You bake cookies on a regular basis and leave them on your computer every time you use it. Cookies are small files which are stored on your computer and are designed to hold a modest amount of data specific to a particular client and website. Cookies can be accessed either by the web server or the client computer. Cookies allow the server to deliver a webpage tailored to particular user’s preferences, or the page itself can contain smart script which is aware of the data in the cookie and is able to carry information from one visit to the website to the next.
What Ingredients are in a Cookie?
Each cookie contains pairs of values known as the key and data (i.e. firstname, john). Once the cookie has been read by the code on the server or client computer, the data can be retrieved and used to customize the web page.
When are Cookies Created?
Data is added to a cookie when a new webpage is loaded. If cookies are enabled the the data handling page on a website would be responsible for storing the values in a cookie. If cookies are disabled the write operation will fail, and websites which rely on the cookie will either have to utilize a default action, or prompt the user to re-enter the information that would have been stored in the cookie.
Note: Cookies can only be used to store information that the user has volunteered or that the web server already has. It is possible that this information could be made available to specific third party websites.
Tim Grier
Computer Magician
CET Computer Magic
704-677-3035
