Welcome
to the Web!
The
Internet and the World Wide Web (WWW) are great places to
be. We use the term "place" because so many of the
things you can do online are similar to the things you can
do wherever people gather together - in homes, schools,
libraries, shopping centres, parks, or at family
get-togethers or public meetings. The Net allows people to
learn, shop, find crucial information, and to participate in
communities, whether they're local, global, or simply
virtual. In these chapters that we've written about the Net,
the World Wide Web, we hope to convey just a little of the
excitement we feel when we make our way online...
But Is It
Useful?
The Web is
useful: You can find old friends online. You can research
and book flight reservations. Check the weather. Find
breaking news. Research political issues. Follow your stock
portfolio. Place a classified ad. And, of course, more and
more retailers are setting up shop on the Web. Books. CDs.
Computers. Even cars. You can learn how to do some of these
activities in later sections of this tutorial.
The
Internet is also fun. You can write to old friends. Or check
out their web pages. Browse through sites about weird stuff
like ant farms, belt-sander races, staring contests, and
huge balls of string. Enjoy web-based soap operas. Laugh at
online parodies and jokes. Join in a live Net Event. Chat
with other Internet surfers. Check to see if your name
appears anywhere on the Web. Do wacky random searches.
Millions of users log on to the Net every day, and it's not
just to do research. There's a lot of fun out there. That's
one reason it's called web "surfing."
I'm Just
Browsing
Of
course, the first step to using the Web for business or for
fun is learning to use a "web browser." If you're
new to computers, it may take a while before you are
completely comfortable with your browser. Don't worry. You
don't have to be a computer whiz. The basics of a web
browser are very much like the basics of modern computers -
learning how to point and click with the mouse (or trackball
or trackpad or other pointing device), learning how to
scroll up and down a page of text (use the mouse to move the
marker along the shaded bar at the right of the page, or
just hit the space bar on your keyboard), and learning how
to use pull-down menus. Again, be patient. There's no time
limit on web surfing. Give yourself a chance to explore the
browser itself while you explore the Web.
Bookmark Your
Territory
One of
the most useful features of web browsers is the
"bookmark" (or "favourite place"). If
you come to a web page that you find particularly
interesting or useful (like www.spflimited.co.uk, you'll
probably want to come back to it again and again!!. The
easiest way to do this is to have your browser
"remember" the address. Different browsers have
different ways of creating bookmarks - some use pull-down
menus and others have buttons right on the screen.
Once a
bookmark is created, you can then easily return to that web
page by pulling down the bookmark menu and selecting the
appropriate entry. Another good skill to learn is how to
edit the text of a bookmark. The default text for a bookmark
is contained in the web page you're bookmarking, and it's
not always the most useful title. By editing the bookmark
text, you can make sure that your bookmarks are clear and
effective. The point is: Take the time to learn how
bookmarks work in your browser.
Ready, Steady,
Go!
So, after
starting to learn how your browser works, where do you go?
What do you do? There's no right answer to this one. The
Internet doesn't have a front door. But there are lots of
way to get started. Make a bookmark to an Internet guide
like Yahoo! or a search engine like Google or Alta Vista.
Explore. Search for web sites about one of your hobbies.
Football. Mountain bikes. Crossword puzzles. Find web sites
about your home town. Follow links to other sites listed on
the site you're visiting. Just go find web sites. Read 'em,
bookmark 'em, print 'em out. Send the URLs (the web
addresses) to friends. Ask friends and colleagues for
recommendations. Now you're networking. Now you're surfing
the Web. Congratulations!
