Joy of Access: URLs Just Want to Have Fun

Read at your own risk

2011 October 1/10:32 PM

This document dates from the early web period, and is kept for archival purposes only. It is no longer updated, and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate.
  1. Passwords and Security
  2. Joy of Access
  3. The Web

If you get on the net, you’ll see lots of talk about URLs. An URL is a Universal Resource Locator. It’s really meant to tell computers how to get around on the net, but it has ended up being used to tell people how to get around on the net.

A URL looks like:

service://host/filepath

The “service” is usually one of “http”, “gopher” or “ftp”, but there are quite a few others. The “host” is the name of the computer that the site calls home, and the “filepath” tells you where on that computer the site, or the file that you’re looking for, is.

  1. Passwords and Security
  2. Joy of Access
  3. The Web