THE INTERNET IS A COMMUNICATION TOOL.

THE TELEPHONE USES ANALOG SIGNALS TO TRANSMIT VOICE CONVERSATIONS BETWEEN PEOPLE FROM ONE POINT TO ANOTHER POINT.

THE INTERNET IS A LOW COST COMMUNICATION TOOL AVERAGING ABOUT $20 PER MONTH.

THE WORLD WIDE WEB (WWW) IS A COLLECTION OF ELECTRONIC COMPUTER DOCUMENTS. THE PATH TO THESES DOCUMENTS IS THE INTERNET.

THE WORLD WIDE WEB BEGAN IN 1991 WHEN TIM BERNERS-LEE AND A SWISS RESEARCH LABORATORY NAMED CERN CREATED A COMMUNICATION TOOL TO LINK SCIENTISTS ALLOWING THEM TO SHARE COMPUTER DATA.

THIS WAS THE FIRST WEB BROWSER.

THE UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CENTER OF SUPERCOMPUTING APPLICATIONS (NCSA) DEVELOPED MOSAIC AND DISTRIBUTED THIS WEB BROWSER FREE OVER THE INTERNET IN 1993.

IN 1994, MARC ANDREESSEN FORMED A NEW COMPANY CALLED THE NETSCAPE COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION. THEY CREATED THE WEB BROWSER CALLED NETSCAPE NAVIGATOR, MAYBE THE MOST POPULAR BROWSER TODAY.

MICROSOFT CORPORATION QUICKLY LAUNCHED ITS OWN WEB BROWSER CALLED THE INTERNET EXPLORER.

THE WEB BROWSER SOFTWARE PROVIDES THE USER (YOU AND ME) WITH A WAY OF SEEING PICTURES AND TEXT FROM THE INTERNET ON OUR COMPUTERS. A WEB PAGE STORED ON SOMEONE ELSE'S COMPUTER OFTEN CONTAINS TEXT (TYPED WORDS) AND IMAGES (GRAPHICS).

WITH A COMPUTER AND A MODEM ANYONE CAN USE ANY WEB BROWSER SOFTWARE TO ACCESS THE INTERNET. THE MODEM SIMPLY TRANSFORMS THE COMPUTERS DIGITAL SIGNALS INTO ANALOG NOISE SIGNALS AND SENDS THE INFORMATION TO A DIFFERENT COMPUTER ALONG AN ELECTRIC CURRENT THROUGH THE TELEPHONE LINE.

AN ANALOG SIGNAL SENDS INFORMATION BY CHANGING THE FREQUENCY AND THE STRENGTH OF THE SIGNAL. THE MODEM TRANSFORMS THE DIGITAL SIGNAL CONTAINING 0 AND 1'S INTO THE HIGH PITCH TONES (1) AND LOW PITCHED TONES (2).

TO MAKE SURE THAT ALL COMPUTERS COMMUNICATE USING THE SAME LANGUAGE, PROTOCOLS HAD TO BE DEVELOPED AND STANDARDIZED.

TODAY, HYPERTEXT MARKUP LANGUAGE (HTML) IS THE STANDARD CODE FOR CREATING AND FORMATTING A WEB PAGE.

THE ADDRESS OF A WEB PAGE IS THE UNIVERSAL RESOURCE LOCATOR (URL).

THIS IS A FILE ON A HOST COMPUTER LOCATED ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD.

TO CONNECT TO A WEB PAGE, TAGS WERE DEVELOPED TO HELP LINK QUICKLY ONE COMPUTER TO ANOTHER. A HYPERTEXT LINK POINTS YOUR COMPUTER TOWARD A UNIVERSAL RESOURCE LOCATOR (URL). THE WEB BROWSER SOFTWARE OPENS THE SPECIFIC WEB PAGE AND DISPLAYS THE DATA ON YOUR COMPUTER MONITOR.

MOST INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS (ISP) HAVE A HOME PAGE. THE HOME PAGE IS SIMILAR TO THE FRONT COVER OF A MAGAZINE.

THE HYPERLINKS ARE LIKE THE TABLE OF CONTENTS WITH SUBJECT TITLES AND SPECIFIC PAGE NUMBERS, EXCEPT THAT IF YOU CLICK THE HYPERLINK WITH YOUR MOUSE, THE COMPUTER CONNECTS DIRECTLY TO THE SPECIFIED WEB PAGE.

WHEN YOU CLICK ON THE HYPERLINK, THE WEB BROWSER SOFTWARE ON YOUR COMPUTER TELLS THE ISP'S POWERFUL SERVER COMPUTER TO FIND THE HOST COMPUTER, ANYWHERE IN THE WORLD, WHICH HAS THE WEB PAGE DATA.

THE WEB PAGE IS VIEWED ON YOUR COMPUTER'S MONITOR. ALL THE COMPUTERS SEND THE DATA TO EACH OTHER USING A HYPERTEXT TRANSFER PROTOCOL.

NOW TO SEARCH FOR THE HOST COMPUTER AND THEN TRANSMIT THE WEB PAGE DATA BACK TO YOUR PERSONAL COMPUTER (PC) TAKES TIME.

TO USE A COMPANY'S SERVER COMPUTER COSTS YOU MONEY. ($20/ MONTH)