Journal #1.1: Chapters 1-3

Journal #1.1: Chapters 1-3

I am already very familiar with all of the material laid out in this first reading and am glad the author brought up all of this up right off the bat. I think it is an understatement to say how necessary it is for you (me, us, whatever) to understand everything covered in these first three chapters, especially Chapter 2, "How the Web Works". Web Page Addresses (URLs) section lays out one of the most important concepts and is actually a little too simplified, but it does provide a good entry point into how devices interact and communicate with each other and the internet. I'm just going to jump into a couple of questions and answers to maybe help some of you better understand the URL topic laid out in Chapter 2.

Question 1: Why all the acronyms? FDQN and TLD

A: The acronyms are what will get you utterly confused when learning anything about electronics and technology. Get used to it! Our first acronym was actually mentioned in the reading though not by name, in Chapter 2, under Web Page Addresses (URLs). Understanding the breakdown of a URL is a necessity!

So what is a Fully Qualified Domain Name (FDQN) and what does it have to do with a URL?  A FDQN pretty much is a URL, without all the stuff after the .com/blah/blah134@#$!465.23412.jspx. The FDQN consists of a host and domain name, and includes the top level domain. For example,www.example.com is a fully qualified domain name, where the www is considered the host, example represents the second level domain, and.com is the top level domain (TLD). A FQDN always starts with a host name and continues, with all the sub domains all the way up to the top-level domain name. So www.store.apple.com, www.iforgot.apple.com and www.developer.apple.com are FDQNs, while www.apple.com/retail and www.apple.com/support are URLs. We need to be aware of this especially when working with web server infrastructure.

Question 2: Will there be any other TLDs?

A: Yes, there will be more TLDs in the future. Meet gTLDs, or generic Top Level Domains! This is one of the most important developments in the current history of the internet as it will broaden the base of gTLDs available on the marketplace. This is going to unlock new combinations of web addresses, the amount of which is daunting. What if you could buy www.apple.apple or www.google.google? These are the questions facing the Internet Corporation For Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) for implementing the new gTLDs, as they are in charge of what can be used as a TLD (again, whatever is after the secondary domain name (.com, .org, .edu, etc)). ICANN's website has a section dedicated to gTLDs if you are interested in learning more about the future of the internet, here http://newgtlds.icann.org/en/about/program .

Dan's Useful Tip:

Lorem Ipsum - This infamous Latin text was painstakingly assembled in the 1500's by an unknown publisher and has been used in the field ever since. It useful because of it has a normal distribution of words and punctuation but isn't actually in english and doesn't cause distraction. I suggest generating some of the text from the website and inserting it into your projects if you don't have enough content or text to see what a final product will look like. Generating the Lorem Ipsum text can be done for free using this website http://www.lipsum.com/