Datasheet

10
Part I: Create a Web Page Today
Understanding how the Web works
The Web, formally called the World Wide Web, is a collection of a bunch of
text and graphics files (plus some other stuff) that make up Web pages. Web
pages are combined into linked sets of pages called Web sites. People often
use the term interchangeably, but technically, a Web page is a single HTML
text file, possibly with one or more graphics and other features added; a Web
site is one or more Web pages linked together. These terms will be explained
further later in this book.
Underlying the Web is the Internet. The Web depends on the Internet to con-
nect its many files together and to allow people to get to the Web. E-mail is a
separate function that also depends on the Internet. And FTP (file-transfer
protocol) is another Internet capability, used to move files from one
computer to another.
The Web is defined by two specifications: HyperText Transfer Protocol
(HTTP) and HyperText Markup Language (HTML). The underlying idea behind
the Web is hypertext — text that can contain links to other pieces of text and
other files, such as graphics files, stored anywhere on the Internet. The Web
got its name from the way all the links connect the pieces of text together like
a huge spider’s web.
You look at Web pages by using a program called a Web browser. A Web
browser uses HTTP to request a Web page from a Web server. The Web
page, in turn, uses HTTP to request any other files, such as graphics
images or ads, that are part of the Web page. After you request a Web page,
your Web browser pulls the files that make up the Web page from one or
more Web servers and assembles those files into a single page displayed on
your screen.
The most popular Web browsers are Microsoft Internet Explorer; Mozilla
Firefox (the successor to the once all-conquering Netscape Navigator);
Opera, a standards-compliant Web browser from a small company; and
Safari, Apple’s browser for Macintosh computers.
After a Web browser requests a Web page using HTTP, HTML steps in. Each
Web page has as its core a text file written in a format called HTML (for
HyperText Markup Language), which usually includes links to one or more
graphics files. HTML defines a Web page’s appearance and functionality.
Actually, HTML doesn’t precisely specify the Web page’s appearance:
Different Web browsers display various HTML commands differently. Also,
users can specify how they want things to look on their own screen. So what
one user sees when she looks at a Web page may be different from what
another user sees. (Part IV goes into detail about HTML.)
Getting a Web page up on the Internet is surprisingly easy. In fact, if you’re in
a hurry, you may want to go straight to Chapter 3 to use Google Page Creator.
Follow the instructions there to get your first Web page up in about an hour.
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