Information has been the soul of any technologically aware society since time immemorial. Over the years, people have dreamt of the concept of a universal information base which would be accessible to them all over the world. It was only in mid-seventies that technology caught up with these dreams and the answer emerged in the form of INTERNET
● INTERNET-THE COMMUNICATION MEDIUM OF TODAY ● WORLD WIDE WEB ● WEB SITE ● WEB SERVER ● WEB BROWSERS ● WEB PROTOCOLS ● WEB AUTHORING LANGUAGES ● HTML AUTHORING TOOLS ● LAUNCHING YOUR SITE ON THE WEB ● WEB SERVER AT NIC ● WEB SERVICES OFFERED BY NIC ● WORLD WIDE WEB -- IN THE FUTURE ● CONTACT ADDRESS
INTERNET-THE COMMUNICATION MEDIUM OF TODAY Internet, one of the most amazing phenomenon in the history of mankind is creating silent revolution across the world by changing the way people work, conduct business, study, shop for products/services, spend their leisure time, hence affecting almost all walks of life. Internet is the name given to the INTERnational NETwork of interlinked computers which use a standard protocol called TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol) for communication. Internet was initially designed for government and educational research purposes. But, it gradually blossomed into one of the most important and widely used medium for commercial applications. This is primarily attributed to one of the fastest growing applications of Internet, namely the World Wide Web (WWW).
WORLD WIDE WEB World Wide Web, which incorporates all other services of internet (e-mail, Telnet FTP, Gopher etc.) is basically a way to access information on the Internet in an easy to navigate form. With WWW, novice users can have tremendous power of accessing the wealth of information located on computers around the world. The Web is based on a concept of hypertext/hypermedia wherein the documents on the Web have embedded links to other documents, which may be lying locally or in any computer in the world. Major strength of Web comes from its capability to support multimedia documents i.e. information on the Web could be stored in the form of text; graphics; audio; video; animation or a combination of any of these. Ever since its meagre and almost invisible announcement in 1992, the WWW has now become a major force in the way businesses communicate, sell and market their products.
WEB SITE A Web site consists of one or more pages that relate to a specific topic or business/organization. A Web site can have hundreds of individual pages. The first page that people encounter when they visit a Web site through its address called URL (Uniform Resource Locator) is the Home Page. Thus the Home Page is a starting point for information about a specific subject or organization. Each page beneath the Home Page also has a unique URL.
WEB SERVER A Web server is a computer with special software installed on it which enables Web browsers such as Netscape to access information from the World Wide Web. A Web server may host one or more than one Web sites. Apart from serving simple text documents, a Web server is also capable of serving image files, audio/video clippings etc. Web servers can be run from variety of hardware and software platforms. Advance features of Web Servers include, support for database access; fill-in-forms; highly interactive and dynamic applications.
WEB BROWSERS Web Browsers are software programs that allow you to navigate and access information stored on Internet. Browsers take your instructions and convert them into information which can be sent to a remote site for execution. A variety of browsers exist today for WWW, such as Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, Mosaic etc.
WEB PROTOCOLS Like all other Internet services Web also operates on a set of protocols that govern how requests and responses should be formatted and how the process of communication should proceed. The protocol that governs the communications between computers on the World Wide Web is called HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol). HTTP relies on the URL to locate files on the Web.
WEB AUTHORING LANGUAGES Web documents are primarily written in a Hypertext based language called HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). Besides providing a range of formatting commands (popularly known as tags), HTML allows any item such as text or graphics in a document to be hyperlinked to any other text document, image, audio or video clipping. Simple Web pages can be easily developed using HTML. However to develop highly interactive, dynamic and on-line applications, one has to use Web programming languages such as JAVA; JAVA Script; Visual Basic Script; Perl; VRML etc.
HTML AUTHORING TOOLS HTML documents could be authored in several ways: ● One can write it from the scratch using a simple text editor called Word Processor. ● One can use a HTML Authoring tool to generate HTML code. The tools are extremely user-friendly and are available on a variety of platforms. Some of the popular authoring tools are Hot Metal; Hot Dog; HTML Assistant; Front Page etc. Some of the latest word processing and DTP softwares are providing a facility of automatically converting the text into HTML form.
LAUNCHING YOUR SITE ON THE WEB After the commercialization of Internet, a variety of new applications are implemented on it everyday - especially on the World Wide Web. Right from Corporate Houses, Institutions, Societies, Universities, Museums to even Government are making their presence on Web heavily. Organizations are using the Web primarily as an Information Resource; an Advertising Resource; a Selling Media or a Support Service Provider. Any organization, while launching a Web site has to essentially consider the following aspects: The organization has to define the purpose of launching a web site, kind of service to be provided (simple page, interactive form, searchable database etc) and also who are the perspective audience, so as to customize the design accordingly. One has to decide about the Web server and browser specifications. As far as server is concerned one can either hire a space on any of the Web servers or set up their own server in-house based on the amount of information, frequency of updation, sensitivity of data etc. Browsers are available on variety of platforms and can be selected independent of the server configuration. The next step is to design and develop the Web pages. For this too one has a choice of either doing in-house or taking help of organizations offering the services of Web page design and development. A Web page is essentially a compilation of various multimedia components developed individually and integrated using a suitable authoring tool. To ensure that the page captures the attention of the net surfer, alternative layouts, simple and error free sentences which communicate effectively and a good colour sense are pre-requisites. After the page is developed it should be tested thoroughly on variety of browsers and also on different high speed and low speed connectivity before uploading on the Internet through a Web server. Regular updation and maintenance of the web pages are some of the vital aspects to be kept in mind. As there are millions of pages on the net, getting visibility is important. Therefore, advertising the Web site is as important as setting it up. Web site could be advertised by registering it with popular search engines (eg. Yahoo, Lycos, Alta Vista etc); on-line directories/catalogues etc. These services are available free of cost at some places and have nominal charges at some other.
WEB SERVER AT NIC The National Informatics Centre, has set up the state-of-the-art BASIS Web Server on its nation wide satellite based computer communication network, NICNET. In addition to the primary Web server (URL: http://www.nic.in) at NIC Headquarters, New Delhi, several Web servers are being positioned on NICNET Information Highway across the Country.
WEB SERVICES OFFERED BY NIC Equipped with the latest state-of-the-art Multimedia work stations and chosen professionals in the field of conceptualization, visualization, graphic arts, script writing and computer professionals, NIC offers its services for Web page design and hosting for government and public sector organizations. The entire gamut of web services provided by NIC include the following: o Web page design & development o Web page hosting o Web page maintenance and updates o Feedback through E-mail facility o Registration with search engines/on-line directories, catalogues. o Web database design and development o Web programming language interface.
WORLD WIDE WEB -- IN THE FUTURE The Web has virtually exploded in the last couple of years. And with thousands of individuals and organizations all over the world continuously adding their strands of information to the Web, it has a bright future ahead. Web is getting increasingly popular and there is no doubt that it will emerge as a major communication force in the times to come.
For any further information please contact : Multimedia Applications & Presentation Division, National Informatics Centre, CGO Complex, Lodhi Road New Delhi- 110003 Phone: 91-11-4364264 E-mail: mmpru@hub.nic.in