InfoPath and the World Wide Web
Helpful Definitions
Instructor: Janet Tait

Internet: The internet is a global system of networked computers that allows computers to communicate with each other and exchange data. All computers on the internet communicate by shared protocols; in other words, they can all speak a common language. The Internet began in 1969 when faculty at UCLA, UC Santa Barbara, Stanford, and the University of Utah set up the first internet network.

World Wide Web: The World Wide Web is a way to store and access text, pictures, sound, video, and other types of data on the Internet. The World Wide Web uses new Internet protocols, HTTP and HTML, to enable users to view, download, and interact with information on the Internet. The WWW was invented in 1990 by Tim Berners-Lee at the CERN Institute in Switzerland.

HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language): HTML is a shared language which enables users to create documents that include hypertext (text linked to other text, pictures, or other data), pictures, sounds interactive applications, and other data . Web pages are usually HTML documents. Most computer literate users can learn to create and publish simple HTML pages in a few hours.

HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol): The shared language used to exchange data over the web. All web servers and web browers use HTTP.

Web Browser: A web browser is an Internet-based application that allows you to discover, retrieve, and display documents and data from all over the Internet. Web browsers such as Netscape and Internet Explorer help you explore a huge and rapidly expanding universe of information and give you powerful new capabilities for interacting with information.

Web server: a computer on the Internet which runs a web server program. Web servers house web pages. InfoPath (http://www.ucsd.edu) is a web server computer as well as the name of UCSD's official web site.

Web page: an HTML document on a local computer or web server. Sometimes called a "home page", especially if the page serves as an official introductory document for an organization or individual.

URL: This stands for Universal Resource Locator. It functions as the address used to locate information resources on the World Wide Web, such as web pages. It is composed of a protocol, such as HTTP, and a domain (a company, university, or other organization) and path name (where the file is located on the computer and the name of the file). Thus the URL "http://www.ucsd.edu/library/www.html" includes the protocol (http), the domain (www.ucsd.edu), and the path and file name (/library/www.html).

Client/Server: A software design strategy which separates a task into two parts: a client part, which a user's own computer may perform, and a server part, which an internet server might perform. A web browser is a client program, while a web server is a server program.This is important to know because the users "client" computer and program may determine how a web page is viewed. Users with one specific "clients" may see web pages differently than users with a different "client".

What about America Online and Compuserve?: American Online, Compuserve, and some other network services are proprietory computer networks that were developed before the World Wide Web. These services offer commerical information, "chat" rooms, email, and other services to subscribers. They also offer connections to the Internet and the World Wide Web.

jtait@ucsd.edu
This page is available at http://orpheus.ucsd.edu/jtait/class/definitions.html