What is the Internet?
A global network of computers that communicate through phone and satellites to host services such as email, online chat, and the World Wide Web. The internet is a network of networks that uses many different protocols.What is the World Wide Web?
WWW is a collection of interlinked electronic documents stored on computer servers and accessed via the Internet using the http protocol. With a web browser, a user views web pages with text plus multimedia and navigates pages using hyperlinks.What is a Web browser?
A web browser is a software program used to access the
World Wide Web and display web pages. Two popular browsers are described below.
Internet Explorer is pre-installed on all Windows-based computers. Firefox offers a
much smaller file and excellent spyware. Both browsers can be installed on your
computer to work with a Google or Yahoo toolbar.
Microsoft Internet Explorer (7.0 latest version) Download click below
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/ie/getitnow.mspx
Mozilla Firefox (3 latest version) http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/
How do I navigate the Web?
At the top of your screen is a Browser Toolbar with buttons. This is the primary way to navigate back and forth between pages, as well as refreshing and stopping the loading of pages.
Back - Takes you back to the previous document.
Forward - Moves you to the next document (only
works after back has been used).
Stop - Stops a transfer of information from another
computer.
Refresh - Reloads the current page. Helpful to ensure
that you have the most current content and if part of
a page does not load.
Home - Preset to take you to a "starting point". At
the library clicking on Home will take you to the
Library's homepage, at your home it will go to
wherever your Internet Service Provider has set it.
Search - Heads to Search Page where you can use Search Engines to look for information.
The "Address Bar" is where you type in a website address
The green arrow button takes you to the web address you
typed in the Address Bar.
Once Internet Explorer is open and running, you can visit any site you wish by clicking in
the address bar and typing in the URL of the site you wish to visit (for example, you’d type
http://www.google.com as the URL for the search engine Google
What's a Link?
Web pages contain "links," which when clicked, bring you either to a
different portion of the site, a file to view, or to a different site all together.
• A link can be text: http://www.google.com/ or an image
• Links are often noted by blue text or an underline http://www.aarp.org/
• When your cursor changes to a hand (), you are on a link. Look at the bottom left corner of your screen, and you will see the URL (Web address) of the link
• A text link will change color if the cursor is placed over it.
What type of Website Domain is it? Not all web addresses (URLs) end in ".com"
• .com or .net for business websites ( Walmart, Sears)
• .edu for colleges/universities ( Rutgers, NYU)
• .gov for government sites at federal, state, local levels
• .org for non-profit organizations (libraries, 501k agencies)
• international sites end with a country abbreviation .uk (Britain) .ca (Canada )
IT MAKES A DIFFERENCE! www.yale.edu vs. www.yale.com
www.whitehouse.gov vs. www.whitehouse.org
• General web search http://www.google.com
• Omaha Public Website http://www.omahapubliclibrary.org/
• Weather http://www.weather.com/
• Directions http://www.mapquest.com
• Tax information http://www.irs.gov
• Selling http://www.ebay.com
• Shopping http://www.amazon.com
• Health information http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/
• Travel http://www.fodors.com
• Encyclopedia http://www.wikipedia.org
Omaha Websites
Most of the material used for this webpage is credited to Barb Hauck-Mah, Reference Librarian, Rockaway Twp Public
Library, Rockaway, NJ.
