UNDERSTANDING THE INTERNET

By Bihongoye Erica

The Internet is a vast network of servers and computers which are connected to one another via phone lines, microwave, satellites, etc. Servers are simply computers that store large amounts of information whose purpose is to “serve” the information they contain to other computers. The Internet has often been described as “The Information Superhighway.” Generally, smaller networks such as the systems found in schools and universities, hospitals, government offices and private business, etc., are all interconnected to form a larger network known as the Internet. The Information contained within the Internet can be retrieved and displayed in a variety of mediums such as telnet, gopher and, most recently, the World Wide Web (WWW) or “The Web.” With telnet, the user (computer operator) must know complex commands in order to access the desired information. Gopher is an easier method to retrieve information where the user types in key words in order to search a database (computer storage of information). The easiest, and by far the most popular, method to retrieve information is through the World Wide Web. In fact, the advent of the World Wide Web is directly responsible for explosive growth of the Internet and the people who access it because it is easy to use (user friendly). The World Wide Web is made up of information that is displayed as “Web pages” or html documents (html stands for hypertext markup language). These Web pages contain hypertext which allows the user to immediately access other Web pages by selecting underlined words or phrases. Most recently this technique has become more sophisticated to allow the user to simply “click” the computer mouse on pictures or icons to access other Web pages. The software that allows the user to click on icons is known as a graphical interface or “browser.” The first successful browser was Mosaic and now the most popular browser is Netscape Navigator.

Until now, it was very difficult to create html documents. The computer language used to make Web pages look graphical is too complicated for the average user to bother with. Luckily, new software called Web editors automatically write the html code while the user designs his/her Web page much like documents are created on word processors. Since 1996, anyone with basic computer skills can have a “presence” on the World Wide Web which has opened the door to anyone who wishes to publish information.

Searching for topics of information has become easier for beginners with catalogs such as Yahoo. Experts who work for Yahoo search for Web pages or Web sites that would most likely interest the general public and compile these in a catalog organized by subject. This is unlike a “search engine” that searches all Web pages for key words within the text of the page.