August 23 – Happy Birthday, World Wide Web!

nPostednon August 23, 2015

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nInhave never heard of the word “internaut” before – have you? –nbut I read that it is a portmanteau of the words “internet” andn“astronaut.” It means a person who either designs internet sites,nor operates internet sites, or even uses internet sites (whichnincludes just about all of us, although I think “internaut” isnsupposed to include only those of us internet-users who arentechnologically knowledgeable!).

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nTodaynis considered by some to be The Internaut’s Day.

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nThat’snbecause today is the anniversary of the opening up of the World WidenWeb to the general public, to new users, to the whole world.

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ThenWorld Wide Web, usually referred to as the Web (or WWW, or W3), wasnthe brainchild of British computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee. Henfirst developed the system of identifiers (URIs) and hyperlinks, tonbe accessed via the Internet, as a better system for CERN scientistsnto communicate with one another. But he instantly realized that thensystem could be used throughout the world. He built the very firstnwebsite in December of 1990, tested how it worked, wrote up thenresults in August of 1991, and finally opened up the system to allnusers on August 23, 1991.

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Note the sarcastic “Yeah, right” inserted by British editors over the
claim that the invention of the “computer geek” Berners-Lee
would change billions of lives…… And guess who got the last laugh?

nWhat’snthe difference between the World Wide Web and the Internet?

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nThenInternet is a huge network of networks.

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nItnis the infrastructure that connects millions of computers togethernall over the world. A computer in Spot A can communicate with ancomputer halfway around the world, at Spot B, as long as bothncomputers are connected to the Internet.

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nInformationntravels over the Internet using several different languages (orn“protocols”).

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ThenWorld Wide Web is an information-sharing model that is built on topnof the Internet. It uses only one protocol, HTTP. Users can eitherntype a URL (which all start “http://” and often include “www.”)nin order to find a particular website, or they can use a Web browsernsuch as Google to find websites that suit their needs. Websites canninclude text, graphics, sounds, and videos.

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nIfnthe World Wide Web was a gigantic circle that included all websites,nthe Internet would be an even larger circle that entirely containednthe Web – BUT also included e-mail, Usenet news groups, InstantnMessaging, etc.

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nDidnyou know…?

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nTimnBerners-Lee was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his contributionsnto the world, and he was also honored at the 2012 Summer Olympicsnopening ceremony. He appeared in person at the London OlympicnStadium, where he tweeted “This is for everyone.” The message wasninstantly spelled out in LED lights attached to the 80,000 chairs innthe stadium. So the people sitting in the stadium got to see thenmessage while actually sitting within the message. Awesome-sauce!

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nAlsonon this date:

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