beginning level internet and netscape navigator workshop and

CH-UH Staff Development Workshop #7

1

Beginning Level Internet andBeginning Level Internet andBeginning Level Internet andBeginning Level Internet andBeginning Level Internet andNetscape Navigator WorkshopNetscape Navigator WorkshopNetscape Navigator WorkshopNetscape Navigator WorkshopNetscape Navigator Workshop

andandandandandResource GuideResource GuideResource GuideResource GuideResource Guide

Fall 1998


2

Table of ContentsOpening Netscape Navigator 3

Entering URLs 4

Using the Boomark Feature 5-10

Searching the Internet (Indexes/Guides) 11

Searching the Internet (Engines) 12

Search Strategies 13-16

Downloading 17

Images 18-20

Sounds 21-22

Copyright 1999 CH-UH Schools

Authored by:

Jim HarmonHannah Reid

Technology Specialists, CH-UH SchoolsCleveland Heights-University Heights, Ohio


3

Opening Netscape Navigator

Using the Start Menu

Using the Start menu, go to Programs and a submenu will pop up. Go to the Netscape Navi-gator/Communicator folder and another submenu will pop up. Select the Netscape Navigatoricon.

Using a Shortcut on the Desktop

Double click the Netscape Navigator shortcut icon on the desktop and Netscape will open.


4

Entering a Universal Resource Locator (URL)

The Location Bar

The location bar allows you to manually enter the URL (web address) of a web page.1. Click once in the box next to the word location.

2. A blinking cursor will appear signifying it is OK to type in the URL. Type in your URL andpress the Return key. Your page should load up in the Navigator window.

Tip: Web browsers (such as Navigator) are very particular when you are entering a URL. The URL must beexact or the browser will not find your page. Think of it in terms of getting the wrong directions from someone.If the directions say left when they should have said right, then you will get lost. Such is the importance of aURL to a web browser such as Netscape.


5

Using the Bookmark Feature

What is a Bookmark?

A bookmark is a way to keep your place in a book so you may leave it, come back to itlater and find your place. Bookmarks work in a similar way with a browser. When you find aweb page you like or a site you frequently visit, you may place an electronic bookmark onthe page. Your browser, even after shutting your computer down, will remember that siteand allow you to return later.

Adding a Bookmark

1. With the page you want to bookmark in theNavigator window, go to the Communicatormenu, select “Bookmark.”

2. A submenu will pop up with some choices:

Choose “Add Bookmark”

The menu will disappear


6

Using the Bookmark Feature (continued)

Adding a Bookmark (continued)

3. Go back to the Communicator menu, move to the “Bookmarks” option and wait for theBookmarks submenu to pop up. You should now see the new bookmark in the submenu.

Using Bookmarks

To use a bookmark, go to the Communicator menu, move to bookmarks, and choose thebookmark for the page you want the browser to find.


7


Managing Your Bookmarks

It is possible to bookmark hundreds of pages with you browser. It becomes necessary toorganize them in some fashion. The Bookmarks submenu has pre-existing folders in it withpages already marked. It is possible for you to make customized folders of which youdetermine the name and content.

1. Go to the Communicator menu, go to the Bookmarks submenu and choose “Edit Book- marks”

2. The Bookmark window appears showing the existing bookmark folders and their con tents.


8


Managing Your Bookmarks (continued)

3. Go to the file menu and select “New Folder.”

4. The Bookmark Properties window will appear:

Type the name of the folder here

Type a description here

Then click “OK”


9



5. With the Bookmarks window still open, select one of the bookmarks you want to put in a folder.

6. Drag the boomark on top of the folder until the folder becomes highlighted.

7. The bookmark now resides in the specified folder.


10



You can also add bookmarks to the folders when you make a new bookmark.

1. With the web page displayed in the Netscape window, go to the Communicator menu, goto Bookmarks and in the submenu go to “File Bookmarks.” Another submenu will pop upcontaining the name of the new folder. Select the desired folder. The bookmark will nowreside in that folder.


11

Searching the Internet

Index/Guide Searches

There are several different ways that the Internet can be searched for information.The easiest way to access information on the Internet is to use an index or guide. The indexwe will use is Yahoo.

1. In the location bar, type in the following URL:http://www.yahoo.com

2. Press enter and wait for the Yahoo web page to appear.

Yahoo is an index of articles arranged by topic that can be searched. The articles in theindex are hand picked and deemed reliable sources of information by someone working forYahoo. Therefore, while you will usually get quality information, you may not get all of theinformation that is available on the web on your topic.

Yahoo can be browsed by clicking the topics on its main page. The topics are hierarchical:this means that every time you click on a topic, the browser will provide you with moresubtopics. This allows you to focus your search to the point where you will find relevantinformation.


12

Searching the Internet (continued)

Search Engines

If you have ever been to a library and searched through a computerized card cataloguefile then searching the Internet should be a familiar experience. A search engine takes searchterms and tries to find matches based on percentages. This can be overwhelming because theengine will usually try to search most of the Internet for your search terms. We will be learningsome strategies to alleviate this problem. One simple search engine to use is AltaVista.

1. In the location bar, type in the following URL:http://www.altavista.com/

2. Press enter and wait for the Alta Vista web page to appear.

AltaVista will provide a space for you to enter key words or subject terms. Once youhave entered your key words, click on the “Search” button. Note that AltaVista also has anindex area lower on the page.

The engine will return a list of “hits” to your browser. A hit list shows you the websites it thinks match your search terms with the highest percentage of accuracy. Frequentlyyou will find that you have to sort through a great deal of worthless information to findsomething of value. Often times you will find that searching blindly like this will be frustrating.

TIP: Sometimes it helps to think of your search terms as an answer to a question. The questions (and there willbe many possibilities) will appear on your hit list.


13

Search Strategies

When beginning a search, accuracy is helpful but not entirely necessary. Differentstrategies may work better than others. Each individual search engine has its own uniquequalities. It is up to you to try different engines and find the one that suits your logic best.

Searching the internet for a particular item can be difficult if strategies are not applied.For example, if you entered the terms lesson plans into the search field of an engine such asAlta Vista, it would look for all occurences of the word lesson and all occurences of the wordplans seperately. The engine assumes you would be happy with either of the terms and maybring back sites that are irrellevant to what you are looking for: lesson plans.

Instead, try entering search terms with quotation marks (“”) around them. Using ourexample above, you would instead enter “lesson plans”in the search field. This tells theengine that you are looking for exactly what you have typed into the search field, nothing more,nothing less.

Refining Your Search

After receiving your hit list, you may realize that you wish to refine your search. This meansgoing back and entering a more specific search term(s). For example, if we specificallywanted math lesson plans, we might try entering “math lesson plans” in the search field. Youmay try more specific terms instead of math, and you are limited only by your imagination.


14

Search Strategies (continued)

The Differences

Despite differences in each search engine, there are tools that many search engineshave in common. The following tools can help narrow your search:

Quotation marks: Sometimes you can add characters to your words or phrases to moreclosely define your intentions for the search engine. For example, enclosing a multiword phrase in quotation marks tells the search engine to listonly sites that contain those words in that exact order.

Plus and minus signs: If you type a plus sign (+) directly in front of a word, you are indicatingthat the word or phrase must appear in the search results (for example,Hotels +San +Francisco). Similarly, a minus sign (-) indicates that theword or phrase should not be included in the search results (Cars-Ford).

Boolean operators: Boolean operators include AND, OR, AND NOT, and parentheses. Towork, these operators must appear in ALL CAPS and with a space oneach side.

AND - Similar to the plus sign, AND indicates that thedocuments found must contain all the words joined by theAND operator. For example, to find documents thatcontain the words wizard, oz, and movie, enter wizard ANDoz AND movie.

OR - Documents found must contain at least one of thewords joined by OR. For example, to find documents thatcontain the word dog or the word puppy, enter dog ORpuppy.

AND NOT - Similar to the minus sign, using AND NOTindicates that the documents found cannot contain theword that follows the term AND NOT. For example, tofind documents that contain the word pets but not theword dogs, enter pets AND NOT dogs.

Information courtesy of Netscape search tips (http://home.netscape.com/escapes/search/tips_general.html)


15

Boolean operators: (continued) Parentheses - Parentheses are used to group portions

of Boolean queries together for more complicatedword fruit and either the word banana or the word apple,enter fruit AND (banana OR apple).

By using these terms in a search, you can eliminate certain items from being includedon your hit list. For example, if we wanted to do a search on English literature, but did not wantany sites related to Shakespeare, we could enter the search terms “English Literature”AND NOT “Shakespeare” in the search field. This would give us a hit list that eliminates anysite with words or ideas related to “Shakespeare” in it.

Title search - This feature enables you to restrict searches to the title portion of web documents. For example, typing title:Mars or t:Mars will retrieve all documents thathave the word Mars in their title.

Meta-Engines

Some engines such as DogPile (www.dogpile.com) are known as meta-engines be-cause they search other search engines (sometimes as many as 11 different engines) for yoursearch terms. This can be an extremely valuable tool when you are looking for mass quantitiesof information or a search where you are havingdifficulty finding information.



16

Other Search Engines

For general searches:

AltaVista http://www.altavista.comLycos http://www.lycos.com/HotBot http://www.hotbot.comWebCrawler http://webcrawler.com/Infoseek http://www.infoseek.com/Excite http://www.excite.comLookSmart http://www.looksmart.com/

Searching for a person

WhoWhere? People Finder http://www.whowhere.com/Bigfoot People Search http://www.bigfoot.com/Netscape People Finder http://home.netscape.com/netcenter/whitepages.html


http://www.lycos.com/

http://info.netscape.com/fwd/ntserch/http://www.wired.com/cgi-bin/redirect/1392/http://www.hotbot.com

http://info.netscape.com/fwd/ntserch/http://webcrawler.com/?src=ns

http://www.infoseek.com/Home?pg=Home.html&sv=N6&svx=logoR2

http://www.looksmart.com/?comefrom=nspanel-logo

http://info.netscape.com/fwd/ntserch/http://www.whowhere.com/

http://info.netscape.com/fwd/ntserch/http://www.bigfoot.com/RUN?Referral=Netscape_Search&FN=Index

http://home.netscape.com/netcenter/whitepages.html?cp=ntserch


17

Downloading (is it safe?)

Downloading refers to the transfer of information from one computer to another. Fre-quently, you hear the term referred to in relation to the Internet. Some things that can be down-loaded are movies, pictures, sounds, and software.

It is important to consider the source of the download before you actually begin theprocess. If the site you are downloading from seems reputable, then downloading should behassle free. If the site is questionable, then you risk a virus infection or other nasty cyberbugsinfiltrating your computer. Use caution when downloading, and definitely use common sense.

Searching for Pictures and Sounds

Some search engines will look specifically for images and and sound files on theInternet. One such engine, Hotbot (www.hotbot.com), will allow you to select categories suchas “image” and “sound” before you even enter search terms. This allows the engine to look forimages or sounds related to your topic.


18

Downloading (continued)

Searching for Pictures

1. Enter the URL for the engine you will use. (This example assumes the use of Hotbot.)

2. In the search field, enter your search terms (polar bears) and then select the image checkbox. Then click the search button.


19


Searching for Pictures (continued)

3. A hit list will appear in the Navigator window. Search through the hits until you find an appro-priate page.

4. Once you have a page with an appropriate image, right click once on the image. The follow-ing popup menu will appear. Select Save image as . . .


20


Searching for Pictures (continued)

5. Choose a location and name for the file and click Save.

You can now place the image in a word processing document, HyperStudio stack, PowerPoint presentation, or one of many other applications.


21


Searching for Sound Files

Using the same assumptions from the previous search (looking for the subject “polar bears”using the Hotbot search engine) we will find an audio clip related to our topic.

1. In the search field, enter your search terms (polar bears) and then select the audio checkbox. Then click the search button.

2. A hit list will appear in the Navigator window. Search through the hits until you find an appro-priate page.

3. Left click once on the sound file (usually listed with a speaker icon of some kind).


22


Searching for Sound Files

4. The following warning box will appear. Select the radio button marked Open it.

5. Netscape will show a small window that charts the progress of your dowload.

6. The previous window will disappear and the following small window will appear on top of the browser. This is a small application called Sound Recorder.

7. Press the right facing triangle to play the sound.

8. To save the sound, left click on the File menu of Sound Recorder and choose Save as.

9. Choose a location and name for the file and click Save.

You can now place the sound in a HyperStudio stack, Power Point presentation, or one ofmany other applications.