Week Four Objectives:
- Internet for Beginners – learn the anatomy of a webpage, where to click, where to type.
- What is a search engine, how to use them, a few search engines to try.
Internet for Beginners
Before jumping on the internet, there are a few things that you need to know to help you have a wonderful experience and to be able to navigate successfully, now and always.
First, is its anatomy:
Nearly every “window” that’s open on the internet, regardless of what browser is used to get there, will look very similar to this one pictured here.
First, on your PC, every window that you open that is an application (software of some sort) will have those three little buttons in the upper right hand corner. The one that’s on the left with the straight line on it means “minimize.” What happens when its clicked is that the window is “sucked” down into the application bar at the bottom of your screen and removed from your immediate view.
Next to this is a button that has either a single box or two boxes. This button allows you to change the size of the window as it appears on your monitor. Meaning, I can make my page either stretch all the way top to bottom, across my monitor screen or I can resize this window to my liking. (in class demo)
The “X” in the box is the right-most button of these three and when pressed will immediately close whatever window you are using. Sometimes it will ask you “Are you sure you wish to close ____…” and you will have a “yes” or “no” to choose from. Other times, depending on what application you are using, the window just closes immediately when you click this button.
At the very top of your window, you will see what is called the “Titlebar.” A title bar is the section at the top of a window that contains the name or description of the window. Nearly all windows displayed on your computer have a title bar. Therefore, if several windows are tiled across the screen at one time, a user can identify each window by just glancing at the title bar.
Under this, there is the “Menu” bar – it offer you a variety of choices including opening a new tab or a new window, Bookmarking a website to go back to it easily again in the future in a single click, and many more.
There are two scroll bars: vertical and horizontal. Position your mouse on either of the arrows and scroll up, down or right or left to see all that you desire to see that’s on a webpage.
Additional Information
This is somewhat universal for all programs and the internet.
Keyboard Shortcuts
Control + A Select All
Control + C Copy
Control + P Print
Control + S Save
Control + V Paste
Control + X Cut (to remove)
Control + Z Undo
Control + + increases the size of the items on your screen
Control + – reduces the size of the items on your screen
Browser Specific Shortcuts
Introduction to the Internet
Next up is the Address Bar. Don’t be fooled by all the letters and sometimes numbers that are associated with this web address bar. We are going to break this down for you so you can begin to understand what this all means and how it applies to you.
First, typically a web address will begin with http:// — the http stands for “hyper-text transfer protocol.” Hypertext is a multi-linear set of objects, building a network by using logical links (the so-called hyperlinks) between the nodes (e.g. text or words). HTTP is the protocol to exchange or transfer hypertext. A fancy way to say that your computer is communicating.
Next is “www” – which does mean “world wide web” which is a global information medium where users can read and write via computers connected to the Internet. The term is often mistakenly used as a synonym for the Internet itself, but the Web is a service that operates over the Internet, just as e-mail also does.
After that, is what is called the “domain name.” Many companies are fortunate enough to have their precise name as their domain name. Such as if you are looking for Amazon’s website, its www.amazon.com. The same applies most large corporations.
The final portion of the web address is the “dot something” or suffix which indicates what type of entity it is you are seeing on the internet. Here are some of the most common domain extensions you will encounter on the internet:
.com = a commercial entity
.org = organization
.edu = educational institution
.gov = government site
.mil = military site
.net = network administrator site
This web address is also called a URL, which means Uniform (or universal) resource locator, the address of a World Wide Web page.
Web addresses are no different than street addresses. Just as your home address defines the precise location of where it is you live, the URL define precisely where on the world wide web that a particular website lives.
Search Engines
Keeping in mind that while we still have amazing public libraries at our disposal, even right here in the valley, the internet is like a gigantic library all by itself. But how do you find what it is you are looking for in a timely and efficient manner? There are websites that do nothing but find and compile information for users. These are called search engines.
There are several major search engines and they are too numerous to list. Some of my personal favorite include:
Google.com
Yahoo.com
Bing.com
So where do you enter your text to do all this searching?
There a search field that typically has a little magnifying glass next to it. This is what Google’s looks like:
The wonderful thing about search engines is that you don’t have to know precisely what it is you are searching for, you just have to enter the most logical words for whatever it is you are seeking.
For example, if you searched for “my head hurts” you will get radically different results than if you use more common words like “headache” to define what it is you are seeking.
Additionally, after you enter your text, it is not necessary to click anywhere, you can simple hit “enter” on your keyboard and the search engine will begin finding results for you to review. Let’s take a moment and see just what it is that I mean. We will search for both “my head hurts” and “headache” then compare and contrast the results to see the difference in the data that is returned to us by those keywords.
Feel free to use different search engines and see if you garner different results. Then you can determine which one you like best.