World wide web

PRE READING

What about you?

a. Do you use the Internet?

b. Do you have an e-mail address? How many web providers do you know?

c. Do you usually chat?

d. Are you currently posting to a newsgroup, forum or blog? Have you ever done it?

Exercise 1: General glossary

Match the following terms with their definitions:

a. 3-D

b. Access Provider

c. Bandwidth

d. BBS

e. Chat Room

f. Cyberspace

g. Domain Name

h. Download

i. E-mail

j. Emoticon

k. Firewall

l. Flame

m. Home Page

n. Hotlist

o. HTML

p. Hypertext

q. Icon

r. IT

s. Link

t. Multimedia

u. Netiquette

v. Newsgroup

w. Posting

x. Search engine

y. SPAM

z. Surfing or Net surfing

a1. Tech-savvy

b1. Thread

c1. URL

d1. Web Page

e1. Webmaster

f1. World Wide Web

1. Abbreviation for Information Technology.

2. An electronic space, typically a website or a section of an online service, where people can go to chat, that is to communicate online in real time.

3. Also referred to as a web page, it is the starting point of a website or a section of a website.

1. Homepage: The main page of a website, typically the first page that users see when they visit the site.

2. Hyperlink: A clickable element on a webpage that directs users to another webpage or a different section of the same webpage.

3. Navigation menu: A list of links or buttons that allows users to navigate through different pages or sections of a website.

4. Webmaster: A person in charge of maintaining a website.

5. Hypermedia: Refers to any text available on the World Wide Web that contains links to other documents. It presents information in which text, sounds, images, and actions are linked together in a way that allows you to jump around between them in whatever order you choose (non-linear).

6. Internet Service Provider (ISP): The company that provides you with Internet access and, in some cases, an online account on their computer system (e.g., tin, hotmail, tiscali). Also called ISP (Internet Service Provider).

7. Post: An e-mail message posted to an electronic communication service, such as a newsgroup or BBS (including forums and blogs).

8. World Wide Web: Popularly known as the Web. It is a worldwide collection of interconnected documents and other resources, linked by hyperlinks and URLs.

text and multimedia files and other network services interconnected via a system of hypertext documents.

9. This is the acronym for Bulletin Board System, a system that lets people read each other's messages and post new ones. The Usenet is, in effect, the world's largest distributed.

10. The process of copying data files from a remote computer to a local computer. The opposite action is upload where a local file is copied to a server.

11. An insulting message exchanged via email or within newsgroups.

12. It is an electronic discussion group consisting of collections of related postings on a particular topic. You must subscribe in order to participate in it.

13. A document created with HTML that is part of a group of hypertext documents on the WWW. These documents form what is known as a website and can contain photos, images, sounds, and videos for downloading.

14. It is a small image, usually a symbol, used to graphically represent a software program, file, or function on a computer screen.

15. A measurement of the volume of information that can be transmitted over a network at a given time. The higher it is, the more data can pass over the network.

16. It is the unique name that identifies an Internet site. It always has two or more parts separated by dots (www.yourname.com)

17. Short for electronic mail, consists of messages, often just text, sent from one user to another via a network.

18. An acronym for Uniform Resource Locator, it is the address for a resource or site (usually a directory or file) on the World Wide Web.

19. It refers to the practice of posting or sending commercial messages and emails.

20. An acronym for HyperText Markup Language, it is the computer language used to create hypertext documents.

21. It is a list of links, compiled and maintained by your web browser, to interesting important URLs that you can click on to go directly to a website. Called also bookmarks or favourites.

22. It is a term coined by science fiction author William Gibson to describe the whole range of information resources available through computer networks.

23. It allows only specific kinds of messages from the Internet to flow in and out of the internal network. This protects the internal network from intruders or hackers.

24. It is a form of online etiquette – an informal code of conduct that governs what is generally considered to be the acceptable way for users to interact with

25. It is a series of related newsgroups, BBS, or e-mail messages on a given subject, including the original message and the subsequent replies.

26. It refers to the simultaneous use of more than one type of media such as text with sound, moving or still images with music, and so on.

27. It stands for three dimensional graphic formats.

28. It refers to any highlighted words or phrases in a hypertext document that allow you to jump to another section of the same document or to another document on the WWW.

29. Another name for a "smiley," it is a sequence of keyboard characters used in messages or posting to express the writer's emotions. For example: a smile :-) sadness :-( a wink ;-).

30. An expert in technology.

31. A program designed to find information on the WWW.

They are usually accessed from special websites such as Google, Yahoo, Altavista etc.
_______________________
The act of navigating the Internet.
______________________________________
Exercise 2: Study this email address. It belongs to Anna Lock, who works for the Pesto company
locka@pesto.co.uk
Ê Ê Ç É [country][user ID] [domain] [type of organization]
Now study these examples of types of organizations and countries…
com or co commercial organization at Austria
gov government au Australia
mil military ca Canada
edu/ac education ch Switzerland
int international organization de Germany
net network provider fr France
org not for profit and other organizations it Italy
… and match the following addresses (a-g) to the list of users (1-7):
a) redcrossyouth@algonet@se 1) a UN organization based in Italy
b) webmaster@fao.org.it 2) a US politician
c) today@bbc.co.uk 3) a Swedish charity
d) jsmith@smith.senate.gov 4) a student at a French university
e)

rossi@cantsoc.com.it

1. a news programme in the UK
2. sales@demon.net
3. an Italian wine co-operative
4. s.larrieu@ly.ac.fr
5. an ISP

Text: Connect and disconnect: the Internet and real life (Annual meeting of the World Economic Forum 27.01.2000)

How is the Internet going to change our lives? asked moderator Thomas A. Stewart, Member of the Board of Editors at Fortune Magazine, USA, in his introduction.

Derrick de Kerckhove, Director of “The McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology” at the University of Toronto, Canada, spoke of the emergence of the “connective mind” as a result of the network culture. “What we are seeing is the emigration of the mind from head to screen,” he said. “With networks, the connected mind is arriving on screen where it can be shared in connection with other people.” This is leading to the development of “connected intelligence” such as collaborative software.

Nadia Thalmann, Professor in Computer Science at

The University of Geneva, Switzerland, said that the introduction of 3-D technology on the Internet will be revolutionary. Medical doctors, for example, will be able to view realistic images of a patient's body and conduct virtual surgery to prepare for the real procedure. Michael Keller, Director of Academic Information Resources at the Stanford University Libraries, USA, said the Internet will change the way courses are taught, as teachers will be able to assess quickly and efficiently their students.

According to Umberto Eco, the noted Italian author and historian, the Internet society will be split into three classes of citizens: 1) the prolex, those who only watch TV and take in just prefabricated images; 2) the petit-bourgeoisie, those who use computers only in a passive way and 3) the tech-savvy. Material wealth will not solely determine class and status. In future, Eco said, there will be a need for new kinds of educational centres. "The real problem of the Internet community"

solitude. Contact with the world will be virtual. The dark side is that there will be less and less chance of interacting with people - to smell body odours, to shake hands.” Possible solutions: a new type of amusement arcade where the not-so-Net-handy, such as senior citizens, can go to learn about computers and technology in a group. Said Eco: “Surfing can be an interactive experience. I hope there can be more opportunities for the Net to be more human.” Later, Eco spoke of the utility of the Internet in research. But he noted that it can also be distracting, as you click from link to link to link. De Kerckove said that when 3-D technology and wide bandwidth make surfing the Internet more like watching TV, the Web as we know it may go the way of citizens' band radio. Most participants agreed that the Internet is not likely to spell the end of books. “Nothing isolates people more than reading books,” he said. In surfing the Internet, Thalmann argued, a

A person may become in fact part of a vast virtual community. Eco contended that "books can co-exist very well with the Net." Keller added that more people would be telecommuting in the Internet age and explained that new technology is blurring the boundaries between work and play.

GLOSSARY

virtual

adj. [only before noun] 1 almost or very nearly the thing described, so that any slight difference is not important 2 made to appear to exist by the use of computer software

assess

verb ~ sb/sth (as sth) to make a judgement about the nature or quality of sb/sth

amusement arcade (BrE) (also arcade NAmE, BrE)

noun a place where you can play games on machines which you use coins to operate

telecommuting

combining form (in nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs) 1 over a long distance; far: telepathy, telescopic 2 connected with television: teletext or generally with electronic communications