The web provides two basic ways of moving from one page to another: by clicking hyperlinks and by entering URLs. This section describes both of these methods in detail.
A hyperlink is simply a bit of text or a picture that points to another web page. Hyperlinks enable you to move from web page to web page simply by clicking the mouse. You can typically identify hyperlinks in two ways.
· The web page itself identifies the hyperlink, either by providing description text such as "click here" or by formatting the hyperlink in a certain way. Typically, for example, textual hyperlinks show in color and with underlining to stand out on the web page:
· Internet Explorer identifies the hyperlink by changing the mouse pointer to a pointing finger. Run the mouse across your home page to give this a try. In the web page shown in Figure 23-2, if you rest the mouse pointer on top of the word Weather , the mouse arrow turns into a pointing finger. If you click this link, Internet Explorer displays the web page shown in Figure 23-3.
Figure 1: The web page Internet Explorer displays when you click the Weather hyperlink
TIP: Right-click a hyperlink and choose Open In New Window from the shortcut menu to open the web page in its own window. By doing so, you can continue to view the current web page while retrieving a new one.
A URL, or uniform resource locator, identifies a specific Internet resource such as a web page or a file on an ftp server. In other words, the URL is the resource's address. This section describes what URLs are and how you use them.
While URLs look like ciphers the first few times you see them, they're actually fairly easy to interpret and read. In general, URLs consist of three parts: the protocol, the server name, and sometimes the path and filename.
The first part of the URL is the protocol name. In Figure 23-4, for example, the protocol name is the http:// portion of the URL. The protocol specifies the information-sharing method used to move that particular Internet resource (in this case, your average web page). Table 23-1 earlier in the chapter described some of the more common protocols used on the Internet.
If an Internet resource uses another information-sharing method, the protocol or service name is different. Figure 23-5 shows the URL for a resource that uses the ftp protocol, for example.
NOTE: You use Internet Explorer to browse FTP sites the same way you use Windows Explorer to browse folders on your hard disk. To view the files and subfolders in a folder, double-click the folder’s icon. To open a file Windows recognizes (such as a text file or a .PDF file if you have Adobe Acrobat Reader), double-click the file. To download a file Windows doesn’t recognize, double-click the file and click the Save This File To Disk option button. Then click OK and use the Save As dialog box to specify a storage location for the file. For more information on downloading files, see “Retrieving Files Via Web Pages,” later in this chapter.
The next part of a URL is the server’s domain name. This names the server on which the Internet resources you want to retrieve are stored. While it's not an ironclad convention, the first part of the domain name for web servers often uses the common abbreviation for the World Wide Web, www. The second part of the domain name identifies the company or organization. The last part of the domain name specifies the domain type. In the case of the EPA home page URL shown in Figure 23-4, for example, the server name is www.epa.gov. Similarly, in the case of the Library of Congress ftp site URL shown in Figure 25-5, the server name is ftp.loc.gov.
The .gov part of the domain name specifies the type of domain. The domain type abbreviation describes what kind of publisher published the web page or web site. Table 23-2 table lists some of the most common domain types.
|
Domain Type
Abbreviation |
Type of Publisher |
Example |
|
.com |
a commercial organization |
http://www.henson.com/ (The Jim Henson Company) |
|
.edu |
an educational institution |
http://www.cornell.edu (Cornell University) |
|
.gov |
a government agency |
http://www.nasa.gov (NASA) |
|
.mil |
a U.S. military organization |
http://www.af.mil (The U.S. Air Force) |
|
.net |
a network provider |
http://www.earthlink.net (EarthLink, an ISP) |
|
.org |
an organization that doesn't fit any of the other standard domain types, often a non-profit organization |
http://www.now.org (The National Organization for Women) |
Table 1: Domain Types and Abbreviations
Other countries have their own domain type abbreviations and country abbreviations. For example:
· The United Kingdom's domain abbreviation is .uk. The British Broadcasting Corporation's home page is at http://www.bbc.co.uk.
· France's domain abbreviation is .fr. The Louvre museum home page is at http://mistral.culture.fr/louvre/.
· Japan's domain abbreviation is .jp. The Tokyo Stock Exchange's home page is at http://www.tse.or.jp/.
· Germany's domain abbreviation is .de. The Volkswagen home page is at http://www.volkswagen.de.
NOTE: A web site is just a collection of web pages published by the same source and linked together. For example, a person or business might decide to categorize content and divide it among several pages instead of putting it all on one. This way, viewers do not need to wait for an enormous page to load or scroll through lots of content that doesn't interest them, but can instead click hyperlinks to individual pages containing the information they need.
The last part of a URL supplies the path name of the Internet resource you want to retrieve. The path name starts with the / character, then names the folder (or perhaps the folder and subfolder), and then (usually) names the file.
NOTE: Sometimes you can’t see the path and filename of an Internet resource you’re viewing. This often happens when the resource is the default resource on that server. If you visit the home page of a large corporation's web site, for example, the URL may show only the server address—that is, until you link to a folder or subfolder within the web site.
While clicking hyperlinks and toolbar buttons is the easiest way to move from web page to web page, you (thankfully) aren't limited to following a trail of hyperlinks. You can also enter a URL directly into the Address box. To do this, click the Address box and then type the URL. For example, if you want to visit the Danish soccer association’s home page at http://www.dbu.dk, you simply type this URL into the Address box.
You don't need to include the http:// prefix if you're visiting a web server. Internet Explorer (as well as most other web browsers) assume that the URL you've entered is for a web page if you don't specify the Internet protocol. You also typically don't need to include an actual web page document in your URL; web servers will typically supply a default home page if you don't identify some other page by name. This means that it's usually quickest to just enter the piece of the URL that falls between the http:// and the very next /. Entering this chunk of the URL takes you to the default home page, and from there you can click hyperlinks to get to the different web page documents.
TIP: As you enter URLs directly into the Address box, be sure that you enter the slashes as slashes (and not as backslashes).
Internet Explorer actually maintains a list of web pages and web sites you've visited. As you start to type a URL in the Address box, Internet Explorer displays a list of URLs you’ve previously visited that begin with the letters you’re typing. To revisit one of these resources, select it from the list.