http://opensourcebridge.org/sessions/55

Excerpt

You click on a link and you can't get to your favorite web site. Now what? Is the web site down? Is it your connection? Is it something in between? How can you figure out what's wrong if you don't know how it works? We'll show you everything that happens after you click a link so next time the web site is down you'll know what to do to fix it.

Description

Most users have only a vague idea of how the web works. They click on a link and their precious pictures of baby zoo animals come up… somehow. Something about HTTP or HTML… there’s a server somewhere… and some magic rainbow ponies to carry all the data around. Without knowing how it works, you can’t solve even the most basic problems. This is why you’ll hear other people ask, “is Google down for anyone else?”

We’ll explain it all. You’ll learn enough to know how it all works and what might have broken. We’ll explain how your web browser talks to web servers, how web pages show up on your screen, and what you can do to take control of your browser. How your computer knows what server to talk to and how the Internet gets information from point A to point B without anyone “owning” the Internet. We’ll explain lots of acronyms you might have heard before and what they do: HTML, HTTP, DNS, TCP, and UDP all on the PDQ with extra TLC and a touch of LOL to boot.

After this talk you’ll have a broad understanding of how the web and its plumbing works.