Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional in 10 Minutes

By Dorothy Burke and Jane Calabria

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • About the Authors
  • Introduction
  • Conventions Used in This Book
  • Lesson 1. Navigating Windows 2000 Professional
  • Lesson 2. Working with a Window
  • Lesson 3. Using Menus
  • Lesson 4. Using Windows 2000 Professional Help
  • Lesson 5. Using Dialog Boxes
  • Lesson 6. Working with Multiple Windows and Applications
  • Lesson 7. Copying, Moving, and Linking Between Windows and Applications
  • Lesson 8. Using My Computer
  • Lesson 9. Managing Files with My Computer
  • Lesson 10. Using WordPad
  • Lesson 11. Understanding File Properties and the Recycle Bin
  • Lesson 12. Printing
  • Lesson 13. Using My Network Places
  • Lesson 14. Using the Control Panel
  • Lesson 15. Using Outlook Express Mail
  • Lesson 16. Sharing Workstations and Setting Passwords
  • Lesson 17. Using Internet Explorer 5
    • Starting Internet Explorer 5
    • Navigating the IE5 Window
    • The IE5 Toolbars
    • Navigating a Web Page
    • Reading URLs
    • Visiting a Web Site
    • Understanding Links
    • Understanding Caching
  • Lesson 18. Web Site and Document Searching
  • Lesson 19. Troubleshooting, Restarting, and Disaster Planning
  • Lesson 20. Customizing the Windows 2000 Environment

Reading URLs

Every file on every computer on the Internet has an address at which it can be located. Internet computers use something called Uniform Resource Locators, or URLs, to specify the locations of these files. A URL looks something like this:

http://www.mcp.com/que/sample.html

The first part of the URL, the part that precedes the colon (:), indicates the type of resource being accessed, or more appropriately, its protocol; or set of rules computers use to communicate over the Internet.

In the example, the resource type, or protocol, http, tells you the document is a Web page, and that the computers will use the Hypertext Transfer Protocol to transfer the file to your computer. You might encounter other protocols as well, such as ftp (file transfer protocol), gopher, nntp (network news transfer protocol), and so on. A colon and a double slash follow the protocol name.

Next comes the domain name of the server that contains the resource being addressed. The domain name may consist of several parts. The WWW in this case is short for World Wide Web, and mcp is short for Macmillan Computer Publishing. The .com part at the end tells you that this site is a commercial enterprise. Other extensions you may encounter include .gov (government), .edu (education), .org (non-profit organization), . mil (military), and .net (Internet Service Provider). These three letter extensions are used mostly in the United States. Two-letter extensions are used outside the United States to designate a country. Table 17.3 lists some common two-letter extensions.

Table 17.3. Partial listing of two-letter Extensions

After the computer name is the location and name of the file on the computer. It is separated from the computer name by a single slash. The file may be located in the root directory or a subdirectory. The names of the directories precede the filename and are separated from each other and the filename by single forward slashes. In the example, the file, sample.html, is located in the que directory.

Here is the URL address again:

http://www.mcp.com/que/sample.html

and here are its parts:

protocol//domain_name/directory/filename

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