Web FundamentalsTraining Series

All About the Web

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What We’ll Be Covering…

• What the Web Is (and Isn’t)• The World Wide Web: A Brief History• How the Web Works• Internet Components• Internet Transmission• Transmission Optimization• How the Web Enhances the Internet• What’s to Come

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What the Web Is (and Isn’t)

The World Wide Web IS…• A global information medium which users can both

read and write to via computers

The World Wide Web IS NOT…• The Internet

– The Web is a service on the Internet, like e-mail is– The Internet, under different names and forms, has been

around significantly longer than the WWW (since the early 1970’s)

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The World Wide Web: A Brief History

Originated with and developed by Tim Berners-Lee in 1980’s• Originally conceived to link electronic documents together

via hypertext

Aug. 1991: World Wide Web publicly released• Typically used by university based science departments

Aug. 1994: Commercialization of the Web begins• First business on Web was Pizza Hut (1994)• By 1998, e-business was fairly commonplace

Sept. 1994: World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) founded at MIT• Now the governing body of the World Wide Web• Develops standards for web technology and practices• Kept WWW code royalty free and publicly accessible

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The overall concept is simple• View files via a browser• Click on hyperlinks to move to the area of interest• View and/or download the information

The technology behind the concept is quite complex• Electronics Technology

– Computing Devices– Cell Phones

• Network (Internet) Technology– Wired– Wireless

• Software Technology– Databases– Games

How the Web Works

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Internet Components

Many different components are required for the Internet to work and, in turn, provide users with the Web service

Additionally, several different transmission methods are now available, adding to the complexity

• Dial-Up / DSL• Broadband• Wireless

– Satellite– Wi-Fi / WiMAX

But, it all boils down to requesting and receiving information

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The Client / Server Relationship

Client: some form of user, human or automated, who makes a request for some type of electronic information or resource.

Server: stores electronic information in the form of files and “serves” a response to requesting clients

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Internet Transmission

Requires a complicated combination of hardware, software, and industry protocols

In brief, each Internet transaction that occurs such as: a hyperlink that is clicked on, e-mail, Instant Message, or a file that is downloaded, goes through the following process

1. Request / message is broken down into small, electronic packets

2. Packets are numbered by the requestor’s computer3. Packets are routed through the Internet to the appropriate

address4. Receiver’s computer acknowledges the receipt of each

packet5. Packets are reassembled by receiver’s computer6. Receiver responds, as necessary7. Process repeats

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Transmission Optimization

Literally, countless trillions of packets are flying through transmission paths all over the world at any given second

The bigger the file, the slower the transmission

Some multimedia files can be very resource dependent. These files include the following:

• Still Images• Audio• Animations & Video

In terms of web publications, it’s always a best practice to use the least amount of resources possible. In doing so, you not only better serve your audience, but also make less demands on the system as a whole.

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How the Web Enhances the Internet

Prior to the Web and the development of Mosaic, the first web browser, all Internet transmissions were console based and text only. No pictures. No sound

This has definitely changed

Web pages created to today’s expectations and standards have benefits, but also drawbacks

+ Visually and audibly appealing+ User friendly- High demand on resources- Many “power” users don’t understand supporting system issues

Console View Mosaic (1993) Firefox (2008)

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What’s to Come

Multimedia is a collection of different media forms which includes various combinations of the following:

• Text• Still Images• Audio• Video / Animation

The tutorial series that follows this presentation is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather a starting point to help a user make the most out of available resources while creating a functional, appealing web page.

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Conclusion

This completes the Web Fundamentals tutorial. For additional tutorials, please visit WebTrain, the CWS web publishing training site, at:

http://oregonstate.edu/cws/webtrain

To submit a Help Ticket to Central Web Services go to:

http://oregonstate.edu/cws/contact

Other OSU resources for web and computer help:

http://oregonstate.edu/helpdocs