.uk is the Internet country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the United Kingdom. Today it is the fifth most popular top-level domain worldwide (after .com, .de, .net and .cn), with over 6 million registrations tlds/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.denic.de/en/domains/statistiken/domainvergleich_tlds/index.html.

The use of .uk rather than .gb for the top-level domain is due to its pre-existing use in the (now obsolete) JANET Name Registration Scheme in which the order of address components were reversed. .uk was made available in _DNS to simplify the translation to and from these addresses. There were plans for eventual transition to .gb to accord with correct usage, but this never occurred; the use of .uk is now entrenched as it is impossible to register a .gb domain.

As with other ccTLDs in the early days it was originally delegated to an individual by Jon Postel. In time, it passed to Dr Willie Black at the UK Education and Research Networking Association (UKERNA). Originally, Domain requests were emailed, manually screened by and then forwarded to the UK Naming Committee before being processed by UKERNA. This Committee was in practice a mailing list of representatives of all organisations involved in the UK Internet system at the time.

By the mid-1990s the growth of the Internet, and particularly the advent of the World Wide Web was pushing requests for domain name registrations up to levels that were not manageable by a group of part-time voluntary managers. Oliver Smith of Demon Internet forced the issue by providing the committee with a series of automated tools, called the "automaton", which formalised and automated the naming process end to end. This allowed many more registrations to be processed far more reliably and rapidly, and inspired individuals such as Ivan Pope to explore more entrepreneurial approaches to registration.

Various plans were put forward for the possible management of the domain, mostly Internet service providers seeking to stake a claim, each of which were naturally unacceptable to the rest of the committee. In response to this Dr Black, as the .uk Name, stepped up with a bold proposal for a not-for-profit commercial entity to deal with the .uk domain properly. Commercial interests initially balked at this, but with widespread support Nominet UK was formed to be the .uk Network Information Centre, a role which it continues to this day.

The general form of the rules (i.e. which domains can be registered and whether to allow second level domains) was set by the Naming Committee. Nominet has not made major changes to the rules, although it has introduced a new second level domain .me.uk for individuals.

It is prohibited to register a domain name directly under .uk (such as internet.uk) and a second-level domain must be used (such as internet.co.uk).

However, some domains delegated before the creation of Nominet UK remain. Examples include blank">parliament.uk (_Parliament), blank">bl.uk and british-library.uk (the _British Library), blank">nls.uk (the _National Library of Scotland), blank">nhs.uk (The National Health Service), and jet.uk (_UKAEA as operator of the Joint European Torus experimental fusion tokamak). No new 'normal' registrations at the second level are accepted although there is a system for allocating new second level domains to expand the capacity of the system. Such allocations are rarely made.

It is possible to directly register a domain name with Nominet UK but it is faster and cheaper to do it via a Nominet tag holder.

The Żuk (pl. beetle) was a van produced in Lublin, Poland, between 1958 and 1997 by FSC and based indirectly on a Chevrolet car of the 1940s. Chevrolet sold the rights and equipment to build the car to a Russian factory (GAZ-M20 Pobeda), who then sold on the rights to the FSO car factory in Warsaw, Poland, where the production was continued as a FSO Warszawa. The chassis and suspension from FSO Warszawa formed the basis of the Żuk and the Nysa light vans designed in the late 1950s.

The Żuk was mainly sold to state organizations and also to individuals, while the Nysa formed the mainstay of the military and militia. After 1989, when Poland became a democracy, the government found itself unable to keep buying as many vans and Nysa was soon in financial difficulties, while on the other hand the Żuk was able to maintain sales to the traditional markets and expand the number sold into private hands. The final few years of production was in parallel to its successor, the Lublin van, as a cheaper alternative.

The Żuk came in a range of body styles and, rare for a van, had independent front suspension. It was very angular, with a number of wide channels running along the side of the body and a completely flat windscreen/windshield. After about ten years in production the front of the cab was restyled, from then on the distinctive side channels no longer continued around onto the front to meet the grille. No further changes were made, except to a minor change to the number of vents located above the headlights.

The Żuk was a favourite of farmers, and a common place to find groups of them was at any local market when they were used to transport crops from the fields to the farmers own stalls. The Polish postal service (Poczta Polska) used large numbers of Żuks painted in a dull orange colour, and local fire services used them as personnel carriers or even as mini fire engines in country districts.