1. McLean 20061 HIGHER COMPUTER NETWORKING Lesson 6 Types of Browsers & WAP Explanation of browser functions Wireless access to the Internet Description of WML pages

2. McLean 20062 HIGHER COMPUTER NETWORKING What You Should Know About Browsers Browsers A browser is a program that interprets HTML code into a web page. They: Store “favourites” and keep a “history” of sites visited Cache images etc. on the hard disk (speeds up loading) Can be extended by means of “plugins” such as Flash player Microsoft Internet Explorer is common and so is Mozilla Firefox Microbrowsers A microbrowser is used to browse the Internet on a wireless handheld device e.g. a mobile phone or a PDA Small file size to minimise memory / bandwidth overheads

3. McLean 20063 HIGHER COMPUTER NETWORKING What You Should Know About WAP Wireless Application Protocol WAP is a set of protocols used to deliver the Internet to hand-held communications devices Web pages written in HTML and communicated via HTTP are not suitable for WAP because they are not optimised for low bandwidths. So WAP was developed. WAP allows hand-held devices to retrieve pages written in Wireless Mark-up Language (WML).

4. McLean 20064 HIGHER COMPUTER NETWORKING What You Should Know About WML Wireless Markup Language WML is similar to HTML except it lacks many of HTML’s features. It supports mostly text, has a limited number of styles and has limited support for graphic images and tables. A WML application consists of one or more decks containing collections of cards. A card is what the user sees on the small screen (like the page), the deck is all the pages together (like the site).

5. McLean 20065 HIGHER COMPUTER NETWORKING What You Should Know About WML WML Tags Start and end of a DECK Start and end of a CARD Start and end of a deck HEADING Start and end of a PARAGRAPH GOLinks to a CARD PREVLinks to a PREVIOUS CARD Now complete the activity on scholar:

6. McLean 20066 HIGHER COMPUTER NETWORKING What You Should Know About WML Activity 1 Now complete this activity on scholar: Activity 2 Load Internet Explorer and connect to http://www.wapsilon.com/ http://www.wapsilon.com/ Enter this WAP url: http://wap.google.com/wml Then View with the Nokia 7210