Internet Research

	Internet Applications

The Internet is not the Web

	Because of the great popularity of the World Wide Web, people think the Internet is the Web or the Web is the Internet.
	The Web is the networked collection of texts, images, sound and video on the Internet.
	But the Web is just one application of Internet technology.

Email

	Because most people get electronic mail through their Web browsers, they think email is part of the Web.
	But email is technically a separate application of Internet technology.
	People can get email even with limited Internet access.

FTP

	FTP – File Transfer Protocol – is another important Internet application.
	This protocol is the language computers use to move files from one computer to another.
	When you move web pages from your home computer to a server, you probably use FTP.

Gopher and Telnet

	You may have heard of older applications, such as Gopher or Telnet.
	Telnet is software that logs you onto a remote computer and allows you to use that computer.
	Gopher is an early browser that allows you to search and request text with menus.

Chat

	People also use the Internet to chat in real time – just like on the phone.
	Much of this is made possible by the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) network.
	Other client software, such as AOL Instant Messenger, also allows chat.

The Primacy of the Web Page

	Other Internet applications are important. But the World Wide Web has become the dominant force on the Internet.
	The Web page is now one of the most crucial ways in which information is stored and retrieved.

HTML

	Understanding how a web page is put together can aid Internet research.
	Tags, or codes, are embedded in a document intended for the Web.
	The code is based on HyperText Markup Language: HTML.

Hypertext

	The HTML codes in the Web page tell your browser how the page should look.
	Codes cover everything from fonts to the size of pictures.
	The codes also can link text to another web page on a totally different computer. Such text is called hypertext.

File types: jpegs to gifs

	The Web can also send and receive non-HTML files. Other files types:
	doc is a Microsoft Word document
	gif (Graphics Interchange Format) is often a graphic
	jpeg (Joint Photographers Expert Group) is  often a photograph
	pdf (Portable Document Format) preserves the original look of a document, almost like a photocopy.

One in a million

	Each Web page is made up of HTML  codes and perhaps some of the other file types.
	Internet research often comes down to finding the right Web page – out of millions.