Internet Programming Chapter One: Introduction to Internet

What is the Internet?

A computer network is the interconnection of many individual computers, much as a road is the
link between the homes and the buildings of a city. Having many separate computers linked on a
network provides many advantages to organizations such as businesses and universities. People
may quickly and easily share files; modify databases; send messages; run programs on remote
mainframes; and get access to information in databases that are too massive to fit on a small
computer's hard drive. Networks provide an essential tool for the routing, managing, and storing
of huge amounts of rapidly changing data.

The Internet is a network of networks: the international linking of tens of thousands of businesses,
universities, and research organizations with millions of individual users. It is sometimes also
referred to as the information superhighway.

Development

What is now known as the Internet was originally formed in 1970 as a military network called
ARPAnet (Advanced Research Projects Agency network) as part of the United States
Department of Defence. The network opened to non-military users in the 1970s, when
universities and companies doing defence-related research were given access, and flourished in
the late 1980s as most universities and many businesses around the world started to use the
Internet. In 1993, when commercial companies were first permitted to sell Internet connections
to individuals, usage of the network grew tremendously. There were millions of new users within
months, and a new era of computer communications began.

Key aspects of the internet

 Sub networks can stand on their own

 Computers can dynamically join and leave the network

 Built on open standards; anyone can create a new internet device

 Lack of centralized control (mostly)

 Everyone can use it with simple, commonly available software

Terminology

Learning about the Internet can be a bit confusing at first, but it becomes a lot simpler if you can
become familiar with some of the terminology used when talking about the Internet. Here is a list
of common words and phrases that you might hear.

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1) On-line

You may sometimes hear people talk about “being on-line”. This is just another way of
saying that they are using the Internet.

2) WWW

This stands for the World-Wide-Web. Tim Berners-Lee, a physicist in Switzerland,

invented the World Wide Web in 1992 as a way to organize and access information on the
Internet. Its introduction caused the popularity of the Internet to explode nearly overnight.
Instead of only being able to download simple linear text, with the introduction of the
World Wide Web users could download web pages that contain text, graphics, and even
animations, video, and sound.

3) Web browser

A web browser is a program that runs on users' computers and allows them to view and
interact with the web pages on the World Wide Web. The most common web browsers are
called Internet Explorer ,google crome ,mozila etc.

4) Hypertext

Hypertext allows a user to move from one web page to another by using a mouse to click
on special hypertext links. For example, a user viewing web pages that describe airplanes
might encounter a link to jet engines from one of those pages. By clicking on that link, the
user automatically jumps to a page that describes jet engines. Users "surf the web" when
they jump from one page to another in search of information.

5) Web site

Many commercial companies maintain web sites, or sets of web pages, that their customers
can view. The companies can engage in e-commerce, or electronic commerce, by
describing their products on their web sites. Customers who view the web pages can read
the descriptions and then purchase products directly from the companies by sending orders
back over the Internet. Buying and selling stocks and other investments is another popular
web activity.

Many organizations and educational institutions also have web sites. They use their sites
to promote themselves and their causes, to disseminate information, and to solicit funds
and new members. Even many private individuals now have their own web sites. They can
fill their pages with photographs and personal information for viewing by friends and
associates.

6) URL

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This stands for a Uniform Resource Locator. To visit a Web site, users type the URL,
which is the site's address, into the web browser. An example of a URL is www.yahoo.com.

7) Web server

Web Server: A web server is a computer program that accepts HTTP requests from web
clients and provides them with HTTP responses. Apache and Microsoft Internet
Information Server (IIS) (Part of windows)

.
8) ISP

ISP stands for Internet Service Provider, a company whose business is to provide Internet
connections to paying customers. The customer uses a modem to dial the telephone number
of the ISP from their personal computer.

9) HTTP/HTTPS

A communications protocol is simply a set of rules that computers use to communicate

over a network. The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the means by which computers
on the WWW communicate. HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP. HTTPS is used on
web sites where sensitive information such as bank details is exchanged.

10) HTML

The Hypertext Markup Language is the language used to write most web pages on the
WWW. HTML pages typically consist of some text together with formatting instructions
and information about what graphics or audio clips to include in the web page.

11) XML

The Extensible Markup Language is an alternative language for writing web pages.
Whereas HTML pages describe the format of the data’s presentation, pages written in
XML describe only how the data is structured. XML provides a standard format for the
movement of data in and between applications. The data in an XML file usually requires
some other application to interpret the data and display it in a useful format.

12) W3C

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The World Wide Web Consortium is a group of experts who meet regularly to develop
common protocols for the evolution of the WWW. The W3C agrees on standards for
HTML, XML and other web technologies, and for how web browsers should interpret
them.

13) Domain Name System (DNS) : A set of server that maps written name into IP address
Example. www.uog.edu.et----> 128.208.3.90
14) MAC Address: Media Access Control address (MAC) is the physical hexadecimal address
assigned to each device on a network.

How the Web Works

WWW use classical client / server architecture. HTTP is text-based request-response

protocol

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