Intro/Review: the World Wide Web

The Internet and the World Wide Web are related, but are not the same thing. The Internet is a world wide network of computers, connected for the purpose of sharing information. The World Wide Web is one of many software services by which information is shared on the Internet. Other such services (some of which may exist either with or without the Web) include e-mail, some other forms of electronic communications such as instant messaging, Telnet and FTP (Telnet allows you to login to a remote computer in order to use it as if it were not remote; FTP – File Transfer Protocol – is a service for copying files between computers); etc.

The Web is typically viewed by means of a computer program called a browser such as Internet Explorer, Netscape, Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, etc. A browser offers you access to the following software services on the Web:

  • Viewing public domain data – information available to anyone with access to a browser.
  • Viewing password-protected data – information that is available to those who have password permission. Examples: Blackboard, EBSCO, MYNU, Internet banking, etc.
  • E-commerce – buying and selling goods and services, generally by means of a credit card. This is usually a more secure process than a credit card purchase with a human cashier, because the handling of your credit card data is usually automated so that no human can cause mischief by reading your credit card number. Other advantages: Web purchases are often tax-free; available 24/7; save the cost and time of driving.
  • Music, videos, other media are available on the Web.
  • Etc.

Important terminology:

  • URL (Universal Resource Locator) – the address of a Web page. For example, the NU home page has the URL . By entering the URL or address of a desired page into your browser’s Address entry, you can view the corresponding page.
  • “http” – Hypertext Transfer Protocol: the technical mechanism by which hypertext documents are transferred between computers on the Web.
  • Hypertext – the embedding of links in a document. As you probably know, a link can be clicked on with the result that a different Web page is displayed in your browser. The new page has its URL embedded in the link. (Sometimes, a link takes you to a different section of the same page.)
  • Page – a Web document (may have length different from one page of paper).
  • Home page – typically, the first page viewed at a given Web site.
  • Site – typically, a collection of related Web pages. There is a sense in which one site may be a sub-site of another cite. For example, the CIS Department’s site is at - which may be regarded as a sub-site of the NU Web site.

The home page of a Web site often has a URL of the form

where some commonly used suffixes tell you something either about the nature or the location of the “owner” of the Web site. Among the commonly used suffixes:

  • edu – educational organization, usually a college or university
  • net – usually, an Internet organization, such as an Internet Service Provider (ISP)
  • org – organization, generally non-profit
  • com – commercial – generally, a for-profit organization
  • biz - business
  • gov – government. For example, is the URL of the White House.
  • mil – military – for example, the Navy Web site is at

Also, the Internet is a US invention, and as it spread to other countries, it became common to use a 2-letter country abbreviation as a suffix – for example, ca for Canada, fr for France, it for Italy, etc. For example, the URL gets one to a Web site hosted by the government of the Province of Ontario.

How do we find information on the Web? Useful strategies include:

  • Often, the information you seek belongs to an organization with a Web site whose URL you know, or that you can make an intelligent guess at. By entering this URL into your browser’s Address entry, you can reach the desired site. For example, we saw that by guessing that the Department of Transportation might have a Web site with the URL we successfully reached the DOT Web site.
  • Using a search engine, such as Google - the one at or Yahoo – etc. Typically, there is a textbox that you use to enter a keyword or phrase describing the topic of your interest, and a button to click upon after you have entered your topic’s description. Upon clicking this button, a page of links is displayed. Typically, the quality of the links is uneven, but you can explore the linked pages for the information you seek.
  • Often, there are sites that are good sources of information. For example, the home pages of large universities, of online encyclopedias (not Wikipedia), etc., may be good starting points for certain information searches.
  • Some “portal sites” attempt to classify the Web or some segment of the Web in an indexing system. The Web index can be used to search for information. Sometimes, you might mix strategies – use the Web index to narrow your search, and perhaps proceed by using a search engine. Note this strategy is fading in both popularity and in support from Web designers in favor of the use of search engine.