.gov

I am sure that somebody have noticed this but 'fbi.gov' and 'cia.gov' and maybe otherz doesn't work if you write it without the 'www' while 'whitehouse.com' works without the 'www'

pleaz execuse me it this issue has been discussed before but I was surprised, what I know is that the 'www' doesn't matter, I don't know

thank you

Xenia

Actually it all depends on your dns entries. If you set fbi.gov to go to your mail server (just an example) and www.fbi.gov resolves to your web server (different machine than mail server) then your browser's port 80 request for fbi.gov doesn't get answered because there is no web server running on the email server.

Hope that helps

yea, it isnt just .gov sites, it every site, but it depends on how it is setup. simple sites can be setup wrong and need to www. to funtion. for example. if you goto:

http://dynalink.com and click on the download link it will be an invalid page. if you goto:
http://www.dynalink.com and click on the download link it will all work fine.

as with this page, the index.* can work ok, but its the links after that, that make it bugger up

I think the important thing to remember is that when you type in the domain name, whether it is strictly the domain name (domain.tld) or it has a subdomain attached to it (subdomain.domain.tld) You are dealing with a name that's there so human's can understand it and relay them easier. You are still dealing with the underlying IP Address, after all that's what defines the computer on the Network and that's why we have Name Server's and dns entries.

It can actually be a cool way to make a lil money. Say you own a domain (music.com.. which i'm sure is registered already.. but it'll work) and say you have control over your DNS Entries. well you're paying for your hosting, domain name etc. why not make a lil back. So find bands, local or otherwise and charge them 5 dollars a year (istead of the 8 - 30 that domain registrars are charging) and give them the subdomain bandname.music.com pointed at whatever IP address they want.

The big thing to remember is that the www isn't neccessarily. it was put there to define that the server the name is attached to is a webserver.. similar to mail. pop3. and smtp. news. whatever... my server for example is tyler.reguly.net and it's my desktop where as www.reguly.net is located down in brazil.