How it All Works

1. The http at the beginning of http://www.eastside.org tells your computer that you wish to get the document via the hypertext transport protocol, and it works through your network according to the established communication standards for http.

   You may encounter sites that do not begin with http - such as ftp://ftp.info.apple.com. These sites use other protocols besides the hypertext transport protocol (http). In the example, ftp represents the file transfer protocol and is used to download (transfer) files such as software updates, or to upload files such as all those pictures and html documents you will use to make your web site.

2. Your computer then communicates with another computer called a Domain Name Server to find out how to get to eastside.org. The Domain Name Server (DNS) is a computer that tells your computer where eastside.org is in terms of an address made up of a unique series of numbers (the numbers are called an "IP address," where IP stands for Internet protocol). This unique series of numbers (or IP address) is registered with a central governing body such as Network Solutions. Think of the DNS as the phone book, where you look up a name to find a phone number.

3. The DNS tells the computer you're web-surfing from that eastside.org's IP address is 64.27.106.52. The dots (periods) divide up this IP address much like a street address is organized by country, state, street, number. Your computer then "hops" around the internet from the router for 67.X.X.X to the router for 67.27.X.X to the router for 67.27.106.X, until finally it gets to the server that the domain name's specific IP address is registered to (see below for the definition of a router). The domain name eastside.org is hosted on a computer with the Internet address of 67.27.106.52, and that computer then serves up the page you specified.

   Note that websites don't always have to begin with www. Take http://www.yahoo.com and http://mail.yahoo.com, for example. The computer (server) that hosts the domain name (e.g. yahoo.com) will direct you to the appropriate page, depending on what you enter before the domain name (e.g. www or mail).

4. Sometimes the web site's name will be followed by a specific page. For example, the "How You Can Help" page at http://www.eastside.org/how_you_help.htm. If no page is specified (in the case of just http://www.eastside.org), then the browser will open a document named index.html.

   The server can actually be set to look for a file of any given name as the default web page, but index.html (or index.htm) is by far the most common, with default.html a distant second. If you name the main page in each folder of the web site that you create index.html (i.e. the default name), then the person looking for your web site will just have to type the folder name (e.g. eastside.org/library) without having to bother with typing in the name of the page itself (e.g. eastside.org/library/page1.html). In other words, each section of your web site should be kept in a separate folder that contains a file called index.html, which will be the "home page" for that section.

5. Finally, your browser reads the document (in this case, an HTML document, but there are other types) and translates or displays it according to the type of file specified by the file extension (e.g. .html).

   Note that even though HTML is supposed to be standardized, different web browsers and different versions (e.g. Microsoft Internet Explorer versions 2, 3, 4, 5, etc. and Netscape Navigator versions 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, etc.) will display pages with subtle differences. When designing a web site, always preview it in each of the browsers that you think your audience may be using before putting a final version on the internet. This adds some work, but allows you to reach a greater audience. If visitor to your site uses Netscape version 3.0 and your web site doesn't work with that browser version, then you've lost a potential customer, sponsor, etc. You will probably have to make some changes so that Netscape looks the same as Internet Explorer because the browsers each have their own way of doing things. As of the writing of this document, I'd recommend that you check your pages with at least Internet Explorer and Netscape versions 4 and above. Older versions (e.g. Netscape 2.0) are rarely used by anyone anymore. Your target audience may vary, so design your pages with their computer hardware and software in mind.

The World Wide Web is truly an accurate term for the interconnected information exchange system that runs on the Internet. Picture the strands of this web as the cables that connect everything together and imagine that each junction in this web passes through a network device such as a hub, router or server. At the end of each strand is a client.