What is the Web?
The World-Wide Web gives us a much more sophisticated set of resources
than Gopher offers. Rather than browse simple text, the Web provides
access to graphics, color, sound, and even full-motion video. A hallmark
of the Web is the opportunity for hypertext links (underlined words in
color) which allow one you to be "whisked" instantly to another "page" of
information.
After experimenting with Gopher, you're now ready for deeper
understanding of what is going on.
- You have an address someone told you about
- You type the address
- Your PC sends the request to your server (mainframe or powerful
workstation)
- Your server finds the owner of that page (the "host") and asks the host
for that page of information
- The host sends it to your server
- The server sends it to your PC
You look at the "page" of information you just received, and then see a
term in color, and underlined. You move the cursor to that word, and the
arrow turns into a finger poised to "push the button." You click the
mouse, and the entire process starts again.
Although what is received is commonly called a "page," the page could
include multimedia information (short audio clips, real-time audio,
video, and even real-time video). The page could include hundreds of
links to other pages originating anywhere. The page could provide
product information, movie previews, financial information, or just pure
fun.
The best thing about the Web is its ease-of-use. The most effective way
to see what is going on is to witness a demonstration. This booklet will
give you a few examples, will show how to do a Web search, and then will
show how to incorporate a table of information into a spreadsheet and
into a word processing document.
What does a Web Address look like?
A normal (unsecured, unencrypted) web address always starts with the
letters http followed by a colon and two slashes. It might seem
unfriendly, but that's the only unfriendly part. You'll see how easy it
can be.
Some examples
Examples are given in order of increasing
sophistication
required on your PC. Many of the machines in use today will only show
text and graphics, lacking sound cards and multimedia capability. Using
a browser sometimes requires "helper applications," including viewers of
different graphics formats, sound players, movie viewers, etc. Some
newspapers are experimenting with a new text/graphics format by Adobe
(called "Acrobat"), which allows for very attractive custom-made
newspapers.