A product created by Allaire Corporation of Cambridge, Mass. (in 2001, Allaire merged with Macromedia) that includes a server and a development toolset designed to integrate databases and Web pages. With Cold Fusion, a user could enter a zip code on a Web page, and the server would query a database for information on the nearest movie theaters and present the results in HTML form. Cold Fusion Web pages include tags written in Cold Fusion Markup Language (CFML) that simplify integration with databases and avoid the use of more complex languages like C++ to create translating programs.
PHP is currently one of the most widely use scripint technology on the internet. PHP is a hypertext preprocessor, used on the server-side used to create dynamic Web pages. PHP can perform almost any task that any ASP, JSP, Cold Fusion or CGI program can do, but its strength lies in its ease of use and compatibility with the powerful Mysql database. Below are a few web hosting companies that offer good PHP and Mysql web hosting services.
If you've ever been curious about the process, or have ever wanted to know some of the specific mechanisms that allow you to surf the Internet, then read on. In this article, you will learn how Web servers bring pages into your home, school or office. Let's get started!
The Basic Process
Let's say that you are sitting at your computer, surfing the Web, and you get a call from a friend who says, "I just read a great article! Type in this URL and check it out. It's at http://computer.com/web-server.htm." So you type that URL into your browser and press return. And magically, no matter where in the world that URL lives, the page pops up on your screen.
At the most basic level possible, the following diagram shows the steps that brought that page to your screen:
Your browser formed a connection to a Web server, requested a page and received it.
Behind the Scenes
If you want to get into a bit more detail on the process of getting a Web page onto your computer screen, here are the basic steps that occurred behind the scenes:
The browser broke the URL into three parts:
The protocol ("http")
The server name ("www.e-blogs.com")
The file name ("web-server.htm")
The browser communicated with a name server to translate the server name "www.howstuffworks.com" link to www.howstuffworks.com into an IP Address, which it uses to connect to the server machine.
The browser then formed a connection to the server at that IP address on port 80. (We'll discuss ports later in this article.)
Following the HTTP protocol, the browser sent a GET request to the server, asking for the file "http://computer.howstuffworks.com/web-server.htm." (Note that cookies may be sent from browser to server with the GET request -- see How Internet Cookies Work for details.)
The server then sent the HTML text for the Web page to the browser. (Cookies may also be sent from server to browser in the header for the page.)
The browser read the HTML tags and formatted the page onto your screen.
If you've never explored this process before, that's a lot of new vocabulary. To understand this whole process in detail, you need to learn about IP addresses, ports, protocols... The following sections will lead you through a complete explanation.
The Internet
So what is "the Internet"? The Internet is a gigantic collection of millions of computers, all linked together on a computer network. The network allows all of the computers to communicate with one another. A home computer may be linked to the Internet using a phone-line modem, DSL or cable modem that talks to an Internet service provider (ISP). A computer in a business or university will usually have a network interface card (NIC) that directly connects it to a local area network (LAN) inside the business. The business can then connect its LAN to an ISP using a high-speed phone line like a T1 line. A T1 line can handle approximately 1.5 million bits per second, while a normal phone line using a modem can typically handle 30,000 to 50,000 bits per second.
ISPs then connect to larger ISPs, and the largest ISPs maintain fiber-optic "backbones" for an entire nation or region. Backbones around the world are connected through fiber-optic lines, undersea cables or satellite links (see An Atlas of Cyberspaces for some interesting backbone maps). In this way, every computer on the Internet is connected to every other computer on the Internet.
A product created by Allaire Corporation of Cambridge, Mass. (in 2001, Allaire merged with Macromedia) that includes a server and a development toolset designed to integrate databases and Web pages. With Cold Fusion, a user could enter a zip code on a Web page, and the server would query a database for information on the nearest movie theaters and present the results in HTML form. Cold Fusion Web pages include tags written in Cold Fusion Markup Language (CFML) that simplify integration with databases and avoid the use of more complex languages like C++ to create translating programs. 
PHP is currently one of the most widely use scripint technology on the internet. PHP is a hypertext preprocessor, used on the server-side used to create dynamic Web pages. PHP can perform almost any task that any ASP, JSP, Cold Fusion or CGI program can do, but its strength lies in its ease of use and compatibility with the powerful Mysql database. Below are a few web hosting companies that offer good PHP and Mysql web hosting services.
