Materials

Basic Computer Skills Class

Class 2: PC Basics 2
What is the Internet? What is the Web? What does online mean? The Internet is a vast collection of connected computer networks that use the Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP). It is a network of computer networks which includes millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope that are linked by a broad array of electronic and optical networking technologies. The backbone of the Internet is a collection of connected telephone lines, fiber optic cables, and satellites that span the world. Data travels along this backbone. The Internet carries a huge amount of information resources and services, including the inter-linked HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language) documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail (e-mail). The Internet began in the late 1960s as a project called ARPANET, sponsored by the U.S. Defense Department. Over time, the Internet expanded to include other government agencies, universities, research labs, businesses, and individuals. No one owns the Internet itself, though people and organizations own individual pieces, such as the computers (called servers) and the infrastructure, such as communication lines. The Internet is overseen by the WC3, a non-profit organization whose job is to standardize protocols and make sure everything flows smoothly. The World Wide Web, abbreviated as WWW and commonly known as The Web, is a system of interlinked hypertext documents contained on the Internet. With a web browser, one can view web pages that may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia and navigate between them by using hyperlinks. Using the Internet, you can read the latest news, do research, shop, communicate with others, listen to music, play games, watch TV and movies, and access a wide variety of information. To get online you need three things: a PC with an Internet card or capable of connecting to the Internet, an ISP (Internet Service Provider) and a modem (usually supplied by the ISP). An ISP could be your phone or cable company, or AOL, or another company which, for a fee, provides you with a connection to the Internet. Digital subscriber line (DSL) telephone services, television cable hookups, and satellite dishes all provide broadband connections to the Internet. The DSL connection resembles a telephone line, whereas the cable and satellite connections use television cable. These

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connections are always on, so all you need to do to access the Internet is to turn your computer on. World Wide Web Basics To work effectively on the Internet, it is helpful to understand a few terms: Web Page: World Wide Web information is presented on Web pages that you view using a Web browser program, such as Internet Explorer. Each Web page can combine text with images, sounds, music and even videos to present information on a particular subject. The Web consists of billions of pages covering almost every imaginable topic. Web Site: A Web site is a collection of Web pages associated with a particular person, business, government, school or organization. Some Web sites deal with only a single topic, but most sites contain pages on a variety of topics. Web Server: Web sites are stored on Web servers, which are special computers connected around the world to make Web pages available for people to browse. A Web server is usually a powerful computer capable of handling thousands of site visitors at a time. The largest Web sites are run by server farms, which are networks that may contain dozens or even hundreds of servers. Hyperlinks/Links: A hyperlink, usually called a link, is an interactive connection to another location on the Web. A link takes you to another location on the current page, to another page on the same site, or to a page on another Web site. Hyperlinks are the main method of navigation on the World Wide Web. Links can appear as text or images. A text link is often underlined or has a different color from the regular text on the page. Typically, the mouse pointer changes to a hand when positioned over a link. When you click a link your Web browser loads the page associated with the link. Web Address: Every Web site and Web page has its own Web address that uniquely identifies the page. This address is called the Uniform Resource Locator, or URL. If you know the address of a page, you can type that address into your Web browser to view the page. The URL of a Web site or page is composed of three basic parts: the transfer method (usually http, or Hypertext Transfer Protocol), the Web site domain name, which is the directory where the Web page is located on the Web server, and the Web page filename.

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Web Browser: A Web browser is a software program you use to view Web pages. Browsers download and display the Web pages to you by "translating" the HTML-encoded files into the text, images, sounds, and other features you see. Browsers work in similar ways, but some are faster and/or more secure than Internet Explorer, have additional features and offer more opportunities for customization, such as add-ons, widgets, appearance of tool bar, personalization, etc. Internet Explorer usually comes pre-loaded on most computers which use the Windows operating system, but you can download other Web browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome, for free. This image, which shows the main page of the Google search engine web site, as shown through the Internet Explorer (IE) browser, will help you to identify common Web Browser features:

Open your browser and locate the following: Address Bar Navigation Buttons, Search Box Favorites Button Link Status Bar Browser Tabs (hint: it you have more than one open, it will be easier to locate)

Address Bar: this text box shows the address of the displayed Web page. You can also use the address bar to type the address of a Web page you want to visit. Navigation Buttons: each Web browser has navigation buttons that enable you to move back and forth through recently visited web pages. Search Box: use the Search box to find web sites or web pages.

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Favorites Button: Called Favorites or Favorites Center by Internet Explore, this button is located on the browser toolbar and looks like this:

Using this toolbar button, you can create list of Web sites you like or visit frequently so that you can quickly find and navigate to that web site. In Firefox and Chrome, this function is called Bookmarks. Browser Tabs: Most of the major Web browsers make tabbed browsing available to you, which enables you to open multiple Web sites. The name of each Web page appears in the browser tab. If you click the small space behind the current tab, you open a new placeholder browser tab, and you can type a URL or search the Web. The original browser tab remains open, and you can go back to that page whenever you want by clicking the tab. Status Bar: This area displays the current status of the Web browser. **Out of Class Assignment : Explore other browsers to see if you have a preference. Here are two good ones to start with: Learn more about Mozilla Firefox here: http://www.mozilla.com/enUS/firefox/new/ Learn more about Google Chrome here: http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/more/index.html?brand=CHMB Surfing the Internet Viewing web pages is referred to as surfing or browsing the web. Browsing is just looking at web pages and clicking on hyperlinks. Once you are connected to the Internet via an ISP, heres how to browse: Start/open the browser application. There are multiple ways you can do this. Most people click on the icon located on the desktop, but you can also click on the browser icon located on the Quick Launch bar (located right next to the Start button) or selecting it from the Start menu. Click once in the address field, which is located at the top of the page. A blinking text cursor appears or the address already there becomes highlighted. Type jacksonville.com, and then press the Enter key. Congratulations! Youre surfing the web! Click on any of the hyperlinks on this website and see what happens. Move the cursor slowly around the page. If the arrow becomes a hand, youve found a hyperlink.

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 Once you have explored the links on the Jacksonville Times-Union website, try entering other addresses into the address bar. Try inserting brand names or generic words between www. and .com. Then try clicking on the hyperlinks on those pages. What is a search engine? A search engine is an information retrieval system designed to help find information stored on a computer system. If you need information on a specific topic, you can use Web sites called search engines to help you search the Web for pages that have the information you need. Search engines index Web pages by content and serve much the same purpose as the card catalog in a library. You supply the search terms and the search engine displays a list of Web pages that match the search terms. The search results are usually presented in a list and are commonly called hits. You can search the web either by going directly to a search engine site or using the search box built into your browser. Google at http://www.google.com/ is currently the most widely used search engine, but is certainly not the only good one. Google does have one of the largest databases of Web pages, including many other types of web documents (blog posts, wiki pages, group discussion threads and document formats (e.g., pdfs, Word or Excel documents, PowerPoint). Despite the presence of all these formats, Google's popularity ranking often places worthwhile pages near the top of search results. **Out of Class Assignment: Other Search Engines: Although Google is a wonderful search engine, there are times when Google is not enough. Overlap studies show that more than 80% of the pages in a major search engine's database exist only in that database. For this reason, getting a "second opinion" by using another search engine can be worth your time. Explore these other search engines on your own prior to class next week: Alta Vista: http://www.altavista.com/ Ask: http://www.ask.com/ Bing: http://www.bing.com/ Yahoo: http://www.yahoo.com/

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Dogpile: http://www.dogpile.com/ To learn more about search engines, and about more search engines, visit Search Engine Watch at http://searchenginewatch.com/links or go to the Open Directory Project at http://www.dmoz.org/ and type search engines into the search box. Recommended Reading for Computer Basics Classes:
PCs Simplified. Elaine Marmel. Wiley Publishing, Inc.:2011 004.16 Marmel Teach Yourself Visually PCs. Elaine Marmel. Wiley Publishing, Inc.: 2011. 004.16 Marmel Computer Secrets I Taught My Mom. Michael Shannon. Smart Guy Press 2006. 004.16 Shannon Absolute Beginners Guide to Computer Basics. Michael Miller.Que 2007. 004 Miller 2007. 004.016 Marme PC Annoyances: how to fix the most annoying things about your personal computer. Steve Bass. OReilly & Associates 2004. 004.160288 Bass Personal Computing Demystified: a self-teaching guide. Larry Long. McGraw-Hill/Osborne. 2004 004 Long The Complete Idiots guide to Computer Basics. Joe Kraynak. Alpha Books, 2004. 004.16 Kraynak 2003 Its never too late to love a computer: a friendly first guide. Stokes 2005. 004.16 Stokes 2005 Abby

Computer Class Resources Website: http://jplcomputerstuff.notlong.com/

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