Multimedia Information Tool

WHAT IS WWW ?

The world wide web (WWW) is one of the newest and most popular hyper-text based Internet tool.It allows users to access and display documents and graphics stored on any server on the Internet.In 1989,Tim Berners-Lee,a computer scientists at the CERN particle physics lab in Switzerland,designed WWW as a tool to help an international group of physicists exchange findings and information related to their research.It became popular only in late 1993, when WWW software was delivered for desktops that used popular operating systems such as a Windows,allowing users easy and friendly access to the Internet.Some WWW terms are shown as follows:

1) CGI -- Common Gateway Interface.A specification for a communication
interface between external systems and a Web server.

2) HTML-- Hyper-text Markup Language.A text formatting language used to
create Web pages.

3) HTTP-- Hyper-text Transport Protocol.The communication protocol
between a Web server and a client.

4) Image Map-- A text file that defines regions using graphics files (usually
GIF files) that users can click on to navigate.

5) MIME-- Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions.An internet standard for
sending and receiving multimedia E-mail.

6) Server-side-- A Web server feature that lets HTML pages be parsed "on
the fly" filling in the parts of the page with information from external files.

7) S-HTTP-- Secure Hyper-text Transport Protocol.An extension of HT-P
provides communication and transaction security for Web clients servers.

8) SSL-- Secure Socket Layer.A transport mechanism developed by
Communication for transmitting secure data over a network.

9) URL-- Uniform Resource Locator.An address that specifies the location of
Web page.

There are many interfaces to the WWW,such as Mosaic,a GUI-based hypertext browser, and Netscape,that allow users to easily navigate the Internet and access many services.