The World Wide Web
How does it work?

The Web works on something called the "client-server model". The server is a remote computer whose purpose is to provide or "serve" files to computers that request them. The client requests the files through use of a browser (Netscape, Internet Explorer, etc...). The files are sent using the HyperText-Transfer-Protocol. This is why you see the "http:" in front of web addresses. This tells the server that you are requesting a http document, like a webpage.

Every computer that is connected to the internet is assigned an IP address. This address is in the format 255.255.255.255, and can be any combination of numbers in the four slots from 0 to 255. This allows for millions and millions of computers to be on the internet at the same time.

People found theses IP addresses quite hard to remember, so they decided to come up with a new way of getting to those servers. They devised the concept of   URLs. A URL, or Uniform Resource Locator is another form of  "internet addresses". These are names given to computers that make them easier to remember and access. URLs are things like this site "http://infocomp.csuchico.edu" They will be explained further later on.

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