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BROWSERS

What you are using to view this page right now?

The most popular browsers are Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. They look different and often display web pages in slightly different ways.

People generally advocate one or the other but at the end of the day there's not much to choose between them.

DOMAIN NAMES, REGISTRATION AND TRANSFER

A Domain Name is the address of your website (see website address/URLs/domain names).

If you need a Domain Name, then once you have chosen your name, we check if it is available - they cannot be duplicated - and if it is, buy it for you. It is then registered with a Domain Name Server (this can take a few days), after which it can be used - all you need is a website!

You might already have registered a Domain Name with somebody offering web hosting services. If so, we can work with them, or find you another service and transfer to it if necessary.

DOMAIN NAME SERVERS

These are computers which store IP addresses and their equivalent URLs. Basically, they provide a "directory enquiries" service and tell your computer where to look for the web page being searched for.

EMAIL FORWARDING

You probably have an email address already - say it's you@xyz.net. When you have your own website called, say, www.yourcompany.co.uk, people will be able to send you emails at that address by typing in, say, you@yourcompany.co.uk.

We will arrange for any email sent to the new address automatically to be diverted to you at you@xyz.net, so you can continue to pick up your emails in the usual way.

ERROR MESSAGES

You get these from time to time on the Internet.

The most common is a "404", which means that for some reason the web page you want to see cannot be found. It might be a temporary situation, but it could also mean that the page doesn't exist any more.

FAQs

Jargon for "Frequently Asked Questions".

FORMS

A way of sending a response direct from a website, rather than using email.

For an example, see the one on our site by clicking on the "Contact Us" button on the left of your screen.

HOSTING SERVICES

To enable your website to be seen by others, it needs to be stored on a computer directly and permanently connected to the Internet. This is the "host computer" or "server" and companies that make this service available are said to offer "hosting services". You are allocated space in their computer's memory on which to store your website. This is known as "webspace".

You will probably find that your ISP or Online Service offers this facility at no cost and, if you want, you can have your website hosted there. However, for many reasons - speed of access, technical support, use of a unique name - we advise the use of a commercial hosting service. The cost is relatively modest and we can arrange this for you. See also domain name registration and transfer.

HOW DOES THE INTERNET WORK?

When you want to read a page on the Web, you type its URL into the browser's window and press Go! Then, after a (hopefully) short wait, the page appears on your screen. What's happened? Here's what…

HTML

HyperText Markup Language.

This is a sort of programming language used to create web pages. When your computer's browser is open and it comes across a document written in HTML, your computer's software reads and interprets the HTML instructions and creates the document on your screen.

To see an example, go to your browser's menu and view the (HTML) source for this page.

INTERNET

An INTERnational NETwork of computers.

At the core of this network are a number of powerful computers permanently joined by high-speed connections. When you get connected to the "Net", you become able to send and receive information through these connections to other computers that are attached. Those other computers can be located anywhere - in your neighbour's house or on the other side of the World.

However, you cannot normally connect directly to that inner core of computers; you have to go through a third party "Internet Service Provider" or though an "Online Service".

INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER/ISP

An ISP provides you with a way of connecting to the Web.

The services of ISPs can cost anything from £nil upwards. There are variations in the levels of service and each ISP offers something different. Most will "host" a website for you and provide you with email facilities.

Examples are Freeserve, Virgin.net, Lineone.

Please note that, if you are happy with your ISP you can stay with it when you have your website.

LINK/HYPERLINK

A link is a pointer to another part of your website, or to somebody else's.

Links come in several varieties, including:

Text links - these are usually underlined and are often in a different colour from the rest of the text. When you hold the mouse pointer over a text link, the pointer changes shape to indicate that you have found a link. Click and off you go!

Image links - sometimes a picture on a page (or part of it) is used as a link. If so, the mouse pointer will change shape (see above).

Buttons - a very common way of providing a link is to use a button, which is like an image link, except that rather than a picture, a graphical representation of a push button is used.

LOAD TIMES

The Internet can be - or appear to be - slow sometimes, for a number of reasons:

ONLINE SERVICES

Mainly, AOL and Compuserve (but AOL owns Compuserve!)

These do provide access to the Internet, but their main interest is in giving their subscribers access to their own content.

SEARCH ENGINES/DIRECTORIES

Computerised indices to the Web, available free to all. Examples are Yahoo!, Altavista, Lycos, Ask and Excite.

If you want to find something on the Web, the most common way is to use an Internet Search Engine or Directory. These are constantly updated as pages are added to the Web. You type in what you want to find and they give you a list of web pages which appear to match your criteria.

Being listed on the main Search Engines and Directories is vital to a commercial website and getting it placed high on the lists - and keeping it there - is essential (search results can show thousands of sites). It's a complex and ongoing task, which we can do for you.

WEB/WORLD WIDE WEB/WWW

The most popular - and most user-friendly - way of sending information over the Internet.

There are other systems, generally used only by Universities, the Military, etc.

WEBSITE/WEB PAGE

This page is part of our website!

A website is a collection of any number of "web pages". Think of it as an electronic book, but with special features - the pictures can move, you can listen to music, watch a video. On top of this, not only can each web page be as big as you want (but too long a page can lose impact), you can also move around the pages - or visit another website - just by clicking a link.

A web page is created by a sort of programming language called "HTML". When your computer's browser is open and it comes across a document written in HTML, your computer's software reads and interprets the HTML instructions and creates the document on your screen.

WEBSITE ADDRESS/URLs/DOMAIN NAMES

For somebody to see your website, their computer first needs to find and connect to it. So your site is given an address that is unique to it, just like your business has a unique postal address.

The formal name for a website address is "URL" - Uniform Resource Locator.

In fact, it is not a whole website which is given a URL, but every page within it, so that if your website contains 6 pages, each page will have its own unique URL. This gives people the ability to access each page directly, rather than have to work through each page in order.

A URL (also known as a Domain Name) is made up of several parts. Using this page's URL as an example:

http://www.mjsits.co.uk/jargon.asp

http:// - the "Hyper Text Transfer Protocol". This is a way of telling the computer how to send and receive information. Nowadays you do not usually need to type this in, as your computer assumes that you will wish to use this protocol, rather than another, by default.

www.mjsits.co.uk - this is the "address" of the server on which the web page is stored.

mjsits - our name on the Internet.

.co.uk - one of the ways in which web pages are categorised. This stands for "uk business", but you may have:

In practice you are likely to be able to use any (or all) of these.

The combination of name and category (e.g. mjsits.co.uk) is unique and nobody else can have it.

/jargon.asp - the name of this page within our site - we called it "jargon" for convenience and the ".asp" bit tells your computer that this page was created using Active Server Pages most end with HTML.

MORE ON URLS/IP ADDRESSES

When you surf the Web, you will often notice that numbers flash up at the bottom of your screen after you have told your browser ("pointed it") to the web page you want to see. These numbers are the numeric equivalent of the URL's words and represent its IP (Internet Protocol) address.

An example is 151.182.212.115 (that is a made up example!) If you knew the IP of a page you wanted to visit, you could enter it into the browser's window instead of the URL. But it's not normally worth the hassle!

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