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No Experience Necessary - Final Part

© Chris Cruickshank

This week's article takes a look at the things you can do on the Internet. It will cover items such as Surfing, IRC, Newsgroups and the most popular of all, Downloading files. This is the final part of the "No Experience Necessary" series for now.

Surfing

Surfing is the term used when looking at web pages. A web page is a text document that can be read by (almost) any computer that can access the Internet. The document itself (known as an HTML document - Hyper Text Mark-up Language) can contain a number of different things. Namely:

· Text that you can read

· Pictures including animations and even video

· Reference to sound files that can be heard when the page is viewed

· Java or Active X (programming languages designed for use within HTML documents)

· Pointers to other pages (known as Links)

I left the Links last as this is probably the most important part of an HTML document - the ability to point at an object (whether it is text or graphics) to go to another document or perform other functions such as sending an email to someone.

A collection of HTML pages maintained by an individual or company is known as a web site. Each web site will have links pointing to other pages within the web site and more often than not, will have links pointing to other web sites. This linking from site to site is what makes up the World Wide Web.

Take a look at the top of this page. You are currently at Suite101.com on my page within Suite101.com's web site. At the top you will see a link to my own web site (PC Support Page). Move your mouse over a link and your mouse pointer turns into a pointing finger. This indicated that if you click the mouse at that point, you will "Surf" to where ever the link points to (Don't go just yet!)

This ability to activate something when the mouse passes over an item or clicks an item makes the Internet a rich and varied place. To get this page, you have already used a series of links in order to get here (I don't suppose anyone has this page as there Home Page do they? No - thought not!).

Personally, I find surfing great fun as you never know what you will come across. I run a web site awards scheme and this takes me to some of the best pages on the Internet. One thing you can be sure of though is that any topic you can think of will have a web page about it!