Surfing the Net

Surfing the net Browsers – Internet Explorer, Firefox, others Dissecting URLs Some web page definitions Browser navigation Bookmarks The web browser’s cache

What is Surfing? Surfing means to use a browser to go from site to site to find information Browsing is a synonym for “surfing the Net” A link to a word or picture triggers the object of the link

What is a Browser? A browser is the program you run when you surf the Internet A browser can download pictures, audio, and video content Browsers need to be configured to display content as well as secure Some browsers include Internet Explorer. Firefox, Safari, Netscape, and Opera

Internet Explorer (IE) Pre-installed on computers with Windows O/S The handheld Pocket IE runs under Windows CE Currently IE is the most commonly used browser –Over 58% of internet users use IE

Firefox An enhanced browser built on open source code for Netscape Navigator Open source code is available to the public free of charge You can download Windows, Linux or Macintosh versions of Firefox Is the number 2 browser with +35% of Internet users

Safari Apple’s default Web browser for the Macintosh computer Users need to run the Mac OSX operating system 1.5% of Internet users use Safari

Understanding URLs URL means universal resource locator URL parts occur in this order: –Protocol –Server name –Port number (optional and rarely seen) –File name (optional) –Anchor (optional) URLs aren’t exclusively used for web pages

URL Definitions

Dissecting a URL http: You use Hyper Text Transfer Protocol to access this page // tells us that the page is hosted remotely www tells us that the page is on a world wide web server mccc tells us that the page is part of the Mercer County Community College’s network edu tells us that this site is an educational institution student_library.shtml is the specific file for this page

Using a URL to your advantage Sometimes a page you ask for no longer exists Error 404 page not found The page may be gone or the URL may have changed Try slicing off the last piece* of the URL and see what you get. It may lead you to the page you wanted This method also works for pages you like and want to look for more on the same topic * You may need to do this a couple of times

Moving back & forward You already know to use the back & forward button to move around one page at a time By right clicking on your back button, you get a list of the places you’ve visited recently Using the dropdown on your address bar also will give you a list of recently visited sites.

Your Browser’s History Viewing your browser’s history will give you a more complete list of visited sites You can also control how much history you keep as well as deleting your history should you choose

Bookmarks

Bookmarks/Favorites Though a history list remembers where you’ve been, it remembers every site you visited both good and bad. To remember the “good” sites you’ve run across use bookmarks (IE uses the term Favorites) Bookmarks are a personalized list of sites you want to remember

Bookmarks/Favorites Most browsers come with some preset bookmarks Let’s see what you have, click on “favorites” or “bookmarks” to se what’s there

Bookmarks/Favorites The easiest way to bookmark a site is to actually at the site itself Let’s bookmark a site –Go to –Click on bookmarks or favorites –Add this bookmark –Click on OK to save the bookmark

Bookmarks/Favorites After you’ve collected a number of bookmarks, you’ll soon find that the list can be cumbersome You will need to organize them into categories/folders (like you do with computer files) Remember to delete bookmarks that you no longer need and ones that came with your browser that you don’t want.

Bookmarks/Favorites Spend some time deciding what categories you’ll want to break your bookmarks into as well as sub categories Music –Jazz –Classical –Hip-hop –Rock

Bookmarks/Favorites Music –Classical –Blues –Country –Jazz –Swing –Bebop –Charlie Parker –Dizzy Gillespie –Fusion –Smooth

Now it’s your turn to work with bookmarks