The Internetby Dick Evans, www.rwevans.com

1. Basics

Before attacking the Web, there are a few basic keys and actions you must be able to use.

The keyboard has a row of function keys labeled F1 through F12. There a three keys we will referto often and they are the Esc key (upper left), the Ctrl and Alt keys (left and right of the spacebar). The shift key, space bar, enter, slash, and backspace keys are also used often. The shiftkey allows us to access the uppercase of the letters and to access the top symbol on keys withtwo symbols such as the 2 key­­shift 2 is the @.

Many times you will be pressing a combination of keys, such as Alt+F4. When more than onekey is to be pressed they are not to be pressed at the same time. Always hold all but the last keydown, tap the last key, and then release them all.

Mouse usage is mandatory. You must learn how to move the mouse pointer (usually an arrow onthe screen), to click the appropriate button (left or right), and even use the scroll wheel/button forcertain actions.

If the mouse pointer is too small, you can change its size easily:Start > Control Panel > Mouse > Pointers > Scheme > Extra Large > OK

2. The Internet Defined

What is the Web, the WWW? It is only one portion of the Internet. Other parts of the Internetinclude email, the linking of computers over a large distance, file transfers, and more. We willconcentrate on use the graphical portion of the Internet, or the Word Wide Web.

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3. Browsers

A browser is an app on your computer that displays the graphical information from a Web pageonto your screen. If you have a Windows based computer with XP, Vista, Windows 7, or

Windows 8, you have Internet Explorer (IE) ­­ the large letter e on the desktop or the Windows 8Start screen.

There are hundreds of browsers out there, but the next two in popularity are Firefox (FF) andGoogle Chrome (GC). They are free to download and many prefer them to IE. GC is the quickestof the three and good for older, slower computers.

They all have similar features, so moving from one to another is fairly easy.

The Web page that opens when you start the browser can be set for your preference. You do nothave to keep the one established by your Internet Service Provider (ISP) such as Comcast.net.Pressing the Home button on the browser brings you back to that pre­established page.

4. What is a URL?

To access a Web site, we must know their address or URL. This is much like having someonepostal address to send them a letter or to visit them. URL is short for uniform resource locator. Ifyou do not know their address, you can look them up using the Search feature of the browser.

The URL is made up of three parts.

All addresses begin with HTTP:// or HTTPS://. The S stands for security and you will find this onpages where you are entering data that should be kept secure from others, like your bankingaccount data. (By the way, upper or lowercase does not matter when typing URLs).

The end of all URL’s is a TLD reference, or top level domain. This is the .COM portion. OtherTLD’s include.GOV, .MIL, .EDU, .ORG, .CC, .NET, and many others. Some are restricted like.GOV.

The portion between is where the owner information is placed. It may or may not include WWW.depending on the site, but most URLs are in the form HTTP://WWW.COMPANY.COM orhttp://www.company.com.

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5. Using the Browser ­­ Internet Explorer

Helpful Hint: When you are viewing a Web page in the browser, you can magnify what is on thescreen by pressing Ctrl +, reduce the size with Ctrl ­, or bring it back to normal with Ctrl 0

The address box

The long white box in the top left is the address box. This is where the URL is entered. Click itonce to move the insertion point to the box and begin to type. If anything was highlighted in blue(selected) it will be removed as soon as you begin to type.

You do not need to type the HTTP://

If you know the name of the site, you may type it and then either press enter or click the rightarrow to the left of the small X at the right of the address box. Pressing Alt+Enter will open thesite in a new tab.

Shortcut: If you do not know the full address of the site, you can type the name of the company,such as rwevans and press Ctrl+Enter. This will add the HTTP://WWW and the .COM.

Toolbars

If not visible, tapping the Alt key opens a menu bar and access to many of the tools and optionsavailable in the browser app.

Status info

In the bottom of the browser window a status will display to show what is happening while youare waiting for a page to appear. If you do not see the page right away, look here first beforetrying again. Also, as you mouseover a link, the address that the link takes you to will display.Good idea to look to be sure the site address will take you where you want to go. Displayingfriendly words on the screen as links is one way otherwise bad sites get you to open pages youdo not want.

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The page that opens first is called the home page. This is not the same as the home page foryour browser; it is the home page for that Web site.

Home

The Home button (the picture of the house) or Alt+Home will bring you back to the pagedesignated by you as your homepage. This can be changed in the Internet Options selection inTools.

Back and Forward

Most sites offer you a way to navigate their site by providing button or links to go from page topage. At the top left of your browser windows there are two arrows. The left pointing arrow willtake you back to the previously viewed page. The forward point arrow will bring you forward thepage before you pressed back.

Find

Often a page is many screen long and sometimes it is difficult to find what you are looking for onthe page. Press Ctrl+F and a Find dialog box opens. Type what you are looking for and clickNext.

Printing

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Printing is as easy as pressing the Tool button in the upper right that looks like a gear (or Alt+X)and selecting Print > Print Preview.

It is always best to preview what you are printing or you may end up with many pages of junkfrom some Web sites. If you only want a portion of the screen, select it first and then print theselection instead of the entire Web page.

Tabs

When a page opens it appears on the screen under the address box and the title of the pageappears in the box to the right of the address box. This is known as a tab. You may have manytabs open in one instance of the browser window. This makes jumping from one site to anothermuch easier than having separate windows open for each.

To open another tab, press the box to the right of the current tab. A new tab will appear and ablank window. When you type another address and press enter, that site open in the new tab. Togo back to the first window, click its tab. To close a tab, click it’s X.

To open a link in another tab (or windows), right­click the link and select Open in new tab. If youhave a mouse with a scroll bar, you can simply click the link using the scroll button and the linkwill open in the new tab.

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6. Searching

If you do not enter a valid address in the address box, the browser assumes you want to searchfor the items you typed. This will use the default browser set for your browser.

To be sure we are using the same search engine as these examples, open the Google searchengine by entering www.google.com in the address box and press enter. (Note: clicking themicrophone allows you to speak your search words.)

In the box, enter the words that describe what you are looking for. The more words, the closer tothe desired results. The results show your words in bold black letters in each result. The mostlikely candidates are on the first page of the results. Be careful of the first few results as theymay be advertised sites that comes close to your search parameters. You will see a very lightyellow background behind each paid for result.

If you do not see what you were looking for in the first couple of pages it is time to refine thesearch or even try some new parameters. + signs tell the search engine to look for both the

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word to the left and right of each +. Putting multiple words in “quotes” tells the search engine tolook for those words together.

Searching for a particular topic:In the search bar of the browser, type the keywords to search on. Usually I just type a questionand if I do not find what I am looking for, I refine the words I used and try again. If I were lookingfor a pizza I would simply enter pizza 33952 and hit the Enter key on my keyboard.

Finding how to do something:

1. Using a browser2. Using YouTube

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Notice the results give both websites to see the answer and YouTube videos. You could alsogo directly to YouTube.com and type the quesiton there. YouTube is a great source for howto questions.

7. History and Bookmarks (Favorites)

The browser keeps track of where you have been. So when you want to locate that page youwere at two days ago, you can access your browsing history and find it easily. Click the starbutton (or Alt+C) and you will have access to all your saved history at the History tab.

When you find a site you know you want to return to again and again, it is a good idea to set abookmark to it. While on the page, click Ctrl+D or open tools and click Add to Favorites. Toaccess your bookmarked pages, click the star button and select the Favorites tab.

Saving the address (referred to as favorites or as bookmarks in other browsers):

With the browser open to the page you want to save to your list of favorites, click the Favoritesbutton

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and then click the Add to Favorites button.

Locating what you were into a couple of days ago (history):

Click the Favorites button and then the History Tab to view a list of all sites visited

8. Useful Links

Auction http://www.ebay.com/Backup in the Cloud­­use code GFBU22 http://www.mozy.com/freeBuild a free website http://tinyurl.com/freeweb7Buy just about everything http://www.amazon.com/Calendar http://calendar.yahoo.comCharlotte County Florida Tax Information http://ccappraiser.com/Convert YouTube to MP3 and download http://www.vidtomp3.com/Dictionary http://www.dictionary.comEmail that Picture http://tinypic.com/Encyclopedia http://www.wikipedia.org/Gas Prices http://gasbuddy.com/Generate Word Clouds http://www.wordle.net/Home Values http://www.zillow.com/Internet Radio http://www.pandora.com/Look up current gas prices http://www.floridastategasprices.com/Maps http://maps.google.comNetwork Speed Test http://speedtest.netOffice apps http://docs.google.comReverse Phone Numbers http://www.whitepages.comShorten that URL http://tinyurl.com/Software Installer http://ninite.com/Store and share photos http://picasa.google.com/TV on the Web http://www.hulu.com/Who are your neighbors http://neighbors.whitepages.comYouTube Videos http://www.youtube.com/

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9. Additional Tips

Don’t allow unknown apps to installWhen installing apps either from CDs or from an Internet download, avoid saying yes to addingtoolbars to your browser. They reduce the amount of space on the screen to display Web pagesand often cause your browsing experience to slow down due to the extra processing occurringbehind the scenes or “in the background.”

Keep your computer free from infectionMake sure the anti­virus app on your PC is up to date and running. When you purchased themachine it probably came with a 30 or 60 day trial copy of either McAfee or Norton. These aregood programs, but there are free alternatives like Microsoft Security Essentials and AVG,among others.

A clean computer runs bestAlso should have applications to clean up your computer on a regular basis like cccleaner,defragment regularly with either the Window defragger or a free app like defraggler from thesame company that brings you ccleaner. Another app I use is Malwarebytes Anti­Malware.

Prepare for the worstAnd be sure to backup your files often. I use a cloud application (Mozy), but there are apps bothbuilt into Windows and free that will backup your data to CDs, DVDs, flash drives, and externaldrives. I also use EaseUS Todo Backup to make an image of my hard drive about once a month.

Keyboard ShortcutsCtrl+ to increase the size of the items on the screenCtrl­ to decrease the size of the items on the screenCtrl 0 to reset size to defaultF11 Full screen toggleAlt+F4 Close open windowShift+Click Select group of informationCtrl+F Open Find boxCtrl+C CopyCtrl+V PastePrt Scr Copy the contents of the screen to the clipboardAlt+ Prt Scr Copy the contents of the active window to the clipboardRight­Click Save image asRight­Click Copy image

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10. Search Tips

Search operatorshttp://support.google.com/websearch/answer/136861?hl=en

Search for an exact word or phrase "search query"Use quotes to search for an exact word or set of words. This option is handy when searching forsong lyrics or a line from literature. [ "imagine all the people" ]

Tip: Only use this if you're looking for a very precise word or phrase, because otherwise youcould be excluding helpful results by mistake.

Exclude a word ­queryAdd a dash (­) before a word or site to exclude all results that include that word. This isespecially useful for synonyms like Jaguar the car brand and jaguar the animal.[ jaguar speed ­car ] or [ pandas ­site:wikipedia.org ]

Tip: You can also exclude results based on other operators, like excluding all results from aspecific site.

Punctuation and symbols in searchhttp://support.google.com/websearch/answer/2466433

Generally, most punctuation and special characters are ignored in Google Search. However, youcan use some characters that modify search terms to help you find exactly what you’re lookingfor.

Ampersand (&) Find strongly connected ideas and phrases like [ Brothers & Sisters ] or [ A&E ]Percent (%) Search for a percent value like [ 40% of 80 ] or [ 10% of .1 ]

All Tips & Trickshttp://www.google.com/insidesearch/tipstricks/all.html#get­time

Search for specific types of files, such as PDFs, PPTs, or XLS, by adding filetype: and the3­letter file abbreviation.

Search numbers in a range. Stay within your budget by searching only for items within a numberrange by putting a string .. between amounts.

Convert any measurement ­­ like miles to kilometers or ounces to liters ­­ by typing in thenumber and unit of measurement.

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