We all might have seen -- or, at least heard -- words such as Hotmail, Yahoo, or Google. They might mean different things to different people. Though they might serve different needs as well, they all have one thing in common -- they are all web sites. The internet is packed with hordes and hordes of web sites -- approximately 2 crore registrations for web sites exist today !! Think of a web site as a web shop/office, where we would like to invite our clients/prospects, and show them what we are, and what we aim to be. So, a web site isn't something so BIG, after all. It is just a few lines -- or pages -- of text and images which we would like to share with the world.

Of course, today, a web site isn't just restricted to sharing our world with the world : a web site is an effective and efficient means of communication between the various employees/departments of a company/organisation. A good number of companies, right from pharma to auto sector to engineering goods to consumer goods -- and i.t. companies, of course -- are using the internet as a medium to communicate speedily and cost-effectively. Communicating over the internet costs much less than any other medium of communication -- phone, fax, courier, etc. Coupled with speed and ease-of-use, we can easily understand why the world is so gung-ho about the future of the internet as a corporate communication medium.

If all of this sounds too good, you are not alone. If all of this has got you excited and eager to know more -- probably to create your own web site -- just read on. Here are the various terms we might encounter while thinking/planning for a web site.

Web Site Jargon

HTML

Acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. This is the language which makes the world go round -- well, almost. Practically all the web pages we see on the different web sites have HTML as the base language. It is almost impossible to imagine a web page without HTML. HTML helps us to present the data, the content, with a very bare-bones kind of a presentation. Whether it is plain text or some attractive image, it is all dispalyed with the help of good old HTML.

BROWSER

Displaying HTML, i.e, a web page, doesn't need any fancy or extra investments. All it needs is a browser software, such as Internet Explorer from Microsoft -- which comes free with Windows operating system. Other popular browsers are Netscapre Navigator, Firefox, Mozaic, and Opera. The browser category of software helps us to view web-enabled documents.

DHTML

Acronym for Dynamic Hyper Text Markup Language. This technology makes the web pages 'come alive'. It helps make the web pages more attractive and responsive to the user's actions -- hence the term 'dynamic'. You might have seen web pages where the positioning of the mouse over a particular text/image changes the colour of the text/image. In fact, you are already seeing DHTML in action on this page : the navigation bar towards the top-left of this page is working through DHTML. Just passing the mouse over a particular section causes 2 visible changes :

• The colour of the section changes in relation to its surroundings.
• A new menu 'pops up' in front of our eyes.

This is the 'responsive' part of web pages, and is aptly named as DHTML. Simply put, DHTML is HTML coupled with CSS (Cacading Style Sheets) and a special purpose language -- such as Microsoft Visual Basic Script or Javascript. HTML is simply to help display the data, whereas DHTML is to help display the data 'with style'.

ACTIVE PAGES

These are the ultimate when it comes to interactivity on the internet. These pages help us to go beyond static data, linking us to a data store -- such as Access, Oracle, etc. -- and making the dream of web-based data access come true. Thus, it could be the product list, employees list, sales calls report, complaints list, et al -- anything which is part of our database can be displayed and recorded over the internet. This is the power of active pages. With 'active pages', we can customize our response to different users, based on their precise requirements. All of the web pages which help us to do shopping on the internet can be called as 'active pages'. Even the search pages on Google, Yahoo, and other popular search enginges are basicially 'active pages' : they serve different results to different users, based on the search criteria specified by them individually.

Mostly, the web pages have the extension .htm or .html. However, the 'active pages' have a different kind of an extension - .asp, .jsp, .cgi, etc.

WWW

Acronym for World Wide Web. This is the most wide-spread service available on the internet. Most of the web sites' names start with these 3 letters. A web site with these 3 letters at the start can serve a variety of content to the visitor -- text, graphics, and even sound. And now the best part -- we don't have to be too much worried about the 'www'. It is primarily the task of the internet companies to ensure that they keep all ends straight. We just need to be aware that the 'www' exists, and is there for us to exploit.

HTTP

Acronym for Hyper Text Transfer Protocol. This is the basic mechanism which underlies all the communication between the computers on the internet. As a result, a computer running Windows 98 can easliy communicate with a computer running on Linux; or a Computer running on Windows XP can talk easily with another one working on Unix. Similar to the 'www', we need not lose any sleep thinking too much about the 'http' : we just need to know that it's somewhere there, helping us to work seamlessly across computer/operating system boundaries.

Web site planning

Having got accustomed to this basic jargon, we need to look further at the steps we need to take in order to make a web site. These steps are as follows (usually followed in the same order as well) :-

Decide on a web identity (URL)

Once we have decided to launch a web site, we need to think of an appropriate name for it. This name should be something that keeps in line with our otherwise known identity/name in our community. For example, the web site name of MAP_IT is 'http://www.map_it.gov.in' (without the single quotes, of course). For most of the cases, the 'http://www.' part is a must : it is the remaining half that is vital for our identity. For example, Microsoft's address is 'http://www.microsoft.com', Oracle's address is 'http://www.oracle.com' and Hotmail's address is 'http://www.hotmail.com' : the 'http://www.' is common in all of these addresses.

Technically, this web address/identity is known as a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). This address can be registered at any registrar on the internet. For indian sites, the common and recommended domain is '.in' (i.e., the site address ends with these letters). Of course, you could decide on any other domain as well - .com, .org, .gov, etc. The official site to check out for the generic '.in' domain names is indian domains registrar. For academic institutions, the recommended domain is '.ac.in'. The official site to check out for the specific '.ac.in' domain names is academic domains registrar. Mostly, we are charged a certain sum on a yearly basis for reserving our domain name (URL). Once the URL has been registered, it cannot be duplicated by anyone else in the world.

Create the Web Pages

Now we need to get in touch with an individual/institution involved in web software development, if we don't have a team of our own for the same. The party concerned will analyse and assess our requirements -- in consultation with us, of course. (Here, the jargon HTML, DHTML, etc. might just come handy !!) Fine-tuning the content -- text, images, etc. might be time-consuming and confusing at first, but rest assured : it's worth the effort. Remember, Rome was not built in a day !

Scout for a web host

Once the web pages have been developed and tested, it is time to 'upload' them, i.e., put them on some server for the world to see. After all, we don't expect the entire world to physically come to our office to view the site; do we ? Probably the company which registered our domain name (URL) might be willing to 'host' our site. Otherwise, there are a good number of companies offering web hosting services -- for a fee, needless to say. A good number of FTP (File Transfer Protocol) software is available, with the help of which we can connect to our web server, and 'upload' the desired pages on to the server. Once again, this is an easy task : not as daunting as it really sounds.

Once this part has been accomplished, congrats !! We can open the browser, type in our web address, and, Hey Presto !! We can see our web site in action. Happy surfing !!