Rather than going straight into a glossary of terms, this section gives you an overview of how all the bits fit together. Use your browser's Find facility to find an explanation on this page for any specific term you want.

To print off my complete beginners guide, print this page, the page on getting connected, and the page on assessing a service provider. All the underlined terms should be explained in topics on one or other page. If you want to consider creating your own website, you'll need that page too.

How does it Work?

Most of the knowledge required is required by the Service Providers rather than the users. The user end should be made very easy by a good service provider.

The Glossary of Terms

The glossary is arranged in alphabetical order, with cross-references to terms which are virtually synonymous. Please note: its intended as a beginners guide, so it isn't strictly technically accurate! Within that limitation, feel free to email me with suggestions for other terms or corrections to definitions.

Internet Accounts

The term internet account is used in two ways. Firstly, its a financial account with your service provider, where you use services and they charge you on an agreed basis in an agreed way. However, it's also used to refer to the login ID, also called login name or account name, that their computer uses to recognise you. The provider sets up a name for you on the computer, and sets up access to the various services you have bought (such as email, website browsing) for your account. Whenever you dial up for any of these services, you have to give your login ID and usually your password too. These can sometimes be stored in your software, so that you don't have to give them every time, but that then means that anyone else using the computer can use the internet services too.

Internet Address

In order to receive things by post, you have to have an address, that the post office recognises. Similarly, in order to send things over the internet, they must be given an address. The World Wide Web Consortium (w3) manages the Central Registry of internet addresses, which is then available to all service providers, who act as the local post offices. In practice, this management is split up between several companies who manage different sets of addresses (eg. the addresses for each country) on behalf of w3.

Ultimately, for the computers, your address is several numbers, but in most cases, someone gives a name by which each number is known. Eg. my address might be 195.60.0.03 where 195 might be private companies in the United Kingdom, called co.uk, 60 might be called Powernet (my service provider), 0 might be Powernet users, and 03 under 195.60.0 is called MKCW - my organisation. (I can choose that name, providing no-one else has asked Powernet for it first.) And then I have an individual name, on the left side of the address, which I choose, for me. So when you give my address, you give it as jferrans@mkcw.powernet.co.uk (NB. This isn't the actual numerical address or its meaning, so don't use those!)

A service provider will normally be allocated a group of addresses, eg. 195.60. (anything) to allocate between the various users they serve. Individual users' internet accounts (covering both email and website if they have one) are given addresses by their service providers, and the central world-wide registry is updated once an hour so that other people can find you.

The Backbone

See Internet

Browsers

Browsers are the programs that allow you to view web pages. The material either appears in the browser window, or the browser starts up another program in which to view, perhaps, special types of graphics files, etc. providing that the browser can identify what type of file it is. Common browsers are Internet Explorer (provided free with Windows) and Netscape. Some browsers have the means to understand special types of web page that not all browsers can read, so for some websites you may be told to use a certain browser. One commonly used facility is Java - a more complex web language.

As well as browsers, many word processors such as MS Word are now including the ability to read simple web pages, and sometimes to save documents as web pages. Typically they will read HTML (the main basic web language) and the types of graphics files that the word processor normally copes with. These are not true browsers, because they don't support the range of web languages, but they can do basic browsing, and make it easy to turn your documents into web pages.

Connection Speed

Because all communication over the internet, whether its email, web browsing, FTP, etc. depends on sending signals to other computers over the internet, the speed of your connection to the internet is crucial to how fast everything else works. When you buy a modem or other connection, it will be rated as capable of a certain speed, but be warned: connection speed is a very complicated business.

The signals are sent from your computer to the modem, from there down the phone line to the computer at your Service provider's end, and through their modem (or usually broadband connection box, which is faster). Then it goes onto the internet itself, to the high-speed cables, for the long distance journeys, and then at the other end, goes through the reverse of the connections to get to other computers. The basic limit is that the signal can only go as far as the slowest link in that chain.

However, there are other restrictions. At each stage, a computer processes it. If one of these is underpowered, or a shared computer is overloaded, that will slow the process down. Also, many of the lines and connections used are shared between many users, so that the speed also depends on how often you get a slot on the line (usually several times a second). You'll need more slots, and have to wait more often, for bigger files. So it is virtually impossible to predict how fast a transmission will actually be, and only part of it is under your or your service provider's control.

Content Providers

A content provider is anyone, from an individual up to a large organisation or government, who produces web pages or any other kind of information (eg. database data), for display on, or use over, the web. They may, or may not have a website of their own, and the information may, or may not, just be displayed on their website. It may also be published on paper, or on other people's websites.

The legal position is very complex, but you can start from the assumption that its the actual content provider, if they are named, who carries legal liability for their information. If they're not named, then initially it's the organisation who controls the website where the information is displayed.

Dial-up Software

Dial-up software is the software that actually sends the data down the line when you log in, send an email, request a web-page, etc. Usually it will be provided, either with your computer, or with your modem.

Different settings in the software will make it dial different internet service providers, or fax machines, on-line database, etc, so the computer will often make different copies of it for you to use depending on who you're dialling up. So you may see a package called Connect to Powernet but it will be using the same software (typically Microsoft's Dial-Up Networking) as your fax machine etc. You should take care that you click on the right one for your purpose! Email software doesn't receive faxes very well, or vice versa!

Occasionally as you set up a new connection, you may need to be careful that it doesn't interfere with your existing connections. If you think it may have, then make a second copy of the software, name one for each purpose, and then try the help line for your service provider, and for the other connection, and ask them to tell you what the settings should be to connect to each of them.

E-Mail

E-mail is the name for the system whereby messages, computer files, programs, graphics, pictures, etc. can be sent across the internet from one person to another. Messages are coded in a particular way by email software, and then sent, together with the data as to where the message is going to, to the server software on your service provider's machine. The server software then directs them on to the right computer for their recipient to pick them up. Email software then allows you to collect messages that are waiting for you on your service providers machine. Common packages are Microsoft Outlook Express and Eudora Light aimed at single users, and Microsoft Exchange used with Microsoft Outlook or Exchange, or Eudora Pro, or Pegasus, aimed at groups of users using one dial-up. Most of the packages can be used with one or more users.

Depending on the email package, the facilities it offers may vary a bit. Two common differences are where the mail ends up, and who can see it if its a shared account.

You may look at the message files as they appear on your service provider's machine, or they may be copied onto your machine. This has implications if you want to pick up mail from several computers in different offices, or at home and at work. Also, the files may automatically be deleted from your service providers machine when you look at them, and copied to your own, or you may be able to choose whether this happens or not. So you could view your personal email from home or work, but it might only be deleted when you've collected it at home, so it all ends up on that machine.

If you have a family or small office account with several users on it, normally they will share one password, and whoever dials up will get all the email. The email software may let you look at everyone's mail, or just at your own, requiring that you give your user ID and perhaps a password that's only used locally, before you view your mail.

FTP - File Transfer Protocol

Email is very slow for large files, so FTP offers a faster route. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol: in other words, the computer instructions (protocol) for sending (transferring) files (like word processed documents, text, pictures, programs) from one machine to another.

The way it works is that you enter the web address or URL of an directory on a machine which is connected to the internet, and earmarked for storing files. You are then shown a screen rather like File Manager or Windows Explorer, showing a directory on your machine, and one on the internet machine. You can transfer files, delete files, rename them, move them around, etc. The other person then also uses FTP to collect the file from the FTP directory on the internet. Someone has to pay for the FTP directory, and to set the access to it so that you can both access it. For this reason, you will often see web pages which run programs designed to check who you are, and then offer you a menu of files to download. The program then does the FTP bit for you, giving a password without you seeing it, collecting the file and asking you where to put it on your machine.

Common FTP programs are WS_FTP, and Cute_FTP.

Host for a website

A website Host is the computer on which the files that make up the website are actually stored, connected to the internet. Ideally such machines stay connected to the internet the whole time, via a very fast connection, so that requests for pages can be dealt with quickly, 24 hours a day, so most people pay Internet Service Providers fore space on a host machine. However, if you want a very large or complex site, it may be worth negotiating to buy a machine of your own to sit at thair offices, or to have your machine on your own site.

HTML - Hypertext MarkUp Language

HTML is the language in which web pages are written. Its name means:

That means that you take a copy of the text, and add simple codes such as
 

for paragraph or

for bold text, to show how it should be displayed. The codes themselves aren't visible to users, but their effects should be. You'll find any number of simple Teach Yourself HTML books in the local library.

The Internet or the Superhighway or the Backbone

Countries all over the world are now connected by a very high-speed network of cables called the backbone or superhighway. This is the Internet itself. It's managed by an international consortium representing users, cable providers, service providers and content providers, sometimes called W3. Their web address is www.w3.org and their website includes all sorts of technical information about the use of the web, the programming languages and other specifications for using it, etc.

Modems and Routers

A modem is an electronic device with a computer connection on one end and a line with a phone plug on the other. It connects your computer to a standard telephone line, and is used to send signals from your computer, via the public phone network or a special private line, to the Service Provider's computer, and through that, to the internet itself. Routers are the more complex equivalent for broadband connections. Most computers can take a router or modem connection, but if you add a modem to a computer that didn't have one, you may need help from the modem manufacturer - otherwise the modem can interfere with other things on your computer like the mouse or the CD-ROM.

Server Software and what it Does

Server software is a generic name given to any software which takes in instructions from several users and passes them through a shared channel, controls shared devices, etc. on behalf of all of them. The software that controls printers, fax machines, tape devices, etc. that are shared between users on a computer network is all called server software.

On the internet, server software fills two main functions: it passes files between users, and it saves and retrieves files on its own machine. To do this, the server (the computer with the software on it) has to be given a unique internet address, (or more often, a set of addresses is allocated, so that many websites can be stored on one machine).

Files passed between users can be email messages, web pages for reading by a user, data files being transferred, web pages being placed on a website, and many other things. Files being saved or retrieved may be webpages being placed on a website, web pages being copied for users to read, or your email messages being placed in your email "postbox" ready for you to pick up. Server software is the basic tool on which everything else depends.

If you connect up to the internet via your own company network, then your company will have server software, so will your service provider, so will your correspondent, and their service provider. If you connect up to the internet via a modem just for your machine, then you only need dialup software, not server software, but your service provider will still have server software, to deal with you and all the other users they serve.

It all works automatically, but the software can often be set with different settings which affect the way it works. In many cases, the settings will be applied to all users, so your service provider won't accept requests to alter it just for you! And there'll be a limit to what they can change or do while its all running, which is usually 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

The speed at which the server software works depends on many things, and is virtually impossible to predict. And many of them aren't your service provider's fault, so ask nicely when you phone them up to complain! - But do complain - otherwise they'll rip you off with slow services.

Service Providers and the Services they Provide

In each country, organisations called Service Providers connect into the internet, and provide a link, or connection, between that and the public phone system. They then allow individuals and organisations to connect via that connection into the internet. They may provide connections only for their organisation, or they may sell connections to the public.

They provide Server software to manage the traffic of information being passed between your machine, their machine, and the rest of the internet. That software should, at minimum, deal with email, the world-wide web, and FTP (for transferring large computer files.)

Webpages and Websites

A website is a space on a machine which is identified with a unique address on the internet, and where a collection of files can be stored that are designed for sending down the internet as web pages, and reading with a web browser. Most organisations rent space on a Service Provider's machine, but larger organisations, schools and universities may have their own machine with internet server software, connected to the internet.

To be used in this way, the computer files have to be written in one of several special languages such as HTML (Hypertext mark-up language). Some of these languages are very easy, and anyone who can read and write English fluently can learn to write HTML. Also, many other programs, such as MS Word, now offer the option to save their documents as HTML, thus converting them into web pages.