by Wes Joyner

Created on: September 12, 2008   Last Updated: December 10, 2008

The Internet has revolutionized the way people communicate, but how exactly do the individual devices on the network talk to each other? While the process involves enough technical details to fill volumes of text that could keep you reading for a lifetime, I think we can whittle it down to some broad concepts that will give you a basic understanding of how your computer chats with the world at large.

Machines don't have a particularly firm grasp on holistic thinking - that is, they don't look at anything as part of a big picture. Network devices interact in rigidly structured, easily processed pieces, and it is left to the brilliant minds of humanity to ensure our digital companions assemble those pieces correctly. The map that defines how these pieces should fit together is called a model, and it outlines how information is passed from man to machine, from its abstract to its physical electronic signal, onto another machine, and rendered for another user at the other end.

Internet transmission models are represented as various layers, each having its separate functions to prepare information for the next layer. Your Internet connection exists on the physical layer, which is the level that controls how one computer communicates with another. You can imagine the model as a triangular diagram, cut into stacked layers by drawing horizontal lines through it; this physical layer is the bottom of the triangle, representing the broadest, most cumbersome part of the entire model, and the foundation for moving information.

The model defines protocols for data exchange. A protocol is a set of rules governing a specific portion of a model layer. There are protocols for hardware specifications, encoding of various data types, and myriad other details so your computer is able to effectively communicate with another machine or even another model layer. These protocols are globally standardized, and for those who don't conform, more protocols exist to communicate between disparate platforms.

Are you still with me? Excellent! Now let's talk about how you're reading this very article!

You sat down at your computer, opened your web browser, and typed in your favorite Uniform Resource Locator (URL), also known as a Web address (http://www.helium.com. You saw this gripping title, and you simply had to read about how you're reading articles online, so you clicked the link, and your computer sprang into action to serve you this heaping helping of informative goodness.

It all starts with

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