in Canada.
• Endings of web pages tells us a bit about the page.
Some common endings to web addresses are:

• com (commercial)
• edu (educational institution)
• gov (government)
• net (network)
• org (organization)

• You might also see addresses that add a country code

as the last part of the address such as:
• ca (Canada)
• uk (United Kingdom)
• fr (France)
• us (United States of America)
• au (Australia)
 How to Search the Internet
Two basic ways
1. if you know the address of the web page
(example: www.cbc.ca)

2. Using a search engine like Google to find

the address. This is called a keyword
search
Typing in the Web Site Address
1. Go to the address bar. Click once to
highlight the address. (It should turn blue).
2. Hit the Delete key on your keyboard.
3. Enter the following address:
www.theweathernetwork.com
4. Then press Enter on the keyboard or click
on the word Go on the right side of the
Address Bar.
 Search the Internet
• If you don’t know the address of the webpage,
but want to learn more about a topic or find a
particular website, you will need to do a
search.

• There are several handy search engines out

there that will locate information for you. Two
of the mostly commonly used are:
www.google.com
www.yahoo.com
 Practice Exercise
1. Type www.google.ca into the address
bar. (www.google.ca is a Canadian
version of the search engine.
www.google.com will search US sites
first)

2. Hit the Enter key or Go on the toolbar.

You should see the Google web page.
3. Now click on the Google box. You should
see a flashing cursor. Type in the topic.
Hit enter.