| Touch of Love, Webmaster Tools |
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| Understanding Computers
So many words that just make your head spin and you wonder if you will
ever figure it out! The Internet That is the "information superhighway", and your on it now surfing around and learning. ISP (Internet Service Provider) I have had some strange answers to this term when I ask what is your ISP. One person told me they were plugged into a 110 outlet, was that their ISP? The answer is no but I'm real glad they didn't plug in to a 220 outlet! Your ISP is who you pay your bucks to each month to connect to the internet. Using phone lines or cable it allows your computer's modem to "talk" that ol' computer language and connect you to the internet. You may be using a home town local server or one of the big guys like "AOL" to be your ISP Server. META Tags META tags always go in the (TOP OF THE PAGE) section of the document. META NAME tags include descriptions and keywords. This HTML code helps some search engines classify and rank a web page. META HTTP-EQUIV tags can indicate to the web browser how to display the page. Personal Note: I hate writing META tags because its an on going task to find the right words the search engines are looking for this month or the next. It changes from month to month. And by the way no company can guarantee a high ranking on a search engine. What they can do is have the skill, time and ability to write great META TAGS that give you a better chance. But you can learn to do this yourself! Modem A modulator demodulator, or device that allows a computer to receive and transmit data over standard telephone lines, or the new internet cable. A modem takes digital information and converts it to analog data, and the modem at the other end takes the analog data and converts it back to digital. Now that was the formal explanation, now lets make it simple! The modem sits in your computer (sometimes on top of it) and talks to the internet. That information (data) then allows you to connect and surf the net. Not as hard as we thought, and if your like me thats all we need to know unless you plan on being a computer whiz and learn the inner works of computers and the net. POP3 (Post Office Protocol, version 3) A POP3 server acts as your email Post Office. You use an email client, like Eudora or those built-in to Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer, to retrieve your mail to your local drive using the POP3 protocol. Search Engine A web-based program that allows users to search and retrieve specific information from the World Wide Web. The search engine may search the full text of web documents or a list of keywords, or use librarians who review web documents and index them manually for retrieval. In other words when you type in a word like poetry, it looks for that keyword (remember the meta tag above?), then shows a list of sites you can find poetry on. Neat huh? SPAM No we aren't talking about the stuff you buy in a can. We are refering to unsolicited e-mail. Unsolicited e-mail is any email message received where the recipient did not specifically ask for it. Here's is where you can find information on unsolicited e-mail try the Network Abuse Clearinghouse or Spamcop Upload To send a copy of a file from a client to a server using a modem. Remember "download"? Well its just thr reverse of upload. URL (Uniform Resource Locator) A World Wide Web address. Every page on every web site on every web server has a unique URL. You can see the URL of a web page in the address or location field in your browser. This term has recently been superseded by URI, or Uniform Resource Identifier. Also known as an Internet address or web address. Web Host A company that allows individuals or other companies to use their server space to host web sites. Now that was a semi- formal explanation, now lets make it simple! Ok lets explain it this way...You want to rent an apartment to live in and store your household items. You go looking for a nice location, that offers you all the amenities you want. Web Hosting sites are the same as the owner of that apartment your looking at. Some companys on the net will host you for free but in return you must accept ads that stay on your page (site) or pop-up from time to time. You have no control over what the content may be. All offer an amount of space and that can very from host to host. It's like looking for a 1, 2 or 3 bedroom apartment. The more space you have the more you can get into your apartment. Some host charge for space and what they offer in exchange varies from host to host. When your ready for your own site, do your home work, just like you would in hunting for an apartment. Free always seems great, but if you can't figure out how to work a page, load it or don't want ads popping up all over your pages then free isn't so great. Webmaster The person in charge of implementing and modifying a web site. You become a webmaster once you build a site, but as we all know that won't make you a "Master at it, yet". Web Page A single document on the World Wide Web that is specified by a unique address or URL and that contains text, hyperlinks, and graphics. Web Server Computer hardware where web pages are stored and accessed by others using web client software, or the computer software that allows the user to access the web pages. Lets make it simple again! Remember that apartment you was looking at above, ( "Web Host" )? Well someone owns that apartment complex and they have to buy or lease the ground it sets on. Well on the net we call that the "Web Server". You can get free or paid for space to build a site on from a landlord (web host). The Web Host then has to buy space to hold all his/her clients. Using myself as an example, and giving a personal side to all of this, here is how my world of computers came about. The Making of a Webmaster? Bought a computer and cried for a week trying to figure it out. Visited (surfed) and decided I wanted my own site to show off my poetry. Went looking and got free space to "build" my own site. Cried for another month trying to figure how to write the html code. (I viewed the code on every page I saw, and with pencil and paper wrote the source code. It would be an understatement to say I had a "few" notebooks over flowing with hand written codes.) Got my first page up! I wanted everyone to see it! Everyone was so nice, and said what a great job I had done. The truth was the page was awful, took forever to load. Plain and simple it stunk, but I was proud of it! Building pages left and right and ran out of room. It was still awful, and I had added every gaget known to man on it. It flashed, it blinked, and had every color of the rainbow was on it. Went looking for another apartment (Host), moved my whole site. Lost page after page of my site durning the move, and had to build them again. I still think thoses pages are floating in cyper space somewhere. If you run across them please don't return to sender! I think over time I moved about a hundred times, losing pages, building new ones, and each time learning more and getting a wee bit better at this webmaster stuff. Made the decison to "Buy" my own domain and move everything one more time. Making my own graphics by now, and started offering them for free. Had all this extra room at my domain so I started renting out space at my domain Started offering to do free web page designs for friends. Started my own Web Design Business. Learned that I still had a lot to learn! Through the internet I made one of the best friends I have ever had. She became my partner, mentor, and my tower of strength. The internet can bring you many hours of pleasure, and be one of the greatest learning tools you will ever use. Why did I make this statement? Because I know what your next question will be.... Are you a webmaster yet, do you still make mistakes, and is it still fun? The answer I give you is no to the first question, yes to the second and yes to the third. Because I feel there is so much yet to learn, so much I don't know how to do, and so much further I can go. Will I ever feel as if I have mastered it all? I don't think so, but I accept the term "Webmaster" with pride when I think back how far this ol' Grandma has come. I could not of done any of it without the help, and friendship of thoses I have met on line, and offline. The point to all of this is you can do it to! That is a promise I make to you. If you don't give up, keep trying over and over. Be willing to learn, accept help and always remember to help someone else along the way as you learn. You will find the internet can be a wonderful place and not half as scary as you thought. One last comment I need to make, please ask for help, and when you do listen. I know you worked so hard on that page, and your so proud of it, but no one can ever learn if they do not master the skill of listening. But don't forget if your giving the suggestions to do it with gentle words, and remember how you felt when you started out. Don't hurt but always encourage. Have fun and great surfing! © 2000-2001 Touch of Love. All rights reserved Graphics by, Touch of Love Designs Script- By Dynamic Drive. |
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