Internet Technologies

and Web Page

Authoring
Lesson 1 - Introduction
Internet Technologies
• Internet is a world-wide global system of interconnected computer networks.
• Internet uses the standard Internet Protocol (TCP/IP).
• Every computer in internet is identified by a unique IP address.
• IP Address is a unique set of numbers (such as 110.22.33.114) which identifies
a computer location.
• A special computer DNS (Domain Name Server) is used to give name to the IP
Address so that user can locate a computer by a name.
• For example, a DNS server will resolve a name http://www.google.com to a
particular IP address to uniquely identify the computer on which this website
is hosted.
• Internet is accessible to every user all over the world.
Internet Services
• Internet Services allows us to access huge amount of information
such as text, graphics, sound and software over the internet.
Following diagram shows the four different categories of Internet
Services.
Communication Services
There are various Communication Services available that offer
exchange of information with individuals or groups.
1. Electronic Mail - Used to send electronic message over the internet.
2. Telnet - Used to log on to a remote computer that is attached to
internet.
3. Newsgroup - Offers a forum for people to discuss topics of common
interests.
4. Instant Messaging - Offers real time chat between individuals and
group of people. Eg. Yahoo messenger, MSN messenger.
Information Retrieval Services
Information retrieval services offering easy access to information
present on the internet
1. File Transfer Protocol (FTP) - Enable the users to transfer files.
2. Gopher - Used to search, retrieve, and display documents on
remote sites. Gopher is a client/server directory system that
launched in 1991. It allowed people to quickly browse resources on
the internet
Web Services
• Web services allow exchange of information between
applications on the web.
• Using web services, applications can easily interact with each
other.
World Wide Web (WWW)
• The World Wide Web (abbreviated WWW or the Web) is an
information space where documents and other web resources are
identified by Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), interlinked by
hypertext links, and can be accessed via the Internet.
• English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in
1989.
• He wrote the first web browser computer program in 1990 while
employed at CERN in Switzerland.
• The Web browser was released outside CERN in 1991, first to other
research institutions starting in January 1991 and to the general
public on the Internet in August 1991.
• The World Wide Web has been central to the development of the
Information Age and is the primary tool billions of people use to
interact on the Internet.
• Web pages are primarily text documents formatted and annotated
with Hypertext Markup Language (HTML).
• In addition to formatted text, web pages may contain images, video,
audio, and software components that are rendered in the user's web
browser as coherent pages of multimedia content.
• Embedded hyperlinks permit users to navigate between web pages.
• Multiple web pages with a common theme, a common domain name,
or both, make up a website.
• Website content can largely be provided by the publisher, or
interactively where users contribute content or the content depends
upon the users or their actions.
• Websites may be mostly informative, primarily for entertainment, or largely
for commercial, governmental, or non-governmental organizational purposes
• WWW is another example of client/server computing.
• Each time a link is followed, the client is requesting a document (or graphic
or sound file) from a server (also called a Web server) that's part of the
World Wide Web that "serves" up the document.
• The server uses a protocol called HTTP or Hyper Text Transport Protocol.
• The standard for creating hypertext documents for the WWW is Hyper Text
Markup Language or HTML.
• HTML essentially codes plain text documents so they can be viewed on the
Web.
By October of 1990, Tim Berners-Lee had written the three
fundamental technologies that remain the foundation of today’s web
(and which you may have seen appear on parts of your web browser):
• HTML: HyperText Markup Language. The markup (formatting)
language for the web.
• URI: Uniform Resource Identifier. A kind of “address” that is unique
and used to identify to each resource on the web. It is also commonly
called a URL.
• HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Allows for the retrieval of linked
resources from across the web.
Web Browsers
• WWW Clients, or "Browser": The program you use to access the
WWW is known as a browser because it "browses" the WWW and
requests these hypertext documents.
• Browsers can be graphical, allows to see and hear the graphics and
audio;
• text-only browsers (i.e., those with no sound or graphics capability)
are also available.
• All of these programs understand http and other Internet protocols
such as FTP, gopher, mail, and news, making the WWW a kind of "one
stop shopping" for Internet users.
Uniform Resource Locators, or URLs
• A Uniform Resource Locator, or URL is the address of a document
found on the WWW.
• Browser interprets the information in the URL in order to connect to
the proper Internet server and to retrieve your desired document.
• Each time a click on a hyperlink in a WWW document instructs
browser to find the URL that's embedded within the hyperlink.
• The elements in a URL: Protocol://server's address/filename
• Hypertext protocol: http://www.aucegypt.edu
• File Transfer Protocol: ftp://ftp.dartmouth.edu
• Telnet Protocol: telnet://pac.carl.org
What are Domains?
• Domains divide World Wide Web sites into categories based on the
nature of their owner, and they form part of a site's address, or
uniform resource locator (URL). Common top-level domains are:
• Additional three-letter, four-letter, and longer top-level domains are
frequently added.
• Each country linked to the Web has a two-letter top-level domain, for
example .tz is Tanzania, .ke is Kenya
Hypertext Transport Protocol
• HTTP means HyperText Transfer Protocol.
• HTTP is the underlying protocol used by the World Wide Web and this
protocol defines how messages are formatted and transmitted, and
what actions Web servers and browsers should take in response to
various commands.
• For example, when you enter a URL in your browser, this actually sends
an HTTP command to the Web server directing it to fetch and transmit
the requested Web page.
• The other main standard that controls how the World Wide Web works
is HTML, which covers how Web pages are formatted and displayed.
• HTTP is called a stateless protocol because each command is executed
independently, without any knowledge of the commands that came
before it.
• HTTPS: A similar abbreviation, HTTPS means Hyper Text Transfer
Protocol Secure.
• Basically, it is the secure version of HTTP.
• Communications between the browser and website are encrypted by
Transport Layer Security (TLS), or its predecessor, Secure Sockets
Layer (SSL).
So how does the browser work?
• A browser is a software application used to locate, retrieve and
display content on the World Wide Web, including Web pages,
images, video and other files.
• As a client/server model, the browser is the client run on a computer
that contacts the Web server and requests information.
• The Web server sends the information back to the Web browser
which displays the results on the computer or other Internet-enabled
device that supports a browser.
• Today’s browsers are fully-functional software suites that can
interpret and display HTML Web pages, applications, JavaScript, AJAX
and other content hosted on Web servers.
components of a web browser
The User Interface:
• The user interface is the space where User interacts with the browser.
• It includes the address bar, back and next buttons, home button,
refresh and stop, bookmark option, etc.
• Every other part, except the window where requested web page is
displayed, comes under it.
The Browser Engine:
• The browser engine works as a bridge between the User interface and
the rendering engine.
• According to the inputs from various user interfaces, it queries and
manipulates the rendering engine.
The Rendering Engine:
• The rendering engine, as the name suggests is responsible for
rendering the requested web page on the browser screen.
• The rendering engine interprets the HTML, XML documents and
images that are formatted using CSS and generates the layout that is
displayed in the User Interface.
• However, using plugins or extensions, it can display other types data
also.
• Different browsers user different rendering engines:
* Internet Explorer: Trident
* Firefox & other Mozilla browsers: Gecko
* Chrome & Opera 15+: Blink
* Chrome (iPhone) & Safari: Webkit
Networking:
• Component of the browser which retrieves the URLs using the
common internet protocols of HTTP or FTP.
• The networking component handles all aspects of Internet
communication and security.
• The network component may implement a cache of retrieved
documents in order to reduce network traffic.
JavaScript Interpreter:
• It is the component of the browser which interprets and executes the
JavaScript code embedded in a website.
• The interpreted results are sent to the rendering engine for display.
• If the script is external then first the resource is fetched from the
network.
• Parser keeps on hold until the script is executed.
UI Backend:
• UI backend is used for drawing basic widgets like combo boxes and
windows.
• This backend exposes a generic interface that is not platform specific.
• It underneath uses operating system user interface methods.
Data Persistence/Storage:
• Browsers support storage mechanisms such as local Storage,
IndexedDB, WebSQL and FileSystem.
• It is a small database created on the local drive of the computer
where the browser is installed.
• It manages user data such as cache, cookies, bookmarks and
preferences.
• An important thing to note here is that in web browsers such as
Google Chrome each tab runs in a separate process(multiple instances
of rendering engine).