WEEK TWO – Lecture

 

Browser Functions, Web Navigation, Search Strategies, E-Mail Accounts, SPAM

 

 

As we discussed last week, a short list of Interesting Internet sites will be handed out at the beginning of each class.  It is not mandatory, or a part of the class program, to use these sites. I have found them interesting, and if you have the time, I hope you will find them useful as well.

 

 

In addition to Wednesday nights, I encourage everyone to contact me by e-mail (birdesq@ix.netcom.com) or in person at the Library on Saturdays to discuss any questions or concerns you may have.

 

 

Printing information can become expensive. Therefore, I have some recycled floppy disks available for any student who wants to download information so that it can be read and/or printed it later.

 

 

Also, please remember to keep a notebook, and record the sites (with as much information as possible) so that you can cite to them later in the course.

 

 

 

CONNECTING TO THE WEB:

 

 The way to connect to the Internet from home is with a Modem (a device in the computer that allows us to connect to the telephone line). The telephone line then connects us to a company called an Internet Service Provider (ISP). The ISP connects to the World Wide Web.

 

In order to use the Internet, and e-mail, you must have access to:

 

            1. A computer, which is equipped with a modem.

            Simplified, a modem transposes what is typed on a computer screen into electrical waves, which are then sent to another computer. The computer on the other end receives the electrical waves, and uses its modem to transpose them back to something that can be read on the computer screen. (Because of the speed of new technological advances, modems are already becoming outdated by DSL (Dedicated Subscriber Line) and T3 connections.)

 

            2. A Service Provider, which supplies the bandwidth necessary to transmit the electronic waves, and for somewhere (usually around $20.00 a month) will keep you connected to the Internet. There are ISPs that do not charge anything – you can get free services. However, once again you get what you pay for - you usually also get advertising ads that stay on the screen.

 

Look at www.isps.com to find a service provider. Or, on www.THELIST.com, you can search by area code.

 

 

            (I have been using the Netscape e-mail program since Netscape was first developed around 1994. I started with Netcom in 1992, and I now use Earthlink (same company-different name) as a Service Provider.)

 

            3. A Browser. The most well-known browsers are Netscape and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

            A browser is software, that lets users read not only e-mail, but read HTML (hypertext mark-up language), and move from one document to another by clicking the words you see underlined (hypertext links).

            Once you connect to the Internet, you can use a Web browser to move from an HTML document on one computer to an HTML document on any other computer on the Internet.

 

TRANSPARANCY: You can use any e-mail program to send mail to any computer – even when the other computer has a different e-mail program. People will be able to read your e-mail, and you can read theirs, regardless of which e-mail program they use.

 

 

We will discuss URLs later when we go over search engines, but for now it is important to know that the UNIFORM RESOURCE LOCATOR: (URL is the address of a Web site on the Internet).

 

 

E-MAIL: (Electronic – Mail) Simply put, e-mail is typed-communication that is sent back and forth over the computer. You can write the message, and when you “send” that message, it gets broken into packets, each of which contains a portion of the message. The packets go separately into the Web and arrive at the Server (the person to whom you are sending it.)  From there, the packets are put back into sequence and returned.

 

This is how all data is transmitted on the Internet, not only e-mail.

 

 

The computers here in the Lab are already set up with the connection and all the software necessary to communicate by e-mail.

 

An e-mail message has two parts:

 

            1. Heading (which has several components)

                        TO:

                        FROM: Put in automatically

                        DATE:  Put in automatically

                        SUBJECT: States what the message is about

                        cc: carbon copy

                        bcc: blind carbon copy

            2. Actual message

 

It is good manners to put something in the Subject Line so that the Receiver of the message can check before deciding whether or not to open it. During the semester, when you send an email to me, please put “Internet Research Methods” in the subject-line of your email.

 

cc – the person at the address listed here receives an exact duplicate.

 

bcc – use this section when you want to send a copy of the e-mail to someone else and you do not want anyone to know you have sent a copy.

 

Either cc or To can be used to send multiple e-mails. When using “To,” type in the addresses and separate them with semi-colons.

 

Discussion of “Backflip” for saving interesting sites on the Internet so you can go back to them later.

 

SPAM -  discussion and handout.

 

 

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