Web Technology 101 - SpartanSoft

Most people undoubtedly have been on the Internet visiting web sites via a web browser such as Internet Explorer, AOL, FireFox, etc.  This post will go over some of the basic terminology associated with web sites.  I prefer to quote Wikipedia for specific definitions but will elaborate when deemed beneficial.  I highly recommend Wikipedia for looking up terms that you are not familiar with.

The first step in browsing the web and accessing a web site is launching a browser on your computer.  A browser is defined as “a software application that enables a user to display and interact with text, images, and other information typically located on a web page at a website on the World Wide Web.”  The web browser is an application which is installed on your computer.  Most computers come with a web browser installed when you purchase them.  You can also download additional browsers for free from other websites.

Some of the more pervasive web browsers out there are:

• Internet Explorer (Microsoft)
• FireFox (Mozilla)
• Opera (Opera Software)
• Safari (For Apple computers)

A browser without an Internet connection is somewhat useless.  An Internet connection provides the capability for your web browser to connect to another computer based upon a domain name.  A domain name is the address which you type into your web browser to access a site such as http://www.spartansoft.net, where spartansoft.net is the domain name.  Every domain name needs to be unique across the entire Internet and must be purchased for a small fee.  This domain is name used to provide a friendly name for an IP address. An IP address is a number such as  64.79.161.51 which uniquely identifies an end point or web site on the Web.  This prevents users from memorizing these hard to remember number sequences.

A web site resides on a web server.  A web server is a computer who’s main purpose is to host web sites.  When a user types in a domain name in their browser this request gets routed to a web server who then sends back a web page to the browser.  The page comes back in HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) and is interpreted by the browser and displayed.  I will have provide a detailed post on HTML in the future.  If you want to see what html looks like in

• Internet Explorer - Right click on page and select View Source
• FireFox - Right click on page and select View Page Source

There are many companies who host web sites for a monthly fee.   This is one of the fixed costs associated with owning a website.  Prices vary greatly based upon needs.  Some companies offer free website hosting but that usually is funded by advertising thus cluttering your site with ads and providing a less then ideal user experience.  Also, free hosting may not support having a direct domain name such as yourcompany.WebHost.com which looks less professional then having a direct domain such as yourcompany.com.

This basically sums up the hardware and software required for a web based session.  There are many technical details that I have omitted for simplicity sake but may provide more detailed technical aspects for those who are interested in the future.