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WWW--World Wide Web

The graphical interface to the Internet.  This is the area of the web where information is presented in a visual (picture) format.  The creation of web browsers like Netscape and Internet Explorer make the web more exciting by adding pictures and color.

Access to documents, files, programs, newsgroups, html files, java applets, e-mail, chat and more are all part of the world wide web.  The WWW was created by CERN (the European Laboratory for Particle Physics) in 1992 based on the work of Ted Nelson who created hypertext in 1960.  Hypertext allowed link documents to be stored on different computers.  Apple Macintosh users familiar with HyperCard and Hyper Studio are using hypertext in these applications.  Hypertext came to the web by way of Mosaic the forerunner of Netscape and finally Internet Explorer.  

Internet addresses are known as Uniform Resource Locators.  The URL gives the exact location of any Internet resource

http://www.apple.com/education/apple.html

Translates As:

hypertext transfer protocol://world wide web. computer named apple. commercial service/subdirectory education/filename. hypertext markup language

Endings on the Internet

You will always know what type of service you are visiting if you look at the ending of the address.  Remember in Internet lingo a period (.) is referred to as a dot.  So the dot com (or other ending) is the key to the type of computer (server) you are visiting.

.com    commercial service

.edu    educational organization

.gov    government

.mil    military

.org    organizations that don't fit into any other category

.net    network resources

.arpa    associated with ARPANET, the organization that created the Internet

.nato    North Atlantic Treaty Organization

If you understand the URL you can never get lost on the Information Superhighway.