ITEC 50-A

LESSON 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE

INTERNET AND WORLD WIDE WEB • These standardized methods for transferring data or
documents over a network are known as protocols (set
A. Brief History of rules, for routing and addressing packets of data so
• The web was born in a particle physics that they can travel across networks and arrive at the
laboratory (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland, in correct destination.)
1989. There a computer specialist named Tim
Berners -Lee first proposed a system of THE WEB
information management that used a
“hypertext” process to link related documents • The web (originally called the World Wide Web, thus
over a network. He and his partner, Robert the “www” in site addresses) is just one of the ways
Cailliau, created a prototype and released it information can be shared over the internet.
for review.
• For the first several years, web pages were • A subset of the internet. It is just one of many ways
text -only then the real boost to the web’s information can be transferred over networked
popularity came in 1992 when the first computers.
graphical browser (NCSA Mosaic) was
• It is unique in that it allows documents to be linked to
introduced, and the web broke out of the realm
one another via hypertext links— thus forming a huge
of scientific research into mass media.
“web” of connected information. • The web uses a
• The ongoing development of web
protocol called HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol).
technologies is overseen by the World Wide
Web Consortium (W3C). CONVERGENCE OF TECHNOLOGIES
• Mosaic, the first graphical web browser were
created by Marc Andreessen and graduate
students working at the National Center for • By the early 1990s, personal computers with easy-to-
Supercomputing Applications (NCSA at the use graphical operating systems (such as Microsoft’s
University of Illinois Urbana –Champaign Windows, IBM’s OS/2, and Apple’s Macintosh OS)
developed Mosaic. Some individuals in this were increasingly available and affordable.
group later created another well -known web
browser—Netscape Navigator—which is an • Online service providers such as CompuServe, AOL,
ancestor of today’s Mozilla Firefox browser. and Prodigy offered low-cost connections to the
• Internet was originally limited to Internet.
government, research and educational
• The World Wide Web—the graphical user interface to
INTERNET information stored on computers running web servers
connected to the Internet had arrived.
purposes.
• The internet is an international network of INTERNET ENGINEERING TASK FORCE
connected computers. No company owns the (IETF)
internet; it is a cooperative effort governed by
a system of standards and rules. The IETF is the principal body engaged in the
• The purpose of connecting computers development of new Internet protocol standard
together, of course, is to share information. specifications. - - It is an open international
• There are many ways information can be community of network designers, operators, vendors,
passed between computers, including email and researchers concerned with theevolution of
(POP3/IMAP/SMTP), file transfer (FTP), Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the
secure shell (SSH), and many more specialized Internet. The actual technical work of the IETF is
modes upon which the internet is built. completed in its working groups. These working
groups are organized into areas by topic, such as
security and routing.
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• is a private network that securely shares part of an

organization’s information or operations with external
partners such as suppliers, vendors, and customers.
- The IAB is a committee of the IETF and
provides guidance and broad direction to the EXTRANETS
IETF. As a function of this purpose, the IAB is
Extranets can be used to exchange data, share
responsible for the publication of the Request
information exclusively with business partners,
for Comments (RFC) document series.
collaborate organizations. with and other
- The RFC system was invented by Steve
Crocker in 1969 to help record unofficial notes • Privacy and security are important issues in extranet
on the development of ARPANET. use. Digital certificates, encryption of messages, and
- The Advanced Research Projects Agency virtual private networks (VPNs) are some technologies
Network was the first wide - area packet used to provide privacy and security for an extranet.
switched network with distributed control and
one of the first networks to implement the
TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies
became the technical foundation of the
Internet.
- RFCs have since become official documents
of Internet specifications, communications
protocols, procedures, and events.

INTRANET

• is a private network that is contained within

an organization or business. Its purpose is to
share organizational information and resources
among coworkers. When an intranet connects
to the outside Internet, usually a gateway or NETWORK OVERWIEW
firewall protects the intranet from
unauthorized access.
• A network consists of two or more computers
connected for the purpose of communicating and
sharing resources.
• The clients are the computer workstations used by
individuals, such as a personal computer (PC) on a
desk.
• The server receives requests from client computers
for resources such as files. Computers used as servers
are usually kept in a protected, secure area and are
accessed only by network administrators. Networking
devices such as hubs and switches provide network
connections for computers, and routers direct
information from one network to another.
• The media connecting the clients, servers,
peripherals, and networking devices may consist of

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• A local cables,
copper area network
fiber (LAN)
optic iscables,
usually confined
or wireless
to a
technologies.
single building or group of connected buildings. Your
school computer lab may use a LAN. If you work in an LESSON 2: WEB PROTOCOLS AND
office, you probably use a computer connected to a STANDARD
LAN.
• World Wide Web Consortium (http://www.w3.org),
• A wide area network (WAN) is geographically referred to as the W3C, takes a proactive role in
dispersed and usually uses some form of public or developing recommendations and prototype
commercial communications network. For example, an technologies related to the Web.
organization with offices on both the East and West
Coasts of the United States probably uses a WAN to • Topics that the W3C addresses include web
provide a link between the LANs at each of the offices. architecture, standards for web design, and
accessibility. In an effort to standardize web
• A backbone is a high -capacity communication link technologies, the W3C produces specifications called
that carries data gathered from smaller links that recommendations.
interconnect with it. On the Internet, a backbone is a
set of paths that local or regional networks connect to • The W3C Recommendations are created in working
for long -distance interconnection. The Internet is a groups with input from many major corporations
group of interconnected networks with very high - involved in building web technologies. These
speed connectivity provided by the Internet backbones. recommendations are not rules; they are guidelines.
• Major software companies that build web browsers,
CLIENT SERVER ARCHITECTURE such as Microsoft, do not always follow the W3C
Recommendations. This makes life challenging for
A. WEB CLIENT web developers because not all browsers will display a
web page in exactly the same way.
• Connected to the Internet when needed
• The Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI)
• Usually runs web browser (client) software such as (http://www.w3.org/WAI), is a major area of work by
Internet Explorer or Firefox the W3C. Since the Web has become an integral part of
• Uses HTTP daily life, there is a need for all individuals to be able
to access it.
• Requests web pages from a server
• The Web can present barriers to individuals with
• Receives web pages and files from a server visual, auditory, physical, and neurological disabilities.
B. WEB SERVER An accessible website provides accommodations that
help individuals overcome these barriers. The WAI has
• Continually connected to the Internet developed recommendations for web content
developers, web authoring tool developers, web
• Runs web server software (such as Apache or Internet
browser developers, and developers of other user
Information Server)
agents to facilitate use of the Web by those with special
• Uses HTTP needs.

• Receives a request for the web page

• Responds to the request and transmits the status code,
web page, and associated files

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• Protocols are rules that describe how clients and

servers communicate with each other over a network. INTERNET PROTOCOLS
There is no single protocol that makes the Internet and
• HTTP is a set of rules for exchanging files such as
Web work; a number of protocols with specific
text, images, audio, video, and other multimedia on the
functions are needed. • Set of rules and standards that
Web. Web browsers and web servers usually use this
define how data is transmitted and exchanged over the
protocol. - -When the user of a web browser requests a
internet. These protocols govern the communication
file by typing a website address or clicking on a
between different devices, networks, and systems on
hyperlink, the browser builds an HTTP request and
the internet.
sends it to the server. The web server in the destination
machine receives the request, does any necessary
FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOLS (FTP) processing, and responds with the requested file and
any associated files (such as image files, media files,
• Set of rules that allow files to be exchanged between and other related files)
computers on the Internet. Unlike HTTP, which is used
by web browsers to request web pages and their
associated files in order to display a web page, FTP is
used simply to move files from one computer to
another.
• Web developers commonly use FTP to transfer web
page files from their computers to web servers. FTP is
also commonly used to download programs and files
from other servers to individual computers.
TRANSMISSION CONTROL PROTOCOL/
E-MAIL PROTOCOLS INTERNET PROTOCOL (TCP/IP)

• Most of us take e-mail for granted, but there are two

• This protocol is used to establish a reliable and secure
servers involved in its smooth functioning: an
incoming mail server and an outgoing mail server. TRANSMISSION CONTROL PROTOCOL
(TCP)
• Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) is used when
sending email to others.
connection between two devices and ensures that data
• Post Office Protocol (POP; currently POP3) and is transmitted in the correct order. -Adopted as the
Internet Message Access Protocol (IMAP) can be used official communication protocol of the Internet. TCP
when receiving emails. and IP have different functions that work together to
ensure reliable communication over the Internet.
• The purpose of TCP is to ensure the integrity of
network communication. TCP starts by breaking files
and messages into individual units called packets.
These packets contain information such as the
destination, source, sequence number, and checksum
values used to verify the integrity of the data.

HYPERTEXT TRANSFER PROTOCOLS

(HTTP)

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understandable names by identifying the exact address

and type of the organization.
• A subdomain can be configured to house a separate
website located at the same domain. For example,

• is a set of rules that controls how data is sent between INTERNET PROTOCOL (IP)
computers on the Internet. IP routes a packet to the
correct destination address. Once sent, the packet gets
successively forwarded to the next closest router (a Google’s Gmail can be accessed by using the
hardware device designed to move network traffic) subdomain “gmail” in the domain name
until it reaches its destination. (gmail.google.com).

• The current version of IP, Internet Protocol Version 4

(IPv4), uses 32-bit (binary digit) addressing. This
results in a decimal number in the format of
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx, where each xxx is a value from 0 to
255.
• IP Version 6 (IPv6) will be the next standard IP
protocol and will provide a huge increase in the
number of possible addresses and many technological
advances. IPv6 was designed as an evolutionary set of
improvements to the current IPv4 and is backwardly
compatible with it.

URIS AND URLS

• A Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) identifies a

resource on the Internet.
• -A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is a type of
URI which represents the network location of a
resource such as a web page, a graphic file, or an MP3
file. The URL consists of the protocol, the domain
name, and the hierarchical location of the file on the MARKUP LANGUAGES
web server.

• Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)

DOMAIN NAMES • Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
• Extensible Markup Language (XML)
• It locates an organization or other entity on the
• Extensible Hypertext Markup Language (XHTML)
Internet. The purpose of the Domain Name System
(DNS) is to divide the Internet into logical groups and • HTML5

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HYPERTEXT MARKUP LANGUAGE

• is the set of markup symbols or codes placed in a file

intended for display on a web browser. The web
browser renders the code in the HTML file and
displays the web page document and associated files.
The W3C (http://www.w3.org) sets the standards for

• SSGML is a standard for specifying a markup

language or tag set. SGML in itself is not a document
language, but a description of how to specify one and
create a document type definition (DTD)

HTML.

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EXTENSIBLE MARKUP LANGUAGE EXTENSIBLE HYPERTEXT MARKUP

LANGUAGE
• XML was developed by the W3C as a flexible
method to create common information formats and
• XHTML was developed by the W3C to reformulate
share the format and the information on the Web. It is a
HTML 4.01 as an application of XML. It combines the
text-based syntax designed to describe, deliver, and
exchange structured information. It is not intended to
replace HTML, but to extend the power of HTML by
separating data from presentation. Using XML,
developers can create whatever tags they need to
describe their information.

formatting strengths of HTML 4.01 and the data

HTML 5

structure and extensibility strengths of XML.

HTML5 is intended to be the successor to HTML4 and
will replace XHTML. HTML5 incorporates features of
both HTML and XHTML, adds new elements,
provides new features such as form edits and native
video, and is intended to be backward compatible.

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