1. the World's Largest computer Network

2. The World Wide Web In 1989, Tim Berners-Lee, an Oxford-trained computer scientist, had an idea for a "global hypertext project." Hypertext is a different way of moving through information. HTML is the most popular hypertext. With the creation of HTML, the Web was born. HTML made it easy to create Web sites like this one that have images, videos and even sound. Suddenly, everyone saw the potential of the Web as a global communications system and wanted to get on it. The Web grew rapidly. today, millions of people access the Web daily for news, entertainment, shopping, education and business

3. What is a URL? Web pages need unique addresses too. These addresses allow you to find a particular page, as well as direct others to it. Giving each page a unique address is no easy task. The Internet is a network of networks, many of which are growing rapidly. In fact, new Web sites are added daily, each page in the site needing its own address. It's like having entire neighborhoods built in a day and each home needing an address immediately. That means a lot of naming and numbering, especially when you consider there are already billions of pages on the Internet that have already used up billions of names. Fortunately, there are enough parts to a Web address that it's fairly easy to create new ones.

4. Information on the Internet You can listen to music, play games, send email, chat, shop, and of course, use it to do research and homework. Anyone can put up a site on the Internet. That's one of the great things about the Web. It's also why you have to be careful. You have to be your own judge on the quality and validity of the information you receive. Most search engines use the location and frequency of keywords as the basis for ranking responses to a query. In other words, they don't rank the pages by the quality of information, but primarily by where and how often the words in your query appear. Pay close attention to the source of any information you find on the Web. For instance, for facts on ancient Egypt, a site created by National Geographic will be more reliable than a site put up by someone who's writing about their vacation at the pyramids. Another trick is to not rely on just one source, but use several.

5. Bigger is Better Ever had to wait 10 or more seconds for a Web page to finish building on your screen? That can be a combination of many things. First, the file size of the Web page was probably big. Second, the computer you were using may have a slow microprocessor. A fast microprocessor can process incoming information faster. Third, your connection to the Internet may have been slow.