BrowsersThe adage about things staying the same the more they change was obviously intended for our computer era.I heard someplace that the personal computer has done more to change our world, and the way we shop, communicate and learn, than any invention since Mr. Bell asked if Watson could hear him. We used to envision a computer as a monstrous conglomeration of parts, housed in rooms and understood only by The Experts. Then they were miniaturized, we brought them into our homes and we've been intimidated since, by the gadget called a computer. It didn't come by itself, either. Once-familiar words like browse or window have taken on new meanings while nonsense words now have definition (enter the blog). To some, a computer and its terms can make one's hair stand on end. My mother used to tell me that when we give name to a fear, then befriend it, it becomes less frightening in its familiarity. Listed below are terms used in this article for you to be familiar with. An internet browser, such as Apple's Safari, Microsoft Internet Explorer, OmniWeb or Netscape Navigator, is a window to the world. We can browse the world wide web from the comfort of wherever for news, recipes or assorted tidbits of information, research historical events, discover ancestors, even do our banking and make airline reservations. Like any tool, knowing what it does is a beginning, but knowing how use it is another accomplishment. (Note: technically, the terms internet and world wide web are not synonymous, but their difference is beyond the intention of this article.) The main component of a browser is its window. Also usually visible is the url field, and sometimes the search bar, bookmarks bar, status bar, tabs or RSS feeds. Different browsers offer various amenities. Typically, a browser's preferences can be set when launched to display a specific page, or none, font size, how long to hold the history and when to empty the cache. There are many other settings and the best way to find out just what preferences you can set in your browser is to take a peek and see what's there. If something isn't readily understandable and you're feeling adventurous, change a setting at a time and revert to the default if you don't like it. Also check out the other options in the file menus. Bear in mind that while you computer is actively connected to the internet, your computer becomes a part it. Before you hook up your computer to the browse the world wide web, it's a good idea to take a few precautions to keep safe. Malevolent predators looking for information can easily find what they want, or malicious geeks infest your computer, if you've not set up good internet habits. Establish a firewall. Set your browser preferences to not contain your personal information. Beware of visiting sites from on a link in your email. Be wary of popups if you've not disabled them, and look for secure symbols (a lock icon, or https before the ://www.whereveryouare.com) before submitting information. Give your personal data only when you know the site is safe. Most browsers come loaded with various bookmarks and are a good beginning for exploring the wonderful web. If you click on a bookmark, you will see the url in the location field, usually at the top of the browser window, of the website you're visiting. Depending on the website, you may see underlined, or bold or colored text, which are hyperlinks, or links. Clicking on a link may open a picture window or take you to another page webpage. Once you've explored your bookmarks you may want to find some pages of interest to create bookmarks of your own. Have you heard of Google? Some of our generic English words began their usage as Trade Names, and the word google is one of these. Google is an enormous search engine that googles the internet for you. It's the most popular on one. The handy Google search field that may be at the top of your browser is one quick and easy way to search for, say, a cucumber kim chee recipe. Bear in mind that how you input the information will affect the results. If you type, for instance, cucumber kim chee recipe (no quotes) you'll get 30,500 pages of references to skim through. If you type "cucumber kim chee" recipe, you'll see 426 pages, considerable fewer. The difference is that the first example will show pages relevant to four individual words, while the second example will show results for a specific term and one single word, recipe. In other words, if you enclose specific terms in quotes, you'll reduce the number of references Google will show. You can further refine your search by adding other relevant words, such as Hawaii to the second example and reduce the finds to 83 pages. On their website, Google.com offers categories to search, as well as maps (street and satellite) at maps.google.com. There are a plethora of search sites to sample: Yahoo.com, Dogpile.com, MSN.com and HotBot.com, to name a few, and each will vary in the results they show. The different search engines use different methods for searching. If you google ask.com the question, "What is kim chee?" you'll see considerable fewer results to sort through than the same query in google, and MetaCrawler.com will show even fewer. Some search engines respond well to terms such as and and not, and some function well with instructions to search specific terms or to omit certain words.
Words used in this article: published: Prime magazine, December 2005 |
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