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Some Basic Web Terminology
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Browser
or Web Browser - This is the piece of software on your PC to view
web pages. The two most popular implementations are Netscape Navigator
and Microsoft Internet Explorer.
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Dial up Accounts -
These are accounts with an ISP (Internet Service Provider) that allow
dialing of a telephone number that connects to a computer system that
has permanent access to the internet - a User Name and Password are
required (hence it's called an "account").
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Domain Names - Private
Domain Names (such as your-name.co.uk)
provide an address or identity for your organisation on the internet.
Typically this allows your web site to be accessed by entering www.your-name.co.uk in
the address box in a web browser, where your-name
can be whatever you like, provided it has not already been registered
and is correctly formated - note also that spaces are not allowed in
domain names, so usually a hyphen is substituted as illustrated here.
Sub-domain names
are less specific and therefore less memorable, for instance a subdomain
with us would be something like your-name.slft.co.uk.
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E-mail address - This
a unique address (just like a postal address) which anyone can use to
send you messages via the Internet. E-mail addresses are associated
with Domain Names, for example, your email address could be anything@your-name.co.uk
where anything can be
of your choosing. Note the @ sign followed by your
Domain Name.
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FTP - stands for File
Transfer Protocol and is the process generally used to transfer your
web pages from your PC to the web-space for public viewing on the
web (sometime called "uploading").
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Home-Page - this is
the first page that people would normally see when accessing your site
with their browser. Unless the web-site consists of only this one page
it contains links leading to one or more pages on the web site and possibly
links to pages on other web sites.
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Modem - A device linking your computer to an ordinary
telephone line so that you are connected to The Web and can send and
receive information.
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Search Engines & Directories -
These are web sites which specialise in maintaining indices to other
web sites. They do this by being notified by individual web sites and
by 'exploring the web' themselves and continuously indexing the pages
they find. Sometimes this is an automated process but otherwise a human
being 'decides' whether to place a site on their index. Directories
(Yahoo being the most well known) are useful in that they categorise
web sites so it is possible to "drill down" to select web
sites of particular interest, rather like using Yellow Pages.
Since the web is so large it is sensible to make the presence
of your web pages known to several of these services.
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