In the last lab, we learned about many different ways to use the internet. If you need to, click here for a review. Today, we are going to cover a few of these methods, and learn how to use the internet more efficiently. To skip directly to the needed section, click on the links provided below. All of the following sections will involve using Netscape. Feel free to open the application now.
be forewarned that many of the links that you try may not work. Due to the nature of the internet, each computer is maintained by the owner. If the computer is off-line for whatever reason, a link that you normally use may not work. |
Gopher was the precursor to http, as mentioned in the last lab. But, it still exists. Many documents were created for gopher, and haven't been translated over to the new HTML style.Start by typing the following address into Netscape's location space.
gopher://gopher.tc.umn.edu/This address is the start of the University of Minnesota's gopher server. By clicking on any of the links, you can move to a new section of the gopher servers. Also, gopher provides it's own search engines (a program that moves through the different pages and finds the information you request). Simply by clicking on a search engine (which has an icon that looks like a pair of binoculars), you pull up a screen which has a place to type. Click on the area to type and type whatever information you want to find. When you press the Return key, your information is submitted to the server, and the program seeks out all pages with that information.To Practice
- Using the U of MNs gopher server, skim "About Gopher" in the "Information About Gopher" folder.
- Find a weather forecast at the University of Hawaii. Print it out using the "File - Print" menu command (or the print button).
- Find the information about you in the U of MNs phone book. Verify that everything is correct.
- Find information on Tel Aviv University (it's in the middle east).
- See if you can locate the world's toughest final exam (comical).
By using FTP, we can download files to our computer or disk. This is exceptionally important if you want to get files, programs, pictures, or games from the internet for your computer. Many companies provide free software, or upgrades via the internet.Start by going to the same address we went to for gopher. But, this time choose the folder "Internet file server (ftp) sites". Here is a list of sites that allow you to download information from them. Because of HTTP though, these sites may not be in great use. Try moving through some of them to look at the information. Be careful though, if you click on a file, you may download it to your account or computer.
The more popular way of FTPing information is by using HTTP. Which, we will get into in the next section.
HTTP is the current rage in internet development. This is mostly what you see in Netscape. By now you should have plenty of practice in moving around pages in Netscape. To learn some of the more advanced functions of Netscape click here.For further practice, go to the U of MNs homepage by using the Home button. Moving through the links practice the following:
- Find the class schedule for fall quarter in the Office of the Registrar's page.
- View a painting from the Frederick R. Weisman Art Museum.
- Locate the Computer Science Department's home page.
By now, you are a master at following links, but there are easier ways to find information that you may like. One way is to use pre-created lists that people put out on the net. Try clicking on the "What's New" or "What's Cool" buttons and selecting a few links to follow.
By now, you may have been wondering... how do they get a page to look so cool? Well, what happens is that most pages are created in HTML, hyper-text markup language. This is a very simple language to learn, and that allows the viewer to control most of the variables. The programmer can decide what the text should be, and how it should be placed, but the viewer gets to decide on the relative size, and the style.To see a simple page, and the commands that go with it, Click here. Otherwise, go up to the View menu, and click on the Document Source choice. A smaller window will come up showing you the source code (the html code) that the page uses. When you download a page, you actually download the source code. So, if you save a page to your disk, and then view it directly (such as by using a word processing program) it will look like that. When you are done looking at the code, close the window and continue.
Now for the useful part. In case you haven't guessed, the internet is LARGE! Very, very large! Because of this, and because anyone can post things to the internet, there needs to be an easy way to find information. The way this is done is with a "Net Search".By clicking on the button Net Search, you will be brought to a page with a number of search engines. Scroll down the page until you find one that meets your criteria. After clicking on that link, you should be brought to a page that has a box and a button. The box should say "Find:" or something like that, while the button should say "Submit" or something like that. Click on the box, type in the keywords you want to find, and click on the button. What comes up next is a list of links to sites that contain these key words.
One thing to be aware of in using the search engines is that there are so many documents out there that you will generally have more trouble finding too many documents, than not enough (I once performed a search that gave me 11,000 matches). Be sure to list as many words in the search engine box as you can think of to limit your search.
For practice:
- Find a document dealing with legos (the toy).
- Try a search on your name (first, last or both), see what's out there about you, or others with your same name.
- Perform a search on both the words "avocado" and "zebra" see if you can find a document with both of them in it (I found one). Find the words!
- Try to find a page about Albert Einstein.
- Look at today's Dilbert cartoon.
- Wander through a virtual shopping center.
- Find a library of graphics, and download one to your disk.
- Get one of your favorite recipies, save it to your disk. Use Netscape to view the file on your disk.
- Find the Bingo Zone, and play a game of bingo over the web.
Under the Window menu of Netscape is the choice "Netscape News". By choosing this you have access to many newsgroups. A new window will open that contains 4 major areas. The menu bar at the top, the area that shows the newsgroups to the left, the area which shows the articles to the right, and the area that shows the text of the article on the bottom.
To be able to see all the newsgroups, go under the "Options" menu at the top of the screen and choose "Show All Newsgroups". Due to how many newsgroups there are, it may take a minute or two to load them all. Notice that all of the newsgroups are arranged alphabetically. Scroll through them to find a few that you'd like to "subscribe" to. Most of the fun newsgroups have been put in the "alt" category. This started when the idea was the newsgroups would be for the scientific community. Well, now everyone uses them, but most of the groups are still located here.
By double clicking on any of the newsgroups with an arrow by them, you will be able to see all of the sub-newsgroups inside of it. When you click on any of the bolded newsgroups, you will open up the newsgroup itself, and list the "threads" on the right hand side. (a thread is a group of articles all about a specific topic). Finally, by clicking on the non-bolded newgroups, which actually are a single article, the text will appear along the bottom for you to be able to read.
If you can't see the names of the newsgroups, or the names of the articles, try resizing the columns to allow you to. Do this by going up to the top of the subwindow, so that your mouse pointer changes shape, and then drag the column to a new spot.
To Practice
- Find a newsgroup about mud.
- Find a newsgroup about legos (if you need a hint, what are legos?)
- What are the two groups about elvis?
- What is the title of the most recent article about lycra?
- See if you can find the last word, of the last article, in the last newsgroup.
Click here for a list of the items to hand in.
If you'd like to test yourself on the skills. |
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