INSTRUCTIONS FOR
ASK THE INTERNET ANYTHING
****
PREPARED BY
RICHARD NELSON
Revised 09.02.24
PURPOSE AND SCOPE
It has been documented
that the first information revolution was started by the printing press, and
the second information revolution was started by the Internet. For most people
it is not well understood that we are three decades into the second information
revolution, and you can ask the Internet for anything. The purpose of this
workshop is to introduce those people to the second information revolution.
This workshop is
designed for the persons who want to use the Internet to get any kind of
information their hearts desire. It covers the most important tools to
accomplish this.
The workshop will cover
two main topics
1 the different kinds of
information sites on the Internet?
2 search engines, and
how to use the different kinds to get the information you want?
This workshop will allow
sufficient time for the students to develop and practice the skills necessary
to “Ask the Internet Anything”
THE DIFFERENT KINDS OF INFORMATION SITES
How can we use these
sites to get the information you want?
News – www.cnn.com , www.nytimes.com
, www.usatoday.com, www.chinaview.cn, www.onlinenewspapers.com , www.google.com –then click on News tab
Organization/Marketing –
www.shellpoint.net , www.shellpoint.org
Educational-
www.edison.edu , www.thejournal.com www.leecountybis.com .
Museums – www.nga.gov, www.louvre.fr/louvrea.htm, www.si.edu (Smithsonian)
Medicine
and health – www.medlineplus.gov or www.webmd.com
.
Weather – www.nhc.noaa.gov , or www.weather.com .
Food and Recipes - www.foodtv.com , www.allrecipies.com
Marketing – www.sidestep.com , www.travelocity.com , www.buy.com , www.ebay.com
Directories – www.refdesk.com - www.hotsheet.com
,
On-line Encyclopedia – www.wikipedia.com
Religious – www.religioustolerance.org
Financial/Business
– www.bigcharts.com. www.cnbc.com
, www.cnnfm.com .
Search engines – please
see below for several addresses
Also see a Sample of
Interesting Web Sites handout on my web site: www.angelfire.com/planet/richnelson
Note: it is frequently
not necessary to use the www, but I recommend that you use it, because there
are getting to be more and more sites that require it, like www.nga.gov and www.shellpoint.net. In these and many
other cases you will not get the web site you want without the www.
WHAT IS A SEARCH ENGINE?
A search engine is a computer
on the Internet that contains a large amount of information in an organized
format.
Search engine computers
gather this information by sending an electronic robot, sometimes called a Gobot or spider, out on the Internet to collect
information. This robot visits each web site on a periodic basis and brings
back data to its mother computer. The data/information is stored in an
organized manner called indexing. Then it creates a database of the index word
or phrase and relates it to the address of the computer address where it found
the information. This is an over simplification of how a se works. If you want
to know more details about how search engines work, go into a search engine
like google.com or ask.com and ask the question: How do search engines
work?
HOW DO YOU USE A SEARCH
ENGINE?
You must have access to
the Internet usually thru an Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Then you must connect to
a search engine web site on the Internet. There are many of them. I have listed
just a few of them below:
SEARCH ENGINES
www.altavista.com
www.yahoo.com
www.hotbot.com
www.alltheweb.com
www.about.com
www.webcrawler.com
www.answers.com
www.ask.com – is the same site
www.google.com
I have listed theses
search engines from the oldest to the newest as best I can.
Also many ISPs offer a
search engine capability as part of their service.
Not all search engines
are equal. Some of them tend to be specialized.
SEARCH ENGINE USE
GENERAL
Almost all search
engines have a space where you can type in your search word or phrase, o questions,
and a button to start the search. Some search engines have different levels of
searches.
When you get the results
from a search, it will be a list of websites not the actual information. Then
you have to link to one of the website listed to determine if it contains the
information you are looking for. It may or may not contain the info you asked
for. If not you will have to go back and link to another site.
On the first page of the
search engine results, it usually shows the number of hits you got from you
search criteria, and in many cases it will be in the thousands..
SEARCH ENGINE EXERCISE
SURE-FIRE AND SAFEST WAY
TO JUMP TO A NEW WEB SITE
To
use this part of the instruction you must be on a web site- any web site will
do. We probably will go to the Shell Point web site www.shellpoint,net because it has an icon on the desktop area.
Click on the Shell Point Icon on the desktop of your computer, and then peck
the Enter key. Once you are on a web site do as follows:
1. Click the “File” button on the left side of the
Menu bar.
2. Click “Open” in the File menu. That brings up a
dialog box.
3. In the space provided type in the new web
address for the web site you want to go to in this case: www.google.com
4. Peck the Enter key or Left Click the Open
button.
That will transfer you to the new web site, in this case
google.com
First we will click on
News in the bars just above the Google name, and learn how to manage the Google
news
Then we will do a search
on Google by typing in the phrase “
IF THE MENU BAR IS ABSENT
Right click in an open
space on the bar that is below the Title Bar - you should get a menu. Look for
the word Menu bar. Left click on it.
That should give you a Menu bar on your screen
ALTERNATIVE WAY TO JUMP TO A NEW WEB SITE
THIS IS THE QUICKEST WAY BUT IT CAN HAVE PROBLELMS
IF YOU DON’T DO IT CORRECTLY
INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE QUICKEST WAY TO JUMP TO: www.google.com
To use this part of the instruction you must be on a
web site- any web site will do. We probably will go to the Shell Point web site
www.shellpoint,net because it has an icon on the quick launch
area on the Task bar of your computer. Once you are on a web site do as
follows:
1. Place the mouse arrow in white area of the
Address box at the top of the screen and click. That will highlight the current
address. Be careful not to click more than once.
2. Peck the Backspace key. That will clear the
space for a new address
3. Type in www.google.com
4. Peck the Enter key.
That will transfer you to the new web site, in this case Google’s
web site.
Notice - Google is not case
sensitive. Therefore caps are not needed in proper names like florida..
RICHARD NELSONS WEB SITE EXERCISE
We will now go into my
web site and explore its capabilities: www.angelfire.com/planet/richnelson
We will download
instructions and print them out
Filed in INTERNET STUFF
FOLDER
