(All of the files that are served by the server are just
ordinary,
every-day files that are located in a special directory on
the server.
We call this a Web Documents directory or
folder.)
Computers and Hard Disks
"All" of the information that is stored on a computer and stays there
after the computer is turned off is stored on the hard disk:
On a Mac, this is (sort of) represented by
a computer icon somewhere on the desktop (e.g., at the top
right -- figure to right). (On a Windows box, the hard disk is
the "C:" drive in the "My Computer" icon at the top left of the
desktop.)
Organization
Everything (almost) that is stored on the
hard disk is a file, and these files are stored in
directories -- called folders. On either a Mac
or a Windows computer, double-clicking on the hard disk icon shows
these directories and files, for example, as shown in the figure to
the left. In this and in all cases we will choose to view
the files and folder as a list, rather than as just icons,
because this gives a better feel for how different files and
directories are related. (On a Windows computer,
this view is most easily obtained with the "Windows explorer," rather
than the "My Computer" icon.)
Subdirectories
Within any directory on the disk, there can be both files and other
directories (subdirectories of the upper-level directory) -- as
shown to the right. We think of a file system as this
tree of directories starting with the top level of the hard disk.
This is important because files on the Web are just
files that are in a special subdirectory on a computer
running special software.
There are two views of this: the list, with subdirectories shown indented below the containing directory as in the figure to the right, and with the directory shown as a new window (obtained by double clicking on it).
(Technically the disk can
also be partitioned into different sections, each of which is
separately represented as a hard disk or directory -- the hard
disk itself is then like the "hard disk" image in the second picture
above, with the partitions being like "directories" in the hard disk.
The difference is that while a directory can fill up as much space as
is available, the partition has a fixed size. It is at this point
that we really talk about file systems, but we're not going to dwell
on this subtlety.)
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