Learn more about the Web

This section of BOL will provide free information for anyone interested in getting more from their online experiences.

This material will not be a replacement for software manuals, however we will link to excellent online sources of information as well as to magazines, books, and other resources. Advanced tips, techniques, and resources will also be presented, free of charge, for those who need or wish to go beyond the introductory material.

How courses are organized
Each topic is organized into a series of short courses each composed of one or more sub-topics comprised of separate web pages.

Clicking on red colored words will bring up a separate movable Glossary window containing a one or two sentence definition of the word. Graphics and animations supporting the text will be placed in the right hand column.

Sample Course

Introduction to the World Wide Web
Starting from the beginning, this lesson will provide you with the basics of the Internet. Information will include a brief history of the Internet, e-mail, browsers, multimedia on the Web and more. Presentation hands-on, practical guide for anyone interested in publishing getting the most from your online experience.

Section 3

What is the World Wide Web: Understanding the Medium:
The World Wide Web (WWW or the Web )  is the collision of communications and computing. It is the most powerful method to communicate ideas and impart experiences ever created because it incorporates every media ever developed and is available to anyone with a phone line and a computer, anywhere at any time. It is a synergy of TV (video), film, graphic arts, books, magazines, radio, and animation. When applied correctly, it can provide a richer learning experience than any of the other media forms could individually. What sets multimedia apart is interactivity- the ability to customize the application of the media to the needs of the user.

The Web is revolutionizing almost every field of endeavor including the arts. Through the power of the Web, digital multimedia can be applied to expose people to your work in ways not possible with traditional communication methods. Interactivity can provide the ability to customize the presentation of your work to the individual needs of customers and colleagues thereby solving a variety of business and creative problems artists face every day.

The Internet is a global structure made up of millions of interconnected computers. The physical structure of the Internet is a network of fiber-optic cables, satellites, phone lines, and other telecommunications media.

The Web is composed of two components clients and servers. A web server is a computer that stores the web document that users access.  This server can be next door or on the other side of the world.. The client is software called a web browser. The browser software retrieves documents from the server and display them on your computer screen..  

The two most widespread browsers are Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. Each is available at their respective web sites (http://www.microsoft.com  or http://www.netscape.com).

HTML
Browsers and servers use a set of rules to communicate to each other called Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).

Web documents are organized on the screen in an evolving language called HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). An HTML page contains text along with tags, which are embedded commands that supply information about the page’s structure, appearance, and contents. The HTML code can be interpreted differently by different browsers so not all pages will look the same with all browsers.

HTML allows you to format text, add rules, sound, animation or video and save it all in a text-only ASCII file that any computer can read. HTML is a collection of tags , keywords enclosed in less than (<) and greater than (>) signs, that indicate how or what to display on your Browser. A browser interprets the HTML tags and shows the formatted document on screen Browsers are available for virtually every computer platform and can be either text-based or graphical. All graphical browsers are programs that allow you to navigate the Web and display pages on your computer.

Hypertext
Web browsers allow the use of hypertext documents that make it easy to move from one source of information to another. A hypertext document contains links to other HTML documents or anything else on the Internet. You can create several web pages with hyperlinks that allow your users to jump from one to the other as needed. You can also provide access to information from other web sites by providing hyperlinks to those sites from your web page.

Browsers
Browsers are programs that allow you to navigate the Web and display pages on your computer. You are currently using a browser to view this page.  To view pages you created that include graphics, audio, and other media you will need a graphical web browser. Although there are many browsers available, the two most widespread are Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. The latest version of each is available free at their respective web sites (http://www.microsoft.com or http://www.netscape.com). HTML code is interpreted differently by different browsers so not all pages will look the same with all browsers All of our on-line courses are optimized for either one of these browsers. It is strongly recommended that you download both and test  the web pages you create using this tutorial before viewing our on-line materials.

Creating HTML pages requires only a simple text editor that come with Windows and the Macintosh OS. To add graphics to your page will require a paint or graphics program (see painting and drawing tools above).

There are now available several Web authoring tools that simplify the creation of Web pages. Two of the best of these, Adobe Page Mill, and Microsoft Front Page, let you create pages without HTML programming.