In other news... Samson went on vacation last month, visiting San Diego and San Francisco (Steam Studios is all about California, baby!). And being the amateur shutterbug that he is, he brought back a ton of great pics. Exhibit A is the pic of sea lions to the left. And please, no "Yo Mama's so fat she looks like a sea lion" jokes. Steve's already been there and done that.

We've been doing our Tips and Tricks for a while now, but, unlike what it says in the header, we haven't been doing a lot of trivia. Well, that changes starting right now!

For the next few installments, we'll be concentrating on commom web "terms" and what they mean. We do a lot of web design, and we've noticed that some of our clients and associates (and no, we are not naming names) still get confused from time to time at some of the words we rattle off. Hopefully, this'll fix that. Let's start off with the VERY basic...

The Internet: Here's a shocker... the Internet and the World Wide Web are not the same thing! The Internet is a global network connecting millions of computers. Each computer that is part of the Internet (like the one that you're on right now) is an independent host that is connecting to other computers, servers and data in a vast network made up of connections from point to point. But what's a network? If you've ever had an office job that used a computer, then chances are your computer was linked up to all of the computers in that office, which allowed each computer to communicate with each other (by being able to transfer data and files such as Xcel spreadsheets). Just think of the Internet as a huge network of huge networks. (Yup. It's pretty darn big.)

World Wide Web (www): The World Wide Web is a collection of servers and computers that utilize an information-sharing model. This model allows web pages to be viewed, files to be transferred, streaming audio to be heard and on and on. Everything that you actually DO while on the Internet is based on the protocols set forth on the World Wide Web.

HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol): There are a TON of protocols associated with the World Wide Web, but the one you're most familiar with is Hypertext Transfer Protocol. Ever notice that if you type "yahoo.com" into your web browser, when the page loads you'll see "http://www.yahoo.com" in the address field? Your browser has automatically assumed that you want to view a web page and has slapped that extra text in. Simply put, HTTP is the protocol for sending the data from yahoo.com's web page to your computer so your browser can re-interpret it in a way that you can view.

Hypertext: Now that you know what Hypertext Transfer Protocol is, what exactly is Hypertext? Hypertext is a system that allows for selective linking. In all the instances that you've surfed the web, every link you've ever clicked on that took you to another page, opened up a Windows Media Player file, activated a Flash animation, etc... is due to hypertext.

HTML (Hypertext Markup Language): HTML was invented by Tim Berners-Lee in the early 80's as a way for researchers and universities to have a way to post disconnected data in a way that would allow other researchers to get through the data in any way they saw fit. So Joe Researcher would create a webpage using HTML that would allow Jane Researcher to view it on her browser, and instead of being on page 1 and sifting through pages 2-5 to get to page 6, she could click on a link on page 1 and go right to page 6! This model holds up today (you're using it right now) and is the backbone of web design.

Whew! That was a lot to take in. Since you've made it this far we'll leave you with this bit of trivia:

Did you know that the US Army is responsible for creating what we now know to be the Internet? In the late 1940's, an Army-funded research program was established in order to see if two computers could talk to one another. It succeeded in letting two supercomputers (you know the big room-filling behemoths from back in the day that had less computational power than my pocket calculator) send data back and forth. Shortly thereafter, universities began using networks of their own to share data between researchers. And then Tim Berners-Lee created HTML, which lets ANYONE create a webpage, and now here we are! Communication will never be the same.

Our newsletter! That's right! Our very own Steam Studios newsletter is one year old! (They grow up so fast, don't they? ... sniff... ) And how do we celebrate this momentous occasion? By being incredibly late.

In all fairness, we're late because of the sheer amount of work we've been busy with, and believe us... we're busy! And part of our continued success comes from this newsletter, which has been a great vehicle for staying constantly in front of our friends, clients and associates, while making new ones at the same time.

So, here's to you, Steam Studios newsletter! In one short year, you've completely destroyed our social lives AND our ability to get you out on time. Atta, boy!