HTML
HTML stands for Hypertext Mark-up Language, which is the computer language that all web pages are written in. It's not a computer programming language, as such, it's just a display language. What that means is that whereas a programming language is there to make things happen (it tells the computer to do things), HTML just tells your computer how to display a page.
Each and every page on the web is written in HTML and when the page reaches your computer, it reads the HTML and (following the instructions in the HTML) displays the page the way the author wants you to see it. Some browsers are not able to follow some of the instructions exactly as intended, which is one possible reason why a page sometimes doesn't seem to look quite right (another, more likely reason, is that the page was badly designed!). By the way, HTML doesn't require any specific program for you to write it. If you wanted to mess around and learn a bit of it, you could use any word processor. In fact, the simpler the better. Even Notepad would do (and that's a sentence you won't see too often)! If you fancy having a stab at it, go here. |
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Source code
if you right-click on any web page you'll see a little context menu pop up. Select 'View Source' and a new window will open up showing the HTML (the 'source code') for that page. So you can, in effect, 'go behind the scenes' and see how the author of the site put it together.
If you do that, don't be put off by what you see. It can look very complicated and strange, but it's actually not as hard to understand as you might think (I'm not saying it's dead easy, but it's quite possible to learn a bit of HTML if you fancy having a go at it). Also, bear in mind that I only mention this because you might be interested to see what goes on 'under the hood' – but the truth is you don't have to understand a word of HTML to use the web, any more than you need to be a mechanic to drive a car. Oh, and If you're not even vaguely interested in HTML or source code, forget I even mentioned it! |
Hyperlinks
Full name for the links you see (usually in blue and underlined) on web pages. They're what makes the web tick. Clicking on a link takes you to another page (or another part of the same page).
Web pages aren't organised like the pages of a book (yeah, I know, obviously!). You don't necessarily start at a site's home page, then go on to Page 2, then Page 3, etc. In fact, the pages aren't even numbered. Instead, a web page has navigation to help you find what you want. And the navigation, in its most basic form, consists of a series of links. On this site the main navigation is at the top of each page, lined up horizontally (which is quite usual), although it's common to see the navigation links on the left, arranged vertically. I've also put a secondary list at the foot of each page, providing the same links and another opportunity to navigate round the site from there.
Links can be made to look like three dimensional buttons (usually round or rectangular), and designed to give the effect of having been pressed when clicked. You'll see buttons of all designs and styles, and plain, simple unadorned links too. Whichever way they are designed though, they are just links, and as links they provide the method of navigation round the site, and round the internet. Links can take you to another page on the site, another section of the same page, or to a page on another site altogether. This way, they link the entire web. In fact, without links, there would be no web. It's as simple as that. I suppose you could look on links as the strands that hold the web together.
Web pages aren't organised like the pages of a book (yeah, I know, obviously!). You don't necessarily start at a site's home page, then go on to Page 2, then Page 3, etc. In fact, the pages aren't even numbered. Instead, a web page has navigation to help you find what you want. And the navigation, in its most basic form, consists of a series of links. On this site the main navigation is at the top of each page, lined up horizontally (which is quite usual), although it's common to see the navigation links on the left, arranged vertically. I've also put a secondary list at the foot of each page, providing the same links and another opportunity to navigate round the site from there.
Links can be made to look like three dimensional buttons (usually round or rectangular), and designed to give the effect of having been pressed when clicked. You'll see buttons of all designs and styles, and plain, simple unadorned links too. Whichever way they are designed though, they are just links, and as links they provide the method of navigation round the site, and round the internet. Links can take you to another page on the site, another section of the same page, or to a page on another site altogether. This way, they link the entire web. In fact, without links, there would be no web. It's as simple as that. I suppose you could look on links as the strands that hold the web together.
News just in - apparently there is a sequence of pages on the internet, up to now kept virtually secret by the Word Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in case the chain got irreparably damaged by incautious shuffling or meddling. To view the last page, just hit this link |
Special characters
No,not the likes of George Clooney, Brad Pitt, or me! Okay, all special characters, sure, we're all agreed on that, but in the computer sense it means everything that can be generated by your keyboard apart from numbers, letters, and the space bar. So it includes such things as these:< ? @ ( * \ ¬ : [ £ ] , }. All got their own specific uses, of course, but also very useful when it comes to making up a really strong password.
Incidentally, I'm not suggesting you should use any of the more obscure characters in a password, which could make it very difficult to use, but there are some which are easy to access on the keyboard, such as punctuation marks (question mark, exclamation mark, colon and semi-colon, brackets, etc).
The character map can be very useful for other things, of course, such as when you'd like to include certain unusual characters in a piece of copy, such as the copyright symbol (©), fractions (⅔,⅛,⅜, etc), or accented letters (â, ö, è and so on). Incidentally, if you need to correspond with someone who uses a foreign language and you want to write in that language (or just use a few words here and there), you can make use of Foreign Characters, a very small but very useful program that allows you to access the accented letters of fourteen different languages quickly and easily without searching for the right character through countless character maps.
To see the full list of special characters available in Windows, bring up the character map onscreen. To do this, click Start > [All] Programs > Accessories > System Tools >Character Map.
And don't forget, you can use the characters from any of the listed fonts, and you can scroll down to select any font or any character you fancy using, there are many more than first appear onscreen. And there are several screens of characters for each font too.
Incidentally, I'm not suggesting you should use any of the more obscure characters in a password, which could make it very difficult to use, but there are some which are easy to access on the keyboard, such as punctuation marks (question mark, exclamation mark, colon and semi-colon, brackets, etc).
The character map can be very useful for other things, of course, such as when you'd like to include certain unusual characters in a piece of copy, such as the copyright symbol (©), fractions (⅔,⅛,⅜, etc), or accented letters (â, ö, è and so on). Incidentally, if you need to correspond with someone who uses a foreign language and you want to write in that language (or just use a few words here and there), you can make use of Foreign Characters, a very small but very useful program that allows you to access the accented letters of fourteen different languages quickly and easily without searching for the right character through countless character maps.
To see the full list of special characters available in Windows, bring up the character map onscreen. To do this, click Start > [All] Programs > Accessories > System Tools >Character Map.
And don't forget, you can use the characters from any of the listed fonts, and you can scroll down to select any font or any character you fancy using, there are many more than first appear onscreen. And there are several screens of characters for each font too.
Hardware
The physical things to do with computers, from the obvious things like the computer itself (or 'system'), the keyboard, monitor and mouse to CDs, DVDs, headset, cables, printer, scanner, speakers and all the other stuff that's fighting for space in an electrical outlet under your desk.
Oh, okay, here's some more hardware items, since I know I've got you wondering now ... Modem, router, motherboard, soundcard, ram, DVD drive, external hard drive, etc. Basically, if you can touch it or get hold of it, it's hardware (just like all the stuff in the DIY store), otherwise it's over there on the right >> Incidentally, the things other than the computer itself (or inside it, such as the motherboard, soundcard, etc), are bunched together under the term 'peripherals'. This includes printer, scanner, digital camera, etc. Just in case you were wondering.
Spell checker
A program to check your spelling (no surprise there then). The only reason I mention it is to highlight the fact that while a spell checker is a very handy tool, it cannot actually 'read' your document in the way a human does, it simply compares the spelling to the words in a dictionary, and if it doesn't find a word it highlights it as 'wrong'. If you write "Eye mite of maid a miss steak" it won't pick you up on anything, since all the words are real words, and correctly spelt too. So don't depend on it too much, or too blindly!
Word processing programs, of course, are generally equipped with spell checkers, but you can also access them online if necessary. This is one such program. Enter your text (copy-and-paste it), and click on the bottom left of the little text window to run a spell check on it. |
Software
This is the stuff that runs your computer. It includes the main program, often referred to as the platform, and for most of us it is one version or another of Windows (there are other platforms, of course, including Linux, Mac OS, and others). Incidentally, the OS you see here refers to Operating System, the 'proper' name for a computer platform.
Software also includes all the programs you use, from major ones like your internet browser and Microsoft Word to tiny little things like Convert, a very useful little free program for (guess what) converting more or less anything to more or less anything else (e.g. ounces to grams, furlongs to centimetres, degrees Celsius to degrees Fahrenheit, and dozens of other things). Incidentally, the creator of Convert says it's in use in use in 105 countries, as well as being used by astronauts in the International Space Station. Can't be bad.
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RAM? ROM? What? Could they make this any more confusing??
RAM stands for Random Access Memory. Think of it as working memory. It's what your computer uses to hold onto things just temporarily - a bit like you remembering a phone number till you get a chance to make a permanent note of it. In the computer's case, it has memory chips specifically for the purpose, and the more RAM it has at its disposal, the better it is able to perform, since it can 'hold onto' more stuff. Specially when it's multitasking (running more than one program, for example, perhaps while a virus scan is going on as well).
If your computer is struggling to keep up with the load you're imposing on it, you might want to increase the RAM. You do this by buying a RAM chip (or a pair, if that is what it needs - in some cases they have to be upgraded in pairs) and fitting it/them by simply slotting them in the appropriate place inside the computer. It might sound a bit daunting, but it really is just a case of slotting them in place and replacing the cover of the computer. But be careful to find out what kind of RAM you need, and how much. You can look it up on the internet, or ask someone a bit more clued up about computers. Note: if you do attempt a RAM upgrade (or do any work with the cover off) be careful not to touch anything you don't actually need to touch - some of the components can be damaged merely by the static charge in your body. Best advice: check with someone more experienced before opening the case at all. ROM, on the other hand, is more permanent. ROM stand for Read Only Memory, and it's 'read-only' in the sense that it's unchangeable, you can't add to it (or 'write' to it). A ROM chip will usually house the program that starts your computer. The data (information) is put on the chip in the factory and stays there. You can't access it, or change it. RAM, on the other hand, changes all the time, and when the computer is switched off, the data disappears.
A lot of devices such as calculators, printers, etc, have ROM chips that store the data they need to perform their functions. |
Megabyte or Megabit?
Oh, don't even get me started on this ... this is one subject that can get very confusing. I won't even attempt a simple explanation when I can just direct you to a page where someone more knowledgeable than I am has done all the hard work already.
Take a look at this page and you'll see just how confusing the whole thing is, or alternatively you'll be thoroughly enlightened, who knows? The binary system
The binary system is just a system of counting, as is the decimal system. We use the decimal system for various reasons, probably (and most likely primarily) including the fact that we have ten fingers, and before there was any system of writing or keeping records, I'm sure people would count things on their fingers. When they got to ten, they'd make some sort of mark to remember it, and carry on counting. So the total would be going up in tens. I guess they developed another mark to signify hundreds, and so on.
The binary system, on the other hand, is based on two, not ten. This is perfect for computers, because it's so easy to represent (not to mention the fact that computer don't have hands). Any circuit can only ever be in one of two states - it's either on or off. So, at the simplest level, you can imagine a series of light bulbs representing numbers. Instead of somehow trying to represent ten different states, all they have to do is be switched on or off. And instead of each step up being based on multiples of ten (as in units, tens, hundreds, thousands, etc), in binary they go up in multiples of two (1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, etc). So a number in binary will bear no resemblance to the same number in decimal. It'll still be the same number, of course, it's just that it'll look like a series of pretty meaningless ones and zeroes.
For example, 53 (in decimal), would be 110101 (which is: 32+16+0+4+0+1). Definitely not so intuitive, and difficult to 'translate' - the two digits, 5 and 3, tell us more, and instantly. Computers 'think' differently to us, so that's not a problem. Check this out for a more detailed explanation of binary code. It also introduces bits and bytes, which are the root of all that megabit/megabyte stuff above. |
Incidentally, while we're on the subject, (thinking, above) computers can be very fast and very efficient and they can be very well equipped to deal with all kinds of things that humans aren't very good at (such as dealing with large numbers), but they can't think (not yet anyway). They can be programmed to deal with a situation using a type of mechanical, unthinking logic so that they appear to be thinking, or at least somehow coming to a sensible conclusion, but really they're as capable of thinking as your washing machine (come to think of it, that's probably got a computer chip in it too ... mmm, bad analogy!)
Computers are getting very, very fast, and the components are getting smaller all the time (which helps the increase of speed). I was reading recently that the components are so small now that they are at the molecular level and ... hold on, I can copy-and-paste a quote from the news item here:
"The new type of computing uses information encoded into quantum bits or qubits, putting into use a theory that scientists have been discussing for decades.
"The special properties of qubits will allow quantum computers to work on millions of computations at once, while desktop PCs can typically handle minimal simultaneous computations," an IBM statement said.
"For example, a single 250-qubit state contains more bits of information than there are atoms in the universe." (from bangkokpost.com)
So I guess it won't be long before all our computers will be tossed in landfill and robots will be strolling along the streets, indistinguishable from humans. Or maybe I've been reading too much science fiction! Still, it really is getting much closer, much quicker ...
Computers are getting very, very fast, and the components are getting smaller all the time (which helps the increase of speed). I was reading recently that the components are so small now that they are at the molecular level and ... hold on, I can copy-and-paste a quote from the news item here:
"The new type of computing uses information encoded into quantum bits or qubits, putting into use a theory that scientists have been discussing for decades.
"The special properties of qubits will allow quantum computers to work on millions of computations at once, while desktop PCs can typically handle minimal simultaneous computations," an IBM statement said.
"For example, a single 250-qubit state contains more bits of information than there are atoms in the universe." (from bangkokpost.com)
So I guess it won't be long before all our computers will be tossed in landfill and robots will be strolling along the streets, indistinguishable from humans. Or maybe I've been reading too much science fiction! Still, it really is getting much closer, much quicker ...
Search term
A word or phrase, or just a few words (not necessarily a phrase) that you put into the Google search box to find what you want.
It's worth taking a look into what constitutes a search term so that your searches are better 'aimed'. It can, for example, make quite a difference if you put in a two-word search term, or put in the same two words joined by a plus sign or a minus sign, or inside quotation marks. See this Google Guide for the information you so earnestly seek. |
Keywords
Google is brilliant at supplying literally thousands of pages that are relevant to your search term, and in only fractions of a second, but it's not done by magic – it's done by keywords (actually, keywords is such a powerful concept, they virtually are magic). When someone puts up a webpage, or a photo, they can attach specific 'keywords' to describe the image or the content of the page. Sometimes this is also called 'tagging'. Google organizes all the pages and images according to their keywords, and serves them up to you according to your search term.
Take a look at the WordStream keyword tool, and the Google keyword tool, both free. WordTracker (perhaps the top of the tree when it comes to keywords) provide a free guide to the whole subject of keywords, if you're interested. |
And anyway, what's the difference between the internet and the World Wide Web? What's that all about?
Glad you asked. The two terms are often used interchangeably, but they're not actually the same thing.
The internet is the structure of computers that spans the globe, connected by cables and wireless devices. All these computers (personal computers, business computers, university computers, government computers, etc) are able to communicate with each other through large servers (main computers whose job it is to connect, or serve, others). The internet is, in effect, a worldwide network of computers, of which yours is a part. The World Wide Web, often referred to as the Web, uses that infrastructure (the internet) to provide content that people can use (documents, web sites, images, sound files, movies, etc). The Web was created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee and continues to grow at an astonishing rate. It's probably fair to say that it's one of the most amazing inventions, or developments, that the world has ever seen. Its effects have been world-changing. It has impacted the world economically, socially, politically, artistically, and in virtually every other way imaginable. Sir Tim Berners-Lee was knighted in 2004. The first page on the Web gave instructions on how to use the Web, a list of people involved in the project, technical details, and so on. The last page is rather less informative, but does, however, provide an option to download the entire thing, for your later perusal, when you've got a few moments spare.
So, very briefly, the internet is the structure, or network, and the Web is the content that uses the internet as a broadcast medium. Or you could look at it as though the internet is the infrastructure of cyberspace, in effect the millions of roads and side streets along which are placed the billions of shops and stores and libraries and art galleries and diaries and messages and posts that constitute the World Wide Web. So, not quite the same thing, but inextricably linked. One without the other wouldn't be much use to anyone. Bit like a chocolate teapot. I was going to put in a nice picture of a chocolate teapot right here, but it melted almost immediately (see? bloody useless!) and made a right mess of the computer. Be careful, I've cleaned most of it up but the page is still a bit chocolatey. |
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