[...] just what is a web browser and what is the difference among them?
[...] the browser is 'supposed' to interpret internet standards like Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) and more recently Extensible Markup Language (XML) [....]
It might be best
for many to take at least 1 step back from technicalities in the the soapbox exercise above (altho' I agree with the sentiments expressed).
As a preliminary, try to imagine what the once-sci-fi-only notion of an "
information appliance" (or comparable term) might be like, whether from Star Trek, the
Foundation series by Asimov, or Disney's Tomorrowland.
Now, imagine that as a traditionalist saddened by the complacency of mainstream "Catholics", you've decided to use the anniversary of the newfangled
Novus Ordo Missæ (3 Apr. 1969) as a hook for writing & distributing an educational docuмent to members of your original
Novus Ordo parish who continue to appear in its pews.
To make your case for the traditional Mass, you'd like to refer extensively to the encyclical
Mediator Dei (1947), on the liturgy, by Pope Pius XII, and to
Questioning the Validity of the Masses using the New, All-English Canon (1967), by traditionalist author Patrick Henry Omlor (
ob. 2 May 2013).
It's probably safe to assume that members of your old parish haven't got copies of papal encyclicals from 2/3 century ago. By definition, encyclicals are written for distribution, so it'd probably be fair game to photocopy a translation of the encyclical, and attach it as appendix 1 to your own writings. But (for discussion's sake, let's say) Omlor's work is no longer 'in print'; if you can arrange to get your hands on a borrowed copy, 1 option is to spend serious quality time with a photocopier, page after page, until you've got it all. Alas, it still won't be
your intellectual property to distribute: It's
Omlor's. Considering that he's on our side, and maybe derives
all his income from writing, simply photocopying it as your appendix 2, if not a matter of
theft, would be at least uncharitable. Even if you decided that his death freed you from those concerns, I'm assuming that your docuмent with only 2 sources thus far, each included as an appendix, is already getting rather long. So your prospective photocopying/printing costs would be climbing quickly, never mind postage. Do you have any more appealing options?
If you were writing original material on the
World-Wide Web (which is just 1 of the many aspects of the
Internet), you wouldn't need to actually get your hands on hardcopy of those 2 referenced docuмents. You would simply incorporate a special reference, known as a
hyperlink (nowadays usually--less hyperbolically--called a
link), to each docuмent. Your goal for access would then be met simply by finding
where the 2 docuмents reside on line--
if they do, of course.
This brings us back to the basic function of a
browser: It's the software component that's most visible to a user within that "information appliance", and is used like an
application program (pay no attention to Microsoft's fraudulent insistence that its browser is a
fundamental part of its operating system). It interprets addresses of links to
information on the Web, then loads & displays whatever it finds at those links. How does it get to the original material that you wrote? By a user giving it a Web address that has the same syntax as a Web address in a link. Clever, no?
In this example, you'd be in luck: Unlike with some other encyclicals, the Vatican Web site has this Pius XII encyclical on line (odd how the Vatican somehow hasn't got other antimodernist encyclicals by Pius IX, Leo XIII, Pius X, and Pius XI on line). But this one can be easily found with a search engine of your choice. Also this work by Omlor, identified as "Internet release with permission of the author", on what bills itself as "the Aquinas site".
So praise the Lord, then look for the best place in your original writing to insert 1 hyperlink each to those 2 docuмents. That's after your writing has explained
why a skeptical
Novus Ordo reader should care about them at all. The links might not be especially effective if you fail to explain what the reader should expect to find, or be looking for, when arriving at each linked docuмent. One thing the reader typically wouldn't care about is whether--or not--the referenced docuмents are actually being loaded from the same place on the Internet where he|she located & loaded your writing: Each docuмent is just a file to be loaded, using a particular standard type of digital communication. At least as things stand in the U.S.A., once a reader is logged on to an Internet service, there's no greater charge for that reader's
browser to load a file from overseas than from a neighboring county or shire (e.g.: Vatican City vs. south-central Texas).
Beware that the notion of
information on the Web is extremely broad, and often referred to by the sterile-sounding collective term "content" (as phrased in the collective language in which, e.g., corporations no longer "deliver product
s ", but instead "ship product"). "Content" encompasses digital data ranging from incisive writing, excellent photographic images, newsworthy video, and award-winning movies and t.v., thro' silly frivolities, the alleged wisdom of Bart Simpson, juvenile bloated 1-MB video loops showing "celebrities" doing nothing more than shaking their heads or wagging their fingers, all the waaay down to discussion, still images, or video of disgusting activity in the metaphorical gutter.