Buy a computer – including modem, graphic card with 2Mb
buffer and multimedia (sound card, speakers)
Open an account with one of the internet service providers – ISPs (PTT, Unet,
MOL, or others)
You will get:
(a) An installation software on a diskette (usually someone will come to install
it for you)
(b) A username (which is also the name of your account and part of your email
address)
(c) A password – keep this secret and change it often
(d) Certain ISPs will give you a separate password for communication purposes
LET’s GO SURFING
Click on the phone (connection) icon – a window will open
Type in your password and click with the left button of the mouse “OK”
Once connected to the network (you will be informed by a separate window which
will show you the status of your modem and how much time you are connected) –
you have opened the door to the world of the internet
The internet is like a huge city with many “addresses” of “sites”. To visit
these sites, you need to have their addresses (which usually start with http://
- example:
http://samvak.tripod.com/guide.html)
You also need a “car” to take you to the sites – a special software called
“browser”. The two best known are Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.0 and Netscape
Communicator 4.61. In this demonstration we will use the Explorer because it is
user friendly.
Click on the browser icon and study the browser. You can always click on the
“Help” button to get detailed help.
To visit a site you can either:
- Click on the address if it is active (in blue color in a computer file)
OR
- copy the address (mark it, click the right button of the mouse and click copy
in the menu)
- Click “file” in the browser toolbar, then click “open” (or click the “open
button of the browser directly)
- Paste the address that you copied (click the right button of the mouse and
click paste in the menu)
- Click “open”
The browser will find the site whose address you asked for and bring you there.
Once in a site, you can click on any COLOURED (hyperlinked) text to visit other
sites.
SEARCH ENGINES
BUT WHAT IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE ADDRESS?
In other words, how do you find an address of a site? Or, even more difficult,
how do you find sites which deal with subjects you are interested in?
To do that, you need to use “Search Engines”. These are special software
applications. Look at the list of addresses you received under the heading
“search engines”. You have there the addresses of the 6 most important search
engines.
Let us exercise.
You are interested to find the addresses of tobacco organizations in the United
States. You have no idea which sites deal with this subject, let alone what are
their addresses.
Open the “Alta Vista” search engine (or any other – the biggest are Google, Alta
Vista and Northern Light, the best organized are LookSmart and Yahoo) – using
the address you have.
Type your search term: “tobacco organizations in USA” (use the “” marks).
You will get a list of sites.
Click on the colored text (the hyperlinked text).
Each title you click on will lead you to another site.
We will learn more advanced modes of searching in this seminar.
The internet is the biggest library in the world. It has everything you need
about any subject in the world. BUT, it is very chaotic.
OTHER WAYS OF KNOWING THINGS
A more orderly way of obtaining information is by:
Subscribing to specialized providers of information through subscription
databases – such as DIALOG and NEXIS-LEXIS (let’s find their addresses through
the internet)
OR
Subscribing to specialty magazines and CD-ROMs (let’s find a few of these
through the internet) – the biggest such providers are US agencies (the USDA and
even … the CIA!!!).
ELECTRONIC MAIL (E-MAIL)
When you open an account with an ISP – you get an email
address. This is YOUR address in cyberspace, in the world of the internet. It is
NOT the address of a SITE – it is your PERSONAL address and it looks like this: palma@unet.com.mk (all letters usually
small).
You can:
- Send messages
- Receive messages
- Send and receive computer files (attached to the message as attachments) –
whole documents, pictures, diagrams, faxes, EVERYTHING and you can send it at
the price of a local phone call to anywhere in the world.
- Design a special signature
