A Few Key Concepts
Refers to protocols in which messages are divided into packets before they are sent. Each packet is then transmitted individually and can even follow different routes to its destination. Once all the packets forming a message arrive at the destination, they are recompiled into the original message.
Most modern Wide Area Network (WAN) protocols, including TCP/IP, X.25, and Frame Relay, are based on packet-switching technologies. In contrast, normal telephone service is based on a circuit-switching technology, in which a dedicated line is allocated for transmission between two parties. Circuit-switching is ideal when data must be transmitted quickly and must arrive in the same order in which it's sent. This is the case with most real-time data, such as live audio and video. Packet switching is more efficient and robust for data that can withstand some delays in transmission, such as e-mail messages and Web pages.
Definition
A software application that allows for the browsing of the World Wide Web. It interprets HTML, the programming language (actually, a text editor) of the internet, into the words and graphics that you see when viewing a web page. The major three are summarized below.
Mosaic
Mosaic is the oldest of the three major browsers. It is the pioneer in the GUI browser market and one of the main ingredients in the initial overwhelming success of the World Wide Web. It is also the basis for many other popular browsers. It is produced by the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), which licenses its code under the name of Spyglass. The releases of Mosaic have been characterized by multiple pre-releases over extended periods of time. The 2.0 version time span occurred over almost 2 years; a time span which saw the greatest changes in the browser market thus far.
Microsoft Internet Explorer
The original IE 1.0 browser code was
licensed from Spyglass (a commercial arm for the NCSA Mosaic browser work), but
the Microsoft team quickly made a big mark on the original code base. The first
two product cycles occurred within a very short span of time, and allowed the
browser to gain a little bit of ground against its main rival - Netscape.
Netscape, meanwhile, launched its ambitious 2.0 version, which introduced the
browsing world to JavaScript, frames, and Plug-in technology. For a while, it
looked like Microsoft would forever play second-fiddle to catch up to the
ever-dominant Netscape. This was when the infamous "Browser Wars" began in
earnest... and despite the technological ground it needed to gain, Internet
Explorer market share slowly grew.
Internet Explorer 3.0 brought the Microsoft browser MUCH closer to the bar that
had been set by Netscape than ever before (integrating frames, plug-ins
technology and a reverse-engineered version of JavaScript) while also innovating
in new areas (CSS and VBScript.) But, when the companies released their fourth
generation browsers, it marked a decided turning point in the so-called "war."
Internet Explorer 4.0 was a tremendous leapfrog ahead of Microsoft's previous
browser version. Most importantly, IE 4.0 finally met (or exceeded) most of the
capabilities of its rival's browser.
Netscape
In mid-1994, Silicon
Graphics founder Jim Clark collaborated with Marc Andreessen to found Mosaic
Communications (later renamed to Netscape Communications.) Andreessen had just
graduated from the University of Illinois, where he had been the leader of a
certain software project known as "Mosaic". By this time, the Mosaic browser was
starting to make splashes outside of the academic circles where it had begun,
and both men saw the great potential for web browsing software. Within a brief
half-year period, many of the original folk from the NCSA Mosaic project were
working for Netscape, and a browser was released to the public.
Netscape quickly became a success, and the overwhelming market share it soon had
was due to many factors, not the least of which was its break-neck pace of
software releases (a new term was soon coined - "internet time" - which
described the incredible pace at which browsers and the web were moving.) It
also created and innovated at an incredible pace. New HTML capabilities in the
form of "extensions" to the language were introduced. Since these capabilities
were often flashier than what other run-of-the-mill browsers could produce,
Netscape's browser helped cement their own dominance. By the summer of 1995, it
was a good bet that if you were browsing the Internet, you were doing so with a
Netscape browser - by some accounts Netscape had as much as an 80%+ market
share.
With the launch of Windows 95 and a web browser of its own (Internet Explorer)
in August 1995, Microsoft began an effort to challenge Netscape. For quite a
while, Internet Explorer played catch-up to Netscape's continual pushing of the
browsing technological envelope, but with one major advantage: unlike Netscape,
Internet Explorer was free of charge. Netscape version 2.0 introduced a bevy of
must-have breakthrough features (frames, Java, JavaScript and Plug-ins) which
helped distance it from the pack, even *with* its attendant price tag. Mid-1995
to late-1996 was a very busy time for both browsers; it seemed like every week
one company or the other was releasing a new beta or final version to the
public, each seemingly trying to one-up the other.
The programming language (actually, a text editor) of the internet.
Vannevar Bush first proposed the basics of hypertext in 1945. Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, HTML (hypertext markup language), HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol) and URLs (Universal Resource Locators) in 1990. Tim Berners-Lee was the primary author of html, assisted by his colleagues at CERN, an international scientific organization based in Geneva, Switzerland.