Absolute links describe the full navigation path to a file. You must use these kind of links when connecting outside the web server where the documents are kept. Absolute links become a problem if you use them for the HTML documents you create on a desktop machine and then publish the documents to a web server. The problem arises when the file is moved to grace.rit.edu The file address will remain current with Joe's HD not grace. Shortcut names to explain where a file is located relative to another document.
Relative paths make it easy to move web pages from one server to another.
To connect me. These are easiest to manage for beginner web developers. If you choose to use relative paths, Dreamweaver will prompt you whenever you wander outside the site folder. It will then offer to copy the documents or images into the site folder.