What's all the hype about this HTML thing?

HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language.

Let's break it down. Hyper Text is a special sort of text that can link to other text on the web. Simply put, you can't click on a link and go to another page inside a book, but you can click on a link and find more related content on the web. That's the difference between Hyper Text and normal text.

Next comes "Markup Language". HTML is derived from another Markup Language, XML (Xtensible Markup Language). XML is basically "properties of the entities in use by the particular software, specified according to a set of user defined rules." For example, if you have a property to change color of the window of your cool new DVD authoring software from Blue to Red, you simply click on a button that does this for you. What does this button do? It changes a "property" in the "back-end"(the working part of the software) that reads something like this:

<color>
Blue
</color>

Now when you change the color of the window from blue to red, the
<color> property changes to "Red". This color property is saved in a particular file, and the next time the software opens, it reads the file, finds the <color> property, and displays the window in Red.

HTML is similar. There are certain properties, like <form>, <p>, <span> etc., which define how the "elements" inside the page, like paragraphs, forms and images, are to be displayed. When you type the address of a webpage in your browser's address bar, the browser software downloads the text file (it'll have a special extension, .html), and looks at all the properties inside. It then styles the page as per the rules specified inside the file, and renders it onto your computer screen for you to view!

Over the next posts, I will be giving you a basic introduction to HTML, and I'll also point to a few resources for you to start learning HTML in earnest.

Tell me…. How does the internet work?

The Internet. The World Wide Web. What is it?

Well, that question actually has to be “What are they?”, because contrary to popular belief and usage, the Internet and the World Wide Web are two conceptually different entities. Simply put, the internet is the ‘hardware’, and the web, you guessed right, is the ‘software’ that helps the internet to work and function.

Now let’s get into the details. The internet is a GIGANTIC network of computers, connected by wires, cables, wireless routers and even satellites! Huge, complex and powerful computers called ‘Servers’, control the way the other computers on the network interact with each other. Like most things big, servers are ugly to the eye of the layman unless, of course, you have an eye like many techno enthusiasts for the ‘inner beauty’ of the system. Incidentally, this happens to be the great power, speed, and reliability that server computers are endowed with. They run a different flavor of Operating Systems, which are designed and configured to take advantage of the large horse-power and the heavy workload that they are supplied with. I’ll be doing an injustice if I don’t mention that the name ‘Server’ actually refers to the ‘Server Operating System’ that we are talking about, and the system itself is called the ‘Server Computer’, but usage has changed it all. Server Operating Systems (let’s call them SOS for short…) and their applications run usually on command line windows or consoles, meaning they look like the insipid DOS you see in Microsoft Windows. That’s because, servers are never attended to with the same regularity as desktop PC’s, unless there’s a failure. So they don’t need all the cute frills, laces, and jingles that home and office computer operating systems are festooned with. All of those consume precious System Memory (RAM) and CPU power, which are better saved for executing a file some website user may request…

What do servers look like? Well, you can see some images if you click on this link: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=server&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2

You may like to know what exactly happens behind the scenes when you surf the Web. As an example, we shall look at a basic scenario...When a user opens his browser and types in a URL (wait a second, what’s a URL? It stands for Uniform Resource Locator, and it’s typically an “address” for a Web Page or an executable file residing in a Server), his computer tries to communicate with the server that has the Web Page he wants, and upon successfully carrying out this task, it ‘downloads’, or copies, the text file that was requested by the user. His browser then implements the text in the file it downloaded, which consists of special code called HTML, and renders it to the user.

Over the next few posts, we will have a look at what HTML is, how browsers work, what exactly the Web is, and the variety of functions that Servers carry out every minute, before moving on to more advanced concepts…