having a web server turned on doesn't necessarily mean you are serving pages on the world wide web. its what allows you to load your own static files (.html, .js etc.) in a browser via http://.

if you're not sure whether or not you have a web server running, no problem! its easy to confirm.

Each of these commands will run an ad hoc http static server in your current (or specified) directory, available at http://localhost:8000. Use this power wisely.

Discussion on reddit.

$ python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000