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New to the Internet
The world wide web is like the world’s biggest library. If you haven't used it before it can seem daunting, but it is very easy to find, save and share information from the web, once you know a few basic tips.
The internet is a network of connected computers and the world wide web is made up of millions of connected websites. Each website is made of pages of information which link to eachother. When looking at a website, such as this one, you can click 'links' within the page to open or move to a different page of information or a different site. Often, links are highlighted as underlined text, making them easy to spot. This is not always the case, but the arrow that moves across the screen when you move your 'mouse' changes whenever it is over one of these links.
In the text box above the main pages of any website you will see a line of letters. This is the web address (or URL) of the webpage you are viewing. The first part, http:// is the same for all websites. The next part is the domain name and is the equivalent of a book in the library. The three letters after the intitial name can give you information about the 'publisher': whether the website is run by a business (.com), an organization (.org or .net) a government (.gov) and sometimes about the country (.gov.uk). The remainder of the URL refers to the particular page you have open at the time.
If you find a site or page you know you will want to visit again you can create a link directly to it. These links or 'shortcuts' are stored within your 'web browser' (the software you use to look at the internet). Some browsers call these shortcuts 'favorites' others call them 'bookmarks'. To save a shortcut choose 'Add to Favorites' or 'Add to Bookmark' from the menu (list of options) at the top of your web browser.
Please note, this may not be possible if you are in an internet café or using another machine which many people use.
It is easy to search for the information you want by using a 'search engine'. This is a website which looks for information using 'key words' that you provide. Once you have submitted these key words, the search engine will look for and give you a list of relevant pages. If you typed in cancer and nutrition, for example, the search engine will return links to pages which contain references either to cancer or nutrition. If you type in cancer + nutrition the search engine will only list pages which contain references to both words. If you make a phrase using ' ' marks ('cancer and nutrition') you will get a list of links to pages which contain this phrase. Further tips for searching are available from the homepages of the search engines themselves. Some popular search websites are Google , Yahoo! and MSN
It is easy to save or ‘download’ information from the world wide web onto the computer you are using. To save a web page, you open the ‘file’ menu at the top of your browser page, and click on ‘save as’. A box will open which allows you to select where on your computer you want to save the file and whether to save the whole page with images or just the text. You can usually change the name of the page if you need to as well. Alternatively you can usually copy information from a web page and paste it into a document stored on your computer, using the same method as when you copy and paste information between other documents. Some information will be offered as a 'PDF'. This means 'portable document format' which is a way of downloading larger documents quickly onto your personal computer.
In its most basic form, e-mail is the exchange of text files between computer users. It is quick, cheap and easy to use. Messages are sent via the internet and to collect or send your mail, you 'log on' to the internet using an email programme.
There are two ways you can use e-mail. The first is by opening an account with your Internet Service Provider (ISP). This will give you an address like me@myisp.com. When someone sends an email to an ISP account it is stored on the ISP 'server' until you next 'log on' using an email programme like Outlook or Eudora (you probably already have email software on your machine). These programmes make it easy for you to attatch documents to the mails you send and to sort and file the mails you receive.
If you do not know if you have an email address through your ISP, or if you only connect to the internet from an internet cafe, you can create a webmail account which you can access from any computer. There are a number of places where you can create a free email account, including Hotmail and Yahoo!
You will need an email address to register with the MAIC Community. If you do not have an email address that you know of you can create one at one of the above addresses.
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