HTML Crash Course!!!

GLOSSARY

HTML: Hyper-Text Markup Language. It's what makes the web the web. HTML is a way to format text, similar to what you see when you reveal codes in WordPerfect. The difference that makes HTML special is that it allows links, images, forms, Java applets and a bunch of other nifty things.
Tag: In HTML all formatting is done with tags. Most tags come in pairs, one to open the formatting and one to close it. A few tags work alone.
Browser: A browser is what you're viewing this page with. Netscape is a browser; Mosaic is a browser. A browser is just an Internet application which can understand HTML.
URL: Universal Resource Locator. That's just a fancy way of saying "the address of a web page."
Path: When specifying a link of any sort you must use the correct path. The path is the set of direction telling the browser how to get from where you are to where the link is. The path can be absolute or relative. Absolute links apply no matter where you currently are. http://www.nashville.net/index.html is an absolute link. Relative links are directions that start from where you are. ../Games/Games.html is a relative link. It will only find the Games.html page if you're in the http://www.nashville.net/~templedf/crash/ directory already. ".." means back up one directory. In relative links, starting with a "/" means the path begins at the root. So Games/RPG/RPG.html means find the Games directory in the current directory. Then find the RPG directory in there. And finally find the file RPG.html in the RPG directory. /Games/RPG/RPG.html has similar meaning, but instead of looking for the Games directory in the current directory, it instructs the browser to look for it in the root directory.
GIF: Pronounced 'gif' or 'jif.' GIFs are one of many graphic formats. GIFs are very common and very popular mainly because they are easy to interpret. They are of mid-grade image quality, and are usually pretty compact. HTML allows both GIFs and JPGs as image links.
JPG: Pronounced 'jay-peg.' JPGs are a high-quality graphics format. JPGs are much better quality than GIFs, but also take up much more memory.
Hex: Short for hexadecimal. Hex is a base 16 number system. For more information, see the hexadecimal part of the tutorial.
Script: Scripts are programs your HTML page can tell the server to run. Scripts can do just about anything, from processing information to generating fractals.
Perl: Perl is a language, like BASIC or C++. The advantage of Perl is it's simplicity and how well it interacts with HTML browsers. Because of this, Perl is the chosen language for writing scripts. C++ is also used, but only when lots of processing power or speed is needed.
ISP: Internet Service Provider. This is the place you call when you want to get online.
POP₁: Point of Presence. A POP is a place you can call locally to connect to a large ISP. AOL and CompuServe have many POPs scattered around the nation.
POP₂: Post Office Protocol. This kind of POP is what handles your mail. Your POP account is your email account. POP speaks SMTP, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol.
FTP: File Transfer Protocol. Every time you transfer a file directly across the net (not by attaching it to email) you're FTPing. FTP has come to mean transferring a file. An FTP site is a place allowing access to files for downloading. There are two basic ways to FTP. You can do it graphically with WS_FTP or Netscape or any other windows app. You can also do it by hand while you're logged in to a shell account. A shell account is just an account you can log into and directly and manually issue commands.
SLIP and PPP: SLIP and PPP are just more ways for your computer to talk to others. Your SLIP or PPP account is where you dial in to use all these neat graphical Internet apps, like Netscape.

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