Glossary of IP communications
Internet
A worldwide system of computer networks
in which users at any one computer can, if they have permission, get
information from any other computer (and sometimes talk directly to
users at other computers). The Internet was originally developed for
military usage, and then became widely used for academic and commercial
research. Today, the Internet is a public, cooperative, and self-sustaining
facility accessible to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. Physically,
the Internet uses a portion of the total resources of the currently
existing public telecommunication networks. Technically, what distinguishes
the Internet is its use of a set of protocols called TCP/IP (for Transmission
Control Protocol/Internet Protocol).
The most widely used part of the
Internet is the World Wide Web. Its outstanding feature is hypertext,
a method of instant cross-referencing. In most web sites, certain words
or phrases appear in text of a different color than the rest; often
this text is also underlined. When you select one of these words or
phrases, you will be transferred to the site or page that is relevant
to this word or phrase. If you move the pointer over a spot on a web
site and the pointer changes into a hand, this indicates that you can
click and be transferred to another site. Web browsing is done with
a web browser. The appearance of a particular web site may vary slightly
depending on the browser you use.