Marine Glossary

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Internet

A collection of worldwide computer links (hard wire connections vie telephone lines) that allow computers to be connected throughout the world. It was initially intended for communications between research universities and various military and government agencies, but it has slowly over the years, and then extremely rapidly in the past year or so, expanded into worldwide public use. The internet is discussed in detail in ART-29.

Many computers around the world have weather data and weather map selections available for public use via an internet connection. The internet is, in many ways, the best source of up to date weather available.

Weather resources on the internet are discussed in RES-23, but we recommend that readers periodically check our own web page at http://www.starpath.com for the latest links. These reference addresses (called URLs for universal resource locator) change often. We will try to keep the ones we recommend up to date on our home page.

Note that the phrase "web address" is often used for URL. They usually begin with http://www.... followed by the name of location. In all of these addresses, every letter and space is crucial. Sometimes the http:// is left off in printing the address, since it is the same for all of them. Modern browser programs often do not need this, but it is safest to type it in for each address when accessing it.

See also computer terminology.