What is the Internet?

The Internet is a vast number of computers connected together. These computers all have information on them which they share. A computer that shares information with other computers on the Internet is called a Host. When you add up all this information from all the different computers (estimated to be more than 16 million), you can see why the Internet features so heavily in the media. Furthermore, the Internet is growing fast. By the year 2000 it is expected that the Internet will contain well over 32 million hosts. While these figures are impressive (for the easily impressed anyway), a more interesting thought is the social trend that they indicate. Through the use of the Internet, more and more people all over the world can communicate with each other, albeit with only text. But even now the first video communication systems are running - transmitting their information via the Internet instead of expensive satellite systems.

For any computer to be able to share information with another computer, a communication standard must be shared. This means that the computers have to know how to ask for information or indicate that they sending information etc. The communication standard (or protocol) the Internet uses is called "Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)" and all computers on the Internet must speak it. So TCP/IP explains how the information is transmitted over the internet. However, the information itself is formatted as well. For example, a Word™ document and a plain text document may contain the same information, but the format of the information is different.

The World Wide Web (WWW or Web) is a part of the Internet. As such, it still transfers information via TCP-/IP. But all the information that is part of the Web is in a format called HTML.

What is HTML?

Did you ever wonder when you save a word processor document, how the document remembers which words are in bold? What actually happens is that invisible commands are hidden in the document, indicating which text is in bold. HTML is normal text, but the special commands are visible. The document contains the commands required to make text bold, insert images etc. These commands are called Tags and each command lies between angle brackets, '<' and '>'.

The HTML below could the part of any document:

<B> <I> This </I> is an </B> example.

Think of the Tags above as:

<B> Turn Bold on

<I> Turn Italics on

</B> Turn Bold off

</I> Turn Italics off

If the HTML code above was viewed through a browser, it would appear as follows;

This is an example.

So if you use a Browser (such as Netscape or Microsoft Internet Explorer) to view a HTML document, you will see the formatted text. You use HotDog to write the HTML document. This is why HotDog is called a HTML editor - it helps you write HTML for others to view using browsers.

What are Web Pages and Websites?

A Web page is a single web document. A Web page can contain text, images, JAVA and more. When you look around the Web, always keep in mind that you can learn from the Web Pages you see. Just right click on any Web Page (using most browsers) and select 'View Source' This displays the source HTML document (i.e., the document with all the HTML tags in it). You can see how other authors have used HTML.

A Website is a collection of Web pages, usually linked together with hypertext links. A hypertext link is a long name for the little clickable pieces of text that, when clicked, take you to another Web page. This process is usually described as following a hypertext link.

To get put a Web page on to the Internet, it has to be placed on a computer that is a host. Some hosts provide internet access for many people. These hosts are usually called Servers.

Usually, you connect to a server when you want to use the Internet. Any Web pages you create are stored on the server, which is connected to the internet 24 hours a day. This means that people can view your Web pages all the time.

HotDog provides a complete solution - you can create your web pages using HotDog, and then upload (that is, copy) the Web pages to your server. Later on, when you have many Web pages to manage, HotDog has all the tools you need to manage a complex Website.

So what actually happens when you follow a hypertext link?

1)  Each hypertext link has an address of a computer host and the name of a document on the host. Say you click on a hypertext link that has the address of the following computer host:

www.surfnet.com/~elisefowler/welcome.html

2)  Your computer sends out a message to the host called www.surfnet.com asking for the Web page called welcome.html belonging to elisefowler.

3)  The host then looks in a special directory that Elise uses for her Web pages. The server is looking for a file called welcome.html. If this file can not be found, a message is returned to your Browser. This message is usually along the lines of 'URL not found'.

4)  Assuming the file welcome.html is found, then this file is copied from Elise's host to your host and then onto your personal computer. You can now view the contents of Elise's welcome.html file using your Browser.

For further details on the subjects touched upon in this introduction, please see:

  HotDog Tutorial - Step by Step Guide to Creating a Web Page.

  More Details on inserting Links into a Web Document.

  A Discussion on Uploading Files to the Internet.

  Images, How to Insert them into Your Documents.