1. Know more terminology - Internet, Web, Link, Browser...
2. Understand what a browser is and how you can use it
3. Be able to Search for information on the Web
4. Know how to get to a web page if you know the address/URL
5. ...and you might just pick up a few other things

To get to the next page and continue with the class you need to "click" on the "link" below.

All that really means is that you have to move the mouse until a hand,,appears over where it says Click Here below and then press and release the left side mouse button one time. (If it doesn't work the first time, try it till it does)

You're doing great so far. I just want to stop for a second and explain a little better what a link is. A link, also called a hyperlink, is merely a connector from one place to another. Sometimes it connects you from part of a document to another, sometimes it's from one document to another. It's also one of the main ways that you'll use to move around on the web.

So far, the links we've been clicking on have said "Click here..." and have been blue underlined text (or purple if they had already been clicked on). Usually on the web, links won't tell you to click on them. Instead they'll be just be part of the page.

The Internet, created in the 1960's, is a worldwide network of computers. These computers "host" different types of services - e-mail, chat, newsgroups, ftp, telnet, and the World Wide Web.

The World Wide Web, created in the 1990's, is the largest and fastest growing part of the Internet (>1,000,000,000 pages), it's main feature is that it allows for multimedia content (colors, pictures, movies, sounds, etc.)

I like to think of the Internet/Web in terms of Cable TV - The Internet is the wires, cables, boxes on your TV, etc. the Web would be the shows that you watch.   Therefore, there could be an Internet without a Web, but there couldn't be a Web without the Internet.

P.S. Nobody owns or controls the Internet or the Web. Additionally, there is no organized structure - there's no one place to start or finish and no one makes a catalog of all that's available.

Ok, the next area we need to look at is what's known as the browser. For this class we're using a program called Netscape Navigator to "surf the web". Netscape Navigator is known as a browser because it let's us see documents which have been created for the WWW. Another popular browser is Internet Explorer, although it does the same general thing as Netscape Navigator, it has some different names for buttons, etc. To see each of the toolbars side by side Click here.

Top

Menu bar:

Toolbar: (Don't click here when instructed, click on the real toolbar above)

Back - Takes you back to the previous document.

Forward - Moves you to the next document (only works after back has been used).

Reload - Reloads the current page. Helpful to ensure that you have the most current content and if part of a page does not load.

Home - Programed to take you to a "starting point". At the library clicking on Home will take you to the Library's homepage, at home it will go to wherever your ISP has set it.

Search - Takes you to a Search Page where you can use various Search Engines to look for information.

My Netscape - Takes you to a page that you can customize.

Print - Will print the current document to the printer. If you would like to see what the document will look like before you print it, there is a preview option: Click on the word "File", then click on the words "Print Preview".

Security - Shows you whether or not you are on a "Secure" site (The padlock locks when on a secure site).You do NOT control whether a site is secure or not that is up to the company trying to sell you something.

Stop - Stops a transfer of information from another computer.

Location Bar:

The Uniform Resource Locator (Address) of the page you are currently viewing is displayed on the Location Bar, to the right of the word Location or Netsite.

If you have an address (something like xxx.xxx.xxx) of a website, it's very easy to get to it. Just do one of the following:

Method One: Single click on the word "File" on the toolbar Click on "Open Page" from the menu that appears A window will appear on your screen In the window you'll see a box with | (the cursor blinking) Just type the address you want to go to in the box Click on the "Open" button and you'll go to the site

Method Two: Single click into the location bar just to the right of the address that's there now Press the backspace key to eliminate the text that's there You will see a black blinking line, the cursor, in the location field Type in the address you have and then press the Enter key

One very big thing to remember is that if you have an address don't search on it...just go to it. Searching on an address is like looking in a phone book for a # you already have.

Now we're going to try it - we're going to leave the fun world of this class and head out to another place on the Web. We're going to go to Yahoo (www.yahoo.com), a great directory of web sites for those new to the web. Now just follow the directions above and use www.yahoo.com as the address. 

Don't forget...to get back to this page all you have to do is use the Back button on the toolbar above.

To the left of the screen you'll see a "table of contents" for this section of the class. This page is done in something known as frames...in general when you click on something in one frame the new content shows up in the other frame. We'll be starting with the link for "Things to Remember"

When you're done exploring the items to the left just click on the link that says "Next" and you'll go to the last page of the class.

Note: some Subject Guides (Directories) won't let you search them and they'll just be link lists. (I'm not a big fan of these).

The input screen will just about always have at least a search box and submit button that look something like this:

In General you won't actually see the database, but what's in it matters more than just about anything. The database is the area where a Search Tool stores information that is being searched. A search tool doesn't go out and look all over the web when each new search takes place, rather the search tool collects information beforehand and stores it in a place known as the database. When you do a search you are merely searching this area (don't get upset - these databases can be HUGE).

Some databases contain the full text from a website, some contain only short descriptions, some contain all the words-images-sounds, etc. etc.. It will help you immensely to know what it is you're searching. For example, ever wonder why you seem to get a lot of sites that have nothing to do with the word or words your searched for - well if you're looking in a full text search tool like HotBot or AltaVista it could be because the words you're looking for show up "somewhere" on the page.

The Results screen will generally be a list of URL's or Categories (if you're working with directories). Results screens are also sometimes called "hit" lists as these are the pages that were "hit" when a certain term was used. In the example below from HotBot, there are three hits from a Search I did on "toy poodle breeders"

1. What you want might not be out there.
      NEC Research Institute estimates that there are roughly 1,000,000,000 web pages. However, this doesn't mean that someone necessarily published the exact information that you are looking for. Be aware of this especially if you're looking for something that might be obscure (e.g. a list of all the people who served in a particular military regiment during the revolutionary war).
2. What you want might be out there, but not as you're thinking of it.
      Never forget that since no two people think exactly alike, the person who published information that you might find useful may have used different words to describe the same thing. For example, some people use the word taxi some use the word cab. In Europe, people use the term holiday instead of vacation. Therefore, don't be shy about using different terms when searching for information.
3. What you want may be out there but not for free.
      While there is A LOT of information on the Web that is free, there is also some information which you have to pay for. Two of the biggest examples of this are magazine articles and in-depth business information. Generally, most major magazines have websites, however the website usually exists to advertise their publication. Some will offer full text of their magazines, some will offer full text of old issues, some will offer only an article title and a paragraph or so describing the article, etc. etc. Business information (Online trading is the 2nd most popular thing to do on the Web), is another thing which is generally free, but will sometimes cost money. For example, you can find stock quote information in many places for free, but if you wanted to formulate several stock quotes together and run various types of comparisons you might have to pay to subscribe to a service that has the information assembled that way.
4. People are generally helpful, if you ask a question, you'll usually get an answer.
      The World Wide Web has only been around since 1993, because of that just about everyone remembers when they first "got on" and how lost they might have become. For that reason people are usually helpful when you ask a question. This pertains anywhere from the person that you're sitting next to in a computer lab, to an e-mail address on a website. Besides it always makes people feel smart when they can answer questions.
5. EVERY Search Tool works differently.
      Generally there are Subject Guides (Directories), Search Engines, and Meta Search Engines. Each one of these works differently some are like contents of a book, some are more like the index of a book, and some are like an index to several books. Additionally, just to make life more interesting - each directory site can work differently, each Search Engine can work differently, etc.
6. No Search Tool covers the entire World Wide Web
      As was said earlier there are approximately 1,000,000,000 Web pages out there. The BIGGEST Search Tools cover @600,000,000-800,000,000 of those pages. Therefore it's important to use more than one tool when your looking to find lots of information on a topic.

Advantages:
- Hand-selected sites picked by editors, more or less carefully
- Organized into hierarchical subject categories
- Often annotated with descriptions (not in Yahoo!)
- Browse subject categories or search using broad, general terms
- Can be used to find sites similar to one that you like. I.E. type the name of a site that you like (not the URL) and when you search it will bring up categories that that site is listed in...by choosing the category you can see other related sites

Disadvantages:
- NO full-text of documents. Can search only the subject categories and descriptions.
- Because they are usually reviewed by editors or subject specialists, Subject Guides generally cover less material than a Search Engines or MetaSearch Engines.
- Possible that the site reviewer(s) doesn't think like you and may categorize something not in a way that you would.

Ok what all this really means is this - Search Engines have huge databases or warehouses of information. You can look for all the things in that warehouse which match a word or set of words. I generally like to think of a Search Engine like the index of a book. An index will tell you where in the book a word occurs, but it usually doesn't provide you with any context. For example, it will say world wide web, page 92, but it won't say if it's going to define the web, tell you how to search it, tell you about the history of the web, etc.

Advantages:
- Full-text searching of selected Web pages (in most cases)
- Search by keyword, trying to match exactly the words in the pages
- Their databases are generally much larger than subject guides

Disadvantages:
- Limited browsing, no subject categories
- Databases compiled by "spiders" (computer-robot programs) with minimal human oversight
- Search-Engine size: from small and specialized to a large percentage of the indexable Web
- You sometimes turn up "garbage" hits. Hits that come up because the word you searched on somehow appeared on the site.