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"The Internet"- like any other abstract word, the internet is extremely difficult to understand and even more difficult to define. Simply put (I hope), the internet is nothing more than many computers communicating with each other over the phone system. Each computer, programmed by a user, contains whatever the user wants to offer to people who visit their computer (who dial up to their computer). The way people connect to other computers starts off at home or the office. You have along with Windows 95 some internet tools- mainly Microsoft Internet Explorer, which allows you to browse the world wide web, which we will explore later. Along with Windows 95 and its internet tools is a utility called TCP/IP. This is a utility which allows your modem to connect to another computer's modem. The other computer that you connect to is called a server. This server has hundreds of modems, allowing hundreds of other computers to access it. Each computer that accesses the server has to a certain degree, access to all the information on that server computer. What is on that computer depends on what the owners of the server computer have placed on the computer. In order for you to connect to the internet you must be a member of an online service or internet provider. When you are a member, you receive a phone number to call up using your modem. Your computer connects to the server of your internet provider using the TCP/IP utility under Windows 95 (to setup a TCP/IP account, refer to Appendix B). Once connected to the server, you are able to load a program on your computer which allows you to explore the internet. You can search the server computer that you connected to or you can connect to other computers world wide and search those computers which are also connected to the internet. A few things to know about the internet are the following: the internet consists of many different services. These include the famous World Wide Web (WWW), Telnet, Gopher, E-mail, IRC (internet relay chatting- chat groups) and many other services. To access these services, you need to have special software on your computer which allows you to connect to computers which offer these services. Such software would be Netscape Navigator which allows you to connect to all of these services in a limited fashion. In order to connect to a specific computer over the internet, you must know the other computer's address, just like you have to know other people's addresses when you want to mail a letter to someone. Addresses typically begin with the type of internet service that they belong to (i.e. WWW services begin with http://www…, telent services begin with telnet://…, gopher starts off with gopher://…). E-mail addresses are exceptions, as they are named after an optional e-mail address which the user chose (i.e. my e-mail address is lek2833@is.nyu.edu, for someone else it can be KURTZ@juno.com, and there are endless e-mail addresses).
You must first set up your computer under Windows 95 to use the
internet and the Netscape Navigator. Follow the instructions given
by your internet provider when you signed up for your internet
account, on how to setup Windows 95 to use the internet. All of
this setup should be done from the Control Panel accessible through
the start-documents-control panel menu:
From the control panel, double-click on this icon: When you have completed the setup, locate Netscape Navigator Gold 2.02 or higher on your computer from the Start-Programs menu or on your Windows desktop (Note: You can use Microsoft Internet Explorer instead, but there might be small occasional differences between Netscape and Internet Explorer, but the main ideas and techniques apply to both programs). Click on the Netscape icon. When this is done, Netscape will automatically bring up the dial-up service, from which you must click on the button "Connect" to connect to your internet provider, and enter in your user name and password. Once done with this, and your connection has been established, you will see this:
and will then be returned to the Netscape screen, which will look as follows:
When you start Netscape, you are automatically brought to Netscape's
home page. A home page is a world wide web page, which is nothing
more than a program written by someone, and placed onto a server
computer, making that program, and its information accessible
to anyone. All web pages are written in a specific computer language
called HTML and JAVA. When you connect to a web page, the computer
language is converted to letters and graphics on your screen.
Once again, in order to connect to a web page, you must know the
web page's address or you can use a search engine which is available
over the internet. A search engine is basically a white pages
of internet addresses. Typically, world wide web addresses are
in the format of "http://www…", but a search engine
will list the web page's address along with a title and description,
so that you can search the search engine's list of web pages by
title or description instead of by the web page address. This
becomes extremely useful, so that you never have to memorize the
page's address, but just have to know a description or title of
the web page, as well as which search engine that web page is
listed on (i.e. you have to know which company's white pages contains
the phone number of a specific business- similarly, you have to
know which search engine(s) of the hundreds available contain
the specific web page you are looking for). However, you must
realize that you will have to know the search engine's web address.
We will now explore the utilities available through Netscape Navigator
Gold 2.02 and higher. I will refer to my home page as an example of how Netscape works. When you first connect to a web page, the Netscape icon in the upper right corner has some shooting stars in it. Also, at the bottom of the screen appears the percentage of the web page that has been connected to and downloaded. Also appearing at the bottom right of the screen is a gray bar, which graphically displays how much of the web page has been connected to. This is all shown in the following picture:
Once connected, the web page appears on the screen. Within web pages can appear links. Web links are links to other web pages, software to download (to copy from another computer onto yours) as well as links to other computers. Links can be in the form of a graphic which you click on and Netscape will take you to the linked page, or in the form of underlined blue and purple words which also can be clicked on. Purple underlined links are links which have been recently visited. This is shown in the next picture:
You can move up and down (scroll) through a web page by clicking on the arrows to the right and bottom of the web page. Web pages can include software to download, information in the form of text, graphics, links, music, videos, as well as additional items such as games, clocks and web counters. A counter shows how many people have visited that web page so far. This is shown in the next picture:
Within web pages, there can be an e-mail address listed, which if you click on, you will be taken to Netscape Mail, where you can send an e-mail to that e-mail address. As mentioned, web pages are written in a language called HTML. Another language a part of Netscape is JAVA, which allows for games and graphics, such as the tic-tac-toe game I incorporated into my web page (which is incidentally no longer available- also note that web pages do frequently change as the authors update them frequently- my current web page looks very different from those shown in the graphics above and below!). Also mentioned earlier was the definition of a search engine. Famous search engines available are Yahoo!, Web Crawler, Lycos and Alta-Vista. In the following picture, you see graphics of these search engines, which if clicked on, will take you to that search engine. This shows how graphics can also be links.
At the bottom of the screen, will also appear the address of the web page you are connected to:
At the top of the screen appears a menu similar to this:
If you have visited several web pages and wish to go back to a
previous web page, all you have to do is click on
We will now turn to the menus. Click on File. From here, we can
print, exit Netscape, save a web page or graphic, open a web page
that's on your computer, edit a web page on your computer or create
a new web page document.
From the New Document menu, we can start from blank (if you know how to write HTML) or you can use a template web page which you can edit and fit to your needs. You can also create a web page using an online wizard available through Netscape.
To use these options, you must be connected to the internet. If you choose "From Template", you will connect to the following page:
Just follow the instructions on the screen. If you choose "From Wizard" you will be connected to this page:
Scroll down to the bottom of this page and click on "Start". You will then get the following page:
This screen shows in the right side what your web page looks like
right now. If you follow the instructions and directions on the
left of the screen, you can customize your web page and then download
it to your computer.
With both of these options, once the web page is downloaded to
your computer and complete, you will have to upload the web page
file from your computer to your internet provider (note, your
internet provider must allow you to create a web page to do this).
Follow the instructions for creating and uploading a web page
provided by your internet provider (Note: a company called GeoCities
allows you to create free web pages- for more information go to
http://www.geocities.com). Next, click on "View". From this menu, you can reload the web page, refresh the web page (basically it reloads the web page if you made any changes to that page) or you can view the web page's source code (the HTML and JAVA language) or some additional information on the web page.
From Document Info. you can view information concerning web links and concerning the web page you are currently viewing as shown in the next picture:
From Document Source, you can view the HTML and JAVA language of that web page as shown below (this is the beginning of the JAVA portion of my web page):
This is the HTML portion of my web page:
From the "Go" menu, you can choose to go forward, back, home or stop transmission. You can also choose to go to previously visited web pages during your current online session numerically listed as shown below (the page with a check is the page currently being viewed):
From the "Bookmarks" menu, you can choose to go to a bookmarked link. Bookmarks are basically listings of links which you have told the computer to memorize. You can classify the bookmarks into separate folders, such as "Computer Related Pages", "Travel", etc… Bookmarks come in handy since it makes memorizing web page addresses unneeded, as all you have to do is click on the title of the web page from the "Bookmarks" menu.
To add a bookmark to a link or web page you are currently visiting online, all you have to do it right click on the web page or the link, and you will get a similar menu:
Click on "Add bookmark for link" and a bookmark will appear in the "Bookmarks" menu for that link. You can also save the link or edit the link on your computer. If the object you wish to bookmark isn't a link or a web page, but a graphic which is also a link, you can add a bookmark by also right clicking, but you will get this menu:
Here too, choose "Add bookmark for link". Also available
from this menu is the option to view the image and to save or
copy the image to your computer. If the picture is not a link, but just a graphic, and you right click on the graphic, you will get this menu, which only allows you to view the graphic or save or copy the image to your computer:
From the "Directory" menu, you can go to online Netscape pages, which deal will searching, information and new items available for Netscape.
One of the more important menus is the "Options" menu. Here you can set all the preferences for Netscape which are required for Netscape to function properly.
From the "General Preferences" menu, you can modify the appearance as well as enter in the web page which Netscape will load automatically when it starts.
From the "Apps" menu, you can type in the location of additional Internet programs which you might have on your computer as well as the temp directory location.
From the "helpers" menu is listed what Netscape should do when it approaches a specific type of file, such as a Zip file (.zip) or a Microsoft Word file (.doc). These helpers tell Netscape, for example, that if it comes by a zipped file, it should download it to your computer or open WinZip and extract the file. Another action also available is to "Ask User" what Netscape should do with the file. With Norton Anti-Virus installed, Norton Anti-Virus is automatically started when a file is being downloaded, so that the file is checked for any virus before you begin to use the file.
From the "Mail and News Preferences" you can enter in the appropriate "server" information for your E-mail account.
You can also type in your name and e-mail address, which is required, to use Netscape Mail from the "identity" menu.
From the Network Preferences-Cache menu, you can select the location of cache files as well as the maximum amount of hard drive and memory space donated to cache. Cache is the way Netscape saves time on accessing a web page, by saving images and text in your computer's RAM memory and on the hard drive. By doing this, if you reload that web page or re-counter similar graphics on other web pages, Netscape won't download those objects for a second time, but will just reload them from memory or from the hard drive.
From the security preferences menu, you can select which security alerts will appear.
We will now learn how to use Netscape Mail. Go to File-New Mail Message and you will get the following screen:
Follow these instructions for sending an e-mail through Netscape Mail:
From the File menu, you can also send the e-mail, attach a file or close Netscape Mail and return to Netscape Navigator.
As mentioned before, if an e-mail address appears as a link in a web page and you click on it, Netscape Mail will start and the "To:" box will automatically be filled out as shown below:
We will now turn to search engines. Search engines are the main way to surf the internet. I will use Yahoo! as an example of how most search engines work. Yahoo!'s web address is http://www.yahoo.com When you enter this address in the "Location:" box, you will get the following screen:
From here, you can type in a word to search for as shown above and then click on "Search". You can also search under a topic, by clicking on any one of the many topics listed in blue:
I will run a sample search, where I will search for my web page using my name: Leon Kurtz. I place my name in quotes since this is the method to tell Yahoo! to search not just for the word Leon or just Kurtz, but the results which it will present me with must contain both Leon and Kurtz.
After pressing Search, I get the following screen, telling me that it found 1 match, along with the web page's title, address and a brief description.
If I click on the web page's title, shown as a link, I will be
taken to that web page. If I continue to scroll down that page, I get the following choices:
I can click on any one of the additionally listed search engines,
and I will be presented with the search results of that particular
search engine for the search on "Leon Kurtz". Other techniques of searching involve using the word "and" or the symbol "&" which tells the search engine to search for two words, which both have to be in the results presented. You can also use the word "or" to have the search engine present you with results which contain at least one of two, three, four… of the words which you present it with. We can now truly appreciate search engines, as you can see, to get to my web page and the millions of other web pages, you don't have to know that web page's particular address, but just something about it- its title, subject, contents, author, etc… If you know that much, you can use a search engine to locate the web page of your interest and connect to it. The other useful tool for connecting to web pages is using bookmarks. We will now discuss how to enter in bookmarks and modify them as well. Click on Bookmarks-Go to Bookmarks. You will get a similar screen.
Highlight "Main Bookmarks" by clicking on it. Then go to the item menu and choose "Insert Folder…".
Here, enter in the name of the category of links you will enter in. We will use for our example, "Search Engines".
Then click on "OK". Next, highlight "Search Engines" by clicking on it.
From the Item menu, choose "Insert Bookmark…". From the following screen, type in the Name of the bookmark and the web address (also called a URL).
Then click on "OK". Re-click on "Search Engines" so that it is highlighted. You will also see "Yahoo" listed.
From the "Item" menu choose "Insert Bookmark…". Enter in the following information for "AltaVista", which is another famous search engine. Then click on "OK".
Go through the procedure again, and choose "Insert Bookmark…" form the Item menu. Now enter in the information for Lycos, another search engine:
and then for Web Crawler, which is another search engine:
After this, click on "Close" form the File menu. You can check your bookmarks from the "Bookmarks" menu.
If you click on any one of the bookmarked search engines, then
you will automatically be brought to that search engine's web
page. One last thing about Netscape, is the ability to download software. I have placed most of this Tutor online and available from my web page. It is accessible though the following address: http://pages.nyu.edu/~lek2833/educate.html or by going to my home page (http://pages.nyu.edu/~lek2833/) and choosing "List of Files Available to Download" and then "Education". From that page, choose the fourth link, which will then start Netscape to download the file "Lessons.zip" (which has been updated to "tutor.zip") to your computer.
This particular link is not to another web page or graphic, but
to a file. When you click on the file, Netscape will refer to
the helper available for Zipped files (since Lessons.zip is a
zipped file), as that program will be executed. When you have
completed downloading that file, you have to extract the files
form the zipped file using WinZip. When you have completed that,
open the extracted files using Microsoft Word for Windows 95 as
described in lessons 4 and 6. When you are done surfing the internet, exit Netscape from the File menu and click on the connection menu from the menu at the bottom of the screen. From that screen, click on "Disconnect" to hang-up your modem.
A list of some other good web sites to visit: Computer Related- CompUSA= http://www.compusa.com Iomega= http://www.iomega.com Gateway 2000= http://www.gateway2000.com The MAC/PC Zone= http://www.internetmci.com/marketplace/mzone/ Microsoft= http://www.microsoft.com Intel= http://www.intel.com Symantec (Norton Anti-Virus)= http://www.symantec.com Afterdark Online= http://www.afterdark.com WUGNET Shareware Hall of Fame= http://wugnet.com/shareware/ Shareware.com= http://www.shareware.com
Downlaod.come= http://www.download.com Entertainment- JAVA Multigame Machine= http://paul.rutgers.edu/~xuelin/ypz/jmm.htm JAVA Backgammon= http://www.leland.stanford.com/~leesmith/Javagammon.htm
MTV Video Library= http://gold.horizontes.com.br/~darth/videolibrary.htm
Travel- United Airlines= http://www.ual.com Easy Sabre (Airline & Hotel schedules & reservations)= http://www.easysabre.com Hyatt= http://www.hyatt.com Liberty Travel= http://www.libertytravel.com Continental Airlines= http://www.continental.com
American Airlines= http://www.americanair.com Weather- Yahoo! Weather= http://www.wni.com/yahoo/ Intellicast Weather= http://www.intellicast.com/
The Weather Channel= http://www.weather.com Business- Kodak= http://www.kodak.com The New York Times= http://www.nytimes.com MSNBC= http://www.msnbc.com AT&T= http://www.att.com Nobody Beats The Wiz= http://www.nbtw.com Publishers Clearing House= http://pch.com
Lottoworld Magazine= http://www.lottoworldmagazine.com/ Movie Directories- Movielink= http://www.movielink.com
United Artists= http://www.ua.com This is just a few of the millions of great web pages available online- find time and surf the web! See what you can find. |
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to start the setup process and continue the directions set by
your internet provider or Appendix B.
.
If you have clicked on Back and want to move forward to the next
web page you visited, click on 
. If the
transmission of a web page to your computer is slow or was interrupted,
you can click on 
. If you want to stop
the transmission of a web page immediately, click on 
.
If you wish to return to your home page specified in the options
menu (we will get to this soon), click on 
.
If you wish to print the current screen, click on 
(Note: sometimes not every object on the screen will print from
a web page).
