[TomH]

To make life easy (tolerable) for the humans who have to use the Internet, (Internet Protocol or IP) addressess are translated into people friendly domain names.

In order to have order in the assignment of names, "Top Level Domain Name Authorities" (i.e. Domain Names like "DVSF.COM") are handed out by a "Dot Com" domain name authority. The way "the rest of us" know what these top level domain masters have been up to are a series of "Domain Name Servers" (DNS) that take on the chore of keeping an up to date translation list of people friendly domain names to machine friendly IP addresses. (The role of the Domain Name Server is to translate your request of "www.dvsf.com" to "199.239.130.56.") When you type "http://ww.dvsf.com" it's like making a call to the DNS server and saying "Hey! Do you know where I can find DVSF.COM?"

These DNS servers "should" refresh their lists within 72 hrs, but sometimes "stuff happens." The irony is that now that you've successfully completed a connection to DVSF.COM, you've probably triggered an update to your DSN's list that eliminates your need to use the machine friendly numbers.

Dumb it down? Hardly. The geniuses are the ones who figured out how to hide all of this stuff "under the covers" of user friendly Web browsers. Back in '94-95, this stuff was a lot harder.