Lesson 1

Introduction to the World Wide Web

The use of the internet is progressing rapidly. More people use their computers for searching information than ever before. This lesson is an introduction to browsers and how to use them to access search engines for searching your topic of interest.

Browsers

The two most popular browsers are:

Netscape Navigator
Internet Explorer.

I personally use Netscape.
Try these and any others you want (there are a lot out there) and see which one you prefer.

Browsers are used to look at various types of documents. Most of the documents you will view will be HTML files. In other words the file name will be followed by the extension .htm.

The address, or URL(uniform resource locator), will follow this format in the location box on your browser:
protocol://server_domain_name/pathname/document.htm
The "document.htm" is the file you view.

Now that I brought up all that other stuff, let me try to explain some of it.

Protocol - In layman's terms this is the way the computers access the information. Here are two examples:
1. ftp - File Transfer protocol
2. http - Hypertext Transfer Protocol
server_domain_name - This is the address of the server where the page you want to view resides. For example:
1. www.psrc.usm.edu is the server domain name for the Polymer Science Department at The University of Southern Mississippi.
2. ocean.otr.usm.edu is the server domain name of the Office of Technology Resources at USM.
Pathname - is a broad term for telling the computer to go to this location on the server, go to a folder(s) and open this file. The file document.htm is a part of the pathname.

Now, the last thing I want to say about browsers is there are several buttons that will be important to you. Here they are:

The Back button - This button will move back to previously visited pages. You will use it a lot.
The Forward button - If you back up a page this one takes you where you were before you backed up.
Easy enough, however it can get confusing, and you can still get lost.
The Location Box - This is where your URL is located. When you want to visit a site, there is no need to type the http:// that is assumed.
The File - Open Page - this command is located under the File options. It allows you to open pages on your system or from a disk or CD.
The View - Page Source - this command will open another box that will show you the HTML code for the page you are currently viewing.
You will, and are encouraged to use this often. It will help you understand how others design their pages.

Search Engines

If you have a topic of interest and want to find out if there is any information about it on the web, this is the place to go. Using a Search Engine is a great way to get information about almost anything.

Search engines constantly "search" the web to see what kind of information people are publishing to the web. Once you arrive at the search engine's main page you will see a box. There you can type your topic interest. Remember to be specific.

Now, go back to the Training Guide Main Page. You will see a homework assignment for Lesson 1. There is a link that will take you to a page describing search engines in more detail, and it also includes links to many search engines.
Good Luck!

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