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Basic Internet Information
Basic Internet Information
Basic Internet Information
How the Web Works Web browsers provide the key to accessing and using the web. Using a web browser, the user can navigate around the hundreds of thousands of different computers, networks, databases, information repositories and other technology offerings that comprise the web, view documents, access services, watch videos, buy goods etc. - all at the click of a mouse. How is this achieved? HTML (HyperText Markup Language) code is the foundation of most web sites and web applications. HTML allows all the complex aspects of accessing information to be pre-programmed into a web page, so that all the end user has to do is request to access the page. The web browser does the rest. It knows how to communicate with the computer that stores the page, as well as how to download it to the computer and then display its contents in a meaningful form on the computer screen. A typical web session might look something like this: After connecting to the Internet, the user launches the web browser software. It automatically connects to a pre-programmed web site, known as the 'home' page (which is where the user starts each web session). As the user moves the mouse over the web site displayed in the web browser, certain onscreen elements - graphical icons, underlined or colored portions of text - cause the mouse's pointer to change from an arrow to a pointing hand. This indicates the presence of what is known as a 'hyperlink'. Hyperlinks are used to link web pages and web sites to one another. How they work can be complex. All the user needs to know, however, is that if he or she clicks on a hyperlink, the user will be instructing the web browser to connect to the linked web page or site. Before looking at how to use Microsoft's Internet Explorer, examine some basic concepts that all web users should familiarize themselves with: Every web site and page available on the Internet has a Uniform Resource Locator known as a URL. URLs are simply a shorthand method of referring to the location of a web site or individual web page. For example, let's say there is a web page called tutorial.html (most web pages have either .htm or .html as their extension) on a computer whose domain name is www.example.com, and that it is stored in a directory called /teach/beginners. That web page would have a URL of: www.example.com/teach/beginners/tutorial.html All the information in the URL above is the same as mentioned in the earlier paragraph, but it is set out in a particular order. This is the order all URLs use: the domain name of the computer that hosts the information first, then the directory, then the filename. Not all URLs will include directory or filename details. For instance, if the user wanted to manually connect to the Broadband Support web site, he or she would type the following URL into the browser's address bar: www.broadbandsupport.net. This would take the user to the support home page, and the web browser would display the opening screen shown to all users when he or she visits the home page. The user will sometimes see web site URLs listed or displayed with a special prefix (e.g. http://www.example.com). The prefix indicates to the web browser the nature of the document or service that you are asking it to access. Using prefixes was once mandatory, but today's web browsers are intelligent and do not require them. As the user jumps from web site to web site, the web browser can generally guess what type of resource he or she is trying to access, and interact with it accordingly. As such, the user need not bother typing prefixes such as http:// and www, when he or she wishes to access web resources. For example, if the user were to use the URL broadbandsupport.net, it would connect without problem to the Broadband Support web site. As a final point, it is a good idea to understand the difference between a web site and a web page or document. The terms 'web page' or 'web document' are used to describe a single web document. A web site, on the other hand, is a collection of related web documents or pages that comprise a single resource. However, many people use the two terms interchangeably. A copy of the Internet Explorer web browser should be installed on the computer. Launching Internet Explorer should automatically instruct the modem to bring up a web site. The user can use any web site as the starting page. Once the user is connected, Internet Explorer will display a web site. When there, the user is ready to explore the web. As mentioned earlier, when the user moves the mouse pointer over the various sections of the Broadband Support homepage, he or she will notice that it changes from a pointing arrow to a pointing hand. This indicates the presence of a hyperlink that you can activate. Clicking once on the hyperlink with the mouse will activate it. Moving about the web using hyperlinks is generally discussed in linear terms. For instance, clicking a hyperlink and progressing to the linked resource is referred to as 'going forwards'. When the user returns to the page containing the hyperlink that he or she originally clicked, he or she is said to move 'back'. Going forward and back are general web concepts, so much so that almost all web browsers feature 'Forward' and 'Back' toolbar buttons. Internet Explorer is no exception. Say the user is at the main Broadband Support homepage and he or she clicks on a hyperlink to visit the Email Support area. The user can return to the main Broadband Support homepage by clicking the 'Back' toolbar button, which is located at the far left of the toolbar (and features an arrow pointing left). If, having returned to the main web site, the user decides to revisit the Email Support area, he or she can click on the hyperlink that was originally clicked. Alternatively, click on the 'Forward' toolbar button (which is located to the immediate right of the 'Back' toolbar button, and features an arrow pointing right). These 'Back' and 'Forward' buttons are very handy for moving between web sites and web pages the user has visited during the web browsing session. If the user has followed a series of hyperlinks that have taken him or her to numerous web sites, each time he or she clicks the 'Back' button it takes him or her back towards the original starting point. Connecting to a Specific Web Site Following hyperlinks is an easy way to find the way around the web, but what if the user wants to go to a specific web site?The user can instruct Internet Explorer to connect to a specific web site by typing the address (or URL) of the web site in the address bar (which appears immediately beneath the toolbar). Click the mouse cursor in the address bar and, using the backspace key, delete the currently displayed address. Then type the full URL of the web site that the user wishes to visit (e.g. www.telstra.com), and press the 'Enter' key. The user can return to the web browser's default homepage at any time by clicking on the 'Home' toolbar button on Internet Explorer's toolbar (which features a house-like icon). If the user wants to use the search feature on the browser, click the 'Search' toolbar button (which features a globe and a magnifying glass). This will connect the user to the default search engine that the web browser is programmed to work with (which varies according to what version of Internet Explorer you are using). Using a search engine to perform a search is as easy as typing a few search terms in the text box provided, and clicking the 'search' button. The search engine will scour its extensive database for matching web sites, and display the results onscreen. Each of the matched web sites will be displayed in a list as hyperlinks. The user can visit a site by clicking on its name. Most search engines will include a short summary of the matched web sites to help the user decide which web sites are worth exploring. Some people find reading documents on-screen hard on the eyes (especially if it is a long document). Others simply prefer to read printed copies, regardless, or otherwise need to have a printed copy (i.e. for their records). To print a document that the user is viewing in Internet Explorer, just click on the 'Print' toolbar button. The text and/or graphics that he or she is viewing onscreen will be formatted, and a Print dialogue box will appear (the same one the user sees when he or she prints documents in the word processor). The user can then select the specific printer he or she wishes to use, specify which pages he or she wants to print, select the print quality and any other print settings. Click the 'OK' button and the document will be printed.Often it is more convenient to make an electronic (soft) copy of a document that the user finds on the Internet, rather than print a copy. For instance, a document saved as a computer file can be easily imported into your word processor, or attached to an email message and sent to a colleague. To save a copy of a document that the user is viewing in Internet Explorer, click the 'File' drop-down menu, then select 'Save As'. Make sure Internet Explorer has finished downloading the document first. This can be checked by looking at the status bar in the lower right hand corner of the main Internet Explorer window (it will display a 'document done' message once it has finished downloading the document). The 'Save As' dialogue box will then be displayed, allowing the user to specify where the document should be saved. There is also the option of saving the file in its original (HTML) format, as a plain text file, or as a complete web page. With the latter, both text and images are saved. If the user plans to import the document into a word processor, the document should be saved in the text format.History Lists and Favorite Sites Internet Explorer keeps track of all the sites the users have visited recently in its History Folder, so that the sites can be revisit later quickly and easily. To open up the History list, use the Ctrl-h (Windows) or Apple-h (Mac) shortcut or click the 'History' toolbar button. In the new window, it will display a list of all the sites that have been visited in the past five or so days. To select a site to visit, click its name as it appears in the list. If a very useful web site is found, which will be visited repeatedly, it can be add it to the Favorites menu, thereby creating a permanent record of the web site's address. To add a web site to the list of favorites, visit the site, and then click the Favorites drop-down menu and select Add to Favorites. The 'Add Favorites' dialog box appears, allowing the web site details to be saved. To choose a site from the Favorites list, click the 'Favorites' toolbar button, and then select the site from the list. The web browser will automatically connect to that site. |
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